CHAPTER FIVE:
1320 Words
…..It’s never personal…it’s just business….
EARL
“Take off the blindfolds”
One of the guards yanks the cloth off the face of the man kneeling shirtless and bloody in front of me and he immediately starts begging, inching forward on his knees.
“Please…please…I’ll give you anything you want. Anything.”
I move my leg out of the way before he can stain the pants of my suit with blood, scoffing and shrugging as I do so. “Tell me Frank, what exactly can you give to me that I don’t already own, hmm?”
The man called Frank, some low level button man in my father’s organization, scrambles even closer, one of his eyes is swollen shut.
“Then. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything sir. Please, please just don’t hurt me. Please.”
“Silence him.” I say waving one hand “He’s giving me a headache.”
The closest guard strikes him again and Frank falls to the floor, blood and saliva dripping from his mouth.
The man moans but he doesn’t speak again.
I had left Cameron with Rose and two of my guards.
Cameron had asked to be allowed to be given leave to pack a few things from her apartment and I told her to forget it.
Everything she needed could be bought again.
She was to be taken straight to my floor in The Penthouse, one of the hotels we owned until I came back.
But Rose had glared at me until I agreed.
“See I am not a hard man…” I start, uncrossing my legs and rising to my feet. “Oh wait, that's not true. I am not an…unreasonable man. Isn’t that so?” I ask looking around.
No one in the room with me so much as makes a sound beyond the man whimpering on the floor.
Good. They wouldn’t dare.
I drag my fingers across my jaw, scratching at my beard.
“I get word that you are stealing from me Frank, from my father, skimming a little off the top. I say it’s understandable, a man has to earn a living and after all we are Family so I give you two options.”
Crouching down, I grab the man’s hair that is already matted with sweat and blood and yank his head up so he’s forced to look at me.
“Where my father would have clipped you with a second thought. I gave you two options. I could cut off a finger for every hundred you stole or two, or you could leave this place, my city and make sure I never see your face again.”
Frank splutters. “Please…”
I let his head drop. “So imagine my surprise when I get word that not only are you back in New York but you’re in Manhattan. On my turf. Walking around my streets like a figlio di puttana”
“It was my family.” Frank cries, his one good eye brimming. “I couldn’t leave without them.”
“We are your family Frank. You said the Omertà. You swore an oath and now you spit in my face, trample on my goodness.”
“I’m sorry.”
I rise slowly to my feet.
“A little too late for that now Frank”
I stretch out my hand, but instead of cool steel, someone places a phone in it.
I glance at the man and he shrinks a little.
“Pardon sir. It’s the consigliere. He says it’s urgent.”
The second most powerful man in the Salvatore Mafia family.
My father’s Advisor.
I snatch the device and walk towards the opposite end of the room.
“Uncle.”
“Hello to you too Earl.”
“I’m busy.”
“I don’t doubt it. Has your….package arrived?.”
He means Cameron.
I turn my back so that I’m even more blocked off from the rest of the room and lower my voice to a grunting whisper.
“I still do not see why I have to do this.” I say, frowning at the blood stains on my hands before wiping it on the closest guard’s jacket.
“It is a good plan son” My uncle’s gravelly voice says in my ear and I snap.
“Don’t call me that”
“Sorry, old habits.” He responds unfazed “But you know I am right.”
“The Cos Nostras kill people in their sleep for a living.” I spit into the phone, my jaw clenched. “Why do they care if the person who leads them has a wife or not.”
“I don’t know but the heads of the five families, they are…traditional.”
“Stiff old bastards are what they are.”
“Your father included. They will not respect you or your rule unless…”
“I have a family of my own.” I grunt grudgingly, completing the sentence for him. “This is bullshit and you know it. The seat of Don is mine. By Blood and by birth.”
“Perhaps once.”
I can feel my eyes narrowing to slits and as if sensing my anger the guard next to me takes a step back as I swear into the phone.
“What the hell does that mean Uncle?”
The consigliere does not sigh but he might as well have.
“There has been talk.”
“What sort of talk?”
He is hesitating. I can feel it and it makes my blood boil. It didn’t matter how many years I spent trying to prove myself, he still saw me as a kid. That little boy who left home years ago.
“Spit it out Uncle.” I say, as controlled as I can.
This time he does sigh. “Some…people are of the opinion that perhaps your brother would make a better Don.”
Of course they are.
I am gripping the phone so hard it is making dents in my palm. “That bastard is as unattached as me. In fact I do not believe my dear brother even knows what it is to have anything warmer than a semi automatic pistol in his bed.”
“He also did not spend the last 10 years running away from his birth.”
I glance away.
“Look Earl.” My uncle finally says over the static. “The seat of Don is yours by birth, but you must be ready to do whatever it takes to earn it.”
My chest rises and falls slowly. I’m breathing too hard.
I do not want to do this.
“Fine.” I say into the phone, turning around and heading across the room and towards the exit door.
“Where is the girl?” My Uncle asks once again and I grunt.
“Safe.”
“And our man in the taxi?”
“Disposed of.”
“Good. Earl, “ My uncle’s voice calls out before I can end the call. “Remember. Whatever it takes.”
I nod even though he cannot see me before tapping the red button on the screen.
I hand the phone to the nearest man and without another word reach for the jacket of my suit laid across the chair.
“We’re leaving.”
“But Boss.”
“What?” I snap, turning around and the guard points at the man sprawled out on the floor, his singlet now more red than its original white.
“What about…”
Frank.
I glance behind me.
You must do whatever it takes.
I needed to set an example. The Don has hundreds of soldiers beneath him, capo regimes and rival families who would sell him for a buck.
I cannot show any weakness.
I turn away and slip off my gloves.
“Ice him.”
- Writer
