by Bethany-Kris
“We hold the power in Chicago,” Terrance continued. “That’s what matters here. We work here. We have our own dealings to manage here. The Outfit dominates and unlike New York, we don’t have to worry about or work with other families because the Chicago Mob controls even them. Forget about New York, it isn’t ours and I don’t want it.”
“Fine,” Joel said through clenched teeth.
“So, that’s a no then?” Tommas asked.
“Yeah,” Terrance said gruffly. “That’s a fucking no.”
“Pay a little more to get it straight through to here, that’s all,” Damian’s uncle Laurent said. “Keep doing what we’re doing.”
“Can we talk about giving someone their in to the Outfit?” Joel asked.
Damian perked at that, curious. Usually the boss would bring something like that up, not another made man.
“Who?” Terrance asked.
“James.”
“Poletti?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Terrance said.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because he’s a fucking Poletti and half of his mother’s family is involved with the Lazzari guys. I’m not going to let some kid of another family weed their way into mine, Joel. That’s ridiculous. Just because you work with them on things doesn’t mean they’re Outfit material.”
“You don’t even know—”
“The answer is no,” the boss interrupted coldly.
Damian watched a couple of men filter out of the office quickly and silently as Terrance and Joel had a stare down. More meetings than Damian cared to count went down in this way. Joel had some crazy kind of superiority complex because his grandfather was the boss. Terrance refused to give his grandson any legroom to move.
No fucking wonder.
Damian wasn’t sure Joel understood what respect was. How Tommas was as good of friends with this man as he was, Damian didn’t know. He suspected it was because Tommas and Joel were the same age and grew up together. They weren’t anything alike, though.
“Out, Joel,” Terrance said. “No arguing. And the rest of you, too. I need a break. Get out.”
“We’re going to talk about this again,” Joel said.
Terrance pointed at his office door and said nothing.
Damian turned to leave with the remaining men but stopped when his boss said, “Not you, Ghost.”
It wouldn’t matter how many times someone called him that, Damian still didn’t like it. The damn nickname just reminded him of how forgettable he’d been as a kid and not the shit it referred to now in the present time.
“Yeah, Boss?” Damian asked.
Terrance waited for his office door to be closed, glaring at the last man who left with a glower: Joel. “Christ, he’s a problem waiting to happen that boy. I wish his father would have pulled his head out of his ass and joined the Outfit like I wanted him to. He would have made a good boss. Joel makes a damn good fool and nothing more.”
Damian chose not to dignify that with a response. He figured Terrance wasn’t looking for one, anyway.
“What did you need?” Damian asked.
Terrance rapped his fingers down to the desk in a fast beat. “That boy he mentioned … James. Do you know who he is?”
“Of him.”
“Me, too. His father was a habitual gambler that got beat to death when he couldn’t pay his bookie repeatedly. Made the kid’s mother a young widow to four kids she barely managed to take care of. I don’t want that family’s mess anywhere near the Outfit.”
Damian didn’t blink at that omission. “Interesting, but what does that got to do with me, Boss?”
“Joel needs to understand he doesn’t get to make calls like this, you see. And his little show like he did tonight has been happening far too often lately. I don’t know what has gotten into him but I feel the need to remind him of just who is in charge and why. So, you’re going to do that for me.”
Damian wasn’t sure he understood the job correctly. “You want me to teach Joel a lesson?”
He couldn’t think of a single time in his career as a hitman for Terrance that he ever had to make a move on the boss’s close family or friends.
“Of a sort,” Terrance mused. “If Joel wants to behave like a child, then I will punish him like one by taking away something that he wants. Clearly, he wants this man in with the Outfit, so that can’t happen. Make sure Joel understands that in a way that is permanent, Damian.”
Yeah, Damian got it.
James Poletti would need to go.
“Joel won’t like that, I imagine,” Damian said.
Terrance made a dismissive sound that came off as cold as his demand when he said, “I’ve let his nonsense go on long enough. It’s high time he begins to learn he is not the one man who runs this show, my boy. And it seems you now have a job to do, so why are you still standing there?”
Damian didn’t know. “How do you want it done this time?”
“Oh, make it easy on the kid, I suppose. It isn’t his fault, after all.”
No, it certainly wasn’t. Damian didn’t feel much about the entire thing and he wasn’t all too surprised about the demand, either. This was who he was and a part of living the life he chose. The killing didn’t always have to be justified or even make a whole lot of sense, not when the boss made the call. Men like Damian didn’t get the option to refuse, not if they liked being alive.
“You want a call when it’s done?”
“No, I’ll be watching the news.”
“All right, then.”
“Thirty-k for this one, Damian,” Terrance said. “It will be transferred into the account when I first get word.”
Thirty-k.
That was the price of the man’s life.
Damian probably could have argued the number with his boss and tried for something higher, especially since the man’s death was pointless and Damian didn’t usually go for that nonsense, but he didn’t. Obviously Terrance had his mind set on what he wanted and killing the Poletti man was it.
“What about his mother’s family?” Damian asked.
Terrance didn’t look like he gave much of a damn if his disinterested expression was any indication. “What about them?”
