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5
MATTEO
The coffee table is littered with beer cans, empty pizza boxes, and our collection of guns. I like having my brothers over. It’s much more relaxed at my place than the meetings we have every month at the Don’s. We make a point to get together at least once a week, but since the Don’s revelation to me weeks ago, we’ve met more often.
We don’t talk about his illness. Or eventual death. We talk about everything else. The Don’s two requests have been a welcome segue to get together and plan instead.
Dominic runs our security and has his own above-board firm. Handy when you want to get dirt on people. A lot of the things his company installs for us aren’t legal, but good for harvesting blackmail material if you do it right.
Stephano and Luca run our finances and night clubs along the East Coast. Some clubs are more exclusive than others, some serve a certain clientele, and over the years, those two have made contacts worldwide. They’ve always been early adoptors and have branched into websites. Everything runs smoothly without much of their own involvement now, from fan clubs to auction sites. You fantasize it, they’ll deliver it. Mostly.
As for Benedict, the baby, he’s what the rest of the world calls a nerd. He is quiet and observant, until he says something that shakes the room. Growing up without a mom, in the brutality of the Don’s household, probably got to him the most. I at least still have memories of her.
Not that I want to analyze any of my brothers. That we all need therapy goes without saying, except that’s the one thing we’ll never get. Who needs therapy if you can kill, fuck, and in general bulldoze through life as a member of Il Consiglio, as a Scalera, the founding family?
We’ve finished watching the NBA game, and it’s time to focus on business. I reach for my phone and change the channel on my TV to a visual of my safe room’s security camera.
“Nice,” Benedict grumbles as he slumps back in his seat as the rest of them quiet. “Thanks for the reality check.”
Natasha Armstrong is still passed out on a bare mattress on the safe room’s floor.
“You sure know how to set the scene, Matteo,” Luca says. “We can get bids just on this footage alone.”
“I bet you can.” I wasn’t trying to set a fucking scene, but yes. A nearly naked girl held against her will in a basement somewhere? There’s a bunch of psychos out there who would pay good money to watch her for a few weeks with the promise of fucking her at the end of it for a price. I wouldn’t even have to drag her ass over to Sicily and Cannes, which is the current plan. “That type of thing won’t cover two million.”
For a long minute none of us speak. The money is beside the point. Alex isn’t coming back, regardless of what we take from or do to the Armstrongs.
Deal with the senator. That’s been put in motion, but ever since this afternoon, something else has been eating at me: Peter Armstrong could have paid up long ago. That mansion-for-two has a market value of around five million dollars, and he could have downsized.
Bottom line: the man is a fucking coward. He let me walk out with his daughter in my arms without even reaching out for her. He told her leaving with me was the only way to stay alive. He encouraged her. The fucker didn’t even put up a fight. Anger roils afresh in my stomach at the mere thought of it. Turns out I’m not the only one with a fucked-up dick for a dad. We’re different sides of the same coin. Good and bad. Light and dark. Love and hate.
It shouldn’t have been so easy. Dominic managed to override their security systems and we drove right onto the property as if we’d been invited to a cocktail party. Armstrong let his guard down. Twelve years is a long time to hold your breath. Eventually you think the worst has passed, but the Don plays a long game.
Know this: once you’ve entered the realm of Il Consiglio, you’re in for life. Don’t think there’s an escape, don’t think we forget, and don’t think we won’t come for you.
Stephano shifts in his chair and reaches for his beer. “Our site’s ready whenever you are. We just need a few photos and we’re good to go.”
He’s referring to their very exclusive auction site. The type where you get to bid by invitation only. Women come to them to sell their virginity to the highest bidder. It’s the first time we’ve ventured down the lane of an unwilling victim, but all of us feel the same. The Armstrongs will pay.
“No facial photos. I’m not risking it.” I won’t let this snowball into something we can’t control.
“That’s fine,” Stephano sighs. “But this part of you going to Sicily on your own?—”
“Is not negotiable.” I’m not dragging my brothers into the Don’s vendetta. His feud with the Sicilian is an old one that started decades ago when there was a succession struggle. The Don had been established on the East Coast for years. The Sicilian came over, thinking he could just take what the Don had built for himself. Then the Sicilian broke the golden rule: he fucked with the Don’s family. He killed my dad’s first wife and baby. The Don returned the favor, killing the Sicilian’s wife. How it happened, none of us know, but a bloodbath ensued for two years that only ended when the Don took a wife from the Sicilian’s extended family. The wedding was the ultimatum and a truce: leave and you live.
The Sicilian returned to Italy, where he still had connections and a foundation on which to build his empire. My mother was the last pawn in a battle that took too many lives.
Deal with the Sicilian… don’t think we won’t come for you. And if I can’t do it myself, I’ll send my son.
Natasha stirs and every gaze in the room homes in on her. I check the time. About right. The injection was supposed to knock her out for four hours. She’s going to be groggy and confused as she wakes up.
“Party’s starting,” Dominic says as he leans in to look at something closer. “What’s she wearing?”
“A bikini.” A very skimpy one at that. It accentuates her skin more than anything else with its many thin straps keeping the thing together.
“A bikini?” Dominic laughs. “Did you drag her out of the pool?”
“Nearly. She was wet. Ruined my fucking suit.” I can still feel the slight weight of her in my arms, the way she fit my frame perfectly as I carried her from my private underground garage to the penthouse elevator, Burley in tow. The other bodyguards will hang out with the senator, to make sure he doesn’t lose his shit. Poor fuckers. Talk about a long summer.
