Tempted By The Mafia Boss

CHAPTER THREE

Gabe

10 years ago…

She was supposed to meet me last night and she didn’t show.

That’s never happened.

No answer to her calls either.

Nothing. Not my messages, not my calls, just nothing.

The panic took me this morning when I woke up and saw there was nothing from her.

I’m a crazy son of a bitch and I won’t stand for any shit from her father. If he wants to fight I’ll fucking fight.

That is what I’m gunning for when I get to her home.

Donny can’t keep me from seeing Charlotte. Even if I have to take her and leave this fucking place I’ll do it.

I pull up on her drive ready for war. But…something about her house looks off. The feeling grows stronger when I step out of my car. There’s a weird vibe about the place. Feels like something happened. The windows are all open, so is the door.

The front door is wide open. And fuck, is that a bullet hole in the door?

I run inside when I see that, run right in and hear sobbing. Not crying… sobbing. Wails of desolation are probably more the correct words.

It’s coming from the living room. When I get there I see Donny and Marie, his wife, both kneeling on the ground holding each other and crying.

Cordelia is sitting in the armchair just staring into space. Her face is puffy and swollen. Her eyes red and blotchy.

I walk into the room and they look at me but no one says anything. I open my mouth to speak but my eyes land on a massive stain on the carpet.

Blood.

That’s blood.

“What the fuck happened here?” I demand.

They just look at me. Donny looks like he can’t say shit and Marie is inconsolable.

Cordelia is just staring with a slight part to her lips like she’s trying to talk but can’t.

“Guys! Fuck, tell me what the fuck happened!” I bellow.

I move to Cordelia because she looks like my best bet for finding out something.

She flinches when I crouch down before her. The glare I give her tells her I’m serious as fuck and she knows better than to keep me waiting for an answer.

“What the hell happened? Where is Charlotte?”

“De… Lucca. Antonio De Lucca.” She mummers and fear races through me.

That name. It’s enough. Antonio De Lucca. It’s a bad as Antonella, worse because it’s old school La cosa nostra and everybody knows Antonio De Luca is a man not to be fucked with. None of his family are people you fuck with.

“What about Antonio?”

“He took her…”

Fuck!

Charlotte…

No…

“No, what, what are you saying to me? Why would he do that? Why would he fucking do that?”

“A debt. He killed my brothers and Abuelita for a debt. Then he took my sister.” Her voice is so small. It’s like a whisper of what remains of her soul. It’s so faint it’s ghostly, not real and I shake my head because I refuse to believe it’s true.

It’s all bad. All of it and I guess linked to Donny’s financial situation. I just never knew he was foolish enough to do anything with Antonio De Lucca.

I whirl around and stare at Donny who is now standing. I rush him and throw a punch straight in his face. He stumbles back to the ground, holding his face as blood spurts from his nose. Marie screams and Cordelia starts crying.

“Fucking hell Donny… fuck… fuccccckkkk you,” I cry. “I should fucking kill you.”

“I never meant for any of this to happen. That bastard took my little girl.” He puts up his hands to shield himself and cowers away from me. “I never meant for it to happen. I didn’t do anything wrong.”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

The fucking wrong thing he did was his involvement with Antonio. Any of it at all would have been bad.

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday.”

“No one called me!” Of course they wouldn’t. He told me to stay away from Charlotte.

I look at Marie as a tear streams down my cheek. Her eyes, although tear-filled speak to me. She knew that night so long ago when her husband must have summoned some type of bravado to threaten me that I had no intention of stopping anything I had with their daughter.

She also knows what I’ll do now.

It’s the only thing that I can do.

I walk out without another word to any of them and call Frankie. He’ll get Vincent in to help and the others. Frankie is the eldest and he’s Pa’s right-hand man. Capo to our family. He’ll help me no matter how crazy fucked up I may be in thinking I can get Charlotte back from Antonio De Lucca. I have to try.

I have to.

One hour later and we’re outside Antonio’s house but nobody’s there. He lives in Glencoe in a grand mansion that looks more like a palace but there’s no one here. No sign of life, like he never existed.

It enrages the fuck out of me.

I’m here with Frankie, Vincent, Salvatore and Nick and while we look as badass as we always look when we’re together, the guys are worried because of who Antonio De Lucca is.

No one has to tell me we’re asking for shit to follow us just by looking for him. I know this and I also know that if Frankie wasn’t crazy we probably wouldn’t be here at all.

None of my brothers are a hundred percent for this but they’ll help me. They’ll help me because they know how much I love Charlotte and if they don’t help me I’ll go off by myself and probably get killed trying to find her by my lonesome.

They’re by my side to back me up if there’s trouble.

We leave the house and look around the places we know are linked to Antonio and come up with nothing.

