Chapter 35 Stellan
STELLAN
Afew months later
I light a decent Cuban cigar and blow smoke across the big metal desk. Police Chief Jeffers frowns at me and waves a hand in front of his face, but he doesn’t tell me to put it out.
The man knows better than that.
Truth is, I don’t really like cigars that much.
But I’ve been playing defense and catch-up since my father died, and now it’s time to remind this city why the Corsettis are a power.
“An entire building burned, Stellan. We can’t just ignore that.” Jeffers watches me steadily. He’s doing his best not to let his frustration show, which is admirable.
“Nobody said you need to ignore it.”
“There was gunfire. There are bodies.”
“I’m sure that’s all very inconvenient.”
“You want nobody to go down for it? How do you think I can sell that to city hall?”
“Creatively.”
His jaw ticks. He’s an inch away from exploding. “You’re putting me in an impossible position here.”
I puff away on my cigar. I wonder how long before the smoke alarms go off. I decide to stub it out right on top of his closed laptop lid. The aluminum hisses and I leave a little burned mark in the corner.
He slams his hands down. “Damn it, that’s government property. What are you doing?”
“Now you’ll think about me every time you log in for work. I want to make sure you have that little reminder.” I tap near the burn and brush away the ashes. “Whenever I visit you, I better see this. Don’t even dream of getting a replacement.”
I stare into his eyes. He stares right back. Jeffers didn’t get to this position by being weak, but he also knows how the game’s played. At these levels, the leaders of the PPD are essentially politicians.
And they tend to do all the same nasty stuff.
“I’m going to give you ten seconds to make me refrain from slapping handcuffs on you, starting right now.”
All I need is a single name. “Marley Williams.” His body stiffens. I glance casually at my phone. “Or as you affectionately call her, Mar-Bar. Do you call her that before or after she stomps on your genitals and urinates on your chest?”
“I don’t—how dare—”
“Come on, Jeffers. I don’t kink shame. Get your rocks off however you want. In my opinion, good for you for finding something that really makes you happy. But I suspect if the general public knew their police chief was paying huge sums of money to a dominatrix, they might be unhappy.”
His face pales. He reaches for a water bottle and takes a swig. I let him stew and think. I bet he’s trying to find a way out of this.
The thing is, Jeffers is in deeper than he even realizes. He thought we had bribe payments on him. But I have my boys collect as much information as they can about all our marks. Jeffers happens to be one of the most interesting.
“I hear you.” He takes a breath and steadies himself. “I’d appreciate discretion.”
“Gladly given, so long as you understand what I need.”
“It won’t be easy, but I’ll make it happen.”
“Wonderful.” I drop a fat envelope on his desk. “Always a pleasure.”
Jeffers doesn’t even hesitate. He knows he needs Corsetti money. How else is he going to afford his high-end prostitute and all his piss sessions? He makes good money, but not that good.
I walk out of the main precinct, whistling softly to myself. More than a few cops shoot me looks. I bet half of them know who I am. Those are the ones on my payroll. The other half are probably in my book.
My Black Book.
Prime’s waiting for me downstairs. He was busy shooting looks at the cops in the lobby and almost daring them to give him shit. I bet they’d love to throw him in cuffs. Prime probably has a file two inches thick.
“How’d the chief take it?” he asks, strolling alongside me.
“Like we figured.”
“Rolled over and thanked me.”
“Pretty much.”
“Must be nice, having that book back.”
I pause outside of the car. He watches me carefully. “You did good work. I asked a lot of you recently.”
“Happy to do my part.”
“How much responsibility would you say you have right now?”
“Probably too much.”
“Good answer. I’m making you a full-on Capo. You’ll take over Matteo’s territory.”
For the first time, Prime looks surprised. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You better earn. Don’t make me regret this.”
I get into the back seat. Prime’s left standing on the sidewalk, watching me with a mixture of horror and joy on his face.
I have no doubt he’s going to get into serious trouble. I’m almost excited to find out how.
