Tempted By The Mafia Boss

CHAPTER SEVEN

Salvatore

I’d rather be somewhere drinking like I have been for the last two days.

I’ve purposely been keeping myself away from people to cool off. Calm the fuck down so as to speak.

However, when Vincent summons us to his office it’s as effective as Pa doing

it.

Like always I’m the first to arrive. I’m thankful to see he’s on a call so he can’t

ask me why I look like shit. I see the question in his eyes though the minute he sees me.

I just sit and stare out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows evading his pensive stare.

It doesn’t take long before I’m lost in thought. Tonight is the first that I’d see Gabe since I spoke to Mimi. It’s unusual for me to skip out on the club two nights in a row but he probably wouldn’t have noticed because he’s been at home with Charlotte, his wife.

Mimi is right. Gabe’s different now. Very different to the man she was talking about who hurt her so deeply last year.

I know this, I know all of it because I lived through it. Got a first class ticket to the horror that took my brother and changed him into the bastard he was when he screwed with Mimi.

Gabe was with Charlotte ten years ago. She got taken by Antonio De Lucca to pay her family’s debt and there was nothing Gabe or anybody could have done about it. It’s the kind of thing that happens in our world.

It’s the whole survival of the fittest thing and falling prey to those higher up the food chain.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

When we tried to get her back Antonio killed all our staff and threatened a blood war on our family. He threatened with rage, making sure we knew not to come for him again or everyone we knew here in the States and Italia – family, friend and alliance would meet their end.

That’s what happened to Gabe and Charlotte, and it fucked with him. It messed Gabe up.

In their case though, miracles happened and she came back to him, ten years later when a bastard worse than Antonio killed his ass.

So much has happened, something is always happening and Gabe seemed to be on the receiving end of it. He lost his girl and years later he witnessed Frankie’s murder. Frankie died in Gabe’s arms. That type of shit can screw with a person.

Again I know that, I know it all and I’m trying to remember but none of that actually changes anything. Mimi still had to go through what she went through and it was his fault.

Vincent gets off the phone at the same time the door opens and Gabe and Nick walk into the office.

I look at Gabe and ball my fists but keep my cool. I was worrying what I’d be

like when I next saw him. If he was someone else he would have been dead well before now.

Vincent glowers at Gabe as he slaps Nick upside his head and when Nick turns I see why.

Nick has a fucking black eye I’m only just noticing and a bruise on his cheek. I shake my head at him.

What the fuck has Nick gotten himself into now?

“Nick what the hell happened?” Vincent frowns at Nick as he sits on the furthest chair and crosses one leg over the other.

Gabe sits next to me and gives me the usual nod but I barely acknowledge him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick answers with a smirk. “You should see the other guy.” He chuckles.

“He still alive?” Vincent asks, straightening up in his chair. I can tell he’s furious as fuck because he doesn’t like anything that can draw attention from the cops.

Nick has a way of losing his temper.

We have the same temperament, I just know how to control myself. Mostly. Nick has no off switch. I at least have a pause button.

“Yes,” Nick confirms. “I left the motherfucker who thought he could grab my wife’s ass alive and functional enough to know not to try shit like that again.”

Although I continue to stare at him the same as Vincent, I can’t blame Nick for losing his shit if a man could be idiot enough to do that.

Vincent sighs and looks back to all of us. He’s summoned us for a reason. That’s why Nick’s here.

Me, Gabe and Vincent have a business venture of a chain of hotels in the Caribbean that’s going to bring in billions and we’re in the stages of waiting for it to hit with a massive bang next spring. We’re always here with Vincent making all the arrangements for that.

Nick’s presence today suggests trouble is around.

Vincent only tends to speak to us outside of meeting with Pa when he wants to run something past us that Pa would normally keep us out of.

“What’s up Vin?” I ask.

“Fontaines,” he answers. It’s enough. It’s enough of an answer since we’ve been waiting for something to happen with them. “Fontaines are up to something. I don’t know what the fuck it is but this meeting is to put you on your guard.”

“What happened?” Gabe asks.

“Eyes on the streets are picking up movement on their part. There was sighting of them near the office so I followed it up,” Vincent answers and sighs. “I followed it up and we were able to track Marc Fontaine to one of our restaurants.”

“Inside?” I have to ask because I doubt the man would be that crazy to go into one of our restaurants and eat.

“No. He was in a limo. Out back near the alley. A guy came out of the restaurant and brought him an envelope.”

“You saw all of that?” Nick asks him.

Vincent nods. “I did and of course I tried to look into it deeper because it’s more than suspicious as fuck but nothing’s come of it. I don’t know what to make of it other than they’re real bold to step onto our territory, even if he was in a car.”

I frown and temporarily push my anger aside. He’s right, that all sounds more than suspicious as fuck.

Last time the Fontaines came for us they wanted to use our shipping company to smuggle drugs over to China. They came at us through Tommy, Nick’s best friend, and killed him, but not before kidnapping Nick’s wife and holding her as ransom so we’d do what they wanted.

“This feels like the same shit as years ago,” I surmise.

“It does.”

That whole thing gave us the heads-up that trouble was on the horizon. It made us see just how coveted the shipping company is. We can bypass certain laws and get things done. In the past, back to my grandfather’s days when the company was just getting off the ground, a lot of smuggling took place. It was how we got so big so quickly. We don’t need to do that shit anymore but we still have certain permissions from the old days. People that turn a blind eye for us on certain things.

