by J. S. Cooper
Chapter 2
Anabel
Walking down dark alleys late at night was something that my parents had always told me not to do, but sometimes I couldn’t help myself. It was like I was hoping to see something incredible or otherworldly. My dad said I spent too much time reading books and living in fantasy worlds, but I loved that my imagination could take me to other places. I refused to believe that there was only one dimension. I wouldn’t say that I was a conspiracy theorist, but sometimes I believed, or maybe it was that I hoped, that wizards and vampires were real. And I knew that if they were, they wouldn’t be walking down the main streets, they’d be in the back alleys all inconspicuous as they faded into the dark shadows of the night. I had to admit though that I did get scared when I came upon others in the back streets and I’d never seen anything cool. Well, aside from a few drug deals, a woman giving head to some guy that looked like a politician I’d seen on TV, and some old man crying and singing the old Roy Orbison song “Crying,” I’d thought that was pretty meta. I should have known that eventually something would happen. And when it did, it wouldn’t be me witnessing a man turning into a wolf or two lost witches wanting to ask me for advice on how to get back to their world. I was walking down a back street behind Prospect Park when I felt their presence. I wasn’t sure how I knew they were there because they were completely silent. But I just knew. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing to attention and my heart was racing as I quickened my footsteps. It only took them ten seconds to catch up to me. And suddenly out of nowhere, four guys all dressed in black were surrounding me.
“What do you want?” I shouted, a bravado I didn’t feel reverberating down the long street.
There was no response as they stared at me. I could barely make out their faces, the light was so dim. “Can I help you?” This time I didn’t sound so strong.
“We want your money,” the tallest guy spoke up, and it was then that I noticed he was brandishing a gun.
“Shit.” Fell out of my mouth before I had time to stop it. This was why I wasn’t supposed to walk down dark alleys by myself. “I don’t have any money,” I said quickly, clutching the straps of my backpack to my arms. I didn’t have much money, only about twenty-two dollars, but I did have my laptop in my bag and my Bose headphones. The ones I’d asked my dad to buy me for years and promised to look after.
“I don’t believe you. Grab her purse.” He pushed up next to me and I could see his snarl as the moonlight was reflecting off the yellow of his teeth. He’s a smoker, I thought to myself. That was a fact I needed to remember when I spoke to the police and gave them my report.
“Don’t touch me,” I screamed carelessly and was rewarded by a large hand wrapping itself around my face.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” One of the other men headed toward me and I could feel my legs shaking. A part of me wondered if I would even have the opportunity to faint before I was killed. His fingers pressed into my skin, his nails digging in without a care in the world. I thought about biting him when suddenly someone else appeared and hit him. The man in front of me stumbled to the side and yelled, I stepped back quickly and the scene that unfolded in front of me seemed like something from a movie. The man that had been accosting me just seconds before was now on the ground, howling and scrambling to get away. His friend looked around for a few seconds and then went running. I guess he realized that he was no match for my protector. No match for the knight in shining armor that had come to save me.
“You okay?” His eyes pierced mine and my heart jumped. He looked vaguely familiar. I thought maybe I’d recognized him from my dreams. Maybe he was my prince charming coming to life. I nodded in response because I was breathless; still too frightened from the men who had threatened me. “Come,” he said and he held out his hand. I took it gratefully and he pulled me into his arms and held my shivering body for a few seconds. “You’re okay,” he whispered into my ear. “I’ve saved you.” His body felt warm and comforting, and I could feel his steady heartbeat as he held me. He smelled like warm cherries and instantly I knew that he was one of the good guys. This was a man that would never let me down.
“I guess fate had plans for us.” He smiled and I suddenly recognized his face from the previous week. “I’m Luca, good to see you again, Anabel.”
PRESENT DAY
Chapter 3
Luca
“Luca, we got a problem.”
“Then it’s a good thing that I’m a fixer.” I looked over at Giorgio, his face red and sweaty. He looked as though he’d been running, and I picked up the box of tissues on my desk and threw it at him. “Take care of yourself. You look disgusting.” I watched as he grabbed a handful of tissues and wiped away the sweat from his face. “What’s the problem? Why do you look like you’ve just been running a marathon? Do I need to get you a trainer?” Giorgio glared at me as he got his breathing under control.
“Boss, I’ve just been running the last ten minutes to talk to you,” he explained. “We got a serious problem.”
“How serious?” I wasn’t nervous or apprehensive about what he had to say. Giorgio was a worrier, that was his job. I was the boss, a fixer, that was my job. There was no problem so big that I couldn’t take care of it. I smiled at him, almost relishing the idea of having someone else to quash or take care of. It had been too long since I’d had any real problems to take care of. I was about to prod him again when the song playing on my sound system changed. I listened to it for a few seconds and then frowned, entranced and taken away by Ol’ Blue eyes.
