by Gabby Grace
She brings us some black coffee, filling the cup to the top with a steamy vapor flowing out, and I suck it down like it’s water. I have my small white cup on the corner of the table ready for a refill by the time she comes back with our food.
We dig in, and Frankie starts the conversation up again. “So, tell me what’s happening, Vito. Ricci called me and filled me in on most of it, but what do you need me for?”
“We’re in an all-out war with the Sirico’s. Things are about to get ugly. We’re going to move in on Nero Petrone.”
“Who’s that?”
“I forget you’ve been down here with your face in your girl’s muff for the last two weeks. You knew about the hit attempt on Don Antolini when Ricci saved his ass a few weeks back?”
“Yeah, Ricci told me about it.”
“Petrone was the one who ordered that hit. He’s one of Sirico’s captains, and if we can get to him, it would be like lopping one of Sirico’s nuts off. He’s an important guy in the organization.”
“And we know he’s here?”
“That’s what our inside guy tells us. Petrone will likely be scrambling right now to get his operation up and running again at a different location. There’s no way they’re going to let my antics sidetrack them for too long.”
“I forgot to say it, Vito, but nice job on that, man. You took that fucking building down to the ground, huh?”
I finish chewing my too dry scrambled eggs and nod my head before responding. “Yeah. There had to be millions in heroin in there, so I’m pretty sure I have a sizable target on my back.”
“So, what’s our plan?”
“Tonight, we’re going to infiltrate Petrone’s house, and if possible, we’ll take him the fuck out.”
Frankie slugs the rest of his coffee and makes a face like he doesn’t like it. “What do you know about this place?”
“I know it’s well-protected.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s all I know.”
“We have to scope it out, Vito. Let’s finish here and then we’ll take a little ride and see what we can figure out.”
18
Bella
“I figure we’ll put the banquet table over here, and of course the ribbon-cutting will happen over there where the ribbon is connected between those two brass poles. If they face this way, then just about everyone will see them.”
“Thanks, Teague. It sounds like you have everything all figured out, so I’ll just leave the details to you.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
In the center of the room and surrounded by finely decorated tables, the staff is busy scampering around getting everything ready for the ribbon-cutting. I take one last look at some notes, flipping through some printouts, before answering.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Teague?”
“Oh, c’mon girlfriend. Don’t give me that.” His hands go to his hips.
“I’m just trying to delegate more. You’ve got this, Teague, really.”
“Delegate? Since when? You’re a control freak if there ever was one.”
I fall right into my bad habit of walking away when I’m lying. “It’s nothing… everything’s fine.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me. Out with it.”
“I just… it’s nothing.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Bella. Tell me what’s going on.” Teague lowers his head, forcing me to meet his eyes.
I exhale deeply. “There’s this guy, and… I don’t know.”
“A guy… oooohhh… do tell.” From intense to excited in a nanosecond.
“I just met him, really. On my flight back from New York.”
“And… did you fuck him?”
“Teague!”
“You know me, Bella. I go right for the truth.” He points his finger right at his chest in a classic gesture.
Rolling my eyes, I say, “Yes, like three or four times.”
“You slut!” He says it a bit too loudly and some eyes roll our way. Lowering his voice now, he adds, “You lost count? This is getting good. So what’s wrong? Did he leave?”
“Yes… but he came back.”
“And?”
“I found out something out about him that’s pretty dark.”
“How dark…like…he likes to sniff women’s panties?”
“It’s worse.”
“What?” He throws his hands up and then lowers them back to his hips.
“I can’t say.”
“Do you care about him?”
“He’s the sexiest, most physically put together man I’ve ever been with.”
“Is that it?”
“I wish it was.”
“Tell me, girlfriend.” He motions to a table with chairs and we both take a seat.
“I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Heavy chest?” His hand is extended out, palm up, so he can count off each finger as he goes through his checklist.
“Yes.”
“Feeling physically ill when you’re not with him?”
“Yes.”
“How was the sex?”
“Utterly amazing.”
“You do have a problem. What are you going to do?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
19
Vito
Frankie and I hook up with Lucenzo over at Sass. I called him from Denny’s figuring we needed as much muscle as we can get. We meet in the parking lot by a large palm tree, the only shade for as far as I can see. Lucenzo wants to ‘see some ass inside,’ as he puts it, but Frankie and I have other ideas.
“Yo, Lucenzo. This is my pal Frankie.”
The two shake hands and we get down to business.
“He’s an expert on breaking and entering. There’s no door or no safe that can keep this guy out.”
“Is that right?”
Frankie jumps in. “That’s what they say.”
We all laugh.
Lucenzo breaks the laughter up. “You guys formulate a plan yet?”
