Sons of War 3: Sinners

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Antonio laughed. “What military? The Executive Council will never send troops out here again. The people will turn on them. There will be riots, violence.”

  “But if they do, they could ruin us, like they almost did the last time the military was in Los Angeles.”

  Antonio put a hand under her chin, lifting it so she would meet his gaze.

  “No one will ruin us again, my love,” he said.

  Lucia let her arms down, exposing the three gold chains around her neck. The gold accentuated her olive skin. She loved gold—and diamonds too: the two-carat studs in her ears, the three-carat stone on her finger.

  Thriving indeed.

  Antonio pulled out one of two guest chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat, Lu.” Turning her own tactic back on her and using her shortened name seemed only to infuriate her more.

  “No. I don’t want to sit. You’re being an asshole.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Most of his soldiers’ wives would have gotten a slap for talking to them this way. But Antonio wasn’t like most men in this line of work. He saw the woman in front of him as his equal.

  “Marco will never be ready if he stays locked away here or out all night at one of his clubs,” Antonio said.

  “I’d rather see him drink too much and make poor decisions with girls than see him gunned down in the street,” Lucia replied. “The Saints will kill him the first chance they get. You know this, Antonio.”

  He got up and moved to her as her fierce eyes met his.

  “I heard you agreed to let him hunt the Saints so he could earn a place at the table. So clearly, your deal about a desk job was a lie.”

  Deals, so many deals.

  Don Antonio was a man of deals. Even now in middle age, when most men of his stature were content to sit back, he was still hustling. He had a fresh deal with Esteban Vega, deals with the cops, deals with the Russians, deals with the gangbangers, deals with the City Council, and soon a new deal with Mayor Buren.

  But the deal that mattered most was the one he had made with his wife many years ago, when Marco was born.

  “I’m taking care of the Saints,” he said. “Don’t worry, my love. Marco is safe. You will see.”

  She shook her head. “I did not want this life for him.”

  “Neither did I, but Marco must choose his own way. And this is what he wants. It’s also the only way to keep him safe. I realize that now, more than ever. There is no escaping the empire we have created. We own it, but it also owns us.”

  “I’d rather he spent his days at the pool getting drunk than see him murdered.”

  “He has a lot better odds of not being killed if we teach him how to survive . . . Besides, someday I will be gone, and he must be the man of the house.”

  Lucia seemed to soften at that assertion.

  Antonio brushed the side of her face with his ring. Its gold M glided over her olive skin. She held his gaze, then reluctantly took the offered chair.

  Perhaps she didn’t like the idea of her husband dying, or perhaps she knew he was right about their son needing to cut his teeth out there in the slums.

  “Marco isn’t street smart like Vinny, or strong like you,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happened to him.”

  “You coddled him. He will never learn if you continue enabling him.”

  “We both did.” The fierce brown eyes settled on his. They seemed to lighten a bit as she relaxed in the plush seat.

  “No more enabling,” Antonio said.

  “Okay,” she said, her voice softening further with resignation. “Marco’s failures are my own. I’m just worried we’re going to lose him to the same world we have tried to protect him from—the world we did not want him to know.”

  Antonio sat down in the chair beside her. He put his hand over hers.

  “Christopher and Vinny are looking after Marco, and so am I. I won’t let anything happen to him. I almost lost you both in Naples, and I will never let that happen again.”

  Lucia bit the inside of her lip. “Promise me. Promise me on your soul.”

  “On my soul. I will protect you both, no matter the cost.”

  A rap on the door interrupted their conversation, but he held her gaze for several beats. Then he picked up her hand, brought it to his lips, and gave a gentle kiss, pausing for a moment to look at the diamond he had given her when he promised to be with her for life.

  That promise wasn’t part of a deal like the others.

  “Don Antonio,” said a voice out in the hallway. The double mahogany doors opened. Lino was first into the room, tucking his shades up into his hair. Marco rushed inside, a smile on his face.

  “Marco!” Lucia exclaimed. She hurried over to give the boy a hug, but Antonio simply stood and watched. Judging by Marco’s grin, he was just fine.

