by Jax Hart
Lunchtime was hell. And I thought I left hell back in Palermo. I was wrong. Hell is lunchtime in an elementary school cafeteria. Hundreds of eyes peered at me as I walked in. Then the whispers started. “I heard her parents died in a fire she set…”
“Her uncle is a Pimp.”
“A real one?”
“Yeah.”
“She looks like a freak with that pale skin and that red hair. No Italian looks like that. She’s fake.”
Some spoke in Italian while others were harder to make out. But it was easy to understand no one wanted me here.
Hurriedly, I stumbled in the food line, quickly grabbed whatever was there before finding my way to a table scrunched in between the garbage and an emergency exit.
“Yo! Freak!”
I turned and that was a mistake. A wad of hot mush met me in the face. I swore vehemently in Italian before grabbing a pile of napkins to clean myself.
With a bang, I set my tray down and faced the group of sixth grade boys rolling with laughter.
Fuck them, I thought. I picked up my own plate of slop and hurled it right in the face of the closest boy to me. Then I jumped on their table and pretended their food was a soccer ball and launched all sorts of shit in their stunned faces. The grand finale was me, hurtling through the air like a Diva from Monday Night Raw as I jumped high, landing on the group of boys trying to flee my ugly scene.
Some fought back.
But I gave as good as I got.
“Bella? Suspension on your first day?”
“I’m sorry, Zio. But I will never be afraid of anyone ever again. Especially not some Brooklyn born Italiano. I’m a true blood. I’m a mafioso queen. How dare they?”
“Ah, bella.” Zio hugged me tight. “You are a tiny tigress. A true survivor. Those boys didn’t know what was coming.”
“But save the fight for Salvatore not the schoolyard, eh?’
“I’ll try, Zio.”
But no one ever fucked with me again. I ruled the school after my first day. They called me Little Italy. I liked it. If they only knew how powerful my bloodline was. My people ruled all their people back in the day on that tiny slice of Mediterranean paradise I’ll always call home. But my secrets needed to stay my secrets until the time and day comes when Romina Fiorelli rises.
5
Chloe sits for a minute when she finishes.
“Are you scared of me? Think less of me?”
She bites her lip. “No. I think more. You saved her. You knew if you didn’t, they would’ve killed her.”
“Don’t give me so much credit. I craved the power. …and I did kill her. I felt her heart stop beating in my hands and her lungs exhale fighting to find air. When she fell limp in my arms, I rushed her into the back of the limo and pressed my mouth to hers trying to breathe back the life into her that I had just took.”
“See? You keep deluding yourself into thinking you’re the villain, when you really wanted to do the right thing.”
“I’ve never done the right thing. We’re barely into the story.”
“Well, it is kinda gross how you lost your V card to a hooker.”
“Men don’t have V- cards. But you better still have yours,” I warn. “For at least ten more years.”
“Ten?” She squeaks.
“If not more. I’ll cut anyone who tries to get near you, Chloe.”
She swallows hard. “I know. But you don’t need to worry. Sex terrifies me.”
“That’s just because some old fuck tried to take it from you. Did I mention I’m sending you to an all-girls boarding school?”
She rolls her eyes. “What happened next? When did you become this big, bad, mafia king?”
“Are you sure you want to keep going? I’ve never told anyone my complete life story…”
She rests her chin in her hands, “I’ve never heard anything more fascinating. Well, you could’ve left out the sex part. But it’s not like it shocked me much. I saw my first dick when I was six. My birth mom sobered up for a bit just so she could use me to get food stamps and state checks which of course she spent getting high. Anyway, she made extra on the side by giving blowies for twenty bucks. Some nights she had a line.”
“I’ll hunt her down and kill her myself.”
“She already took care of that. My social worker informed me she overdosed a few years ago.”
I shake my head at how she’s so young, but yet so old. Nothing fazes Chloe but things can still frighten her.
“You need to understand. I don’t want you to be afraid of sex, I just don’t want you to have any for a long, long, time. Wait for a man who knows how to make it good.”
