Innocent (Omertà Book 1)

by Anna Widzisz

  “Listen, sweetheart. You have the chance to save one of them,” Martha said, pulling Lynette’s hair back hard to look at her as if to make her acknowledge the situation she was currently in. “If I were to bet, it seems to me that you would save your lover,” she added.

  She went to Drew, pulling the knife out and stood behind him, leaning forward with the weapon in his direction. She touched the blade to his face, at which the girl began to desperately struggle, making Ricci hold her chair so that it wouldn’t tip over. He pulled her hair back, just as the agent had done moments ago, stopping her from another rage.

  Drew’s face was stone cold. As if this didn’t affect him at all. It was safe to assume that there hadn’t been an event like this before in his life, but for some reason, the only readable emotion was his concern about Lynette.

  “You’ll regret this. You’ll all regret this,” Lynette shouted.

  “Well, well! She’s threatening us now!” Martha laughed. “And here I thought you were a good girl, like your mother. Taking after her in all aspects.”

  “Rage is the one thing I got from my father,” she seethed.

  Ricci regarded her coldly. “I should have killed you a long time ago. So many years of driving you everywhere, fulfilling your idiotic fucking whims. It was as if there were no interesting tasks that I could take care of. As if I wasn’t a real Made Man.”

  Along with those words he looked at the Capo, letting him know that he’d been the one to condemn him to work as a chauffeur when his skills could have been used in a different way. The man had started as a street racer and ended up as the ordinary driver of a teenage girl.

  “I've got a proposition for you. I'll ask you a question and if you give me the right answer, I'll let your boyfriend go,” the woman offered, still playing with the knife, rolling it up and down Drew's face. The blade wandered on his temple, making its way to his lips and then rested on his cheek, but without any pressure. There was no blood.

  Lynette didn’t say anything. She knew that the woman would ask her question regardless. The girl didn’t even believe that if she answered well, Drew would be set free, but she had to try.

  “Tell me why Jason calls you Sco,” she ordered, turning her gaze, but Lynette was too focused on the fact that the knife was aimed at Drew’s throat. “I’m waiting,” the woman urged.

  “I always complained that my hair looked as if it was red, so Jason started to call me Sco, which is short for the Italian word scoiattolo. It means squirrel.”

  She didn’t know why Martha was so eager to find out, but it had been a truthful answer, so there was a small chance that Drew would be given back his freedom. She prayed that it would happen.

  The agent hid the knife into her pants, straightened up and walked away from the boy towards Lynette. She sighed loudly, stopping in front of her.

  “This is total, one hundred percent bullshit,” she admitted. She walked up to Carnovale, freeing him from the ropes. “The word Sco, as my brother uses it, means scoglio, which means,”

  “Obstacle,” Lynette whispered, her thoughts beginning to run one hundred miles per minute.

  “So, let's start again,” she sang. ”My name is Isabelle Venas, and this is my younger brother Luca Venas. I don’t think I need to tell you, Severo, who our father was,” she added as the man joined her, taking his holster from one of the Made Men.

  Saying that nobody had expected that turn of events, would be the understatement of the century.

  CHAPTER 33

  Catania, Sicily 2002

  It was quiet. Too quiet. Ten-year-old Luca walked from room to room, looking for his parents or anyone else for that matter – be it bodyguards or his father's co-workers, but nobody was there. It was like the ground had swallowed them, because half an hour ago, the house had been full of people preparing for a big undertaking, judging by the impetus with which they were collecting weapons and planning a tactic.

  The boy didn’t know much yet, besides what his father really did for a living, and that he was slowly being prepared to enter the dangerous world of the mafia, although no one had shared any details with him until they were given specific permission to. Even though he was still a child and didn’t understand many things, he felt more than ready to be initiated without even knowing what that really meant.

  At the end of the corridor, he heard someone’s whisper. He looked in that direction, noticing his older sister Isabelle, calling him. She put her finger to her mouth, ordering him to be quiet. He obediently closed the distance between them, and, as he did, the girl dragged him into her room, silently closing the door.

