“Tell me this was just a coincidence, you patronizing a club well-known to be operated by the Gallo family.”
My father moved to stand beside me, leaving Anthony facing Alex, their eyes showing no emotion.
“Now, tell me this isn’t you selling a shipment of guns from my warehouse to Alex.”
Demetri had changed to a video showing images of the two, laughing and smoking behind a building. Anthony was bragging about how my father had become a “soft old man who was too stupid to see what was right under his own nose.” How I was the bastard child of poor upbringing, too lost in a warm snatch to see what was happening to my seat of power.
My gut tightened, as that part was the truth. I had disconnected myself more than I should have, ignoring the foundation of this Family for a warm pussy or waiting mouth.
Up on the screen, guns were being carried from the warehouse to an awaiting van by the thugs who had been hired by Anthony. “We will make a fine team,” Alex boasts in the final frame of the video. Demetri paused the video then, freezing the image of the two shaking hands over their new deal.
“Just so you know, your new posse couldn’t rat you out fast enough.” I tossed a final photo at his feet, a picture of his three men we’d questioned—a bullet hole pierced the center of each of their heads. My words were full of vengeance and I enjoyed watching him swallow hard.
“Now, Anthony, I can overlook your desire to make a place for yourself in the world. I understand a man’s need for a good living, grabbing his piece of the pie, but I don’t have the understanding for planned and calculated betrayal.” My father turned his back, taking the seat I had been sitting in.
I unbuttoned my jacket, and then held my hands casually in front of me. Anthony slowly turned around, facing me. “You really thought I wouldn’t find out?” Anthony went to open his mouth and I slapped his face like the pussy-assed bitch he was. “That wasn’t a fucking question!” A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his lip, a stream of crimson descending down his face.
“Antonio was right. A man needs to earn his way in life. I can ignore the bullshit comments you made about me, and even my father.” I motioned to Demetri, who changed the screen to black, which grabbed Anthony’s attention. The photos of the men Anthony had hired to rough up the neighborhood started scrolling across the screen, landing on a picture I hadn’t seen. It was of Ari and Gabby sitting at an outside restaurant, at what looked to be Times Square.
More pictures flashed across the screen; Anthony looking at my girl, blowing her a kiss, and then lastly, a picture of distaste for the gesture written all over her face. A look, I thanked God, I had never received. Then the screen switched to the video of the day, the one that had brought all of this about. With clenched teeth, I watched as Ari walked to the center of Dorfman’s store and hit Anthony, shattering the coffee pot against his face. And I seethed watching how he hit her in the face and stomped on her—like she was a man who owed him money—and then there was the look of enjoyment as he spit on the floor beside her body.
Alex chose that moment to stand up and cross the room to where I stood. “Is she an Untouchable?” His tone was disbelieving. “Or like all the others, just someone you fucked?” He was grasping at straws.
My father was out of his seat, along with three of our men. Dad’s body wedged between Anthony and Alex, both my father, and I, confirmed for him Ari’s status.
For as long as I could remember that title, and its meaning, had carved a steel cage in my soul. No matter the circumstances or reasons, once a person, usually a woman, was labeled as Untouchable, it was a death sentence to cause harm to them. Antonio had given the title to three women in his life. My two mothers and Karla. Marissa wanted it, Miranda had mentioned it, but it was Ari who’d received the label from me. Even if Ari walked away from me tonight, she would always be protected. Even I was forbidden to cause her harm.
“How the fuck was I supposed to know?” Anthony picked the wrong time to show he still had a set of balls.
Marco was across the room quicker than I could blink, pounding his fists into Anthony’s face. The force of the hits were so severe Anthony’s head shot straight back with each punch.
Demetri started the video of the meeting where it’d been announced Ari was given the title. With blood now running like an open faucet from his broken nose, Anthony tried to hide his face, but Marco continued to slap him like I had, forcing him to focus on the screen.
