Of all the things I’d done in my life, this was one of the hardest. Pressing the barrel of a gun to the back of a stranger’s head was not the same as sticking a needle in the arm of someone I’d once considered a friend.
Pete clenched his jaw in anger. “Do you need a reminder of how things work in this family?”
I shook my head. “Just give me a second, would ya?”
Marco cupped his hand on my shoulder, and I flinched from his touch. “Don’t think about it, bro. Just do it.”
“But,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“Right now,” Marco said. “He’s not the Antonio you know. His father is a fucking rat and a traitor. Remember that. Enzo would have put a bullet through your skull to get back at Pops and wouldn’t have thought about it for a second.”
He was right. I had to do this if I wanted to survive.
“Let’s go,” Pete growled in my ear, leaving the heat from his breath on my skin. “I don’t have all night to waste. Stick the fucking needle in his arm so I can go get my dick sucked.”
No compassion whatsoever.
Sex, murder, and drugs was my brother in a nutshell. If Antonio were anyone else, I wouldn’t have stopped to think about what I was doing. Like a machine, I would do it. But I had to act before my brothers reported back to my father I couldn’t finish the job.
I took the syringe from Pete’s open palm, sunk to the ground, and plunged the needle into Antonio’s arm. Pete handed me another needle, forcing me to empty the contents into Antonio’s lifeless body. He wanted to be sure Antonio wouldn’t survive the amount of heroin I’d shot into him.
It didn’t take long before Antonio’s body began to seize, and drool formed at the corner of his mouth.
Pete bent down to check his pulse and nodded. “Drive us to Scores,” he told Marco. “And make sure the girls are ready.”
Chapter Six
Angelo
Everything was numb. My body, my mind, even my dick couldn’t get hard with four naked girls dancing in front of me. Not that I had eyes for anyone but Gia, but a man should have felt something with this many naked women in the same room.
There was something different about killing Antonio Mancuso. It was the first time I’d realized I was an animal. I had no redeemable qualities. My soul could not be saved. I was not the person Gia thought I was. Whatever was left of that person died along with Antonio at the development site. Ice ran through my veins, its power taking over me. I was as dead on the inside as the man I’d just murdered.
Marco was on the other side of the private room from me, with one stripper riding him, while another shoved her tit into his mouth. The girl on top of him was so fucking loud I wanted to throw my glass of scotch at her head to shut her the fuck up.
Pete was in the opposite corner. A stripper dressed in what was supposed to be a barely there cop uniform sucked his cock. He fisted her blonde hair in his hands, forcing tears to stream down her face. My sick fuck of a brother looked about as into the blowjob as I was this entire fucking night.
I wanted to go the hell home, but I couldn’t bear to let Gia see me like this. Gia was supposed to stay at the house I shared off-campus with Sonny until I had to bail on her father’s party. I’d ignored the last few text messages she sent me. Even if it was only for the night, I needed some space to think. I had to digest what I had become.
One of the girls in the center of the room attempted to come near me. I turned the gun on my lap around to give her a better look. Her eyes grew wide with shock, and then she took a few steps back to join the other girls on the miniature stage.
Back the fuck up, bitch.
That’s what the gun on my thigh said to these whores. I was in no mood to deal with anyone, and I wouldn’t let them touch me for all the money in the world.
I tipped the glass in my hand to my lips and drank the rest of the scotch. It burned all the way down, and I loved the feeling. On nights like these, I would fuck Gia until her pussy was raw and she couldn’t take anymore. And she would let me do it. Because she knew I needed it. Tonight, I didn’t want to feel anything—not even her. I was surprised most by that revelation.
Nothing. Darkness.
That’s what I wanted to feel.
The next morning, I woke up on the couch in my living room, blinded by the sun in my eyes. It streamed through the open curtains, leaving its warmth on my cheek. My skull pounded as if a rock band had taken up residence inside my head. I was still unsure of how I wound up on the sofa in my boxers and no shirt.
I covered my face with my arm to shut out the sunlight, which was giving me a headache. My mouth tasted of scotch, and I could still smell cigarettes from the strip club in my hair.
Sonny cleared his throat, drawing my attention to him. He was lying back on the plush recliner by the window staring at me like some creepy fucker.
I propped myself up on my elbow and raised my eyebrows at him. “Can I help you?”
“Nah, I was just watching porn on my laptop.”
I blinked a few times, noticing the computer on the table next to him. “Bro, that’s fucking weird. Go jerk off somewhere else.”
“I said I was watching. You don’t see me with my dick in my hand,” he countered.
“What day is it?”
“Saturday,” he said without hesitation.
I was so sure it was Monday. My days were starting to blend together. At least it was a weekend. If I wasn’t following my brothers around, I had my nose in a law book and Gia at my side. I could relax with Gia. We spent most of our weekends either studying or fucking, sometimes both at the same time.
Gia made up a game she liked to call Legal Foreplay our first semester of college together. I had to earn every moan I ripped from her beautiful body. It was her way of making sure I studied. The only thing I was absolutely sure of back then, was I wanted to study every inch of her body. Her games had a lot to do with keeping my ass in check. Lord knows I needed it.