It’s clear there’s more to this than I thought. He’s left Chicago…

Why?

We’re standing by the docks now, at a warehouse we know he uses. When we got here the workers just kept quiet. No one wanted to talk to us. A pack of Giordanos asking questions about anybody is a serious thing. If a Giordano asks you a question you better answer if you value your life. What takes precedent over that is if you’re warned to shut the fuck up by a De Lucca.

Worse if that guy is Antonio De Lucca, practically head of the family for his ruthlessness.

“Gabe…” Frankie says after we step outside the warehouse. The look on his face tells all.

I know we’ve come to a fucking dead end and maybe it was a dead end to begin with.

“Gabe…” He says again and I give him a long hard stare as I steel my spine to stop from crumbling.

“Please let’s just keep looking,” I say. “I can’t allow that bastard to take her. I can’t.” I hate begging. It’s not me, not my style, but I’ll beg my brother for her.

I look at all their faces and they must see my desperation. Salvatore is always quiet so I don’t expect him to say anything. Vincent however thinks he’s boss so he’s always the one giving arguments of reason and restraining the madness we get up to.

Nick is the wild child and I’m sure when he first heard what happened he would have grabbed his jacket and his piece. He’s a balls-to-the-wall kind of guy like me who’d die in a fight because he doesn’t stand for shit. Any kind of shit.

Even he’s not saying anything though.

Vincent steps forward and rests a hand on my shoulder.

“We’ll keep looking.” He nods and his words surprise me. He looks back to Frankie for confirmation and Frankie tips his head, giving it.

Frankie’s about to say something when his phone goes off.

He answers and I can hear the low timbre of Pa’s voice from here.

The call is brief and the dark look that comes into Frankie’s eyes is a tell that the call wasn’t a good one. Maybe it’s gotten back to Pa that we’ve lost our minds looking for Antonio, a member of what we call an assassin family. That’s the best way to describe it.

“That was Pa, he wants us home. Says it’s urgent and we’re to come now.” Frankie explains.

“Urgent? What the fuck? Pa never makes calls like that,” Nick surmises.

“He sounded off, like he didn’t want to talk on the phone. We need to get home.” Frankie’s face is stern and his dark brown eyes are filled with the edge of concern.

We all have our own houses but home is the house we grew up in with Pa and Ma.

“We’ll go home and come back out, get the rest of the boys on the street to help us look,” Frankie assures me, and I give him a grateful nod.

I hate feeling helpless. I hate feeling like shit. I hate feeling useless as fuck.

The minute we get home I see things are definitely not right. There are three black Sedans parked on the drive and two on the lawn. It’s a minor thing but Pa is very particular about the lawn and anyone visiting would never park on his grass. There are also skid marks going over it.

I already know that whoever is here is not a friend.

Sure as fuck, they’re foe.

We get inside the house and I see I’m right. There are two men at the door holding machine guns. Men I know aren’t our guys in my father’s house that is usually heavily guarded.

There are two more ahead of us at the entrance to the grand hall we hold meetings in.

Frankie leads the way and we follow. It feels like I just walked into someone else’s house. Not my parents’.

As we step into the hall I see it now.

The situation.

Antonio De Lucca is standing next to my parents and all the maids and servants who work in the mansion are lined up against the wall to their left.

“Fantastic, fucking fantastic. Everyone is here.” Antonio booms. He straightens up with an element of power I definitely don’t fucking miss but I’m not stupid. Pa wouldn’t have allowed him to do this to him if he didn’t know the consequences of retaliation.

So I tamp down any rage I feel and home in on my sense of reason.

“Heard you boys have been looking for me on the streets,” Antonio continues with a broad smile on his horrible face. He’s a sick fuck and looks like one with that knife scar going across his cheek. I wonder who could have gotten close enough to him to do that. Maybe it was one of his own, or someone worse than him.

Frankie looks to me, it’s permission for me to speak.

I step forward ahead of him and stare Antonio down like I’m death itself.

“You took my girl. I want her back,” I answer.

“Ohhh yes,” he taunts. “I thought this whole shit would be about a girl. Very pretty girl. Perfect spoils of a business deal gone wrong with that perfect body of hers. I’m definitely going to enjoy fucking her.”

I pull my gun on him in an instant. I don’t care who he is. He’s talking about my doll that way. I’ll shoot his fucking dick off before he can think about fucking.

“Motherfucker, tell me what the debt is and I’ll pay it. I’ll pay it whatever it is.” I know for him to get all worked up like this the debt has to be millions. That’s the kind of money Donny shifts around in those investments of his. That’s what I heard was stolen from him by his business partner. Millions. And I know De Lucca is not the only guy that got screwed when things went south.