  “Father was attacked on the way home. You must be quiet now and do as I tell you,” she said in a muffled voice, sliding the chest of drawers and the chair under the door, making it impossible for anyone to enter at least for some time. Then, she went to the closet, pulling out a weapon that Luca didn’t know she had. He was convinced that women could not carry guns. Terrified by what Isabelle told him, he didn’t have time to ask any questions.

  The ten-year-old quickly ran to the window, making sure that there was no one in the sight that he wouldn’t know. He didn’t see a living soul. He heard two shots that didn’t foretell anything good. He opened the window and put a chair under it to jump on the windowsill.

  They were on the second floor, but right under them was a gentle slope, thanks to which they had the opportunity to go down without hurting themselves. Isabelle nodded, letting her brother know that he could quietly leave, holding onto her until he’d stabilized himself so as not to slip.

  He crouched as he exited the house, looking around to see if anyone had come around by chance. There was still no one there. He let go of the girl's hand and began to slowly descend.

  “Go to the shelter. I will come there soon. Stay quiet and if it is not me, do not open it for anyone,” the girl said, closing the window behind him and leaving him on his own. More than once his father had told him what he should do in situations like this, but he didn’t think that this knowledge would be useful to him so soon. In addition, he didn’t understand why Isabelle didn’t go with him into the shelter, which was hidden behind some bushes under the cover of the garage. It was protected by a metal door covered with grass so that it would not be visible to people who hadn’t been previously briefed on its existence. He closed the lid in his wake and lit the light for a moment to see if he was alone.

  At the same time, he heard a powerful explosion, and the earth stoutly shook, a small amount of dirt collapsing from the wall on the boy’s shoulder. He may not have known many things, but he was sure someone had planted the bomb that had caused the explosion. He didn’t know what to do in this situation. His father had never told him.

  Luca didn’t know how long he sat in the shelter. Although it certainly had been at least half a day. Isabelle still hadn’t appeared, and the boy, no longer deceiving himself that she would, decided to go out of the hiding. Skillfully and silently, he peeked out from behind the bushes, meeting a view that completely terrified him. There was nothing but rubble left of the house. Dust was still floating in the air.

  He was overwhelmed by the thought that his sister hadn’t even had time to get out of the house in time and that she was most certainly dead. Just like his mother and probably many other people who’d been near the mansion. He didn’t even know what to do now, who to trust, and whether he could go anywhere for help. A thought briefly crossed his mind to go to the police station, yet he’d been brought up not to believe the policemen, so he quickly rejected this idea.

  “Luca.” A man’s voice sounded, and the boy realized that he had still been peering out from behind the bushes, not even camouflaging himself as he should have.

  To his relief, he saw a man named Aggeo, the man who’d become like his foster uncle. His father always spoke about him in superlatives, explaining that he could always be trusted. The ten-year-old hoped his father hadn’t been wrong and that he would be indeed willing to help h
im. He came to him cautiously, looking around on all sides as if he were expecting a trap. Nothing. Only he and Aggeo were nearby.

  “Come. I will take you home. You will be safe with me,” he added.

  But Luca didn’t know that "home" meant Colombia. He never saw his home again.

  Santa Marta, Colombia 2009

  Another knife covered in blood fell to the ground. Not far from him, a man crouched in pain, visible cut wounds from combat training peppering his skin. Seventeen-year-old Luca pushed his weapon away from his opponent, preventing him from making any sudden movements. Once again, he’d defeated someone in a knife fight. For several years he’d been practicing various types of fighting styles under the watchful eye of Aggeo and he was really good at it. Hardly anyone was able to defeat him now, but he knew that there was still a place for improvement.

  “It's not bad, but you forgot one last thing,” Aggeo spoke up, coming closer to the boy. Without telling him anything, he pulled his knife out with a swift movement, throwing it in the direction of Luca. The weapon shallowly grazed his ear and landed in the shield that hung just behind him. ”You cannot trust anyone. Not even me,” he added.

