Chapter 5 Elio
She drove faster than someone like her should. I could see that there were four trucks—at first there was just one, but after we’d crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the other three had shown up—that were chasing us. Did they even know that I was in the car with her?
Probably not.
Jimmy was a nobody in the hierarchy of gangland New York, a small-time thug compared to men like my father and the other mob bosses.
Jimmy wasn’t even in the top fifty. He was a factory owner from Poland, a really stubborn one at that, someone who had learned that there was another way to do business in America.
He’d been doing that for some thirty years now, longer than I’d been alive. But he was small-time. His influence extended really poorly to the other businessmen who operated in North Creek.
And lately, he had been hanging by a thread. It made sense that he’d want to protect himself from any bad press, even if doing so would mean sending his goons after this beautiful reporter who’d made the highest bid on me.
“You do realize they’re gaining on us,” I said, looking back.
“I know this place like—”
“Don’t say the back of your hand; that cliché got married, had grandkids, and then died.”
“I was going to say my own chest x-ray,” she said, laughing. “I’ve got delicate ribs. I’ve gotten them fractured on several occasions. That’s no less than a dozen chest x-rays that I’ve got at my place. Don’t believe me? Come home with me sometime, I’ll show you.”
She zoomed past cars, overtook them at dangerous speed, cut around corners, and even drifted a few times when there was no traffic around the bend. Something told me this Honda Civic wasn’t just for show, and it wasn’t stock.
“Bogeys on our six,” she said. “Four of ‘em. Gaining fast.”
“Explain yourself,” I said, with the air of calmness one gets when one knows that no matter how deep they want to get in trouble, they can’t.
If the worst happened, it’d be all those trucks surrounding us, and someone would come by with a gun, and they’d find me sitting in there.
I had one of the most recognizable faces in New York City.
It’d mean certain death for them. As for this girl, she was with me.
And that meant that she was under my protection.
If anyone so much as touched a hair on her head, they’d find themselves sleeping with the fishes, as we liked to say.
“Explain what?”
“All this lingo. Were you in the army or are you a massive gamer?”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“Turn right at that next street. Shortcut to Long Island,” I said, pointing at the street ahead. “So, which is it?”
“I never served in the army, but I was an overseas wartime reporter in Afghanistan for a spell, around the same time as our troops were getting the hell out of that place. Some of those pictures you saw on the news, those were clicked by me.”
“How did you get out of there?”
“It was not so chaotic as they’d lead you to believe.
Other planes were waiting for those who were left behind.
Plenty of them, actually. I got on one along with the rest of the team from the Tribune,” she said.
“But that experience made me realize I didn’t have what it takes to be a wartime journalist.”
“Explains so much about you,” I said.
“Such as?”
“The way you talk, the way you drive, the way you’re so ready to just throw yourself in danger… that kind of recklessness comes from… well, the same life experiences you’ve had,” I said.
“How’d you know? You’ve never been,” she said, now pulling up to Long Island.
The trucks that were chasing us were lost somewhere in Brooklyn, and even if they weren’t lost, they wouldn’t dare chase us here.
This was where my family lived, the whole Romano mob in one grand compound with several houses, more than a hundred security guards, and all the protection that money afforded.
“We lost them?”
“More like they soiled their pants at the thought of crossing over into my neighborhood,” I said.
“Why didn’t you do anything before?” she scoffed, pulling up by the curb. “You could have…”
“Made a call, made them disappear? Now where’s the fun in that? I got to enjoy seeing you drive like that. What else did you do? Were you by any chance a stuntwoman in one of those Fast and Furious movies or something?”
“A girl can’t have hobbies?” she said, driving slowly down the empty road.
“And yours happens to be drag racing?”
“Each race pays five hundred dollars. If you win, that’s three thousand dollars,” she said.
“For real?”
She broke into a grin, and then clapped her hands as she laughed. “Nah, I’m just fucking with you.”
I laughed with her. It had been a long time since someone had made me laugh like this, catching me by surprise. She was funny, quick, witty, not to mention beautiful.
I’d hate to introduce her to my father.
It was another ten minutes later that we finally drove through the main gates of my father’s compound.