“Gross. Are you, Roque Salvatore, seriously turning this into some kind of sex-pep talk? On with the story of your ill-fated love. Wait! Where is she now? Did she marry someone else? Is that why you’re so broody? Pacing the penthouse floors all night?”
“As if I’d ever let another man put a band of gold around her finger.”
“Well? What’s the deal? Why don’t you have the girl?”
“Something got in our way?”
“Something? Someone? Or your big, fat, stupid, ego?”
A wry smile ghosts my lips, “A bit of both. Fine back to my life story… I left Palermo. There was nothing for me there anymore. Despite the easy smiles made over cigars and bourbon, the other families moved in. It was an easy takeover. The remaining syndicates broke up Palermo into three pieces, each of them taking what they wanted. Only the Don of the Castellione’s tried to intercede and leave me a small piece of my own empire, but in the end even he rolled. But he did do me one solid. He secured my family’s assets and set it aside. Or so I had thought. Little did I know it came with strings… but we’ll get to that later. The house was closed, bank accounts secured, and he had me escorted personally to Constantine Castellione.
The man was a mafioso legend.
In Italy he was synonymous to the American’s Capone. The man is more evil than ten demons walking through hell and I handpicked him to make me one. Only I wanted to walk the earth. I wanted to die an old man. And that wasn’t going to be easy, not when destiny still called me to do more than just dick around in Italy. I always had bigger plans for the future of the Salvatore’s. America.”
I turn the page of my own journals and start reading how I felt. My past comes hurtling at me like a runaway car.
“It was only me in the back of the limo. So, there was no one to see my white knuckles or lump forming in my throat.
Despite my bravado, I knew I wasn’t half as evil as I needed to be. I was a baby villain wearing Pampers compared to what I must become. Constantine was the only person alive who could do it. No matter what he commanded I must obey. If I didn’t. I might as well give up and let the hit that was put on me come to pass. I’d never age. Never grow up, never live.”
“That’s so heavy. Life in the mob. You were my age?”
“Yes. I was fifteen when I entered Constantine’s house and by the time I left him at sixteen, I felt I’d aged six thousand years instead of one.” I pick up my drink and continue reading my own words describing the personal hell I had placed myself in…
6
He wasn’t what I expected. But he was a monster. That much was very true. He was old but tyrannical. When the guard ushered me into a study, I couldn’t quite make out his face because the room was dark. He sat in a wheelchair by a window. Cloaked in shadows I couldn’t see his face until he slowly wheeled himself forward. His right cheek was… flesh. Mangled. Twisted…
“Car bomb. Those fuckers thought they dropped me, but I crawled on burning legs out of the hot metal.”
“What brings you to my lair, Little King?”
“I need your help.”
He glanced at me and shrugged. “From me? I’m a cripple. What could I possibly offer you?”
“Everything. Don’t bullshit me, Constantine. You’re a fucking legend. And I need a legend.”
“That and a prayer.
”
“I don’t pray.”
“No. Men like us don’t, do we?”
“It won’t be easy, Little Prince. The remaining families want you dead and gone too. With the Fiorelli’s out of the way and you being the only real Salvatore left…”
“There’s more for them to fight over.”
“And what can we do? Me? Shoot a bazooka from my wheelchair and you with your man boy arms?”
Anger rolled through me like a storm cloud. “I’m hardly a boy.”
“So, I’ve heard. You made your first kill.”
Averting my eyes, I glanced at the crackling fire to his right.
He swore in rapid Italian. “Get out. I can’t help you.”
“I’m not leaving. Do your worst, Constantine. Make me your teenage bitch for all I care. Help me bring back glory. Let me rise as your new king. I’m young, capable, and fully ready to become whatever or whoever you need.”
“Bold words. But greatness requires sacrifice. Get on your knees, look me in the eyes and confess everything. What are you hiding? I am your demon lord. Your dark king. I decide if you live or die. If you get kept or cast out.”