“We have to make our runs later,” Sonny said, still watching porn without sound.
I sat up and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my thighs. “Which collections? The ones for my dad or ours?”
“Ours. A lot of people owe us money after the last Eagles game.”
“Anyone in particular. I don’t feel like dealing with any more assholes today. I did enough of that last night.”
Sonny laughs. “I take it shit didn’t go well with Marco and Pete.”
“No, not at all. I don’t even know what the fuck to call what happened last night.”
“What did you guys do?”
“I killed Antonio Mancuso,” I confessed. “He was a junkie. We found him at a crack house in North Philly. I shot him up with H.”
Sonny gasped. “Get the fuck out of here. Are you serious?”
I nodded. “I wasn’t left with much of a choice. Us or Enzo. I chose my family.”
“What’s going down with your dad and Enzo?”
“I have no idea. All I know is Enzo went to the boss in North Jersey and formed some kind of alliance with him.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“We still have the families in New York, at least for now.”
“What about around here?”
I shrugged. “We have the rest of our crews. As far as I know, we’re still on good terms with O’Shea and the Irish, the local MCs, the Black Mafia, and some of the Russians. All of them need our connections with the cartels.”
“Is Enzo getting out of the drug business?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? Without us, he gets cut out of all of the cartel deals. No more drugs or guns. They can’t even use the Irish. O’Shea won’t work with a traitorous rat like Enzo.”
“So, we’re good then?” Sonny never looked worried. Like me, he had nerves of steel.
The only thing Sonny ever wanted was to be a Made man—like his father. While I constantly rebelled, Sonny literally lived up to his name and was the good son. He would’ve kill
ed Antonio last night without hesitation.
“Fat Tony called last night.” Sonny lifted the beer on the table next to him and took a long sip. “He has a big job and needs our help.”
I wiped the sleep from my eyes and looked for my pants on the floor. “I don’t know a thing about boosting cars.”
“Tony needs help scouting them, not stealing them. His guys have that part covered.”
“You think this is smart? We’re in the middle of a war right now.”
He held up his hands and shrugged. “Fuck if I know. It’s good money.”
I stood up to step into my pants and zipped them, glancing over at Sonny. “How much are we talking?”
“Ten Gs each just for putting together a list. You could use that to buy Gia’s engagement ring.”
I laughed. “I would need more than that to get Gia the ring she deserves. I got a stash saved for her ring and the wedding she wants.”
“I’m surprised you made it this long without getting her pregnant.”
I slipped my shirt over my head and tugged it over my stomach. “There’s nothing I’d love more than to see my girl with my baby in her stomach. But I made a deal with her dad that she’d finish college first. I want that for her, too. All the shit we have going on right now makes me want to use all the cash I have hidden to get Gia and Ma out of here.”
“You underestimate them. Your mother is one of the toughest women I know. So is Gia.”
I sat on the couch and sighed. “Last night was fucked up. I had Pete getting in my head about the war with Enzo. I know he’s right about Gia being my weakness. I would kill anyone who touched her… even you.”
“I know.” He closed the laptop and set the beer bottle on it. “I got your back. Don’t worry. If you can’t be there, I will. Gia is my family, too. Shit, I think I even knew her before you did.”
I smirked at him. “Don’t go laying claim on my girl.”
“Just saying. If things were different, Gia could have been with me.” He said the words with a wicked smirk on his smug face. “You never know.”
“Like she would ever date your degenerate ass.”
“You wear the same suits as me. Carry the same gun. We’re brothers, no different than the other.”
I nodded. He was right. My family looked at me like I was another trained soldier in the Morelli army. While we didn’t share the same last name, Sonny was my brother in every way. He was even more of a brother than my own brothers ever were to me.
“If anything ever happens to me, take care of her.”
Sonny bit the inside of his cheek, regarding me suspiciously. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Promise me,” I growled.
“Yeah, of course. I would protect her with my life. What’s all this talk about?”
“I killed the son of a Capo. Don’t you think he will want blood from my father?”
“You fed a junkie H. Drug addicts overdose all the time. How would they link it back to you?”
“We dumped him at the new development on the waterfront. The one my dad put Enzo in charge of after working out the deal with Carlini Construction.”
“Way to send a message.” Sonny nibbled on his thumb, one of his many nervous ticks. Biting on something was his tell. We all had one, and that was Sonny’s. “Now I see why you’re so worried about Gia. This could blow back on her dad.”
“Blood must be paid for with blood,” I told him.
“So, what are we going to do?”
“Wait, I guess. There’s nothing else we can do.”
Sonny didn’t like my answer. He thought we should make a plan. Sometimes, the man who smiled to your face was the one who stabbed you in the back. That’s how it worked in my world. You never saw a Wiseguy coming. So, what was the sense in thinking ahead of the enemy when we had no idea who would come for us?
