Black Widow's Bite

Intro to Cap

TEN YEARS LATER

“El Capo,” the man approached him with the quiet reluctance of the sacrificial lamb.

“Vinnie,” he didn’t look up from his computer monitor as he watched the man approaching from the corner of his eye. He could tell his number two was dreading whatever it was he coming to tell him. He had a feeling Vinnie and his number one Tulio flipped coins. Or, perhaps, Tulio simply put a gun to Vinnie’s head and told him to go deliver the news or he’d shoot him. Tulio could be a bit of prick and Vinnie was nothing more than a pain in the ass over the last two months.

“Your father sent his man to the front gate. He is supposed to deliver the message for you to return to New Jersey. Your father said if you don’t respond to this message, he is killing the man’s wife and kid.”

He shrugged, “how is this my problem?” He didn’t care what his father did to stain his hands.

“The person he sent to deliver the message is Pierluigi.”

He paused, “the guy with the wife in the wheelchair and the kid who isn’t all there?”

“Yeah, the doctor squeezed the baby’s head too much with forceps or something.”

“It’s a bullshit story,” he grunted his annoyance, “nobody squeezed the baby’s head. His wife was on tons of painkillers, didn’t know she was pregnant until she was six months in, and it affected brain development, but they didn’t want anyone to know it was her fault her kid was born with problems for being addicted to opiates while pregnant.”

“Yeah, well he’s here. The Don has given him instructions to personally deliver the message, or he may as well not return because there will be nobody there waiting for him.”

“You verify it?”

“Tulio called your uncle who said your dad does have the woman and her kid staying at their house for a vacation. The kid really loves swimming in the pool. Wouldn’t be anything for them to let the boy drown.”

Fuck. His moral compass was highly skewed, and he knew it but even he couldn’t allow his father to kill a ten-year-old kid with the brain of a toddler. “Bring him in. Make sure he isn’t wired or carrying. He can deliver his message and then put him on a flight home.”

Pierluigi was roughly brought into the office, and he stared at the floor.

“Speak,” Cipriano Amato was not the most patient man and snivelling irritated him in the most horrible of ways.

“Your father asked me to deliver a message, El Capo.”

“Then deliver it. I don’t have all day.” He waved at the man to continue talking. He flicked an annoyed glance at Tulio who brought the guy in.

“Your father wants you to take over New Jersey operations. He wants to spend time with you before he dies.”

“He is not dying.”

“He told me to tell you he has stage three lung cancer. He is dying.”

“My father no more has lung cancer than I do. Last year he it was ALS and the year before it was prostate cancer.” He stood up and approached the trembling man, “he’s a liar Pierluigi. A horrible human being and a liar.”

The man looked up embarrassed, “he said to tell you the doctor gave him thirty days.”

He gave a dry chuckle, “if I have to fly over to New Jersey and leave my life here in Sicily behind, I will give him two days from the time I land before one of us tries to kill the other and guess which one of us will survive.” He leaned on his desk, “do you know why he wants me to come to New Jersey?”

“Yes. He wants you to take over.”

“The whole family knows this lie. Do you know the real reason?” Cipriano let his hands fall to his sides. “Tell me, Pierluigi, do you enjoy being married, f*****g the same piece of ass, day in and day out with never the opportunity to taste another bit of flesh again?”

The man swallowed and made wide eyes at him, “um.”

“We’re all men here,” he waved around the room, “you are the only married one in this room. Is the same p***y every day worth the gold band or is it all a headache. See,” he stood straight with his back stiff, “my father, was married with a mistress at his beck and call. I am his only child with my mother his wife. My mother, bless her soul, made me promise her on her death bed, to never defile my marriage vows should I marry. It means, I made a deathbed vow to my mother to never cheat on my wife. Do I look like the kind of man who could nail the same woman for all of eternity?” Pierluigi was bright red now, “upstairs, right now are two women who are fighting over which of them gets to sleep in my bed tonight because last night they shared, and they don’t enjoy sharing as much as they like getting me to themselves.”

“I see.” The man was glowing now with a bright tomato color.

“Now, my father wants me to come to New Jersey and get married. He wants to hand his family over to me only when I am married. I am not quite ready to f**k the same woman for the rest of my life because I intend to live a very long time. Tell me, Pierluigi, and please be honest, your wife, is she worth being the only f**k you will ever have again? Could you stick to this vow without problems?”

“My circumstances are different,” he whispered, his cheeks bright red as he looked anywhere but at the boss. “My wife was in an accident a year into our marriage.”

“Yes, yes, you were hit by a drunk driver if I recall.”

“Yes.”

“Our family took care of the driver?”

“Yes sir,” he nodded emphatically.

“Your wife’s condition has deteriorated. In sickness and in health until death do you part. See, my vow to my mother did not include caveats such as what happens when my wife gets sick and, in a wheelchair, and can no longer feel it when I f**k her.” He noted he finally got an annoyed reaction from the man as his eyes flicked to his angrily and then immediately looked away with fear. “Can she feel it, Pierluigi?”

“Yes, sir, she can feel it. I love my wife. I am happy she is the only woman I will be with until I die.”

He chuckled at the man’s stiff words, “well, you are a martyr or a saint or the like. Tell my father I will not be making a trip back anytime soon to marry one of the women he has picked out for me.”

“He is under attack by the Greco family.”

The blurted words sounded panicked, even to Cipriano’s ears. He started to turn to his desk but then paused, “excuse me?”

“Greco is wanting to take over and since you and your father are estranged, Don Greco is looking to take the Amato family. The real reason he wants you there is he needs backup but he’s too proud to ask. They’ve been at a quiet war for nearly two years but a month ago, there was an attempted hit on your father. I was assigned to protect him. I’ve worked for him since I was fifteen. Twenty years now. It’s the first time he noticed me in his presence and my thanks was to be able to deliver the message he wants you at home. He called this an honor for me and then took my wife and kid to his house. I’ve been part of the Amato family, like my father and my uncle and I will do whatever the Don tells me to do. I might not like this task and I might not like he took my wife and kid but Greco,” he gave a twist of his head, “he simply would have shot my wife and my kid and then sent me, and I wouldn’t be going back to New Jersey unless it was in a box. I wasn’t supposed to mention it but if I go back without you and Greco wins his play, my kid is dead anyway.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t like weak. Greco makes his men train hard. No women allowed in the ranks. His soldiers aren’t allowed to be married and anyone with a kid who has special needs is kicked out of the family if they refuse to get rid of them. We’ve accepted several defectors over the years coming from Greco to Amato. We know what he does.”

Cipriano knew Greco shot his own brother in the head when he’d been made Don. The kid had Downs or something and according to Don Greco, the boy’s illness made his father appear soft and weak raising a kid like him. He’d killed his own father, then his own brother and took over. Cap suddenly felt more human than he had in a while.

“Go back to your hotel, Pierluigi.”

“I don’t have a hotel sir. I came straight here from the airport.”

“Put him up, Vinnie, in one of our rooms. He can come back to America with us on the plane.” He looked to the man’s surprised face, “if,” he stared at him, “I can verify your story. If Greco is really out to steal the family, I will go back and make sure he knows I’m not letting my legacy go without a f*****g war. However, if you’re lying and this is another ploy and tactic of my father’s, I will kill you myself.”