by Renard, Loki
“Did Antonio cry before you killed him, Mario?”
“Shit, Angelo, I didn’t do it, fuck. You gotta believe me!” Big fat tears coursed down the man’s cheeks. There was a spot of jam on his shirt from the last breakfast he’d ever have. How pedestrian and pathetic. Angelo was dressed for the occasion. His shirt was perfectly ironed. His shoes were shined. This was an event to remember.
“I know you did it,” Angelo said, so calmly it was practically conversations. “And I know you weren’t the only one.”
“Angelo, I’m fucking sorry man, okay, I’m sorry.”
Angelo had been waiting for this moment for a long time. 365 days. 365 days to plan the end of Mario Gravini. There had not been a moment of any day since Antonio died that Angelo had not thought about this.
“Sit down, Marco.” He switched to Marco’s real name. Mario was the name of the boy who had once bloodied his nose when they were kids. Marco was the name of the man who had viciously taken the love of his life, and who would die for that crime.
Marco sat, heavy in the chair.
“First, I want you to say sorry to someone.”
Angelo gestured to a black shining urn which sat between the pliers and the electrical probes.
“Wha?” Fear made Marco more stupid than usual.
“Say hello to Antonio,” Angelo said, patting the urn. “He’s going to see justice be done.”
“Oh fuck, please…” the tears began again. They were starting to be tiresome. Angelo was not there to play confessor. He was there for his revenge.
“Stop crying. You know what you did. You know what pain you inflicted. And you must have known it would come for you in turn.” His words were crisp, and sharp, and merciless, letting Marco know in no uncertain terms that the emotional display would not work. Angelo had no heart strings left to pull. They had been burned away in the fire, along with Antonio’s life.
“Angelo, shit, it was a mistake.”
“You tripped and set my lover on fire?”
“No! We saw him out. We were just giving him some shit, you know. That was all. We were just fucking with him. Then he got mouthy. Things got rougher. The guys decided to teach him a lesson, you know… but when they was done… he didn’t get up. So they figured the fire would hide the evidence…”
The confession poured out. A bullshit torrent of minimalized lies attempting to cover the horror they had inflicted on the innocent young man.
“The autopsy showed nearly half the bones in his body were broken,” Angelo said calmly. “Can you imagine what agony he must have been in? Hm?”
“Shit, Angelo, I…”
“The autopsy also revealed burning all the way down his trachea. Do you know what that means?”
“I…” Marco stammered.
“It means he was alive when you burned him. Breathing. Screaming. He must have been in the most horrible pain. You probably can’t comprehend it. But don’t worry. You will. We have time.”
“HELP!” Marco started to scream. Angelo let him. The doors were sealed now, and there was nobody around to hear. The man wasn’t tied up yet, which enabled an amusing level of histrionics. Marco fell forward, sank to his knees.
“Please, Angelo. What we did was fucked up. But I gotta wife now. I got kids.”
Angelo smiled slightly, Marco seemed to think his pedestrian plea regarding his offspring would have an effect. Angelo couldn’t have cared less if Marco had his own personal orphanage. He was going to die today. And he was not going to die well.
Angelo pulled a cooler from underneath the table. It was a big long one. He slid it over toward Marco with his foot.
“Look in the box.”
Marco blanched. “W.. what’s in it?”
“There were five of you that night. Five grown men on one eighteen year old boy. Open the box.”
Marco shook his head. Even frozen in terror, he had the sense to know nothing good lurked inside. Angelo cocked the gun.
“Open it, Marco. This is going to be bad, but it can always be worse.”
He opened it.
“FUCK!” Marco screamed and gagged. The contents were familiar to him, though admittedly he was used to seeing them differently. Alive, probably.
Four heads were neatly stacked inside, all packed in ice, their final grimaces frozen in place. It was a grisly sight, especially for those which were missing some or all of their skin.
Marco fainted.
Angelo revived him.
The fun was just beginning.
10
Present Day
Mark
“Angelo, would it kill you to tell us why you felt the need to put Bobby out in the damn snow and then fuck him in a bed of broken glass?” Mark was playing nurse, cleaning Bobby’s cuts and grazes while Angelo looked on, having already been attended to. “Quit squirming,” he added.
“I’m not squirming. Hurry up. And Angelo, you better lock Mark up outside for asking that,” Bobby smirked. If he was in pain, he didn’t care. He’d needed catharsis and connection. He’d gotten both. He’d be satisfied now, even if Mark wasn’t.
Angelo looked on with a small smirk. Perhaps he had acted in haste earlier. The impulse to punish Bobby for being too close to him was rooted in solid reasoning, but he had allowed his emotion to get the best of him. The cold snow was no antidote for the flames which had once claimed Antonio. It had been almost twenty five years since Antonio passed, maybe it was time to open up a little.
Even thinking the phrase made Angelo snort with disdain at himself. Open up? That was for the soft, the weak, the pedestrian. Most people risked nothing when sharing themselves with others. He risked everything.