“You think just because you let Dominick fuck your pussy you can do what you want around here? He fucks a lot of pussy, yours isn’t special.”
Watching Anthony talk to Ari in such a disgusting way made me want to end his life right then. But that would be too good for him, too easy. He would pay for what he had done to her.
“You knew exactly what she was and you chose to speak to her like some whore, and struck her like a man. Tell me, Anthony, what bothered you more, that she passed you up more than once or that she was going to be someone who could give you orders? She could make you scrub her fucking shop floors or take out her garbage.”
The thing about being an Untouchable, it wasn’t about the protection, but also the power it gave a person. They can tell any one of the men in the Family to do something. If my mother wanted her security detail to polish her kitchen floor, they would drop to their knees and start cleaning. She would never use this type of power for such a thing, but when she’d told my father about Zippy and the illegal apartment he was operating, she had used that authority. Ari didn’t know it at the time, but she could have asked any man working for us to handle Anthony for her, and they would have, with great pleasure.
“Wait… we haven’t heard of any Untouchables being added to the family,” Alex spoke, his hand raised as a warning to my men who stood beside my father. A single word fell from my father’s lips, but they were enough to cause Alex to show his defeat.
“Gloria.”
Gloria was a young girl who Alex pursued. He’d been married at the time. Unfortunately, the young girl hadn’t returned his feelings, and he didn’t give up so easily. He went ahead and gave her the Untouchable title, but only informed his closest men. Alex’s wife found out about his pursuit of Gloria and ordered one of his men to kill her. The guy made it look good and Alex had thought, for a while, that her death wasn’t Family related. Later, Alex tried to cheat the guy in a deal he had made, so the kid came to my father wanting revenge. At the same time, Alex’s wife had grown sick of his shit and admitted what she had done. He demanded my father honor the code and kill the man who now worked for us. Antonio, with no choice, had fired the bullet.
Alex hung his head as he nodded his agreement. Not knowing about Ari being an Untouchable wasn’t a justification for what had happened.
“You came here thinking you deserved to become a member of this Family, branded for life as a Made Man.” Not wanting to miss a single drop of sweat running down his face or his labored last breath, I kept eye contact and slammed down the aged, wooden lid of the box, vanishing any hope remaining in Anthony.
“But don’t worry, Anthony. I won’t let you die without knowing what the feel of hot metal against your skin is like, or how the smell of singed flesh makes your stomach turn. While we’re at it, I’ll let you see what your dinner from last night looks like, too. Demetri, strip him.” Turning back to look at my father, I removed my jacket and rolled up my sleeves.
Anthony bucked and yelled for us to let him go, but Demetri already had his knife pulled, not caring if flesh was cut along with the suit he wore. “You can’t do this to me, I fucking own you!”
I’d expected as much, the final desperation from a dying man. It wouldn’t be long before the tears came, followed by pleading.
Sick of this bullshit, I took the knife from Demetri and pushed the edge into Anthony’s left cheek. A small drop of blood pearled at the edge of the blade. I wanted to give him a small slice of what was about to happen, elevating his fright until I could see nothing e
lse in his eyes.
Anthony had a big mouth and a decent set of balls when he chose to spit in my face. “Fuck you, Nicky, you pussy-assed bitch.”
His words should have pissed me off; instead they served to fuel the energy I needed to silence him. Using his traitor mouth as a guide, I slid the edge of the blade between his lips and then shoved it forward. Flashes of Ari’s face as she nearly vomited from his touch urged me on. Soon after I heard the pop from the separation of flesh and tendon, and his blood mixed with the saliva pouring down both sides of his face. His cries, begging me to stop, fell on the walls around me, deafened by the rage in my gut at the betrayal he had brought to my Family, my home, and to the girl I wanted to call my own. His eyes were wide with fear, but his agony hadn’t come close to an end.