The shit with the Fontaines years ago was instigated by Joey Fontaine, one of the bosses for the family. It was Vincent who killed him to get back Mia. Since then we’ve been looking out for something to happen with the other Fontaine brothers. Marc, Lawrence and Sergio.

Things however, have been real quiet and it’s been almost three years now.

“What are we going to do?” Nick asks.

“Nothing,” Vincent answers. “You three will do nothing until you need to. What I want is that you come to me if you see anything suspicious. The fact that they were at the office and the restaurant means they could have been going there a while. I don’t know. It just looks like shit brewing and I want everyone on the alert. Especially since you’re at the shipping company during the day.”

I nod. “Okay. There must be something we can do though.”

“Look after your women and your families.” He looks to each of us, even me.

I’m the only brother here who isn’t in an actual relationship.

They all have kids, or are about to. Gabe’s Charlotte is five months pregnant and Vincent has a newborn. Nick has a two year old and he’s the youngest of us.

I have Mimi.

God…

Mimi… my babygirl. I can’t get her out of my damn head.

I keep my breathing still. Even and slow. I’m doing my best to be in the same room as Gabe and not lose my shit, but it’s hard.

“Okay, sure,” I agree and dip my head.

It’s time to go. If I’m being told I should keep out of it I need to go and resume my attempts to process the bomb Mimi dropped on me.

Mostly, I need to get away from Gabe. I stand up first, ready to leave. It’s uncharacteristic of me. Vincent turns his attention to me with that same look of awareness he previously had.

“We done here?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Vincent answers. “Bro, stay back. I wanna talk to you.”

“Can it wait?” I can’t hide the irritation in my tone and he notices that too. Vincent is as close as any of the guys to me but I know not to fuck with him in tone or action. He’ll pull rank on me as my older brother and as underboss of the family. I just don’t give a flying fuck right now.

“It can, but I’d rather it didn’t,” he answers and Gabe and Nick exchange curious glances.

“Let the man go Vincent,” Gabe chimes in with a broad smile. The sight of him smiling ignites my blood and I press down hard on my back teeth. “He’s probably anxious to get back to his babygirl.” He chuckles and …I see red.

It starts with a flash.

A flash of red sparks before my eyes and seeps into my mind, working its way through my consciousness like poison. Suddenly I don’t care who he is, or that he’s changed. I don’t care or give a shit. I just recall what he’s done to my girl.

My babygirl.

Yes… what he said would have normally been funny because of the strange relationship Mimi and I have. But there’s nothing fucking funny about it today. I don’t want him to talk about her or think about her. He has no right.

The flash turns into a wall of red as he’s about to continue his taunt and I lose my shit.

I lose control of my mind and land a fist straight in his face.

I hit him so hard the impact sends him backwards, falling off his chair. And I don’t stop there.

I lunge forward onto him and then find myself punching. I hear Vincent and Nick somewhere in the background calling to me but they sound far away.

They call at me and I don’t hear anything and I lose focus when Gabe sends a bone crunching fist to my jaw that hurts like a motherfucker.

We’re always fighting and pulling guns on each other, but we never mean it. I think it was one time only that I’d ever gotten into a fight with any of my brothers and it was a real fight. That was with Vincent and he didn’t joke to hand me my ass and mess me up.

This is real. Gabe sends another fist to my face and then I lose all control. One fist after another lands in his face.

I get a good few in before Vincent and Nick pull me off him.

I didn’t even realize that Gabe had an opening he could have taken to get me good but never took it. He just lay there and allowed me to beat the shit out of him. He’s a man like me who would never allow that.

Only for me though.

“What the motherfucking hell is wrong with you!” Vincent shouts when he releases me. Nick just stares because he’s never seen me lose it before. Not like that and not with one of us. He knows my rage is real and not the shit we usually get up to.

Gabe lifts his bloodied head, barely able to move it. I’m on fire and I could continue but I’m embarrassed at the sight of what I did to him. I’m embarrassed at the way I look in front of my brothers.

I’m embarrassed that I can’t feel that bond between any of us at the moment.

And I feel like shit the longer I stare at Gabe because aside from being my brother he’s my best friend. We’ve had each other’s back since forever.

We’re only one year apart. I’m older and I always have his back. I swear I’ve had his back since birth.

I look at all of them and I walk out of the office.

Vincent calls after me but I keep going, keep walking straight ahead. He catches up with me at the end of the corridor and grabs my arm, yanking me to a stop.

“Salvatore, what happened?” he demands. His voice is more even tempered now.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I answer. Best to say that, especially since I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Mimi begged me not to do anything too. I’m fairly certain I wasn’t supposed to do what I just did to Gabe either, but fuck it. I didn’t kill his ass so kudos to me.

“Salvatore, what did Gabe do?”

“Vin please. Just please. I can’t be here right now. Watch out for the Fontaines, right?”

“Yeah, right.” He releases my arm. “I’m calling you later when you cool off and you’re going to tell me what this shit is that’s got you so worked up.”

“Just leave it Vincent. Just… leave me.”

I walk away before he can answer.

We’re all close. Brothers and friends. That’s always been the main thing about

us. We have this bond as brothers that extends to friendship, but right now I don’t feel it and quite honestly I’m not sure I want to.