“The Way You Look Tonight.” That was the name of the song playing. The familiar dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra flooded the speakers in my office. As he crooned, I could see the silhouette of her figure in the corner of my office, slim, innocent, a flimsy piece of red silk covering her body. Her eyes were apprehensive, seeking my approval, a hesitant smile rested on her lips, her fingers curling through her hair nervously. We both just stared at each other as the song played and I started singing, walking toward her with lust in my eyes. “‘The Way You Look Tonight’ was originally performed by Fred Astaire in Swing Time, have you seen that movie?” she’d asked me as she’d taken a step back, her eyes wide and beguiling.
“No, I’ve never seen it.” My response came with a small smile, my hands on her waist pulling her to me.
“Let’s watch it tonight,” she’d whispered against my lips. It had been the first black and white movie I’d ever watched. Though, if I was honest, I’d paid more attention to the way she’d stroked my chest than the movie. “Your heart is racing.” She’d grinned up at me from her perch on my shoulder.
“It’s the way you look tonight that has my heart racing so fast.”
“You’re so corny.” She’d rolled her eyes, but I could see the pleasure lurking in their depths. I shook my head to gather my thoughts as the visions of her faded. I clenched my fist. These visions had to stop. I’d been thinking about Anabel nonstop ever since I’d recently seen her in Miami.
“Luca, are you listening to me?” Giorgio cleared his throat. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I glared at him. “What’s up?”
“Mario told me that the DEA is on our tails. We need to be careful. They’re watching us closely,” Giorgio continued on as though I wasn’t paying attention to him. I blinked at the sound of his voice and banished her memory from my mind.
“What?” I could feel my heart racing at the memory. It had felt so real. I could still picture her. I took a deep breath to still my racing heart. There was no point in thinking about the past anymore. Emotions and hearts had nothing to do with my life anymore.
“We got to take care of the problem before it causes us a problem,” Giorgio continued. “I can put some guys on the case. Have them do some digging around, question some people, see what’s up.”
“Yeah, do that.”
“You okay, Luca? You look a bit beat.”
Giorgio’s voice annoyed me and I turne
d away from him to look out of the window. I touched the dark red velvet curtain and pulled it to the side. I could feel my heart still racing and I frowned. My heartbeat reminded me that I was a mere mortal. Someone that could be hurt and wounded and I was pissed. I had banished emotions a long time ago. I vowed years ago to never let love or emotions be one of my weaknesses.
But there’s something about a rapidly beating heart that reminds you that you’re human. The only thing is now when I feel emotional, all I want to do is make it stop. A heartbeat reminds you of your own mortality and fragility. It reminds you that you can be hurt. Other people that you have no control over can hurt you. A heart is a weakness for those that are stupid enough to love. There’s a train station, down near Times Square, I won’t say which one, but sometimes I stand in the corner near one of the exits and I just watch people. There’s something in the art of watching random people that helps you to feel power and strength. When you watch people, you see the innocence and fragility that afflict all humans. I see their loneliness and I feed on it. I love being alone in a crowd of people I don’t know. I love watching people, judging them without them having a clue they’re being watched.
They’re all the same. Every single one of them. The older women clutch their bags to their sides if anyone comes too close to them, scared that they will be overpowered, looking to the man, if they’re with one, to protect them. The younger girls bounce their hair and look around to see if anyone has noticed their beauty and is giving them the attention they want, needing to feel attractive to someone. The men, of all ages, pull out their wallets and count out their cash, hoping someone will be impressed by the fat stack of ones they have enveloped by hundreds or twenties; needing to feel like they are alpha in someone’s eyes. They aren’t. Not like me. Until you can kill a man for doing you wrong, you can’t claim to be an alpha anything. The tourists cluelessly gaze at their phones and maps asking for their backpacks to be unzipped and stolen from. Everyone thinks they play a role in public. But when they think no one’s watching, they let their guard down. And when their guard is down, all of their vulnerabilities are on display. And that is what men like me feed off. In those moments, when I’m just a random man standing in the corner of the room, I can see into their souls. I can see who they really are. And I can tell that they’re all just scared little puppies hoping to be accepted and loved.
It’s fun watching people. It’s an exercise in patience and humility. When you watch people, you try to be invisible, blending into the crowd so that no one pays attention to you. There’s the odd moment when someone will catch my eye and give me a smile, but when I don’t acknowledge them, they always look away quickly, embarrassed and unnerved. That’s how you can unbalance someone without saying a word. Don’t even acknowledge them. My grandfather always told me that to be successful in our business, you need to know people. And to know them, you need to study them. You need to know how they think, how they feel, how they react and you need to be an actor. You need to make people believe whatever you want them to believe about you, without you ever having to say a word. And I learned how to become the best actor there was. I could make anyone believe anything I wanted them to, until it came to her. She made me believe I had a heart. She made me love and then she left and every good part of me left as well.