His history was a beast which would rise up and consume him one day. Angelo knew that and was at peace with it, but it was a private thing, kept secret even from these two men who were the closest thing he now had to family.
11
1983
Angelo
“Word of cartel activity in New York City has residents concerned, after five bloody heads were found displayed on the Brooklyn Bridge in the small hours of Saturday morning. Police are calling for assistance in their inquiries.”
Angelo sat back with his bowl of cereal and changed the channel. Wasn’t much point watching the news when you were the news. He was having fruit loops, of course. The same kind he’d always had. The same kind Antonio had always had.
For the first time in a year, he felt a sense of peace. The killers had been killed. Antonio had been avenged. All was right with the world. His grief was beginning to settle, and as much as he missed Antonio, he was seeing the world in a light he could never have seen it in before. The world beyond horror, and death and evil was a strange one. He felt as though he had been given a dark chance to look behind the curtain, discover the machinery keeping the charade going.
What now?
The question came with its own weight. What now, that his world was not consumed by revenge? He tapped the bowl with the spoon as the talkshow about drag queens who would only date midgets played out before him.
What now?
Whatever the fuck he wanted. That’s what.
Angelo put the bowl down, pulled his leather jacket on, and stepped out onto the streets. Where he walked, people parted. It was no deliberate act of intimidation, it was just what sheep did when faced with predatory beasts.
The police never discovered who had left the heads on the bridge, but people knew. The story found its way into every corner of the underworld. And Angelo Vitali became legend, a one-man mafia. It was not the last time somebody tried to hurt him. Far from it. But it was the last time they succeeded.
12
Present Day
Mark
“There’s something wrong with you two.” Mark sat back in judgement. Bobby and Angelo were cuddling on the couch, an almost sickeningly domestic scene by Vitali standards.
“There’s a lot wrong with all of us,” Bobby shot back. “You especially, boy scou
t.”
Mark quirked a brow in Bobby’s direction. “Don’t think I won’t deal with you. And don’t think he’ll stop me if I want to.”
“It’s true,” Angelo rumbled. “I like watching you being taken, boy.”
Bobby cast a not quite disgruntled look at Angelo and Mark. “You two…” he trailed off into some muttered statement.
Angelo bowed his head and pressed a kiss to the side of Bobby’s head. “On the floor, boy. On your knees.”
Bobby grumbled and resisted. Angelo pushed him down, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him between his legs, so his head was resting in Angelo’s crotch. Angelo stroked Bobby’s dark hair with his fingers as he spoke.
“I’ll never be done breaking you, boy, will I?”
There was an undeniable fondness in Angelo’s gaze. Bobby didn’t like being at the bottom of the food chain, but he accepted it because he had no choice. The position earned him time with Angelo no other person ever got. Mark certainly never submitted, except when it was forced out of him.
“You never take lovers of their own free will, do you?” It was more of a statement than a question from the ex-agent.
“Oh no,” Angelo said, lifting his gaze from Bobby. “That would be far less fun.”
“I guess it was pure luck you found Bobby then, someone who needs to be kept on a short leash.”
“Shut up, Mark,” Bobby snarled.
Angelo smirked and ran his hand down to cup Bobby’s face, tipping it backwards toward him. “You know it’s true.”
“Maybe… but it wasn’t luck was it.”
“No, not quite…”
Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.
13
1984
Angelo
Two boys were on their knees, bought and paid for. One blond. One blonder. One stocky, one slim, one blue eyed, the other brown. He didn’t know their names. Their names didn’t matter. They’d signed their bodies over for the evening, and he was using them in the manner intended.
Angelo pulled his cock from one eager mouth and sank it into the other one. For the last year, he had been taking full advantage of everything the city had to offer a man like him - and that was a lot.
Every night there was a new boy or a new man. Twenty was his lower limit. Anyone younger brought back unpleasant memories for Angelo. Twenty was perfect. Enough innocence to defile, not so much he felt as though he was sinfully tainting someone who hadn’t yet broken themselves on the wheel of the world.
Hot mouths vied to please him the best, lips sucking at his hard cock, tongues lapping and lashing underneath. The best boy would receive the biggest tip. It was deliciously depraved, and it ensured that Angelo was never lost for physical company. The emotional component was irrelevant. He had loved once, and would never love again. Love had been weakness, brutally exploited at the very first opportunity. He would never love again. But he would conquer. He would fuck. He would destroy. He would claim. He would do it all, but his heart would forever be locked away.
A hot mouth pressed itself against his balls, eager tongue lapping against the sensitive skin, while another played down the shaft of his cock. Two tongues were always better than one. He liked this, his hands reaching down to curl in the hair of the young men who sold their bodies for use.
“Give me your asses.”
They pulled their mouths off his dick, turned around and bent over. Two hot meaty asses were presented, their holes cleaned to perfection, greased for his use. There was something a little disappointing about this. Too easy, perhaps.