“We want to scope the place out. It’s our best chance of success.” I shift to get back in the shade, as the sun is really heating the pavement up, coming right up through the soles of my shoes. “You got pieces for us?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Lucenzo opens the liftgate of his black Cadillac Escalade using the clicker on his remote key chain, looks around too suspiciously, and then pulls a small canvas bag out onto his bumper. There are jumper cables, a small tool set, and a couple of handguns with some spare clips. He hands us each a gun and an extra clip that we tuck in our belts.
“Don’t worry, they’re clean.” Lucenzo has the deepest voice, almost like a hoarse bull frog, with a mix of Sicilian. “If you need to, just drop them. Nobody will trace them back to me.”
Frankie speaks up. “What can you tell us about Petrone’s place?”
“Well, this comes through one of my guys who also worked at the factory that numb nuts over here burned to the fucking ground.” He gestures with his thumb toward me. I know he’s fucking with me, otherwise I might punch his fucking teeth out. “Seriously though, Vito, that was epic.”
“Thanks, brother. I try.”
“Anyhow, Marco – he’s my guy – tells me that Petrone has a fucking fortress over in Hollywood in one of those rich neighborhoods. He had to drive him there once when Petrone’s driver was out sick.”
“What’s the layout?” Frankie asks.
“There’s an outer fence, guards all around the perimeter, and visible security in and around the outside of the house.”
“I need to see it.”
“Let’s go.”
We all pile into Lucenzo’s Cadillac Escalade – a real beast of a vehicle – with dark tinted windows, 17-inch wheels, and even an inset monitor in the back of the front passenger’s and driver’s seats.
I ride up front with Lucenzo, and befo
re too long, he starts talking about the old country.
“You see, a lot of the guys in our gang are Calabrese, but everyone knows that true mafioso are Sicilian. Like me.” He takes his eyes off the road and glances at me. “What about you, Vito?”
“Sicilian through and through.”
“And Frankie?” He asks, glaring at the rearview mirror with curious eyes.
“I’m part asshole on my dad’s side and the rest I don’t know.” I don’t remember Frankie being so fucking funny, but maybe Anna has helped him gain a sense of humor.
We’re back in Bella’s neck of the woods, and I can’t help think about how we left things. She seemed pretty uncertain about us, but I can tell she’s still into me. I think she just needs some time.
I never really cared about this kind of shit before, as there was never a second meeting. I fucked this one woman up north a couple of times, but that was more because she was available than anything else. She was kind of like a convenience store, open 24/7 and you can get a little bit of everything.
Lucenzo pulls over and parks next to some benches at one of the few hill-type overlooks in the very flat landscape in and around Miami. “We can get a good vantage point from here. This is Junction Hill. Down over there, beyond these trees, is the front entrance to Petrone’s.”
“Let’s get a look.” I pop out of the truck and make my way to a spot with the clearest view.
We use the zoom feature on Frankie’s camera phone to survey the defenses, and it doesn’t look good.
Frankie speaks up while still holding the phone in two hands, running it left to right. “We have two guard gates, one in front and another around on the other side. So that’s two driveways in. There’s a guard at each one. Wrought-iron gates that slide open on a track. You see it there at the bottom?”
Nobody answers.
Lucenzo points at the screen as he talks. “Do you see those guys over there near the pool? That’s another three.”
I jump in. “And another two on the other side near that gazebo. Zoom in Frankie. What are those white things on the walls?” I’m pointing at these white rectangular objects perched on the probably 10-foot high brick walls. That question was for Frankie.
“Security cameras maybe every twenty-five feet. Those are sweepers.”
“Huh.” Lucenzo is clueless, although I think I get it.
“They sweep back and forth, covering all angles and approaches. At least I call them sweepers.”
“What do you think Frankie?” I ask.
“You want my semi-professional opinion? It’s a fucking suicide mission going in there. We counted seven guards, and those are just the ones on the grounds. How many more are inside?”
Lucenzo chimes in. “Tough odds.”
“Even if we were able to get through those guys, those cameras are going to pick us up, and whoever is inside monitoring them is going to raise the alarm.”
“Fuck.” I rub my fingers through my hair and breathe out fully, releasing some anger and frustration.
“I can’t disable those cameras from the outside. I’d have to get inside without being seen, and then look at the size of that fucking place.” Frankie’s hand extends out toward the mansion, his voice filled with nervous energy. “I would have no fucking clue where to start looking. Your guy Marco fucked up.”
“Mother fucker.” Lucenzo’s deep voice booms, drawing out the curse word.
“This is a fucking disaster.” My left hand goes to my face and I rub my eyes hard. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Lucenzo barks.
“We’re thinking about this the wrong way. We know the guy comes and goes, right? He has to. Especially after I burnt down his warehouse. You can bet your ass Sirico is pressuring him to get the drug ring back up and running. He’d be pushing hard right now.”
“What’s your idea, Vito?” Lucenzo sounds impatient.
“We stake this place out and follow Nero Petrone when he leaves the Compound.”