Twisting the blade down, I could feel it scraping his back teeth while maneuvering my wrist. Staring into his fear-filled eyes, the scent of blood ripe in the air, I could see the deformity my punishment was causing. Several teeth snapped off when I twisted harder on the blade. His shaking was helping my mission, severing more of his flesh and bringing him closer to a painful death. Blood poured down his naked chest, his screams muffled by the odd shape his face now had. With a swift slash, the blade severed his tongue, the muscle falling to the cement floor below us. Anthony’s struggles were now more a string of moans, his limp body glistening with his own blood.
“You touched her face, said things to her which weren’t true. You put your…” I fought to hold in my emotions, anger and hate joining together as a diabolical force pulsing through my veins, “…lips near her ear. Close to the flesh where she lays her head down to sleep at night, dreaming of beautiful places and of a man who will make her happy.”
Anthony’s head falls to his chest, I assume praying for death. His prayers would be answered, but not before he paid for every second of unpleasantness he caused my Ari.
His body has gone too lax, blood loss helping to make the pain and the image of his death less intolerable. Using the knife in my hand to increase his suffering, and to keep my word, which I’d given him earlier, I sliced through the skin of his lower pelvis, cutting in a ‘u’ shape, and twisting the blade while his tremors increased. His intestines fall to the floor like red ribbons, thick with blood and things I can only imagine.
“You said you were going to fuck her in her ass.” I snickered at the thought. “Rather impossible when you no longer have a dick.” The slashing of his shriveled manhood is quick, his blood loss increasing. His life will end soon, and the suffering will be over. “You came here with the assumption you were getting a mark. I told you earlier your flesh would be marred, but not by the ring of my ancestors.”
Looking to Demetri, whose face is a mix between admiration and disbelief, I instruct, “Get me the iron bar left over from the floor repair.” Then I lean Anthony over the wooden table, the best place for him considering my final plan.
Demetri hands me the rebar, the rusted metal twisted into a shape designed to withstand fire and weight of great proportions. In my father’s rouse to make Anthony think he was being Made today, a fire had been started in one of the trash cans from outside.
I slid the rebar into the blue flames, the hottest part of the fire. “Anthony, you told her you and I had shared many woman, which was a lie.” Removing the bar from the flame, several inches of the metal glow with heat. “We have shared many whores, but never a good woman, with character and values.” A woman too good for me, I thought silently to myself.
“You will never touch her, frighten her, or make her shed a single tear again. You will burn in the belly of hell while she dances like the angel she is at our wedding.” Gripping the pipe firmly in my hand, the heat almost reaches my own skin. “By this fire you are born.” Five words I can recall with clarity from my own ceremony is all he gets, he doesn’t deserve the rest, only the chosen do.
With a swift hand and a strong purpose, I shoved the glowing metal up his ass. His body came alive from the pain, thrashing as he tried to get away. The smell of his flesh searing from the heat causes Gallo to cough, getting my attention back on him.
“With each passing year, every movement of the hands of the clock, you’ve waited. Hoping for the tiniest crack to form so you could pour yourself through it.” Reaching over, my hands covered in his blood, I picked up Anthony’s severed tongue and tossed the offending flesh at Alex Gallo’s feet. “You trusted the wrong man, believed he could be the one to help you get to me, to my Family. But just like everything else, you were wrong.”
Uncle Carmine had given me a handgun when I turned eighteen. He’d then told me when it came time for me to shoot to do it with purpose, and to never use it for showing off for a short skirt or to make my balls look bigger to the men.
Taking my gun from its holster, I aimed and pulled the trigger. The loud bang of the .45 filled the room, followed by the clinking of the empty shell bouncing off the concrete floor. One of Gallo’s bodyguards, who had snickered while he watched Anthony die, fell—a single bullet to the center of his still-opened eyes. His body landed on the cold concrete floor with several chunks of brain matter lying around his head. Placing my gun back in my jacket, I leaned over and spit on his face. “Get this son of a bitch out of my sight before he stinks up the place.”
