Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance (2 page)

“That bad?” I ask her in a low voice, already knowing the answer.

She nods stiffly. “You would think those guys had hollow legs with how much vodka they can put away. Did they just give it to them in their baby bottles over there in Mother Russia, or what?”

Shrugging casually, I joke, “I don't think any of them are actually even from Russia. It’s probably all an act. Probably learned their accents off of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.”

Gianna sighs to herself as she puts the humidor back in the case and then slides the door on the climate-controlled room closed. Rows upon rows of rare cigars in gleaming wooden boxes sit on the shelves in that room. It’s almost like a church.

“They're probably all from Idaho or something,” she says as she comes back toward me. “How am I supposed to tell the difference between some big, dumb farmboy and some big, dumb Russian gangster anyway? Anybody can get a tattoo, you know.”

“Absolutely true,” I say and turn away so we don’t have to look at each other and see what we really think. No matter what she says, I can tell she's shaken by being in the small private room with them. We may talk shit about them, but those Russian guys are actually scary as hell.

Every time they come for a meeting with Daddy in our club I practically spend the whole time holding my breath and looking over my shoulder. They’re unpredictable. That’s how they’ve managed to shave off so much of the neighborhood, by being willing to do things we would never do. Things that take people by surprise.

Not like my family. The Cosa Nostra has rules. A code. We’re brought up with a list of expectations that you just don’t ever question. It’s in our blood.

But ever since those Russians started pushing further and further into the neighborhood, things have been changing. Folks didn’t want to stand against them because they didn’t know what would happen, or how bad it could get.

People say the worst things could happen. In the old days, you knew a guy could fall on the wrong side of some deal, and he might end up getting disappeared. But nowadays you don't just find one guy dead, you find his entire family dead. Kids too. Grandma, pets, everybody.

They’re absolute savages.

But we can't talk about that. Especially not me and Gianna. It's not our place, and if anybody caught us there would be hell to pay. Our cigar club has been neutral territory for generations and that means we don’t talk trash about the clientele, no matter who they are. Daddy has been working on this supposed peace thing for so long and so hard that if I did anything to mess it up I don't even know what he would do to me.

Not that I really think he would do anything really bad. For all his gruffness, I know he loves me deep down. Of course he does. We’re all about family. Not like those Russian monsters. They don't give a shit about anybody.

But with Italians, our blood is thicker than concrete. It's the thing that holds the universe together. And we’re practically steeped in from the moment that we’re born. It's everywhere. Rivers of it.

It didn't used to be this way. I mean there were always other families, and then there were the Puerto Ricans and the Blacks too. There has always been a presence like this in Chicago, or so they tell me. It’s just a way of life.

We do a service, working underneath the conscious awareness of your average person. We keep things moving. We keep the money flowing in and out. People say that it was Prohibition that really let the families come into power in the 1920s, but if it hadn't been that it would've been something else. There's always somebody trying to keep people from the things they want, so there's always going to be room for somebody else to deliver that service. That's all we do.

But the Russians and Albanians showed up in the 80s or 90s or something like that. And they're a totally different animal. Impossible to negotiate with. They say that they have codes of honor but nobody seems to be able to figure them out. Every time we get a peace, the peace gets broken. Over and over again.

When Daddy was a young guy, he brokered the first peace with the Russians who started moving in on our territory. Not like we were going to compete for our own business in our own neighborhood. Some of the protection arrangements went back three generations. It was a tradition.

But somehow little pieces of what we had got chipped away here and there. Every agreement left us with a smaller presence. It's like standing on an island but the water is rising. Pretty soon there's going to be no island left.

And the ocean is made of blood. It's like that.

But because Daddy is the boss, he gets to keep the peace. He always figures something out and the floodwaters recede for a little while. Still, they always come back. And he has to go figure something else out again. That’s what he’s doing right now, back there in the smoking room with the Russians.

Gianna twirls a long strand of sable hair around her finger, probably the last sign she'll show that she really is anxious about those guys. Her eyes dart between the closed door and my iPad. As I am tallying my tips and cashing myself out from the drawer, I hear her breath snort out through her nose.

I ignore her and count out my take in twenties, then grab my bag from below the counter. One small stack goes in the front inside pocket of my purse, and the other bigger stack goes in the envelope at the bottom.

“He’s gonna catch you one of these days,” she mumbles just loud enough for me to hear.

Nestling the envelope at the very bottom of my bag, I think about that for a second. “Catch me doing what? What’s weird about having money in my purse?”

She rolls her eyes and raises her brows right in the spaciously waxed empty space between them. Gianna has the best eyebrows on the planet.

“You know what, just because you’re studying to be a CPA doesn’t mean you get financial oversight over me, Gianna.”

She sucks her teeth to tell me that she’s not buying it. She knows exactly what I’m doing. In fact, I’ll bet she’s been keeping a running tally since the first time she noticed that I separate my tips. She’s good with numbers.

“Do you have enough yet?” she murmurs.

I sigh and glare at her, begging her to stop.

“Are you gonna do it for real? Are you gonna leave?”

Shaking my head, I aim my eyes at the ceiling so I don’t have to look at her. “Gianna, nobody ever leaves, you know that.”

“Right,” she breathes. “
I
 know it. I just wanna make sure that
you
know it.”

I can’t look at the ceiling forever, so I tip my head back down. I give her a big, apologetic smile and a shrug. Leaving is hopeless. Everybody knows that. Having the cash is just sensible planning, even if I never get to do it.

“If you need to go home, you can just go,” I offer. “I can close up the club. It's not a big deal to me.”

