by K. J. Dahlen
I woke up in a vehicle with a bag over my head. I was in a shit ton of pain from my shoulder and my head, but if they thought I was going to cry and beg for pain pills or for my life, they were fucking crazy. I was Dante Ranetti. I didn’t beg for shit, not even my life.
I tried to pay attention to things, but with a cloth bag over my head all I could do was rely on my hearing. I could tell when the vehicle, most likely a van, pulled to a stop.
“I wish he was awake,” a guy with a deep voice said. “He might look little, but he’s fucking heavy.”
Little? Who the fuck were they calling little? I was 6 foot 1, 210 pounds. In what world was that little?
“Donnie, you think everyone is little, and he is awake. He woke up a while back,” a second voice said.
“How do you know?” the deep voice, Donnie, asked.
“Well, for one, his breathing changed. Also, he sat up a bit. You gotta pay more attention.” Whoever the second voice was, it was Donnie’s boss.
“Okay Boss,” Donnie said.
“Good news is, he can walk. Isn’t that right Dante?”
I wasn’t going to acknowledge them, but when I was pulled to my feet, I walked along with them. It wasn’t that I wanted to make it easier on them, I just didn’t want to be carried like a baby.
Getting up hurt, and walking hurt even more. I winced and held my breath to keep from crying out when my arm was jostled as I got out of the van. We were outside briefly. I could hear the birds and feel the sun on my skin despite the bag that was still over my head. Wherever we were, had grass and flowers. I could smell both. The amount of time I spent outside was short. I was led into a building and taken down some stairs. We walked for a short while and then my hood was removed.
The room had cinder block walls, no window and two doors. There was a metal framed bed centered in the room against the far wall, and one long dresser with nothing on it.
I knew what it was for. It was clearly a holding cell, and a much nicer one than I used for the men I kept for questioning. I’d keep them there, try to break them, then kill them. I always wondered why the men didn’t just try to fight until they died at the beginning. Instant death was far better than the fate that awaited them in most cases. It was what I would have preferred, and it was what I wanted now.
I didn’t have a death wish, by any means, and I wasn’t ready to die, but when facing the inevitable, instant death was better than being tortured to death. I gave it a shot.
I turned to look at Marco. “Should have shot you.” I sneered.
“Probably,” Marco said, with no affect in his voice, walking me over to a bed.
The hell if I was gonna go without a fight. I had no idea where I was, but I had to try to escape. “You should do it now,” I said, trying to break free as I twisted my body.
Donnie wasn’t having any of that. He grabbed me, squeezing my shoulder.
I cried out in pain, and then everything went black.
When I woke, I was still in the same room, only this time I was alone. My good arm was handcuffed to the bed and the arm that had been shot was bandaged up, though it still hurt like a mother fucker. Since there were no windows in the room, I didn’t know how long I’d been there or even if it were night or day. All I did know was that I needed to take a wicked piss.
“Hey, you fuckers! Anyone out there? I gotta take a piss.”
I pulled on my cuff hoping it would break, or the bed would. It was a shitty bed, metal headboard, no footboard. I might have been able to break it apart if my shoulder didn’t hurt like fuck. I wondered if I had a bullet in me.
I worked at the cuff and the bed, but the more I moved, the more my shoulder hurt. I also realized there was little to no chance that the door to the room was locked. I was surprised to see two doors. I wondered where the other one led.
A while later, maybe thirty minutes, the door finally opened and Marco walked in.
I hadn’t been able to get to him before, but I wasn’t going down with a fight. I knew very little about Marco other than he seemed to be Franco’s top advisor. He wasn’t a relative of Franco, but he’d lived with him for a long time. He grew up in the organization, his father was doing twenty for something that proved his loyalty to the family. I didn’t know anything about him personally though. He didn’t run his mouth, didn’t get in fights and he didn’t seem to make enemies on the street.