“They might retaliate.”
“So be it.”
Damian reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open.
“One more thing,” Terrance added.
“What is that?”
“Congratulations on the DeLuca girl, Damian. Getting married puts you one step closer to where you need to be. It’ll work out well for you, I’m sure. You’re twenty-seven, so it’s time to settle down anyway and have a couple of kids to keep you busy. She’ll make a good and proper wife for a made man—her brothers have seen to that.”
Terrance’s words hammered home what Dino had said to Damian two weeks earlier about the man looking at him for the head of the family. It only reinforced his resolve to do what needed to be done so he could keep his life the way he liked it.
As his.
Damian didn’t give his boss a reply as he walked out of the office.
The guests were finally starting to disperse from the Trentini estate when Damian made his way back downstairs. He noted Joel and a few other men in the family that had been in the office to witness the boss and his grandson’s disagreement had left also.
That was the thing about the Outfit—everybody had a side to pick.
Damian said his goodbyes to his cousins and ignored his uncle and aunt when he passed them by in the dining room. Instead of parking his car in the Trentini’s large driveway and take the risk of getting blocked in if he wanted to leave early, Damian had parked his cobalt blue Porsche 911 GT3 in the back of the home. The car was his baby. He didn’t live in an excess of luxury, considering his small two-bedroom loft was as modest as they came in Chicago’s Wicker Park. The Porsche was his one show of wealth.
Damian wasn’t in the Outfit for money. If that were the case, he pr
obably would have dropped out of the business long ago. It took a man years before he was really able to start pulling in any kind of decent cash of his own where the Outfit was concerned. Most revenue went to the boss—seventy percent of everything.
Damian supposed that was another reason why he liked his choice in career. Working with the Rossi crew for Tommas from time to time earned him decent cash. But being Terrance’s personal hitman when needed was Damian’s real payday. While he never stopped working for the Outfit, and other people seemed to think he was their personal soldier to do with as they wanted, Damian knew he could step back from that.
So, why hadn’t he?
Damian frowned as he made his way toward the back of the house, realizing then how Terrance had been grooming him in some ways. Christ, Damian hadn’t even noticed it was happening and that sickened him. Terrance often shoved demands from his men onto Damian when it was something he didn’t want to handle. Thinking back, Damian could remember more than once when Terrance openly asked Damian’s opinion on certain things.
Damian thought it was innocent.
Fuck.
It wasn’t just about what the boss had been trying to slowly and quietly teach Damian, either. It was about the men around them and the Outfit as a whole. The Outfit’s men were getting glimpses of another person of importance, someone with a voice being heard and a hand in the game.
Except Damian didn’t want his hand in that fucking game. Lots of men would make a good boss—Damian could be a good boss. But he didn’t want to be.
In the back of the house, where the guests didn’t go during parties and dinners, Damian found the hallways quiet and dark without windows. Large homes like the Trentini’s had very few windows on the bottom floor but the ones that it had were higher than normal. No boss wanted to give someone an easy way in, after all.
The figure leaning against the shadowed wall by the backdoor stopped Damian in his tracks instantly. The bit of light coming in from the frosted glass window on the backdoor haloed around her shape and washed her in a stream of color.
For a brief second, she actually looked calm and happy.
Alone, but happy.
Lily DeLuca.
A memory flashed into his mind so quickly he almost missed it.
“Damn, Uncle Ben’s gonna be pissed, Lily,” Theo said, the twelve-year-old’s voice cracking on his uncle’s name.
Lily sniffed, moving away the tattered piece of her summer dress to look over the damage on her knee. It was scuffed up and bloody something awful. It probably hurt but other than her sniffling, Lily didn’t cry.
“Ow,” Lily muttered.
“Shouldn’t have let her tag along, maybe,” Damian said. “Dino’s not going to like that, either.”
Or maybe the boys shouldn’t have decided to climb the fence.
“But I always come with Theo,” Lily whispered.
Most of Damian’s friends didn’t let their kid sisters hang out with them, but since Theo and Lily didn’t have parents and Dino was too busy with whatever he did, Lily was always around. She didn’t have a lot of friends because she was too busy following her brother around. Damian didn’t mind since she was quiet.
Damian liked quiet people.
“The fence is rusty, too,” Damian said.
Theo groaned. “Great.”
“What does that mean?” Lily asked.
“Means we have to tell Uncle Ben so he can take you to the hospital.”
Lily’s brown eyes widened and tears started to well. “But—”
“You’re gonna need a needle, I think.”
“No!”
Damian winced. Whenever a girl cried, his stomach went weird. Girls shouldn’t cry. “It doesn’t hurt, right, Theo?”
Damian lied.
Those needles hurt a lot.
“Uh, right. It doesn’t hurt, little one.”
Lily sniffled again. “All right.”
Damian blinked out of the memory, surprised it had come back to him at all. A great deal of his childhood had somehow been lost to the recesses of his mind over the years. He didn’t have a lot to remember that he wanted to, really.
Did Lily remember him tagging around sometimes back then, too?
