Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Elian

“I don’t like it,” Renzo said as we stood in the back room of the butcher shop that was now Rico’s legitimate business.

It ended up being a convenient choice, actually.

During the working hours, it created a lot of income that the family could use to wash their illegal money with.

After hours, there was a room in the back with a drain in the floor and decades of blood that had been spilled. So if we ever needed to spill some of our own, we had a nice, easy way of getting rid of the evidence.

Rico had set up an office toward the back where a lot of us went to have meetings with the boss or each other instead of relying on taking walks down the street like we used to.

Whether anyone would admit it or not, we were all getting really fucking paranoid about our safety. Because of the moves the Bratva was making, because we didn’t know just how far they were going to take this.

I mean, they’d tried to kill an innocent woman whose only crime had been being inside a building while a phone call had been made.

They didn’t even have any proof that she’d actually overheard it.

That was how paranoid and ruthless these bastards were.

“I don’t like it either,” I agreed. “But what other choice is there? It’s not like I could force her to stop going to her job, stop living her life.”

“From the sounds of things, she’s not going to have a life to live soon. They won’t miss a second time.”

“I know,” I agreed. They’d barely missed the first time. Hell, if my car hadn’t pulled into their path, I was sure pretty Elizabeth Riley would be dead right now.

“I get why she feels like she needs to go back and get dirt on her boss,” Renzo added, shrugging. “But the chances of him going down for this are slim. And the chances are even lower that any of the other Bratva members will ever get convicted. They caught that one fuck because of a random search.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“What are the chances that the senator can get the district attorney to drop charges?” he asked.

“I honestly don’t know. I don’t know enough about our DA to know if she is corruptible or not.”

“I think we know from experience that they almost all are, if the motivation is strong enough. If it’s not money for her, it will be the threats that the Bratva can use against her. She’s got a family. Two kids in college. Big risk right there. No way for her to protect them.”

“True,” I agreed.

“And the chances of this girl—“

“Elizabeth,” I interjected.

“Elizabeth,” Renzo said, brows pinching a bit, but he pressed on, “will be able to get enough proof to go to the police, have them build a case, and get anyone arrested before the Bratva finds those weaknesses and uses them against the DA, are almost nonexistent.”

“So what do you want to do?” I asked, finding myself thankful to have him make the decision, since I felt like all I was doing was floundering, following people who never did anything publicly that could get them arrested, who were never alone, so I couldn’t even start picking them off, chopping away at their numbers.

“Fuck if I know,” Renzo admitted, letting out a deep breath, looking as lost as I’d been feeling for months. “All I do know is these fucks took control of two of the street gangs that used to kick up to us. It won’t be long before it’s three, five, ten, until we are fucking outnumbered by them.”

“We could take out the street gangs,” I suggested. Ugly business, killing that many people, but there was nothing pretty when it came to a turf war. And they’d chosen sides against us.

“I got Rico looking into that,” he admitted, nodding his chin toward the man himself who was walking toward the back, bringing a tray of coffees with him.

“The gangs?” Rico asked, passing out the drinks.

I took a sip of the coffee, feeling an immediate and irrational disappointment that it didn’t taste like fucking cookies.

“Yeah.”

“My guys have been reporting back to me. Looks like we could easily take out the Lincolns. They haven’t been strong ever since someone clipped their leader.”

“Someone,” Renzo scoffed.

“Yeah, well, they’re too fucking stupid to realize it’s the goddamn Russians who did it. And now they’re kissing their boots.”

“Do you think the Bratva will retaliate?” I asked.

“Not if we make it seem like the Brook Boys did it,” Rico said, meaning the other gang that the Bratva had turned against us.

It was a common strategy in the playbook. Take out a few members of one crew, make it seem like a rival crew did it, and let them finish taking each other out while you sat back and watched.

Both of our gazes slid to the boss, who sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “Do it. We can’t keep sitting around letting this shit happen. This won’t stop the Russians from coming for more of our turf, but at least it cuts the numbers down against us.”

“I’ll get it done,” Rico said, nodding. “Coal has been chomping at the bit for a job. You good with me taking him on it with me?” he asked.

Coal was a kid who’d originally been working against us. But when he’d been chained to a chair and tortured without breaking, Renzo had developed a grudging respect for the guy. And eventually offered him a job on his crew. He’d been relentlessly working to prove himself since.

“Yeah. He’s done a lot of fucking people up so far, but it’s probably time for him to make his bones,” Renzo said, nodding.

We all had to do it.

Make bones.

Take a life.

It was a rite of passage to eventually become a made man in the mafia.