About all I knew was, he had this one girl, and he was faithful to her. This made no sense to me. He was a decent looking guy, as guys go. He was tall, decent build, had the long, in your face hair that chicks went for, and a decent face. I mean, he could have gotten laid if that’s what he was going for is all I’m saying. He didn’t dress like a typical Italian guy in The Family. He wore a pair of tan slacks and a pullover rather than a suit and tie. Then again, he was likely here to torture and kill me, so maybe he didn’t want to get anything too special dirty.
He closed the door behind him, and locked it, putting the key in his pocket.
If I got free, I’d punch him in the throat and take that key. I needed to get him riled enough to get him off his game. “You might as well shoot me now faggot, cause I’m not telling you shit.” I was hoping the reference to being gay would stir up something. Most men, in general, don’t like their manhood questioned. Italians even more so from my experience. I hoped the reason he didn’t talk much was because he was stupid. Not unusual for muscle. Most of them couldn’t figure out change for a twenty.
If I got inside his head, maybe he’d get pissed off and shoot me, saving me the torture. But he wasn’t muscle, he was an advisor. And I quickly learned I hadn’t struck a nerve at all.
Marco answered me calmly, walking toward me, “I’m not a homosexual, though I do enjoy a nicely decorated room and a good glass of wine. As for shooting you, that really wouldn’t be in my best interest and I’d end up having to clean up your brains from the floor then dumping your body. I really love these shoes too.” He held up his foot to reveal a zig zag pattern on the bottom. “Like em? My girl got them for me for Christmas. I love the soles. See, if things get really crazy, I can show you how they leave these exact marks behind...right on your ass.”
Shit. I wasn’t getting to this guy. He was no meatball. This fucker was intelligent, and a bit funny. Hell, if he wasn’t on their side, I might have liked him. But he was on their side and I couldn’t let him get away with saying he’d kick my ass and leave footprints.
“Now, I am going to check your wound. Are you going to be still, or do I need to knock your ass out again?”
I glared at him as he moved closer to me. When he reached for my shoulder, I grabbed for him. He was quicker, something that didn’t usually happen. I felt the prick in my arm. “Choice number two I see,” he said laughing.
If I ever got the chance, I was going to punch that grin off of this fucker’s face. I fought to keep my eyes open as the room got fuzzy. I might have lasted five seconds before everything went black.
2
Marco
Things hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but they’d turned out all right. We’d heard he was planning to rob our shipment of guns. I knew he felt justified since they were coming through what he considered his port, but that dock used to be controlled by Franco. And even if we were using his dock, a good business man would have charged us a fee for the use, not tried to rob the entire shipment. No one robs from a Franco Morelli and lives to tell about it.
I’d been working for Mr. Morelli for ten years. When my father had gotten pinched, some people thought he’d talk. My dad wasn’t a rat, I’ll tell you that much. He might not have been around for me and my mom all the time, but he was a man of his word, and no rat. So yeah, he went to jail and was doing his time. He knows when he gets out he’ll be rewarded.
Twenty years is a long time to wait though, especially when you’ve got a kid. I was fifteen when my dad went in. My mom had died when I was thirteen. It was a rough few years. I’m not really sure what
would have happened to me, I know I’d have gone into foster care for sure, but Franco took me in, made sure there wasn’t anything I needed.
Without him, I wouldn’t have graduated high school and I sure as fuck, wouldn’t have gone off to college. I came home two years ago with a business degree. It wasn’t like you needed a degree to work for the family, but it did help. Maybe if Al Capone had known a bit more about finance, he wouldn’t have gotten pinched.
Franco had only one rule when he took me in. I remembered the conversation as clear as the day we’d had it. My father’s trial had just ended, and Franco took me back to his house. We were sitting at his patio in his backyard. I’d thanked him for letting me stay there. I wasn’t sure, at the time, how long his hospitality would last, but I was grateful for every night I didn’t have to spend in a home or out on the street.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Franco said. “This is what family does for each other. Your father is a very honorable man. He’s a man of his word. He took care of me and the family. Now I’ll take care of him and his family.”