Chapter Seven
Gia
One month later
Racketeering profits funded Carlini Construction, the mob-run development company founded by my father. I lived with that fact my entire life, one my mother had never come to terms with. I suppose, to some extent, it’d also shaped my future, made me a little rough around the edges.
As I stared out the window of my office, I thought of how many people my family had trampled over to get here. How many lives had my father ruined in pursuit of the American dream? We were as crooked as the Morellis, except we wrapped our transactions up in a neat package for our investors. Now, my father was a member of the City Council. We had everyone fooled, somehow managing to hide the corrupt, power-hungry parts of ourselves away from the public eye.
In addition to school, I worked at Carlini Construction. It was only temporary until my father could figure out an alternative plan. He couldn’t own this company and run for City Council. So, he signed it over to me.
I worked more than I slept. Most of the time I only saw Angelo at school or when he stopped by my office to take me out for dinner.
My secretary, Jennifer, pulled me from my trance when her silvery voice blared through the intercom on my desk. “Gianna, Mr. Rossi is on the line for you. Are you available?”
I rolled away from the window, slid my chair behind the large oak desk, and held down the button on my phone. “Yes. Put him through, Jen.”
Jennifer patched the call through, my ear burning at the sound of his deep voice. “Gianna.”
“What can I do for you, Mike?”
As the lead project manager for Carlini Construction, Mike Rossi was meaner than a pit bull on steroids. My father had insisted no man was better for the job when he hired Mike ten years ago, and despite his terrible manners, he was the most qualified and organized of our foreman.
“We have a new project I’d like you to work on with me. Angelo said you would personally handle the case.” His husky voice had the effect of someone clawing through the earpiece and drilling into my brain.
I smiled at the name Angelo until I realized he meant Angelo Sr., the devil who made my angel sin.
I held the receiver away from my ear as he continued, “Come up to my office around six. I’ll have Connie order us takeout from Vitale’s.”
I hesitated at first, now irritated this new project would require us to share a meal together, but I finally said, “Sure. Connie knows my order. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Great.” His tone softened as if I had just accepted a date from him.
He would hit on me at least three times a week or make some inappropriate comment when he thought no one was around. My Angelo would have put a bullet in Mike’s skull if he knew one of his father’s men made sexual advances at me. But he was one of those old timers who had no clue they were doing anything wrong.
I hung up without another word, dreading my dinner date. Mike had a reputation around the office. He’d wooed almost anything in a skirt. My father thought of him as a brother, which made exposing his truths complicated. Every time I mentioned his proclivities, my dad would shake it off, pretending Mike walked on air and all was good in the world.
As I stood in his doorway, wearing a skirt and blouse, his eyes traveled over my body before settling on my breasts, a devious expression crossing his face. I was used to men doing the exact same thing, but I would never get used to Mike doing it. Only Angelo was allowed to give me that bend-over-and-spread-your-legs look and get away with it.
Mike pointed to the brown bags on his conference table engraved with the CC logo found on everything in the office. “The food just arrived.”
I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, slowly making my way toward him. After I sifted through the containers, I sat at the opposite end of the table from him, as usual. The table had twelve chairs, yet I ate far enough away that I could’ve been in a different room.
“So far away, Gianna. I have to show you the design specifications. You won’t be able to see them from the other end of the table.” Mike patted the leather cushion of the high-back chair next to him.
“I�
��m fine down here,” I mumbled between bites of chicken Alfredo. “Let me eat first.”
Using a spoon to twirl the noodles onto my fork, I glanced over at him. He even stared at me while he ate, shoveling his food in his mouth like a pig eating out of a trough.
After he finished eating, he slid next to me with a stack of documents in hand and a rolled up map of the construction site. He set them in front of me, moving the documents next to my legal pad and pen. I flipped through the pages, one at a time, until I had a sense of what we were building.
“A townhouse development,” I said, perplexed. “Why would we want to own and operate an association in the middle of nowhere? There’s no civilization for miles.”
“It’s not about the location.”
“Then, what’s it about? I don’t understand why you would want me to sign off on funding for this project when it doesn’t make any sense. According to the documents, we’re paying more than the land is worth.”
“Talk to your father. He understands how this business works.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I sank back into my chair, studying the papers. “I never heard of JK Developers. Why are we buying the land from them?”
“The owners are close personal friends of the family.”
“Oh,” I said, now knowing what he meant. But that didn’t help me understand why I was signing off on the financing for the housing development in the boondocks of Pennsylvania. This deal was a favor for someone else, not an acquisition for Carlini Construction.
My father was supposed to get rid of the shady deals we had going for the Morellis and replace them with legitimate ones. Why was I surprised he lied? Half of the names on our payroll were connected men. Most of our employees were nothing more than names on a paycheck. They did zero to contribute to my family’s company in any way, other than to take up space and hit on secretaries when they wanted to pretend they had a real job. Mike was a creep, but at least he was the exception. He earned the money we gave him.
“I want to talk to my dad before I sign anything. Okay?”
The First Sin (Sins of the Past Book 1) Page 5