Coal had been working as an associate for Renzo for a while now. But if he got ‘made,’ he’d be a soldier. And possibly on track to becoming a capo some day.

We’d all been Coal’s age or younger when we’d been made. Of course, back then, shit had been different. Renzo had been making a power grab to get control over the area after decades of shitty leadership that left the Lombardi crime family a laughingstock of the Five Families.

He, and by extension all of us capos, had needed to be hard and ruthless to get this borough to bow down to and respect us.

It was still a daily struggle, little crews deciding they didn’t want to kick up to us anymore. Or local businesses claiming they no longer wanted to pay for protection. But it was nothing like it’d been back then, the bodies practically piling up, blood always staining our hands and clothes.

I knew I spoke for all of us when I said I was glad those days were behind us. But with this threat of the Bratva getting bigger by the day, I couldn’t help but wonder how close we were to having that be our reality all over again.

If we couldn’t get this under control.

If I couldn’t get this under control.

But that wasn’t exactly comforting. Because if this was a move right out of the criminal playbook, then they had a copy too, they’d been studying it, they would know to look toward us as the ones who’d carried it out.

“Should we be worried?” I asked, thinking of my family, of my little sister the most. Not exactly little anymore. She was an adult. Just barely. But she was young and carefree. Because everyone in this area knew they better not put their hands on her.

But if the Bratva wanted to strike, they would know the best way to do it would be through those we loved the most. The wives, the children, the siblings who weren’t in the organization.

And because these fuckers were into sexual exploitation, it wasn’t a huge leap to assume that they would take our women and girls and force them into that fate.

My stomach twisted at the idea of any of those fucks putting a hand on her.

“You’re worried about your sister,” Renzo said, looking at me.

“You’re not worried about Lore?” I asked.

His face darkened at that, and I knew I’d struck a nerve. His marriage might have been a simple arrangement at first, but he’d clearly fallen hard for his wife since then. He’d almost lost her once. He’d be damned if he let that happen again.

“If I am worried about Lore, I can send her to her family,” he said, even though I knew it gutted his pride to say that.

The Costas, while an ally of ours now, weren’t exactly our friends. We’d spent our lives fighting against their reign, their determination to stay on top of all the families, and impose their rules on us.

The bitterness ran pretty deep.

But, at the end of the day, Renzo was right. If there was one safe place in the world for Lore to be if the war between us and the Russians got worse, it was back in Manhattan with the Costas, with those five brothers of hers who would move heaven and earth to keep her safe.

The thing was, none of the rest of us had that luxury. I had no one to cart my little sister off to. Hell, I don’t know if she would go even if I demanded it of her.

“Why don’t I put Cinna on your sister?” Renzo asked.

“As a bodyguard?” I asked, skeptical. Cinna was a capo. She didn’t work as a bodyguard.

“For the time being, yeah. She and Dav are on punishment for that shit they pulled still. She would probably welcome a distraction. Plus, if you get Cinna, you get Dav. And if you get them, you get those kids they got now. Lots of people around to keep an eye on your sister.”

“Okay,” I agreed, nodding. “She’s not going to like it, but okay.”

“We’ll figure out plans for the rest of the women too,” Rico said, gears already turning.

There was a reason Rico was Renzo’s right-hand man. Sure, Renzo had kept me close until recently, too. But it was different with Rico. Rico was a family man, through and through. He lived, slept, and breathed this shit. If you ever needed to know information about something, he was your guy. If you needed someone to help you strategize something, he was who you turned to.

Honestly, the only reason Rico wasn’t the boss himself was because he and Renzo were so close. And Renzo wanted it more.

“And then we will move,” Renzo agreed, nodding.

I nodded at that, still feeling that churning sensation in my gut, though.

“What do you want from me?” I asked Renzo as Rico walked out to go work on his plans.

“Stay on the Russians. Especially after we make this move. I need to know if there’s more activity, if anyone seems to be gearing up. That kind of thing.”

“Got it,” I agreed, making my way back outside to get in the car I felt like I’d been living in lately. The same car that now had a fucking hideous bumper sticker on the bullet hole from the shooting and new fake plates, in case the Russians clocked me.

I drove back toward the massage parlor, telling myself that there was nothing I could do for Elizabeth, that she had made her own decisions, that there was nothing for me to feel guilty about.

I just barely fought back the urge to go and sit outside of her office building, knowing I was practically putting a target on my back if I did so, but wanting to make sure she at least made it home from work safely.

If she needed my help, I reminded myself, she would ask for it.

But she didn’t.

Not the day after the shooting.

Or even the day after that.

But late on the third night, my phone rang.

And she was frantic on the other end.