  It was time the kid learned to be a man.

  Marco groaned as Lucia embraced him.

  “Mom, come on,” he grumbled.

  The other captains and soldiers laughed but were silenced by her icy glare. The reaction made Antonio crack a smile. Sometimes, his wife was a thorn in his side, but her aggressiveness was part of the reason he had fallen in love with her.

  She was a great mother and a great wife. And Antonio would do everything he could to honor his promise to her, even if it meant breaking others.

  He walked over to the window.

  “It’s done,” Lino said. He joined him at the glass overlooking the compound. “We’re ready for phase two of the plan.”

  Antonio nodded.

  Below, the front gates parted and began to swing inward. Two Toyota pickup trucks were lined up behind a white maintenance van. Men in tactical gear, wearing ballistic masks and carrying automatic rifles, piled into the vehicles.

  Vinny and Christopher approached the second pickup, and Christopher stopped and looked up at the window.

  “Dad, there’s something I need to tell you,” Marco said.

  Antonio remained at the window.

  “I had the contact from the port killed at Lincoln Heights. I thought . . .” Marco stiffened. “I messed up, Dad. I was just trying to make you proud, but we should have talked to him first to see if he had leaked the shipment to the Saints.”

  Antonio stared at his son.

  “We had another lead on a doctor that was at the hospital with the Saints,” Marco said, “but someone got to him before us.”

  Antonio already knew both these things, but he didn’t tell his son. He needed to keep some decisions secret. Things were in motion that his son and his wife couldn’t know about.

  He looked down at his soldiers below, and Marco stepped up beside him at the window.

  It felt good to have his boy here.

  “Where are Uncle Chrissy and Vinny going?” Marco asked.

  Antonio watched the convoy leave the compound. Soon he would teach his son about how to build, broker, and break a deal.

  But not yet. Marco first needed to see how it was done.

  Today, Antonio was the dealmaker, but by tonight, he would also be a deal breaker.

  * * *

  Max Sammartino. Dom repeated the name to himself.

  “You ready, boss?” Moose asked.

  “Only for the last eight years.”

  They both wore shades and filtration masks as Moose drove the Jeep in the bright morning sun. Their destination wasn’t far, and he slowed as they approached the first of several roadblocks surrounding the Southland’s most infamous prison.

  From the outside, the House of the Devil looked a lot like the other government buildings constructed after the war. Built almost completely of concrete, with barred windows, and solar panels jutting off the rooftop. But unlike the housing projects in the slums, the grounds were surrounded by concentric razor-wire-topped fences, minefields, and radioactive dirt.

  Moose pulled up to the first roadblock. Both he and Dom wore their Sheriff’s Department uniforms and got waved through without any issues.

>   The guards here were mostly young men or women without experience working the border, or men too old to work that more hazardous job. For all they knew, Dom and Moose were deputies here to see a prisoner. No one would dream they were Saints.

  Moose parked the Jeep by an open warehouse-sized garage sheltering a motor pool of MRAPs and flatbed trucks. The former military vehicles were painted brown and marked with LASD logos.

  Guarding the secure steel entrance were two deputies wearing layered coats, helmets, and orange goggles. Not an inch of skin was exposed to the elements.

  They stepped aside as Dom and Moose approached.

  “Morning,” Dom said.

  “Yup,” replied one of the men, his voice muffled by the mask. He used a key card to unlock the door. A third guard waited inside. Moose and Dom followed him down a passage to a desk.

  “We’re here to see Prisoner Four One Five Oh,” Dom said, holding out the paperwork Marks had given him.

  The woman at the desk looked up from a book, clearly annoyed at having to check their paperwork and identification. After glancing at each, she lazily hit a button.

  The next door buzzed and opened.

  “Have fun,” she said, looking back down at her book. “Oh, and you might want to keep your masks on—sewage line’s backed up again.”

  Dom and Moose walked into a hallway with vaulted ceilings and two floors of cells. Prisoners got up from their bunks to look out through the bars.