Bowing my head, I kneeled. “I let her live. The Fiorelli girl. I lied. I choked her until she passed out then checked her heartbeat when I pretended to dispose of her body.”
“Pathetic.”
“She was me. I saw myself in her. Defiant. Could give two fucks. She had so much fire. Who was I to take it?”
He said nothing, just wheeled past me to the fire and picked up the poker. The logs crackled and popped as he moved the wood around. I turned my head to stare out at the night beyond the window still kneeling… still waiting.
“FUCK!”
He caught me off guard. The tip of the poker seared my skin. The smell of my own flesh melting filled my nostrils. I felt lightheaded. Weak. But I couldn’t vomit or pass out. He’d think I was a pussy and kill me himself. I reached behind to grab the iron and pressed it harder into my back. My teeth bared like a wild animal. Sweat covered my skin. But I pushed the tip of that poker deep until I felt it hit bone.
“Impressive. But you’ll have to do better. Find the girl. End her. You must become the Grim Reaper. You must become the monster lurking in the shadows, not a monster wearing diapers.”
“You call this child’s play?” I hissed, through clenched teeth.
The metal fell to the floor with a clang. I turned meeting his eyes over my shoulder.
He shrugged. “No. I call this a beautiful beginning. Now strip and get in the hole.”
“I’m not fucking you, old man.”
His laugh cackled like dried leaves in the wind on all Hollow’s Eve. “You might wish that’s what I’m asking for when I’m done with you.”
He motioned for me to follow him out of the study. “Reggie!” One of the Castellione men came briskly. “Take him to the pit.”
I followed numbly. My pain was so severe I’d gone numb. My mind began to separate from my body.
The man led me through the house and out a backdoor to a barn. “Take off your clothes and get in.” He lifted a trap door on the barn floor revealing a dark, dank hole.
I did as he said. A monster can’t be afraid of the dark, so I got in like I gave zero fucks about my disfigured flesh or new home.
The door banged shut taking all light with it. The deadbolt slid into place. I was buried alive. No air. No light. Nothing but blackness enveloped me. I was in the womb of the earth. She must decide what to do with me. Curled up into a ball, I used my body to heat itself. Somehow sleep came.
I lost all sense of time. Cramped in the hole, I shifted as much as I could to relieve myself.
The smell of my putridness wasn’t lost on me. In and out of consciousness, I grasped onto anything to stay sane. Constantine wouldn’t break me. I knew if he did, they’d bury me here.
My mind clung to the last pure thing. Her. Little Red with her pale as snow skin, hair on fire, and eyes the color of wet moss on a forest floor. Her hair smelled of honey and roses, her skin felt smooth; untouched. Despite my rancid conditions, I felt myself swell and harden in the dark. For her. The girl I brought to the brink of death only to bring her back. For the girl who’s barely a teen. For the woman she’ll one day be if I ever find her.
I gripped my shaft, pumping a few times into my hand then pulling from root to tip. She kept me from insanity. I fantasized about being the first man to touch her, kiss her—taste those sweet budding breasts. My hand quickened. I squeezed my eyes shut even though I couldn’t see anything anyway. What was left of me was hers—the little spitfire who taunted me to be a man. She knew I wasn’t. She saw straight through me while everyone else believed the façade. “Fuck, Little Red,” I muttered hoarsely as I came all over myself in the pit. I was in hell already, there was no use feeling shame for thinking about her this way.
Shaking from the aftershocks of my release, I realized I was burning up. Infection must’ve set in. I was a dead man either way.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for some time. A loud smack came from the distance. I clung to that sound. Trapped in the dark not wanting to let it go; the need to fight somehow, to survive become stronger despite my weakened state.
Suddenly the trapdoor to the pit swung up.
My scream brought me fully back. I was blind. I couldn’t see. The light was too much. I raised my hand blocking it out. I was dragged up and carried somewhere. I felt the pinch of a needle and then nothing… I faded back to black.
