This Thing of Ours

Chapter 17

Six days after Siena's refusal and Ricci was in the worst of moods. He had been falling in and out of anger the last few days. The mistakes his men made which he usually tolerated with detachedness seemed to pose as the bane of his existence these past few days. He dealt with any mistake with an outpouring of anger and he meted out punishment mercilessly.

And if he gave an order, God help the i***t that asked him to repeat the order.

He was in his living room that evening when his underboss called him. He had asked his underboss to get some men to carry out an assignment. Donato called in respect to that.

"What now, Donato?" Ricci said as soon as he picked the call.

Presently, he stood two floors away from the ground, gazing down the skyline of the mediterranean.

"There is a slight complication in the assignment," Donato said."The wife and son are inside the house."

Ricci rubbed his face.

He had asked his underboss to get some men to set fire to the house of one of the newest police chiefs who had refused to be bought. The said man had made it difficult for the DiAmbrossis to operate in the part of the city which his team had jurisdiction.

Ordinarily, Ricci did not care about the little whistle blowers such as this officer. All the relevant people were on his payroll and would not obstruct his operations. The main reason for this exercise was to nip pointless courage in the bud before it grew into something that would potentially lead to the said person's end. Ricci removed whoever stood in his path; but he did it with a tinge of regret, like he might have wanted it another way, but here we are.

That was why he took his time to warn the stupid ones...like he was going to, with this inspector. This was not a threat; it was a warning.

The instruction to his men had been to set fire to the house with none of the family in it. Now, Donato was telling him the wife and son were inside.

"The sins of the father will not be visited on the son or the family," Ricci replied gravely. "If you can, wait. If you can't, get them out of the house then burn it to the ground. I don't care how you plan to do that."

Ricci dropped the call. Evening was reaching and the dwindling light played shadows even in the dimly-lit living room on the first floor. Everything was spick and span in the room with nothing seemingly out of place. It was quiet in the room, but Ricci's mind was far from quiet.

Don't test me. He had warned Tommaso, but Tommaso had been too pig-headed.

Ricci gave a sigh then, removing the image of Tommaso's limp body from his mind.

Speaking of pig-headed people...Siena had still not agreed to the marriage. There was only one thing left to do.

Ricci's father had made Ricci respect women because Ricci's own dad had not. Ricci might have inherited his father's anger streak and the shadows from his past- his father's presence long gone still clung to him- but whenever his own actions reminded him of what his father's would likely be, he thought better of it or asked his consigliere for advice.

It was his own father's marriage to his mother that made him dread marriage and the commitment that came with it. If his father's marriage to his mother when he was alive is any indication, then it meant Ricci probably wasn't capable of being a good husband. His father was a mafioso afterall, and so was he, coupled with the fact that many have said how he had a striking resemblance to his father. It seemed his own marriage would turn out like his father's did, if not worse.

At least he had done one thing that anyone who had known his father would hardly associate with the man: he had closed up their brothel businesses.

The capos were mostly in charge of that and the don was only truly involved in the remittances and not the ugly business underneath.

Sometimes, capos would send mademen to recruit girls for the business or they could delegate to a lowly soldier wise guy who could apply any means ranging from abduction to deception to persuasion. Problem was, the means varied very frequently and you couldn't tell which girl was recruited through which means. Pimps were also involved to keep the women in check and they were more violent than not in the implementation of their order in the brothels. They most times took most of the women's earnings and left them with little, the women too scared to protest.

This hardly ever negatively impacted the dons at the top echelon, so long as they got their money.

The idea never appealed to Ricci. He always reminded himself that it was somebody's sister at the brothels, he himself loving his own mother and sister dearly. In the brothels there was hardly choice, just service.

With drugs...there was always choice. Some people never saw the choice though...

So the family focused on drugs.

Ricci sat at a couch, noticing the telephone had been blinking for a while. His own phone which he had earlier dropped on the table was vibrating with a call. Had he been so carried away by thoughts that he had not noticed?

He picked up his phone, aggravated, without giving a good look at the caller ID.

"What now, Donato?" He asked.

The voice on the other end was not Donato's. "Your consigliere, boss," Federico answered.

Ricci sighed in utter exhaustion, but his tone was sharp."Why did you call?"

"She's agreed to the marriage," Federico answered. "Siena has finally accepted the marriage proposal."

"She did." It was not a question, but it felt like one. This was what Ricci wanted and yet he could hardly believe it.

"You were right, boss," Federico said. "You said she would come around. Looks like her uncle finally knocked some sense into her. But I do think she might have come to the cognizance earlier: that marrying you was best for both families. She might have just delayed a response just to raise the suspense."

It was annoying, but true. By now, Ricci should know Siena to an extent. The b***h, he swore internally.

She had been serious that afternoon, afterall.

"You most probably need a wife that will love you and support you. I? I will put you through hell."

He hadn't even married her yet and she was already driving him crazy. f**k you, Siena, Ricci thought, suppressing a sigh.

"She agreed to the marriage but has caveats," Federico continued.

"Let's hear her terms."

"She wants you to come to New York," Federico said.

"Tell her to come to Sicily," Ricci replied.

"New York or no marriage," his consigliere said."Those are her specifications."

Fine...Fine.

"Tell her I will be in New York tomorrow," Ricci said. "She can choose a venue. When she communicates one, let me know."

Ricci could imagine Federico nodding on the other end. "Okay boss," Federico said. "Anything else?"

"Get the plane ready," Ricci said. "Inform Donato that I want him and two of my men to accompany me. Let Carlo be one of those men. He has social skills- just in case Siena and I start spitting verbal bullets, he will be handy."

"Noted," Federico answered. "Boss?"

"What?"

"Your mother," he said. "You had said you would see her when you were back. While you have been avoiding her calls, she has been bombarding my lines with them."

"Tell her I will see her this weekend," Ricci answered.