  Flies buzzed thick around buckets of feces inside the multiperson cells. Most of the inmates were thin as scarecrows, their bones protruding against the faded gray shirts and tattered pants. Sweat dripped down their filthy bodies, radiating a stench Dom could smell through his breathing apparatus.

  The prisoners let out a blue streak of profanities at the passing deputies. Some even spat through the bars.

  A guard hit the iron bars with his baton, forcing the inmates back.

  “Quiet, maggots!” another guard yelled. “Or I’m collecting some fingernails tonight.”

  In a few minutes, Dom was going to do far worse to Max.

  They walked through the minimum-security wing and came up on the maximum zone. Only a few light bulbs worked, casting shadows over a hallway that reeked of feces, old sweat, and rot.

  A guard took Dom and Moose to a steel door. Unlocking it, he gestured toward a man inside, sitting on a bench that must have also been his bunk. His feet and hands were shackled to a chain anchored to the wall.

  Dom scrutinized the gaunt man under a light that flickered on. What remained of him still looked Italian: the slicked-back hair, the dark eyes, the cross tattooed on his neck.

  “Max Sammartino,” Moose said.

  The prisoner blinked in the light, holding a shackled hand up to shield his eyes. They widened when they flitted from Moose to Dom.

  “What do you pigs want?” His chains rattled as he got off the bunk. “I’ve already answered your dumb-ass questions.”

  “We’re here to ask you a few more,” Dom said calmly.

  Moose nodded at the bench. “Sit.”

  Reluctantly Max sat, blinking rapidly. It was more of a twitch, really. He was a jittery son of a bitch, his right leg bouncing like a sewing machine needle. Dom wondered whether the guy would recall anything from so long ago, but he was prepared to beat the memory out of him if necessary.

  “We heard you picked up a girl at the Downey High School eight years ago,” Dom said. “I want to know where you took her.”

  Max looked away.

  “You’re going—” Moose started to say.

  Dom took a step closer and hunched slightly. “What my friend was about to say is that you’re going to answer our questions, or this is going to be very unpleasant.”

  Moose bent down too. “We’re not like the other guys you’ve talked to.”

  A cackle broke from Max’s cracked lips. “You can’t do shit to me that I haven’t already endured.”

  “Is that so?” Moose said, with a grin that even Dom found a little unnerving.

  Max’s sullen glare didn’t change.

  “Now for the questions,” Dom said. He asked Max if he remembered going to the high school the day his sister was kidnapped. The date didn’t ring a bell, but mention of the school did seem to evoke some memory that flashed in the prisoner’s eyes.

  A crooked black grin crossed his face. He closed his lips over the rot and looked away. He was going to need some encouragement to talk.

  Dom took out the needle-nose pliers from his duty belt, letting Max watch him as he paced in front of his bench.

  “You ever had a fingernail peeled off?” Dom asked. “The guards say it can sometimes happen around here.”

  Max laughed, and Dom decided it was time to prove he was serious. Instead of taking a fingernail, he grabbed Max’s ear in the pliers, squeezed, and twisted. He held up the hunk of cartilage admiringly.

  Max yowled, and Moose stuffed a bandanna into his mouth.

  Bulging eyes roved from Dom to Moose as Max kept up his muffled screaming into the cloth.

  Dom wiped the chunk of ear off onto Max’s shirt. “I’m going to ask you again,” he said.

  Moose reached over to take the bandanna. “You scream, and he’ll have your eye looking back at you. You understand?”

  Max looked at the pliers and then nodded. Moose slapped him on the side of the head, then yanked the bandanna out.

  Moose and Dom waited for Max to catch his breath. Then he said, “I went to that school, yeah. I went to a lot of schools. They were part of our stops back then.”

  “You took kids from the schools during the war?” Moose asked. “Girls?”

  “And a few boys.”

  Dom and Moose exchanged a glance.

  “Sold ’em for great prices too. Even got me a little taste when the boss wasn’t lookin’.”

  Dom felt his blood turn to ice water.