He laughs and comes closer to me but stops in the center of the room.

Then without any kind of warning he fires a shot at Jono, our butler. It gets him in his head and he goes down. All the others scream and Ma starts crying. Pa puts an arm around her comforting her.

“No… this is the kind of debt that can’t be repaid. It can’t. Not with money anyway. Not with a dime of your cash from your sex club or your shipping company,” Antonio says. His brows pinch together and he almost looks human. “You see my brother was the one who instigated the business relationship with Donny Revello and I backed him up. We’re stinking rich but the loss of ten million is enough to dent the pockets and lose trust amongst the highly valued. It’s also enough to push a man over the edge, especially when that money belonged to a few people you don’t want to mess with. People who were promised double their sum of investment because of Donny Revello’s words of guarantee.” He stops to take a breath and looks around the room at everyone.

“My brother has been suffering with depression for years because he tries these business ventures and somehow they don’t work out. This one knocked him for six. He took his life two days ago. One bullet to the head with our grandfather’s gun took my brother from me. All because of Donny Revello and his fucked up way of doing things.” Antonio holds my gaze as he speaks and he steps closer but doesn’t come near me. Pain fills his eyes now. Understandable pain, and while I get it and I can understand his motive, I don’t accept it.

“Your loss is very unfortunate. I am sorry that happened to you and your brother. Let me give you the ten million.” I have it. Fuck I have more. The Dark Odyssey has been open close to a year and we were rolling in it.

He snarls, twists around and fires another shot, this time taking out Sariah, our chef. She’s been with us since I was a boy. These people have worked for my family since we were children and they are like family to me too.

I try to keep in my remorse and hold it together. Don’t show that I’m affected, even though I’m tearing up inside. Two deaths because of me.

And what did I do?

“Insolent fool! You think money will fix it and bring my brother back?” He roars, his voice carries over the hall and so does the boom of another bullet. He just killed Tim, the gardener. There are seventeen people left at the wall.

I search my mind for something to say but I don’t know what. I don’t know what to say that won’t piss him off even more than he is.

What the fuck can I say?

What the fuck can I do? He won’t take money.

Who refuses money like that? I offered him ten million.

Fuck…

My Charlotte, what am I going to do?

I have to save her.

De Luca laughs and waves the gun at me. “I’m keeping the girl, Gabriel Giordano. This visit of mine is to tell you and yours to back the fuck off. Don’t fucking come for me unless I send for you. Don’t do it. I’m here to leave a lasting message in your mind.” On that he turns to the wall with all our workers and fires a series of shots that take them all out. They try to flee but don’t make it.

And there’s nothing we can do.

Nothing I can do.

He stalks back to my parents and draws another gun from his back pocket and pulls Ma from Pa’s arms so hard I think he’s going to rip her arms off.

“Julian!” Ma cries reaching for Pa.

Tears sting the backs of my eyes.

What’s he going to do?

Pa fucking reaches for his gun and I know he won’t care if he gets killed because he won’t let this son of a bitch take his girl too.

I see Frankie’s hand on his pocket, reaching for his piece. He won’t allow Antonio to kill our parents and neither will I.

Men come up behind us, ten of them with machine guns but that doesn’t mean we’ll back down. We’ll all die in this room together if need be.

Antonio laughs.

“Look at you all… It won’t end here. You won’t kill me today,” Antonio sneers and then I see red laser l dotted lights hovering over both Pa and Ma.

I look to where the lights are coming from and realize that there must be snipers outside.

“Put the gun away Julian, or she gets it,” Antonio warns. “She’ll get it in her heart and her head. You won’t be able to kill me and my men will end your boys. All of you will be dead before you can release the trigger on your guns.”

Pa puts his gun back in his pocket.

Defeat fills me. This became next level bad from the minute this man entered my family’s home.

Antonio whirls around and looks at me. “Here’s what you’re all going to do.” He releases Ma and she runs back to Pa. “That there is compassion. It’s the thing you get for pissing me off today and delaying my plans. You must not come for me again, Gabriel Giordano. You must not cross me again. If you do, your parents die, your brothers die, your whole family here and in Italia die and so does everybody they know. Your alliances will get it too. So… let your girl go. Let her go.”

Let her go?

Let her go.

I’m numb and a hollow takes residence inside me as he walks to me and moves past us in the wide archway.

He gives me a crude stare and I’m watching.

That is all I am doing.

I’m fucking watching as he leaves the house. I watch him until he disappears around the corner.

I don’t realize I’m still standing there holding my gun until a firm hand rests down on my shoulder. I turn to face Pa. He shakes his head and gives me a look of sympathy.

“I’m sorry son. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything.”

I can’t answer because I’m sorry too.

I’m sorry Charlotte…