“If we can’t get into the hole to kill the rat, let him come to us. What do you think, Frankie?”
“I like it.”
20
Bella
My conversation with Teague has my head spinning even more. We go back maybe three or four years as friends, and he’s as good as they get. He always has my back and would never pull any punches when it came to being honest with me. He’s the friend I need right now.
That doesn’t change the splitting headache pervading my skull and feeling like I need to call Vito to clear things up.
I grab two Ibuprofen from my medicine cabinet and find a comfortable spot on my couch to think things through. I won’t call him, though. At least not yet. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m a stubborn Colombian. I take after my mom.
When she and my dad would fight, she would hold out until he gave in. Almost every time. The only time she ever gave in was when she knew she was wrong.
Even then, it didn’t come easy, and you could tell it was forced.
I care about Vito. I’m actually scared about how much I care about him, even though as I’ve confirmed, he’s a dangerous man. Highly dangerous. I have a suspicion that he was somehow involved in the death of the three charred remains – as the newswoman put it – that were found in the heaps of wreckage in the old warehouse. It’s possible he set the fire to cover up that he had killed people. I can’t wrap my head around that.
One thing is for sure, though. My feelings for him run deep. When we connect – I mean really connect – there are strong sparks there. I’m not talking about basic passion or lust between two people. It’s more of an unseen, powerful attraction, and it’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before.
This reminds me of an experience from when I was young that tested my ability to decipher true right from true wrong. When I was maybe thirteen, a boy at school took an interest in me. He was good-looking, tall, had an athletic build, and curly light brown hair that he kept cropped short on the sides. We flirted and passed notes like young people do. I talked about him with my girlfriends on the phone at night and wrote about him in my journal that I lovingly kissed and tucked under my pillow every night before going to sleep.
We went on our first date to the movies to see one of the Twilight films, I can’t remember which one. He held my hand when we walked and put his arm around me when we watched the movie. It was perfect.
He was my first kiss. I may have loved him, in a girl’s way. I’m sure I did.
Then the walls came crashing down. Later that week, I found out he was involved in some vandalism in the neighborhood. He had spray-painted some stuff on the front window of a local business, a tobacco merchant, if I remember correctly. He was caught after a friend bragged about it, and even though he desperately tried to explain everything to me and confess that he had made a stupid mistake, I wouldn’t listen. I was stubborn as a mule, and when I dig my heels in, there’s nothing that can dislodge me.
Then I dumped him. To say I was devastated was an understatement. I cried and carried on for weeks before my mom finally had a talk with me. This is how our conversation went, and I remember it like it happened yesterday and not ten years ago.
“You know, Isabella, I know you are hurting right now. I’ve been there before. I was once in love with a boy, and then I lost him to another. I cried for weeks until there were no more tears, only sorrow and pain. You need to forgive him.”
“But, mama, he committed a crime. He humiliated me.”
“I understand all that.” She grabbed both my hands in hers and continued. “People are imperfect. We all make mistakes and poor decisions. As human beings, we are all quick to judge. It is our nature. Did you ask him about what happened?”
“No. He tried to tell me but…”
“So what are you going on as the truth? What you heard from other people or read in the newspaper?”
“Yes… but…”
“But
nothing. I am your mother and I understand these things. I also understand that you have my stubbornness. We are imperfect. You are imperfect. Everyone you ever meet will be imperfect. All human beings are flawed no matter how hard they may try to hide it.”
“What are you saying, mama?”
“That you should give him a chance to explain. If you don’t at least hear him out, then you are not giving him or humanity a chance to prove that they are better than we sometimes give them credit for.”
“What if he does something like that again?”
“Then you need to make a decision. But until then, you give this boy another chance.”
I never gave that boy another chance. I was stubborn and thought I knew everything about the world, and when I look back, it seems absurd and silly.
As we progressed on through school, he did amazing things. He was a good student, a leader in student government, and from what I know, he never made a similar mistake again. We lost touch after high school, and I have no idea what’s he’s doing now.
It doesn’t matter. What does matter right now is that I’m faced with a repeat of that situation all over again. Could I accept Vito back despite what I know about him? He had a chance to explain, and from what I can tell, he was totally honest with me.
He lied initially, but when I pressed him, he told me the truth. He took a big risk telling me what he did. He lied to protect me, to protect us.
A lot of guys would have kept right on lying. Not Vito. Am I being hasty in keeping him at arm’s length?
I don’t know.
21
Nero
That’s it, rub that thigh. Yeah.
I like to do my own surveillance, not that I have to being a captain, but I especially enjoy doing surveillance on her. I lift the binoculars to my face again.
Yeah, she’s a pretty one. Latina for sure.
One of my guys who was showing up for his guard shift at the burning warehouse just happened to arrive as a man came running out of the alley. He had the presence of mind to tail him back to this location. That’s why we pay good men good money.