“The Fiorelli girl escaped Italy. Slipped out like a ghost. But if our men don’t find her you will.”
I turned my head from my place on the floor. He saved me. Barley. Constantine had the best doctors cut out my rotting flesh, pump me full of IV’s and antibiotics but he saved me to be his stray pet. I slept on the bare floor. On a threadbare blanket with a dog bed for a pillow. Even through the days and hours when I almost died from hypothermia and infection, I stayed on the floor.
I hide my elation behind my lifeless eyes. My heart still beat but I was still more of a dead man. At least everything inside me felt that way.
He broke me that week in the pit. I lost my humanity. I wanted her to live, just because for some reason it’s important to him that she doesn’t.
He kicked me swiftly in the ribs. The toe of his steel-tipped boot would’ve cracked a rib if it had more power behind it. The bastard could move his legs. That piece of valuable information I wouldn’t forget.
“Get up. Your training begins today.” I followed him to a large bathroom. Hanging up is a custom-made Italian suit. I showered like I’ve never felt hot running water on my skin. I winced when it hits the bandages on my back. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I stopped short at the woman standing inside my room.
She fidgeted nervously. “I’m Camilla. Here to change your bandages.” She was young, slim, and nervous.
I’m a demon spawn. Dead. A dick.
My towel dropped and I walked toward her with my huge erection in front of me. “I have something more urgent that needs attending to.”
I was stuck in the earth and lived on a floor. Seeing her down on her knees sucking my dick reminded me that I was still a king. I might be poor and nobody now, but my legacy still lived.
I smirked as she took the head of me into her mouth, rolling her tongue along my thick rim.
She knew who I was. Wanted me even though I was still more boy than man. “That’s it, bella. Someday you can say you slept with a God. Everyone will know who I am. Roque Salvatore will be a legend.”
She couldn’t respond since my hand had taken her by the back of her head. I pumped my hips into her mouth, coming hard. I smiled. Whistling, I let her dress my wounds after she cleaned herself up.
“What?” I barked as she hovered just inside the door.
She bit her lip. A faint blush stained her cheeks. “Oh that? Sorry, baby, but I’m saving myself for marriage.” I deadpanned and continued getting dressed
.
“Dog? Come with me.” Reggie sauntered in with two others.
“Name’s Roque.”
“You are Dog until you earn the right to have your name back. You betrayed your familia. Didn’t carry out your last order and killed your Uncle. Both offenses are against the code.”
“I can’t take either back.”
“No, but you can be our dog to train, little king.”
Constantine wheeled in, “Dog. Obey your master. You will work off your debt to us. I’m not foolish enough to give you a weapon. You will be our new grim reaper.”
With no other choice, I climbed in a limo between three made men. Two hours later, I’d taken three souls. Over the course of my time with Constantine I added dozens more. And with each death blow I dealt, I vowed two things: The first, Constantine himself would be the last soul I took by my own hand and the second, when I was the head of my Syndicate I’d be done being the Reaper. I’d give that job to someone else. Days blended to weeks and I lost track of time.
When I was almost seventeen, I asked Constantine if my cousins could come train. He smiled that greasy smile of his. They spent ten days in the pit. Vito and Geno wouldn’t look me in the eyes for months. They hated what I made them become. But family pride and basic need made them do it. They were poor and their mother had a dozen mouths to feed. They wanted in the mob for years and now being a part of it wasn’t all money and designer suits. It was hell. Sheer hell.
I promised to make them gods beside me. One night after a particular hellish day, where none of us could sleep, we sat out in the barn on the floor next to the pit smoking a pack between the three of us while hoping our hands would cease to shake.
Constantine.
The Castellione’s. They controlled the uglier businesses. A few weeks earlier, we helped move military weapons into Turkey. Warheads, ground to air missiles and the like. Today, a commercial jet was shot down. The faces of the kids who boarded that plane haunted us as we watched the news.
They were too young. Too good.