That didn’t stop Angelo pushing his cock into the one on the left, pulling out, and pushing into the hole on the right. That’s what they were to him. Hot meat. Meaningless holes. Physically pleasurable, but nearly pointless in every other respect.
He fucked back and forth lazily, stroking in and out of one man, then the other, listening to their grunts and faked moans, wondering if there would ever be another man who managed to mean something more than this.
Climax came, a relief, but not really a release. There was no true orgasm with men like these, easy, soft boys who were so compliant there was almost no joy in fucking them at all.
“Mmm, that was hot,” one of them declared. They were both waiting for their money. Angelo tipped them generously and sent them on their way, greasy bottoms ready for the next man with more money than heart.
* * *
The next years and decades were busy ones. With nobody to love, Angelo was completely, utterly free to make whatever decisions most appealed to him, and to risk everything time and time again. It did not matter to him if he lost his life. Antonio was waiting for him on the other side - of that he had no doubt.
Other men would cling to life, back down from danger because they needed to live. But not Angelo. To him life was the same as death. The only thing he craved was power. The power to be free of the shackles of the world, to laugh at the law, to make a mockery of those who devoted themselves to so called organized crime. To Angelo, they were no different than the men who called themselves makers of law, they were merely small scale tyrants.
Angelo owed no allegiances, followed no laws, cared not for the consequences of his actions. In this manner, he not only survived, but thrived, building a personal empire of influence, money, and favors which stretched around the globe.
His reclusive nature made him the stuff of stories. For every crime he pulled off, every mafia man he crossed, every agent and cop he foiled, more tales spread. His calculated recklessness and utter disregard for his personal safety made him effectively unstoppable. Men lined up to work for him. Women too. He chose only the best, the most discrete, and he often purged ranks to ensure that nobody got too close or learned too much.
For a long time, he was a menace. And then, somewhere along the line, things changed. People began to come to him for help. The kind of help you couldn’t get anywhere else. Angelo would do things nobody else could or would do. He could call in the kind of favors small time criminals could only dream of, and he was known to put that power to good use every now and then. After two decades in the business, Angelo had more influence, money and power than he knew what to do with.
The cold, lonely core at the center of him stayed intact, militantly guarded by the memory of the beautiful boy who had died all those years ago. Even when so much time passed that it had been longer since Antonio died than he had been alive, Angelo remembered the lesson he had learned.
Love. Nobody.
One day, his phone rang, just as it had many times before.
It was a slim thing, not like the phones he’d done business on back in the 1990’s, bricks of plastic and metal. Angelo never really stopped marveling at how much phones changed when so much else had hardly changed at all. He was the old model, he supposed. Solid and blocky and unchanging in his ways.
“Vitali,” he purred down the line. Not many people had his private number. The call had to be important.
“Angelo, how are you? It’s Mason.”
“Hello Mason.” Angelo’s lips quirked. Mason Malone was about the last man he expected to hear from. The man at the other end of the line ran the biggest domestic mercenary service in the United States. It was under the guise of ‘security’, but those with the dollars to pay Mason’s fees knew what they were getting. Angelo and Mason had become reluctant associates over the years, largely in order to stop their men being killed by each other’s organizations.
“I have a job for you, if you’re interested.”
“I’m listening.” Angelo didn’t take jobs, but he wanted to know what Mason had to say.
“I’ve got trouble. Boy going by the name Bobby Cornoli. Nasty little piece of work, vicious, cruel little fucker. He’s running a corner in Brooklyn.”
“Sounds familiar,” Angelo purred.
“Mhm. I thought it would. Anyway, this boy isn’t a legal takedown option. He’s too smart for that, but he’s doing his damndest to kill my clien
t. So here’s what I propose. You take Bobby. See if you can make him see sense. I’ll owe you one.”
“You want me to shakedown a small time brat?”
“I want you to do more than that. I want you to get him off the streets. For good.”
“Mason, you’re the mercenary.”
“Security specialist,” Mason corrected smoothly. “And I’m not asking you to kill him. Just, find a use for him. I’m sending a picture.”
Angelo glanced down at his phone. An image appeared on the screen. A boy, very early twenties in age. Dark hair, dark eyes, handsome. It wasn’t his looks which made it so impossible for Angelo to pull his eyes away from the picture though, it was the expression on his face. The same expression he’d once seen in the mirror. A bolt of recognition fizzed through Angelo’s chest and belly, found his cock and made it instantly swell. He wasn’t looking at some troublesome thug, or would be wise guy. He was looking at the future.
Angelo put the phone to his ear, a dark smile claiming his mouth.
“I’ll deal with him.”
14
Present Day
Angelo
“Go to sleep, boy.”
The day had been a brutal one, triggered by an innocent question from the young man who now tossed and turned to the point Angelo was seriously considering chaining him up at the end of the bed.
“I can’t,” Bobby growled. “My frostbite has cuts, and my cuts have frostbite.”
Angelo had wondered all those years ago if he would ever find meaning again. He had, but meaning was not without irritation.