  Luca rubbed his ear, noticing a small amount of blood coating his fingertips. The man hadn’t hurt him much. His knife toss was perfect, after all. Aggeo was right - Luca should have known to neutralize him even though he was his trainer. He nodded slightly, letting him know that he had taken today's lesson to heart. In such situations, he wanted to practice until the bitter end to avoid any committing any other mistakes.

  “That's it for today. Go, take a bath and get changed. I still have to attend a business meeting. I'll see you at home.”

  “When can I act?” asked the seventeen-year-old, not wanting to give in to his uncle until he answered the question. Every day, for several years, he had asked about it, expecting for the man to finally allow him to put into practice the plan of killing his enemy.

  Aggeo turned towards him, sighing deeply. He was tired of his ward’s stubbornness.

  “I will not let you go on this crusade until I am sure that you are completely ready and that you have a perfectly prepared plan of action. You are only seventeen, so there is still a long way to go. Getting to Severo Selvaggio will not be a simple thing. He is the head of the mafia operating in Seattle and, in addition, one of the smartest and most trained people you will meet in your life.”

  Luca didn’t want to accept that. He was convinced that it was time to avenge his family.

  “Selvaggio killed my whole family simply because he disagreed with my father on several issues. My father, mother, and sister are dead because of him. I let you train me because I thought you would help me exact revenge, but every time I mention it, you lower your head in the sand.” Now the seventeen-year-old was angry. The only thing giving him strength and motivation to make it through every day was the thought that he would be able to destroy Severo Selvaggio one day, just as the man had destroyed his family.

  Even Luca shouldn’t have survived. It had only happened because his father always had a contingency plan, which in this case had turned out to be a shelter. Nobody, however, knew who the boy was. Everyone was convinced that Luca Venas had been killed in a bomb explosion. Many bodies had been found. Actual body parts that hadn’t been ripped to shreds had been recovered from the premises. However, there weren’t many of them. Not to mention that there had been no person to make it out alive from the blast.

  “Finish school first. To outsmart Severo you need more than just fighting skills. The hardest part will be getting to him. To approach him enough that you would have the opportunity to even use your skills at all. Follow your instincts until you can start to rely on your abilities,” he announced and went out of the room, leaving the boy alone.

  “Aggeo is right. Finish school and get even better at fighting. I’ll need you to help me kill Selvaggio, after all.”

  In front of his eyes laid a tall blonde dressed in jeans and a leather jacket in spite of the 24 degrees outside. It was the first time Luca saw his sister, whom he was convinced had died seven years ago.

  Palermo, Sicily 2010

  There were documents in front of Luca outlining his new identity. Isabelle, as she’d managed to escape the house at the very last moment, had been intercepted by one of the dirty policemen, taken away and then recruited by the FBI. For several years she’d learned all the possible things that she could use at work. She was to bring down gangster organizations like her father’s. Although she’d learned everything that her father Mailo had been doing, she hadn’t lost sight of the reason why she had agreed to cooperate in the first place. She hadn’t wanted to start a new life, with a new identity and all that knowledge about the mafia. She’d wanted to find her brother and later on, with him, avenge the death of her parents, just like real children of the mafia. For this reason, she became Martha Levis, and her brother assumed the name of Jason Carnovale. This was the beginning of their grand plan of ending the Selvaggio line.

  Santa Maria, Colombia 2011

  Delegating subsequent assignments to the soldiers who were sent with him by Severo, Jason was preparing himself to fulfill his initiation. It was extremely important to him because his performance would determine whether he would be able to enter the Famiglia. He sent his subordinates to their positions and shot down the camera, which was located above the entrance gate. That way, nobody would know who was really on the property. Then he went to the intercom and connected a phone to it. In a few seconds, the alarm had been deactivated and the electricity turned off, allowing him to enter the premises without arousing any suspicions.

