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I ignore them both as I push open the door to my office.
Paulie is already waiting inside my office. He’s married to Carmine's sister Aria, so technically he's a cousin now. He’s a good guy. Grew up down the street when we lived in Queens. Raff knocks his fist against Paulie’s as I take a seat at my desk and pull out the blueprints I've obtained of the building they use for their base. Carms and Luca finally shut up and I go through the plan.
“Is it just Bratva inside?” Raff asks from where he leans against the wall.
“Majority and if they’re not, they know full well who owns it,” Luca says pointedly, turning to Raff. “They also know who runs this city and if they’re stupid enough to gamble in Bratva casinos instead of our own then fuck 'em.”
“Luca’s right, not our problem. They want to give their money to the Russians. On their heads be it.” Raff isn’t as cut-throat as Luca and I. He’s not happy about it, but he's a good soldier and he’ll follow orders like always.
“We head out in 20 minutes. Get your shit together.” I call out as I pull up the cameras on my phone. I scan through the images surrounding the club checking for anything odd and then check the ones back at the house. I see Benny pull into the garage with Casimira. She strides up the stairs with as much confidence as when she’s walking on stage. It hasn't fazed her like I thought it might. I'm not sure that’s a good thing.
“Where's Francesca?” Luca nudges my elbow.
“She mentioned going to Arias.”
“Ari said she was popping in around this time to help with Elliott,” Paulie says from his seat. He’s a new dad. His and Aria’s first child was born a couple of weeks ago and he’s had bad colic so Fran has been helping them out so they can sleep.
I ring our youngest sister's number to double-check, it doesn’t pick up until the sixth ring.
“I’ve been slow cooking that brisket all day so no, you can't be late for dinner.” Is how she greets me.
“Where are you?”
“I’m just leaving Aria’s now. Why?” Her voice turns from normal to edged with panic. “What happened?”
“Nothing, a slight altercation. Go back inside and wait until I call.”
“Yeah okay, I will.” I hear her shutting the car door in the background. “Please be careful, Enzo.” She pleads. I can always trust Fran to do as I say, she's as careful as they come.
“Always am,” I say. “And we probably will be late for dinner.”
She makes an annoyed sound. “If any of you so much as touch that beef before I get back, I’m never cooking again.” She replies before hanging up. Dinners in our house are non-negotiable. Especially when Benny is home from school, we don’t fuck around about family time. Fran always cooks and I swear she enjoys it. We had a private chef when she was younger but she ended up taking over and now she refuses to outsource anything within the home. Cooking, cleaning, she won't even let us send out our laundry. The only thing she doesn't care for is the gardening and to be honest with the sheer size of the place, I don't blame her.
“She's pissed that we’ll be late for dinner but she’s good,” I say to Luca. He scoffs a laugh and straps up his bulletproof vest under his shirt. I open the cabinet holding our cache of weapons. I grab a second Glock and the appropriate ammo as everyone kits themselves out, Luca picking up his favourite AK47.
As we head out, I put in a call to one of the cops on our payroll. We have the majority of the cops in the city on our payroll. We came to an agreement years ago, they stay away from us and we line their pockets beyond what their paychecks could ever do. I also have a few pieces of information that could cause too many problems for the force; they wouldn’t want to risk it getting into even worse hands than mine.
“Detective Miller.” He answers.
“I need you to do something for me”
“What is it?” He asks in his usual grating, slow voice. This guy has absolutely no urgency, he’s like a fucking sloth.
“I’m going to text you an address, I need all cops diverted from that area for the next hour.”
“An hour? Do you know how much pull that’s going to take?”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t give a fuck. Just give us some breathing room.”
He groans. “Give me 30 minutes.”
I hang up and walk over to Paulie’s new family car, a nice little Audi RS6. I pull open the passenger seat to jump in.
Paulie lets out an exaggerated groan. “Can’t we take your car, Boss?”
“It's new and he doesn’t want it riddled with bullet holes, so that would be a no.” Luca deadpans as he opens Carmine's Maybach passenger door.
“Fuck sake.” Paulie huffs, muttering under his breath that his car is also new as he jumps in the driver’s seat. We race through the city and over to the address in silence. The atmosphere is tense, all of us mentally preparing for what’s about to go down. As we arrive, we pull into a side alley a few buildings down, Raff and Carms in the car behind.