  “You remember this girl?” he managed to say through a clenched jaw. He held up a picture of Monica.

  Max squinted.

  “She don’t look familiar, but who knows? I seen a thousand that age.”

  Dom swallowed. A thousand girls. He could feel Moose’s eyes on him, evaluating when the ice would turn to lava and blow.

  “Look, guys, I don’t got the best memory no more.”

  Dom held the picture out again. “Think real hard.”

  Max leaned closer. “Yeah, I think I remember her. But I don’t know where they took her after we dropped her off.”

  “We?” Dom asked.

  Moose stepped closer, and Dom clacked the bloody pliers together. “The guys you worked with are the last thing you should be worried about right now. Mobsters can’t kill you in here. We, on the other hand, are right here in your cell.”

  Max swallowed hard but didn’t reply.

  Dom clicked the pliers again. “Not playing, Maxie. If you don’t start talking right now, the next divot comes out of your itty-bitty pecker.”

  Moose gave him a worried glance, but Dom didn’t care.

  “Vito,” Max finally said. “It was almost always me and Vito.”

  “Vito got a last name?” Moose asked.

  Max looked at him as if he were stupid.

  Dom already knew who he was talking about. Vito was a cousin of Don Antonio. The fat bastard was rumored to be the kingpin behind their drug operation.

  “Vito Moretti. Yeah, we’ve heard of him,” Dom said. “Back to what you were saying about the girl. Where’d you drop her off?”

  Sweat beaded on Max’s brow as his eyes shifted back and forth, from Dom to Moose and back again. Then he relaxed, as if realizing that this was it for him. He had nothing waiting for him outside, even if he did get released someday.

  Max suddenly swatted at his ear like someone trying to get rid of an annoying mosquito.

  “You jonesing, Max?” Dom said. “If you tell me what I need to know, I’ll give you something to relieve your pain. All you gotta do is tell me wh
ere they would have taken her after you dropped her off.”

  Max looked up, the fear gone, replaced by the prospect of a fix. “I . . . I might be able to recall.”

  “Mite lives on a stray dog’s ass,” Moose said, shaking his head. “Not really what we’re looking for.”

  Dom was losing his patience again. The scattered thoughts, his thumping heart, and his sweaty hands were all signs the volcano was about to blow. He needed to hold it together a little longer.

  “Tell me where they would have taken this girl, and I’ll give you something for your pain,” Dom said, speaking slowly.

  “Why is she so important?” Max asked, tilting his head curiously.

  “Answer the question,” Moose said. He took off his coat and draped it on the side of the sink. Max looked at the bulging biceps and watched him crack his knuckles.

  “Probably got taken to Vegas,” Max said.

  Dom and Moose exchanged another look. They had already searched Sin City for Monica. Hearing that it was likely the place confirmed what Dom already assumed: his sister was gone forever.

  “That’s where most of the calves went.”

  The comparison of his sister to livestock was the final straw. Dom grabbed Max by the cheeks, pressing in so hard, he felt a rotted tooth break off. He squeezed harder.

  Then he let go and punched Max in the nose, popping his head backward.

  Moose walked over to the door and peered through the window, then nodded back at Dom. He pulled a knife out of his pocket, flipped it open, and brought it over.

  Max choked, sobbing into his hands. “No,” he stammered. “I answered your questions. Please . . . You said you’d get me a fix.”

  Moose forced the wadded-up bandanna back in his mouth, then put him in a full Nelson hold.

  Lieutenant Marks’s words surfaced in his mind. That’s what separates us from them.

  Then he remembered his dad’s words.

  Sometimes, you have to use evil to fight evil.

  Dom had followed the law for years—conflicted but never wavering too far from his promise to Marks that he wouldn’t become like his dad or the gangsters.

  But over the past few nights, he had deviated further and further from his promise.

  Tonight, for the first time in eight years, he knew who was responsible for taking his sister. And his next stop was to find Vito Moretti. When he was done with Vito, he would go after the king of the entire operation. The man who, Dom had always known deep down, was responsible for the destruction of his family.