The driver takes me back to the house. These days I’ve been working less than I have in the past. There are perks to being the Don. I’ll take meetings downstairs and I’ll likely be on the phone for a couple of hours, but otherwise I’ll be able to spend time with my wife.
After nearly losing her, I make sure I don’t miss a single opportunity.
“Hello?” I call out, stepping in through the front door. “Where’s my beautiful Kira?”
“In here!” She’s laughing about something and I don’t know what. I find her in the kitchen with Gem, struggling to open a bottle of champagne. The cork comes out suddenly and both girls crack up together as Kira pours two glasses.
“What’s going on?”
“Celebrating!” Kira gets a third glass out and shoves it in my hand. “Today’s a very good day.”
I look at Gem, totally bewildered. “What happened?”
“I got good news.” Gem sips her glass and wrinkles her nose. “Huh, that’s good.”
“Don’t pretend like this is your first time drinking. And you’re only having that one glass.”
“Bottoms up then.” Gem takes another sip.
“Okay, you’ve got good news. What exactly happened?”
Kira leans herself against me and kisses my cheek. She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes me tight.
“Penn,” she whispers.
“No way.”
“Yes way,” Gem says, refilling her glass while Kira can’t see. She shoots me a wink.
“I’m incredibly not surprised and so happy I could scream.”
“She got into Penn!” Kira shrieks. Which means Gem isn’t leaving the city, since the University of Pennsylvania is right across the Schuylkill River over in West Philly. “We’re not losing her!”
“We’ll drink to that.” I raise my glass. “Cheers to you, Gem. Congratulations. You earned it.”
“And cheers to Kira. I wouldn’t be here without her. No, seriously, I know how much trouble you went through just to keep the lights on, and I love you so much for it.”
The girls hug and drink. I watch them, feeling a glow of pride in my chest.
I get it now. Why Kira nearly killed herself making sure Gem had everything she needed. That girl is a genius, straight up. If I had my way, I’d stick her in an office, give her access to my family’s financial accounts, and I’d tell her to make us all rich.
But it’s probably good she’s going to college instead.
I tell the girls to go get dressed; we’re going out to dinner. Gem seems into the idea and disappears to her floor. Kira kisses me again, this time lingering longer than usual.
“By the way, how’d your meeting go?”
“It went exactly as planned.”
“Jeffers is a real freak, huh?”
“Now, now, we don’t shame people in this family. Freak or not, he’s smart enough to be amenable to a reasonable deal.”
“Sounds like my kind of cop.”
“Since when did you know anything about law enforcement?”
“Since I married the Don.”
I laugh lightly and kiss her. I can’t remember ever feeling like this before in my life.
I finally have control of the Corsetti Famiglia, and nobody can say that I don’t belong.
I have a good Italian wife. I’ve ascended to the role of Don.
I rooted out traitors and saved the family’s future by fixing my father’s mistakes.
Now it’s my time to rule.
“I actually have one more favor to ask.” Kira smiles sweetly, and I get the feeling it’ll be a big one. “Gem might need a place to stay, and since she’ll be in the city—”
“You want to know if she can keep living with us.”
“I know it’s asking a lot. I mean, you didn’t expect to have a college kid under your roof, right? But it would mean so much, and I promise she’ll keep to herself.”
“Kira, of course your sister can live here as long as she wants to. That third floor is hers until the day she doesn’t want it anymore.”
She lets out a sigh of relief, her cheeks flushed and happy. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”
“But be prepared for her to want to stay on campus. And don’t look at me like that. You don’t have to worry about money anymore, you know that, right? I can afford her tuition.”
“Stellan—”
“That’s part of the deal. I take care of you both.” I kiss my wife deeply. “Besides, how’s Gem going to cure cancer or make limitless clean energy if I don’t subsidize her?”
“Fair point.” She gets on her toes. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” And I mean it. Simple as that. “Now, squeeze that beautiful ass of yours into that new dress I got you, the blue one.”
“Oh, the blue one, huh? We’re going to that kind of place?”
“Yes, we absolutely are.”
“Sounds good to me.” Her hand lingers on my chest. “The blue one will be fun to strip off later, too.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”