I nodded. I was only sixteen, but I understood what had happened. Either my father hadn’t ratted out other people involved in whatever he’d done illegally, or he was taking the rap for someone else who’d done it.
“I’m counting on you to have the same character and work ethic of your father.”
I nodded again. “Yes Sir, Mr. Morelli.”
He put his arm around me. “You’re going to be staying here, working for me now. I’ll pay you well, but you need to do your work without question. Can you do that?”
“Yes Sir,” I responded again.
“Listen to me and don’t question things and you’ll go far,” he said. He went on, “So now you have a job. As for your living conditions. There is a social worker who wants to place you somewhere.”
I nodded.
“I’d like to offer you a place in my home, if you’d like, until you’re able to move out on your own.”
It was a huge burden off of my shoulders. “I’d like that a lot, Sir,” I said.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Good. There are a few rules living in this house, but one main one.” His eyes moved from me across his lawn to the garden. A woman sat there with a girl. The girl seemed about my age, but a few years younger. “You like pussy, Marco?” he asked, surprising me with the question.
No one had ever talked to me about sex before, let alone asked me that bold of a question. “I uh, yeah,” I stammered. “I like pussy.” The truth was, I’d never had sex. I’d gotten a feel once, at a party, but that was about it.
Franco’s eyes never left the two in the garden. “Pussy is good, but if you ever try to fuck my wife and especially if you try to fuck my daughter, I’ll cut your dick off, cook it, make you eat it, then put a bullet in your skull. Got it?”
I nodded in shock. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Good, now let’s go get you some pussy.” It was as if he knew I was a virgin.
It didn’t matter because I wasn’t for long. That night we went to one of the clubs he owned and he bought me a few lap dances. The lap dances turned into blow jobs, which turned into fucking, which turned into a threesome. It was a great introduction into sex, and one that would have an impact on my life for the next six years.
It was easy to stay away from Annalisa, Franco’s daughter. Sure, she was beautiful, but she was thirteen and I was sixteen and getting fucked by twenty year old strippers every night. On top of that, Annalisa and I had really bonded and I thought of her as a sister. Even when Annalisa had grown into a beautiful woman, there was never a sexual attraction there, only a strong friendship. She, Franco, and his wife Teresa were my family and I’d do anything for them, including protect them from assholes like Dante Ranetti who wanted to steal from them.
Most of the guys thought we should have just taken him out right there on the docks, but I had another plan. He wasn’t just some punk, he was the son of Franco’s biggest rival. He was worth far more to us alive than dead. The hardest part, though, was going to be keeping him alive. I heard he was an arrogant asshole. He had a reputation for fucking a different woman every night. He was called Dante the Dime, cause supposedly his dick was ten inches. I didn’t believe that shit for a second. He was probably hung like a mouse and paid women to spread that rumor. This was another thing about Dante Ranetti, he had a mouth on him bigger than the legend of his cock.
I took a deep breath before entering the room he was being held in. I left Donnie outside just in case everything went to shit. I left my gun out there too. It wasn’t in the plan to kill him, and I didn’t want to end up getting shot with my own gun if things got ugly.
I opened the door and the standoff began. I wasn’t an expert at this, but I’d learned that often times, if you said nothing, a person being held captive, with the knowledge that they were about to be killed or tortured, motivated them to give you want you wanted. Fifty percent of the time, we didn’t have to touch the guy to get him to talk. In this case, we didn’t need Dante to talk at all. I was curious, however, to see what he’d say. He didn’t disappoint.
“You might as well shoot me now faggot, cause I’m not telling you shit.”
This fucker was something else. Calling an Italian man a homo really was asking to get shot. I knew that was exactly what he wanted though. I know it’s what I would want if I ended up in his hands. I wasn’t offended anyway. Hell, my dick wasn’t even dry yet from fucking my girl. She was a tiny thing with a tight little body. The first time I’d fucked her, I swore I was going to tear her in two, and even now, after fucking her hundreds of times her pussy still strangled the shit out of my cock. And she wasn’t a butterface either. You know, one of those chicks that everything about her was hot but her face. No, she was drop dead gorgeous with these big blue eyes and dark brown, almost black hair.
