One Luca

“Those bastardos (bastards)!” Father yells as he violently pushes the files on his wooden office desk to the floor. His voice is raised in anger as he fumes loudly, cursing in Italian.

I keep a distance away from his desk. There's no calming him when he gets pissed. “ Padre (Father).”

“Is everything alright in there, Luca?” Mother inquiries from behind the closed door. Her voice is laced with concern.

“Everything will be alright when I end the Mancinis,” Father yells.

I can’t let that happen. Giovanni has been my best friend for years. He is family to me. Our families started out close until business tore us apart. Giovanni's father, Salvatore’s, desire to take over the entire eastside territory also contributed to the strife. Now, my father is painting them as our enemy.

“Antonio, stai calmo (stay calm) .” Mother pushes the door to the office, opening it wide enough to peep into the room. Father tsks with his gaze fixed on his phone, but Mother’s words somehow seem to calm him down.

“I’ll handle this, Madre (Mother); no need to worry.”

She waits another moment before shutting the door. Father takes his pipe off the desk and holds the tip in between his lips, signaling to me to light a match.

“I can still convince Volpe to work with us,” I say, as I take a match out of the pack and light the pipe.

Father shakes his head in response. He keeps the pipe in place.

“I don’t want to have any business with that double-crossing bastard.” He takes a long drag as I settle in the seat facing him.

I haven’t had a moment to myself since Volpe, our business partner, called this morning to call off our deal.

Calling the deal off wasn’t the problem; the people he now has business with pissed off my father. The Mancinis. They are stealing our clients.

Volpe isn’t the only one who has called off his deal with us. Abate and Tarascio also did so last week. Losing clients means we are losing a lot of fucking money.

The Mancinis have always envied us as the top mafia gang in New York City, and they’ll do anything to dethrone us. Even if it means cutting ties with my family and turning us against each other. Although, that hasn’t stopped Gianna and me from meeting. At least not yet.

Neither of our families know about us. I took her virginity last night and now our families are slowly becoming rivals, making it harder for us to be together.

“What should I do about it?” I ask my father, returning to the moment.

A cloud of smoke fills the air as Father releases. “You are a De Santis, Luca; you can’t let them think we are weak.”

He stands from his seat and slams his fist on the desk. The white shirt he has on is fitted and neatly tucked into his pants.

He stands tall in the room. The lights shine brightly over his groomed dark hair with a touch of gray scattered around. He has his gold Patek Philippe watch on, with a skull head ring on his middle finger.

“Strike them hard where it hurts the most. I want to see their end, Luca.”

Fuck.

Father walks to the door and turns to look at me. His eyes are full of anger. “Cut every tie with Salvatore’s son. I don’t ever want to see you with him again. This is war; don’t disappoint me, mio figlio (my son).”

I swallow hard as I ball both my hands into a fist.

Father shuts the door behind him and I let out an exasperated sigh. I’ve known Giovanni all my life and never once did I ever think we’d become enemies. My father has left me no choice but to retaliate.

In this business, the number one rule is to always be ruthless unless you are viewed as weak and would be easily clipped.

My thoughts are interrupted by the beeping sound of my phone in my pocket. I take it out to see a message from Gianna wanting to meet tonight. Last night ended abruptly, as she needed to get home before her over-protective brother suspected anything. He kept calling while we were just about to have another round of sex.

If only she knew how much my family resents hers. I don’t get a chance to reply to her text as I receive a call from Santino. He works for me as the manager of our transport business. It is a cover to smuggle arms and drugs freely into the city. “Santino.”

“We have a problem, Boss.”

My chest tightens, hearing him speak. What the hell could be wrong this time? “Fucking spill it,” I say anxiously. I stand up, holding the edge of the desk.

“One of the trucks got seized by the authorities. Dre and Miro are in custody at the moment.”

“They’ll be fucking dead if I get my hands on them. How the fuck did you let this happen?”

Father cannot learn of this. The talk about the Mancinis has done enough already to ruin his mood. Learning about the truck would make it all worse. Fuck, he’ll think I’m not capable of running the family’s business.

“Fucking answer me!” I’m trying hard not to lose it yet and keep my voice down. Mother could be nearby. I can’t let either of them find out.

“Someone snitched on us. We caught one of Mancini’s men.”

Damn it.

Father was right. I can’t let them continue to strike us without having our revenge. “Where are you?”

“The warehouse at Ozone Park.”

I walk to the door and grip the handle hard, hurriedly opening the door. “Wait for me there; I’ll meet you soon.”

I leave my father’s home office in a rush as I slip my car keys out of my pocket.