“Luca, did you hear me?” Giorgio sounded impatient and I turned around and moved to my seat lazily. I had to pretend I wasn’t unnerved. I sat back and closed my eyes as I sat. I didn’t like Giorgio’s tone, but I would let it go for now. Giorgio was obviously having a rough day.
“What is it now, Giorgio?”
“Valentina Marchese is expecting you to announce the engagement soon.”
“She’s expecting it, or her father, Lorenzo Marchese is expecting it?” I stared at Giorgio, my best friend and most trusted underboss. My hands fluttered open and closed as I cracked my knuckles and I shifted in my seat and rose to face him head-on.
“Lorenzo is expecting it, Luca. He’s held up his end of the deal. He’s stayed out of New York and helped us with the Russians. His daughter is twenty-one now, he wants her out of the house.”
“She’s a pretty girl.” I thought about Valentina, with her sad brown eyes and long black hair. I’d met her on several occasions and her beauty had impressed me. Unfortunately for both myself and her, she failed to turn me on in any way.
“She’s banging.” Giorgio grinned, drops of saliva falling from his mouth as he drooled over whatever image of Valentina he had in his mind. “Just think, you’ll be the first and only one to fuck her. You can do whatever you want to her and she’ll have to accept it.”
“You dare to talk about someone who could be my future wife that way?” I squared my shoulders and walked over to him. My tall stature towering over him as he shifted uncomfortably. “Is this the respect you’re going to show me and my wife?” I snarled, my lips thinned as I took in his nervous expression. His eyes darted back and forth across my face as he waited to see what I would do next.
“Relax, Giorgio.” I laughed and wiped my hands across his shoulder blades. “I will not kill you today. But if I even think you’re looking at or thinking about the woman I marry with even an ounce of desire, I will stab you in the eyes and make you wish you’d been born blind.”
“Yes, Luca.” He nodded and rolled his eyes. “I would never lust over your wife. I was just saying that Valentina has a fine ass.” He shrugged. “She will be yours to do with what you want.”
“Yes, she will.” I nodded. “If I choose to make her mine, of course.”
“But you promised Marchese, and he’s not going to be happy if you back out.”
“I haven’t given her a ring, it’s not official,” I growled and turned away from him. “He needs the Cattaneo family more than we need him.”
“Luca, you know it’s important.”
“I know. Leave now. Go and get some men to find out what the DEA has on us and bring me the information. I don’t want anything done until I have all the information on who the rat is.”
“Luca?”
“I said leave.”
Giorgio looked like he wanted to argue again, but he knew better than that.
“If this is about that girl... Anabel...” His voice trailed off as he sighed and opened my office door and left.
I walked back to my desk and picked up the simple stone paperweight that held down the files holding the figures from last month’s business deals. I gripped it tightly as I looked out of the window and watched two boys playing soccer across the street. I had a decision to make. I had promised to marry Valentina Marchese and she would make a suitable wife, she was a part of our world and she knew how to keep her mouth shut and her legs open, but things were complicated now.
“Anabel,” I said her name softly, whispering it to myself, barely daring to say it aloud. “Anabel,” I said it again, stronger this time. I squeezed the stone in my left hand as my right hand rubbed the familiar cool metal of the gun holstered to my belt, hidden under my jacket. Her familiar bewitching eyes flashed in my mind and I grimaced. She was going to complicate my life again. Only this time she was not going to be able to escape me.
I opened one of the files and flicked through the paperwork. Now that my cousin Matteo was no longer helping me with the business side of things, I had way too much to deal with. There were only so many hours in the day and being the top mob boss in New York City at such a young age had made me a target. I couldn’t afford to let things slide. The Latino gangs were inching in on the drug trade and making problems in our territory and I wondered if one of them was working with the feds to take over our turf. They didn’t understand the hierarchy of the underworld. And if I had to make an example of one or ten of them, I would.
“Luca.” Giorgio knocked on the door.
“What,” I snapped and looked at my watch. “You’ve been gone five minutes, what is it now?”
“There’s been a delivery. Can I come in?” His voice sou
nded nervous, as it should. I didn’t like people disturbing me when I was in the office. Even though we were best friends, he knew that I was ruthless. No one in our world could be spared for a transgression. Not even family and friends.
“Unless it’s a fucking horse’s head, you’re dead,” I growled as I walked back over to the door and flung it open. “What is it?”
“A letter came.” He held up a slim manila envelope in his hands. “It was addressed ‘to the head of the Cattaneo crime family’.”
“For fuck’s sake, what is it?”
“You should see this.” He opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of photos and handed them to me. There was a yellow Post-it note stuck to the first photo. I read the note three times and froze.