She tips her head as she plucks the bottle of Iordanov vodka off the granite and puts it back on the shelf. We don't carry a big selection, but everything we have is top-of-the-line, rarest in the world. Crystal-encrusted bottles. Liquors that are filtered through precious stones. The most expensive champagnes, the best escorts at the touch of a button. Cigars that smell like the islands. They don’t even stink like you would think they would. They’re like perfume.

That's why people keep coming to our cigar club. It's sort of an old-fashioned thing, I guess, but it's been in the family for eighty years or so. It's been the site of dozens of peace negotiations and probably more shakedowns and hard deals than anybody's going to admit. But no bloodshed. That’s strictly off-site. It’s in the code.

Everybody thinks of us as the center of the neighborhood. Their very own Cosa Nostra headquarters, hidden in plain sight. The cops actually avert their eyes when they drive by the front window.

“No, I can close. It’s all right,” she says with a resolute sigh. “You should've been done hours ago anyway.”

“Well, I have to wait for Daddy. I can't leave without saying goodbye, and he is still in there with them.”

She nods, inhaling through her nose. I know she's not leaving. Gianna is not the sort of person who takes the easy way out of anything.

But even as I'm saying this, I hear the soft click of the door being opened. Billows of cigar smoke roll out even though the air filtration system was probably working double time in the room.

I hear the laughter of men and then one of the big Russians comes out of the room, walking backward and still chuckling with someone. Daddy follows right after, throwing his arm around the Russian’s broad shoulder as they both step into the hallway.

A smaller, silent man comes after, his eyes shifting nervously from side to side as he scans the front of the club to see if anyone else is observing them. Other than Gianna and me, I mean. We may as well be invisible.

Daddy's eyes flicker toward me and then away as he keeps laughing, nodding and encouraging the Russian to walk with him. Stosh, I think his name is. He is as big as a bear. His arms are as thick as my thighs, meaty and somehow absurd. He's covered in weird tattoos all the way up to his jawline. The white hair on his head is so closely shaven that it almost looks like an angelic halo, but that hard gleam in his icy blue eyes tells another story.

He looks right at me and narrows his eyes slightly as Daddy walks him forward. His upper lip curls over one side of his teeth in what almost seems like a smile.

I realize that I'm looking right back at him when Gianna pinches me hard on the back of my arm as a warning. Flinching, I automatically look away and begin clearing the counter, preparing for closing time.

“You have a beautiful daughter, Don Lauro,” he says in his weirdly slippery accent. My skin crawls when he says it, even though Daddy is chuckling like he gave me a great compliment.

“I'm the luckiest man in the world!" Daddy agrees in a bellow. “Well, maybe the second luckiest…”

Chuckling, Stosh comes right over to the counter and leans his paw-like hands on it, looming over the granite like a shadow. I act like I'm looking for my keys in my pocket, any reason not to stare up at him.

“Do I frighten you,
devushka
?” he says in a low growl.

I force myself to stare up at him and blink several times as though I didn't know he was standing right there. “No of course not, Mr. Menkov,” I say smoothly, even as my heart flutters in my chest.

“Good, that is good,” he purrs, though I get the feeling that it's actually not good at all. The tip of his tongue snakes out between his teeth and rummages under his upper lip along the gums. The way he's looking at me, I feel like he's licking the inside of my ear or something, and I hope he stops before I throw up.

“Marie, will you please credit Mr. Menkov's check to my account?” Daddy says jovially, as though this Russian thug isn't trying to rape me with his eyes.

“No need for that, Don Lauro,” Stosh purrs. He drags a wad of hundred dollar bills as thick as my fist out of his front pocket. When he lifts up the hem of his shirt, I see the butt of the revolver sticking out of the waistband of his tracksuit pants. I can't believe that Daddy would let himself be alone in a room with  these animals.

Stosh pulls a handful off the top, overestimating his room tab by about $600. He puts the bills on the counter and covers them with his palm. Then he slides them toward me, daring me to touch him to retrieve them. I fold my hands behind my back and smile innocently at him.

“Daddy loves to be generous, Mr. Menkov.”

“As do I,
principessa
,” Stosh says, using the Italian word for princess as though that's going to do anything for me. Still, I go ahead and giggle because that's sort of my job.

Daddy inhales and claps his hands together loudly, indicating that the meeting is over and everyone should disperse now. He rubs his palms together with a dry noise and grins as widely as he can.

Stosh opens his arms and cocks his head to the side as Daddy takes him in a brief, manly bearhug. The other, smaller guy shifts toward the front door and peers out of it suspiciously before nodding to Stosh. He jerks his rock-like chin at Daddy in a sort of goodbye salute.

“Well, I couldn't be more pleased with how today has worked out,” Stosh booms, his accent oily and metallic. “It looks like everything will be coming up with the roses! I'll be seeing you soon, Don Lauro.”

His eyes slide over to me, slithering up and down my body and making me wish I hadn’t worn this tight black sweater dress. When his gaze dips between my breasts, I'm starting to think I should have worn a bathrobe or muumuu or something instead.

Daddy keeps smiling and nodding until the Russians leave and the door is closed firmly behind them. Then he turns around to face me and Gianna. His smile sort of falters and he shifts his eyes to the side, indicating that he’s about tell me something I do not necessarily want to know.

“Oh! I should really be going!” Gianna announces suddenly. I want to roll my eyes at her obvious getaway move, but I don't want Daddy to see that or think that I'm rolling my eyes at him. Instead I ignore Gianna and just plaster a smile on my face so I can stare at him.

“All right, thank you, Gianna. Good night,” Daddy says, grateful he doesn’t have to ask her to leave.

Gianna gives me a secret squeeze on my hand as she slides behind me to get her purse. Seconds later, I'm listening to her footsteps fade away as she walks down the back hallway to the parking garage entrance. Daddy is just looking at me with a carefully frozen expression, as though he's somewhere far away.