  He wasn’t even hiding while walking towards the front door. He knew perfectly well the man living there, his tactics and the distribution of his bodyguards. He was convinced that it hadn’t changed in the slightest. He peered through the window, noticing two people standing near the stairs. As expected. He walked towards the patio, which separated him from the living room, efficiently opened the lock with two pieces of wire, as he’d learned to and went inside. He hid behind the armchair, which gave him a perfect view of the bodyguards standing with their backs to him. They were deep in conversation, not seeing anything. Completely oblivious. Skillfully changing the silencer as to use the weapon effectively and without arousing any suspicion, he aimed at one man and without a second thought fired a bullet straight into the back of his head. Before his colleague could react, the same fate befell him. They both dropped to the floor, making a muffled noise. Jason couldn’t be bothered to care about it. He knew that the other guards had been long dead thanks to his remaining soldiers. Only his main target remained.

  He approached the men carefully, unloaded their weapons and took them with him. It was not necessary, because there was not the slightest chance that one of them would still be alive. However, Carnovale taught to never trust anyone, preferred to secure himself in every possible way and against any possible contingency. For this reason, he was already being considered one of the best mafiosos in the Seattle Famiglia, although he was not officially a Made Man yet. He had to take the final step to prove himself to the other members and, above all, to the Capo himself.

  The way to the bedroom, where he was sure to meet his opponent, was short. He expected the man to have heard something suspicious going down in his house. Jason didn’t even exclude the possibility that he knew who had come to end him. Otherwise, it would be a big surprise. He opened the door to the room, not even bothering to lift and aim the weapon in case his enemy began shooting in his direction. He was confident. For some people maybe even too confident. But Carnovale had done his homework and prepared himself perfectly for this job.

  There was no one else in the room but Aggeo Binenti himself. The man who’d taken Jason under his wing and raised him after the murder of his parents. And now both of them were in Seattle, after so many years of training together. One on orders to kill the older man, the other with the knowledge that Jason would be the one t
o do the dirty work. Realizing why he was doing it as well.

  “Luca,” Aggeo rasped out seeing the boy for the first time since he’d graduated from school and left over a year ago.

  “Jason for now, not Luca,” the dark-haired man corrected him, raising the gun. He wanted to get it over with and go home, with every intention of continuing his plan.

  Despite the fact that Binenti had prevented him from going after Selvaggio for a long time, he was grateful to him for training him to be the killer he was today. He’d showed him how to fight to win, and later, under Severo's wings, he’d learned how to fight against his people and the Capo himself and come out victorious.

  “I told Severo the truth. Your father isn’t worth dying for. But you are, Luca. I hope you know what you're doing. Remember to think until you are sure that you can rely mostly on your skills and,”

  “And remember to never trust anyone,” Jason finished for him and pulled the trigger.

  Marsala, Sicily 2012

  “Are you sure we can trust him?” Jason wanted to make sure once again, glancing at his sister.

  The blonde rolled her eyes, slowly getting sick of her brother's reluctance. She could not believe that the once too trusting boy had turned into the complete opposite. He didn’t even completely trust his own family. During those years of studying under Aggeo’s care, he’d grown to be careful- no matter what. Raised not to trust the police, and the FBI even less. Yet, he had to go against his own instincts and believe that his older sister also wanted revenge on the Selvaggio family.

  “He also has good reasons to hate Severo. Our family was fucked up. Father didn’t have any rules and mother used it to her advantage. I don’t like him, but we have no choice but to agree to his offer. We need help, Luca,” she announced, coming up to her brother.

  She put her hands on his shoulders without taking her eyes off him. The twenty-year-old nodded and then embraced his sister, something he had not done since seeing her for the first time since the explosion. He wasn’t an emotional person and he honestly hated showing affection. But the girl standing in front of him was the only family he had left. He wanted to protect her and spill the blood of those who’d murdered their parents along with her.