The reason I was always so adamant about calling it my father’s compound instead of the family compound or even my compound (even though it had been made abundantly clear to me that as the heir I was going to inherit all this one day) was because everything about it screamed him.
The architecture, the décor, the cars, and the way he was kind of present in every room of the house at the same time, as if he was not a person but a living ghost haunting the mansion.
He was everywhere.
And true to form, here he was, standing in the driveway, glaring at the car as it approached. I gulped raw air.
“What could be so bad?” she asked as she killed the engine and stopped the car. “The man’s your father, for crying out loud.”
“You’ll see,” I said, getting out of the car.
“He returns,” my father said, voice steeped in sarcasm.
“Father,” I began.
“And who are you?” he asked, ignoring me, glaring at Maria as she got out of the car. “And what were you thinking upstaging that auction?”
“Sir, Don Romano, I mean, Elio’s dad…err,” she stuttered, a bundle of nerves, “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“You’re saying my son didn’t pay you to do that?” he asked, taking out a cigar and lighting it. “I demand answers, right now.”
“Let me explain,” I said.
“You can explain when I ask you to!” He roared at me as Don Romano and not my father, and I hated that I was just standing here, taking it.
Perhaps it was fear or maybe even accountability, but Maria was telling him the same thing she’d told me—about how she’d been chasing a lead, trying to get in a room to get some insider news, and how Jimmy had set his goons on her.
The hard expressions on my father’s face softened.
“You were not, then, in cahoots with Elio?”
“Up until I met him today, I didn’t even know him, sir,” she said.
“And now you’re in this predicament,” my father said, taking a deep drag from his cigar. “Do you even have the money to back up your auction bid?”
He shouldn’t have asked that. That was insulting.
“I…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s one thing that he’s reckless, but it’s another thing entirely that someone else should suffer for him.”
“She’s good for it,” I said suddenly. “She told me she’d pay for it. In return for a favor.”
“I didn’t know you were in the business of favors, Elio,” he said, frowning at me, looking at me like I was the scum of the earth.
“Well, isn’t that what you taught me, father? She’s in trouble. She needs help, and I’m going to help her,” I said.
“You? Help her?”
“That’s what I said.”
Maria didn’t say anything. She just stood there awkwardly, looking at her feet, avoiding all eye contact.
“So you’re going to handle Jimmy Donaldson all on your own,” my father said, a mischievous smile appearing on his face. “And you don’t need my assistance.”
“Exactly. You wanted to see if I’d be responsible; well, here it is. Someone comes to our door asking for our help; we Romano men do not refuse. If she’s in trouble, I’m going to help her. I’ll take charge.”
“That’ll be most interesting for me to see,” he said, and I was shocked at the sincerity in his voice. “And for your sake I do hope you succeed. But know this, if you still want in this family, you’re going to have to uphold both deals.”
“Both?” I was confused.
“This lady will have you for seven days, as per the rule of the bachelor auction, and you will help her. I, on the other hand, will not intervene nor interfere in any way. This is her mess with Jimmy, and you’re in charge of sorting it out.
If you do both things right, we’ll have a talk.
If you don’t, then we don’t have anything to talk about.
And where are your manners, boy? This sweet girl is shivering in the rain.
Take her inside the house, make sure she’s got some warm clothes, and give her one of the rooms in the guest wing. ”
Finally, my father turned to Maria and held his hand out. He took her hand in his, and kissed it. “You are going to spend a week here at our humble abode, Maria. It’d be a pleasure to host you.”
“Thank you, don, sir, I mean, Mr. Romano.”
“Please,” he said pleasantly, smiling at her. “Call me Frank.”
“Can I call you Mr. Romano? I’m kinda afraid to call you Frank,” she chuckled nervously.
“Fine,” he said, showing her the way to the front door. “I have a feeling that you’re going to be a good influence on my son.”
“He’s not that bad, Mr. Romano,” she said, walking with him. “I just think he needs a stern talking to every now and then.”
I groaned. In just ten minutes, my father had turned off his intensity and turned on his charm, and now Maria was probably going to be one of the many people who’d end up thinking that there was something wrong with me and not with him.
This day could not end soon enough.