She wasn’t like most girls in bed either. My girl was horny twenty-four seven. She liked to fuck every way possible and even begged me to fuck her in the ass. I’d met her at the strip club where she was a dancer. She liked to hang out there with me and get lap dances from other strippers. I loved watching them rub and kiss each other. It was the hottest fucking thing I’d seen in my life. I knew I was the luckiest fucker alive because she was faithful too.
I thought it was funny though, him calling me a faggot, and it took balls, I just wasn’t gonna give him what he wanted. Instead, I responded calmly. “I’m not a homosexual, though I do enjoy a nicely decorated room and a good glass of wine. As for shooting you, that really wouldn’t be in my best interest and I’d end up having to clean up your brains from the floor and dumping your body. I really love these shoes too.” I lifted my foot to show him my shoe. “Like em? My girl got them for me for Christmas. I love the soles. See, if things get really crazy, I can show you how they leave these exact marks behind...right on your ass.”
I swore I saw him smile before he attacked me. Fucking moron. I reached into my back pocket, flipped the cap off the syringe, and injected him with a sedative. It was much easier to check out his shoulder with him asleep anyhow. His wound really wasn’t that bad, a through and through. There was a bigger hole on his back than his front, but it was clean. I really just had to watch for infection. I set out the alcohol and began working on him. I poured the alcohol on the bullet hole, somewhat disappointed he was asleep for this part. Then I re-bandaged the front and back. It’d nearly stopped bleeding already. It would be sore for a long time, but he’d be fine.
After I’d finished cleaning the asshole’s shoulder, I headed upstairs for a meeting with the Boss. Franco Morelli had been my father figure and mentor since I’d been sixteen, and cared about me as a person, but I never forgot he was a ruthless businessman. He would take care of you for life you if you were loyal to him, but if you crossed him, he’d slit your fucking throat and eat your tongue for dinner. People just didn’t cross him.
I walked into his office. Franco was sitting in a large leath
er chair. Donnie, his protection and Vito, his enforcer were standing off to the side. Both men were huge, over 6 feet tall and muscular. I guess if that’s what Donnie hung around with all day, it was no wonder he thought Dante was little. He probably thought I was too.
I’d known Donnie since I was a kid. He was loyal as fuck, but once you knew him, he was a big softie. He was Franco’s nephew, and since he was a relative, Franco trusted him to be Annalisa’s protection when she left the house. Annalisa had grown up with Donnie always one step behind her. She liked him, and I trusted her judgement. The three of us were good friends.
Vito on the other hand was a different story. He was the cousin of one of Franco’s best friends who’d died a few years back of cancer. Vito had moved up fast because he was ruthless and seemed to enjoy his job as an enforcer. No one got things done better than Vito. He was a bit cocky though, and this always made me nervous. Franco told me not everyone could be as cultured as I was, and I should let him do his job. Having a reputation was part of it.
“So, how is our guest?” Franco asked.
“Fine. His shoulder isn’t that bad. If he makes it out of here, he should be fine. I had to knock him back out though. Cocky little prick.”
Franco laughed. “Sounds like Sal’s kid.”
“Yeah this one’s got quite a reputation,” Donnie chimed in. “They call him Dante the dime, cause supposedly he’s got a ten inch dick. Is that true Marco?”
I laughed. I guess he’d heard the same rumor I had. “Ha-ha fucker. Like I looked at his dick. But I’ve heard of his reputation. Supposedly, he fucks a different chick every night. I don’t get what they see, but apparently, he’s good looking and uses that to get what he wants. I heard that if one of his men crosses him, he seduces their wife or girlfriend, or both and then shows the guy a video of the woman enjoying herself right before he caps them. “