Turning back to a lifeless Anthony, the bar still sticking out of his naked body, dead, all for the power he’d thought he could steal. “Marco, I want this motherfucker found. I want to send a clear message to everyone that this Family won’t be fucked with.”
I NEVER QUESTIONED WHY THE police weren’t called after the attack or voiced my opinion on why Dominick was called instead of an ambulance. I didn’t say anything about how a private physician was able to arrive minutes after being called, supplied with everything needed to tend to my injuries. I never spoke of the man I saw sitting across the street at three in the morning as I changed the locks on my front door, so no one would know I had. Never said anything about the way people on the street moved out of my way when I walked down the block. I kept the knowledge from Sophia and Gabby on how I would find Dominick sitting in his car across the street, watching the shop and my home, and meeting with one of two men several times a day.
Nor would I ever speak of the white envelope passed to the dark-haired man who watched from the rooftop, once from Dominick and once from the older man Dominick spoke with. I doubted anyone knew Antonio had been speaking with the man, too, passing him additional envelopes. I kept my mouth shut, and my eyes and ears open, knowing this was far from over. A silent mouth reveals listening ears. It had always worked well for me, kept me safe from Corey, and now I hoped from Dominick, too.
Nearly two weeks after the incident, I was getting the backroom ready for a large delivery. Sophia had been moving her things out of the shop. This was yet another thing I never said anything about; how she was taking so long to remove her things after she’d sold it to me so quick, and from my research, so cheap.
Sophia was leaving behind a few pieces in my office, including the flat screen hanging on the wall. She insisted it would cause more damage to have it pulled down than it was worth; just another thing I chose not to bring up. Today, Sophia was watching a talk show about older women pursuing younger men. She would make a comment from time to time about ‘seasoned wine’ or something to the effect. Just as the delivery guy came into the shop, the sounds of the local news channel music came blaring through the speakers.
“We interrupt this program with breaking news. NYPD has been called to a construction site, where workers have found the body of Anthony Salluzzo, a known member of one of New York’s crime families. Detective Gleason is about to make a statement. We take you live to Christina Markle, who has been on scene since the story first broke.”
The anchorman began speaking to a beautiful blonde reporter holding a black microphone. The scene behind her showed many cameramen trying to get a shot of what was unfolding. She thanked the anchor, whose name I didn’
t catch. Christina explained construction workers had found the body when they arrived on site of the new high-rise going up on what was once a mattress factory. She then added construction companies had been rehabbing many old and rundown buildings in the city, turning them into places to live. Businesses, as part of the city’s tax incentive for new growth and revitalization in the abandoned areas of the city, had also been taking advantage of the rehabs. She abruptly stopped her story when a tall man dressed in a suit began to speak.
“At approximately seven forty-five this morning, Anthony Salluzzo’s body was found by a team of workers preparing to start their work day. Workers reported they had suspended a welder the night before, the welder was found secured to a nearby building and Mr. Salluzzo’s body was hanging in its place.” A scattering of voices was heard; each reporter wanted to ask a question of Detective Gleason.
“You said he was hanging from a crane, can you give any other details?”
Detective Gleason cleared his throat while looking at the reporter. “Yes, Salluzzo was placed upside down, his genitals cut off and his tongue removed, a dead rat in its place. He was naked, with a metal rod in his rectum. We cannot speculate on the sequence of his injuries.”
Reporters shouted over one another as they tried to gain the attention of the Detective. Finally, a question about Salluzzo’s list of known crimes was heard over the din.
“The New York Police Department has recently been in partnership with the FBI and the DEA regarding a line of criminal activity Mr. Salluzzo was wanted in question for. Most recently, his fingerprints were positively identified at a crime scene in Louisiana. We have been able to confirm his involvement in several other murders from Florida to Texas. With his death, it will be a comfort to the victim’s families knowing the killer has been dealt with.”
Another reporter caught his attention. “Can you comment on why there was such brutal treatment of Mr. Salluzzo?”
Stolen Secrets Page 17