Mother is in the living room when I walk into the room. She is just as beautiful as always, seated on the sofa with her glasses on. She has a purple dress on with her legs crossed. Her brown hair is in a high bun.

She shifts her gaze from the newspaper she has in front of her to me for a moment, then back to the paper. “Why are you in a hurry all of a sudden, mio figlio ?”

“Santino needs me. I’ll see you soon, Madre .”

I move closer to her and place a kiss on her forehead.

She remains silent as I walk out of the house and I thank the heavens for that.

Two of my father’s men, heavily armed with rifles, are standing beside my car. I take out my ash-colored Hennessey Venom F5. They both nod in greeting as I unlock my car and slide into it. I start the engine immediately and drive out of my father’s residence.

The truck they had seized contained our new shipment of cocaine and drugs. A problem that costs me a lot of fucking il denaro (money)!

The Mancinis have recently done enough to make me lose it. I had been holding back because of Giovanni and most especially because of Gianna; I didn’t want to start a war with her family. Well, not anymore.

In this business, I cannot afford to let my feelings affect my decisions.

I drive to our warehouse in Queens and make my way to Ozone Park. Four hefty armed men surround the building. They watch me closely as I pull the car to a stop and get out in a rush.

“I won’t be staying long,” I say as I toss the keys to one of the men. He catches them in the air and nods, walking to my car to park it properly.

“Santino!” I yell as I walk into the building.

One of the rooms is filled with screams echoing out of it. Santino has to be there.

I walk past the room used to store bags of cocaine. Some of my men are working there. The brightly lit room allows me to see their faces, with a few ladies clad in only panties and bras.

The screams get louder as I walk further into the warehouse. Santino’s head comes into view as I stop by the slightly opened door. I push it wider and Santino’s gaze meets mine.

Everyone in the room stops to nod a greeting as I walk into the room, my hands in my pockets. Everyone except the snitch tied to the steel chair with a bloodied face. He is breathing heavily, with one of his eyes barely open and the other swollen. His body has whip lashes that have turned the color of his skin a bright red.

“Please let go of me; I am innocent.”

“ Cagna (Bitch),” Santino says through gritted teeth. He raises his fist, wrapped in a chain, to connect a punch to the face of the prisoner.

I stop him before he does. “Who are you?” I ask.

The prisoner keeps mute and turns his gaze away from mine, planting it on the ground.

“I expect a fucking answer when I ask you a fucking question.” I unbutton the sleeves of my shirt and roll them up. “I’ll only ask you one last time. Who the fuck are you?”

My voice has gotten louder with fury.

“ Vaffanculo (Fuck you),” the prisoner responds, spitting out blood.

In a fit of rage, I angrily connect my fist to his jaws and send him tumbling to the ground, still tied to the chair. He groans loudly. My men pick him up from the ground and bring him back to his spot.

“I’ll make you regret every choice you have made trying to mess with me.” I punch him hard again in the face, causing him to spew out more blood.

He has bloody cuts on his bald head. His bloody face smears my fingers. He has a tattoo mark on the side of his neck. An anchor. The mark of the Mancinis. I grip his neck and tilt it to the side to stare at the tattoo. He really is one of them.

Fuck.

How did they find out about our truck? Why did Giovanni let this happen?

Santino unwraps the chains from his knuckles and hands them over to me.

“You’ll wish you were dead.” I take another shot at him, hitting him with a vicious punch. He screams in pain, his face bruised with several cuts from the edges of the chain. My wrists start to hurt, but I continue hitting him.

Santino holds me back after a few minutes.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” I grunt, shaking off his grip. The prisoner’s face is almost unrecognizable. He spews out more blood.

“He... he sent me.” His words stop me from connecting another punch to his face.

“Who?”

He keeps mute again, trying to catch his breath.

I grip his neck and squeeze tight. “Who sent you?”

He struggles in the chair as I suck the air out of him. His eyelids flutter as his legs move frantically on the floor. He coughs as I release his neck from my grip.

“I won’t stop next time.”

A smirk plays on his lips as he stares at me with half-opened eyes. “We are closer to you than you think.”

What?

His words throw me off balance as they echo in my ears. The truck had set out to leave last night. I was with Gianna around that time.

Could it be? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“How?”

The prisoner lets out a laugh instead. It fucking pisses me off even more.

“Answer me, fuck head!”

He ignores me and continues to laugh hysterically. I punch him in the face and grip his neck again.

“Salvatore Mancini is the only Capo (Boss).” He finally sneers.

I unwrap the chain from my knuckles. They’ve turned white with tiny cuts on them. In a sudden move, I turn to slip the gun from Santino’s pocket and pull the trigger on the prisoner.

He falls to the ground with a bullet hole in his head.