Damian, knowing she probably hadn’t heard his approach, cleared his throat quietly.
Lily didn’t even blink. “I figured Dino would come find me. Or maybe Theo. Definitely not you, anyway.”
“I wasn’t looking for you,” he said honestly. “My car is parked out back to avoid someone getting killed if they scratched my car.”
“Fascinating.”
“Really? Because you sound bored as hell.”
She also seemed a lot calmer than earlier.
Damian wondered what had changed for Lily in the span of a couple hours. He brushed it off. It didn’t matter. Damian had a job to do so that meant he had to go out and get the info needed to get it done as quickly as possible.
Resuming his walk down the hallway, Damian passed a quiet Lily by.
“Do they still call you little one?” he asked as he unlocked the backdoor and opened it.
Lily stilled but didn’t answer.
It was enough for Damian to know her brothers did still call her that.
Damian turned to face her. The breeze from the outside wafted into the hallway and blew the scent of Lily’s flowery perfume through the space. She watched him from under her thick, dark lashes and he wondered if she wanted to bolt as far away from him as she could.
There wasn’t a whole lot of space in the hallway, so turning like he did put him directly in front of her. Lily had to look up and Damian could plainly see the anger still warring in her gaze. It made her all the more pretty with just a glimmer of defiance behind her brown gaze. The frustrated pout of her lips demanded attention.
She had a mouth made for kissing.
Shit.
Damian didn’t need more added onto his plate than what he already had but he figured out in that moment that he liked angry girls.
“You know, you don’t have to hate me, Lily DeLuca. It might make this whole thing a hell of a lot easier if you just accept what is going to happen and get it over with.”
“Get it over with, right,” Lily scoffed. “Being sold off like cattle, you mean. I should just accept that I don’t get to choose my husband or future.”
“I never bought you—that wasn’t the deal put on the table.”
Lily looked away. “Oh.”
“Nope.”
“Why are you agreeing to this?” she asked.
Damian didn’t even crack a smile. “Because I have to.”
“Don’t you want to pick your own wife, not have one given to you?”
“Who said I wouldn’t have picked you, Lily?”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Theo, tell him!” Lily waved helplessly at Dino. “Tell him this isn’t fair!”
Theo sighed. “Dino—”
“Not your choice to make, Theo,” Dino cut in firmly.
“Yeah, I got that,” the younger of the two brothers replied. “You could have told me ahead of time, though.”
“Wasn’t important.”
“Is this for the sentencing thing?” Theo asked vaguely.
“Essentially,” Dino replied.
“Ben doesn’t like it—he hid it well today, but he said so.”
“Terrance approved.”
Theo chuckled. “Wonder why.”
“You know why,” Dino said.
“I know D, too.”
Dino smiled faintly. “We all do. He’ll do what I need because he needs something, too. Helping hands don’t exist in this world. They’re all trying to grab something back for them. I figure he’s starting to learn that.”
“What about Lily?”
Dino dropped his fork and napkin to the table, rested his arms along the sides of his plate and stared his brother head-on. “Do you think Damian is a bad choice?”
“No, I think he’s a fine choice
,” Theo replied. “For a man in the Outfit, anyway.”
“For a man in general, you mean.”
“Whatever, Dino.”
“If I had discussed it with you, who would you have picked to get the job done?”
Was that all Lily was, a job?
Disgust rolled thick and strong in her gut, threatening to spill her casserole and salad all over the dinner table.
“Joel Trentini, maybe?” Dino continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm as a smirk twisted his mouth upward.
“Hey,” Theo barked. “I’m a fucking DeLuca, too.”
Dino nodded. “Then you know why I picked a Rossi.”
“Well, I know why you picked Damian.”
“Same thing.”
Theo cocked a brow. “Could have picked Tommas—he’s good for the job.”
Again with that fucking title.
“I am not a job!” Lily snapped, finally meeting her wit’s end.
Dino and Theo acted like she hadn’t said a thing. Neither man looked away from one another.
“Tommas is good for the final job. Make sure you know the right side to be on when the time comes,” Dino said. “Besides, I did think of Lily here, regardless of what she believes. A man like Tommas, already sniffing around a tree he shouldn’t be, isn’t going to do right by her in the end. Tommas will do right by his, to be sure, but Lily isn’t his.”
What?
Lily was so confused it wasn’t even funny. Her brothers might as well have been talking in riddles for all she understood.
“She’s not Ghost’s, either,” Theo said quietly. “Did you think of that, or are you only thinking of the past, Dino?”
Dino’s expression barely flickered with emotion as he said, “We both know D, Theo. Give him time to catch the fuck up before you start running off at the mouth, huh?”
Theo blew out a steady stream of air, nodding. “Fine.”
“I appreciate it.”
Theo shot Lily a look that was anything but apologetic. “Sorry, little one. You’re in this one for life.”
Lily’s jaw dropped.
How could he?
Not only had her brothers’ entire conversation been spoken as if she wasn’t even in the room, but they still managed to talk her in circles without including her. Lily glanced between her brothers who had both resumed eating without barely an acknowledgment to one another.
