Enforcer’s Obsession

Chapter 5

FIVE

Nico

I lingered outside my bedroom door, not wanting to leave, but also knowing that I needed to.

Because of this girl, I’d already broken so many rules.

I should just get this over with and clean up loose ends and then turn my attention to the shitstorm I knew was brewing outside.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

And even worse, I had no fucking clue how this naive, innocent girl had gotten me to act so out of character.

I should have washed my hands of her hours ago.

I should wash my hands of her right now.

Yet I turned on my heel and walked away, leaving her in my bedroom.

That room was the closest thing I had to a sanctuary, and no one else was allowed to enter.

That the girl was in there now said things I had no interest in acknowledging, let alone thinking about.

So I didn’t.

Instead I went back downstairs to the guest bedroom that I had converted into a gym. I used the attached bath to shower, and then dressed in cargo pants, boots, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt.

Appropriate attire for this evening’s plans. By the time I emerged, my cousin Enzo was sauntering into the living room.

“The car?” I asked.

“The men are on it,” he said.

“And the other girl?” I asked, remembering how concerned Hope had been about her friend.

Enzo smirked. “She’s been taken care of,” he said. Then, when he heard movement from upstairs, he looked up at the ceiling.

His grin got bigger. “Doesn’t look like you can say the same,” he said.

I ignored him, knowing now wasn’t the time.

Instead I focused on Sebastian, one of the Morettis’ best soldiers, as he entered the living room.

“Keep an eye on her. Do not let her leave,” I said.

He nodded curtly, and I held his eye.

“I’m serious, Sebastian. She steps foot outside that door, it’s your ass,” I said.

“Don’t worry, boss. I’ll make sure she stays in line,” Sebastian said.

I knew what that meant.

After all, I was the one who had trained him.

But the way Sebastian spoke set my teeth on edge and sent a spark of rage through my chest.

I forced myself to keep calm and pushed out my words through clenched teeth. “Tie her to a chair if you have to, but nothing else,” I said.

He looked surprised, but then nodded.

“Sebastian,” I said, surprised that my voice was calm, though I knew it was edged with warning.

“I got it,” he responded.

I understood why he was confused.

After all, ease and care weren’t exactly normal concerns of mine.

I couldn’t explain it, but the thought of my men—or anyone else—mishandling my little belissima didn’t sit well with me.

I realized I had let out a mirthless laugh when Sebastian raised an eyebrow.

His look asked unspoken question, and I wasn’t in the mood to answer, so instead I moved toward the stairs, trying to leave thoughts of my complication behind.

My cousin followed me, feeling free to speak his mind where Sebastian had stayed quiet. “We should get rid of her,” he said.

“Did you get rid of the other one?” I asked.

I looked back at him, his dark eyes unreadable. “It wasn’t necessary. She was already tipsy. I gave her a few drops of MDMA. She won’t remember a thing.”

“That is a little…subtle for you, cousin,” I said.

Enzo didn’t bother to deny what I’d said. He knew he was a blunt instrument. It was the way he preferred handle things. And it was that hotheadedness that kept him from moving up the ranks of the Moretti family.

He shrugged. “Aren’t you always telling me I need to use my brain for something other than headbutting people?”

I chuckled. “For years, but you’ve never taken that advice.”

Enzo was ten years younger than me and still hardheaded, brash, with the kind of exuberance that had been snuffed out of me one cold, starless night decades ago.

I appreciated that about him, but also knew that in this business, his exuberance—and his hotheadedness—would eventually get him killed.

“Well now you have proof that I listen to you,” he said as we walked back to the garage.

I went to the second vehicle and stopped a moment to watch the men. They were taking my vehicle apart.

Literally.

By the time they were done, the car I’d liked so much would be nothing but scrap, and, most importantly, impossible to identify. Some might find it overkill, but the vehicle could have been spotted leaving the scene of a shooting, so I wouldn’t risk leaving any evidence.

“You drive,” I said to Enzo as we got into the car.

He cranked the engine, drove off, and then looked at me from the corner of his eye. “The lady looks respectable.”

“Like you know what that is,” I responded with a chuckle.

He beamed at me. “Yeah, not my area of expertise, but she clearly pays her taxes and has probably never had so much as a jaywalking ticket. She looks like the kind of person someone would miss,” he said.

“Yes,” I responded, though I couldn’t stop my thoughts from straying back to the girl.

Was she the type of person others would miss?

I couldn’t tell.

She’d been there with her friend, who had also struck me as a respectable, if somewhat carefree, citizen.

But my belissima didn’t seem carefree.

She seemed…alone.

Maybe that was what preoccupied me about her.

I recognize that aloneness, knew it intimately.

“So that’s why. I figured it was easier,” Enzo said.

Yeah,” I responded, realizing I hadn’t heard what he had said.

Enzo chuckled. “Yeah, you weren’t listening, but it’s fine. And besides, she seems nice. She had like pictures of animals and shit in her house. It seemed like a shame to kill her over nothing,” Enzo said.

I glanced over at him, wondering at the change, though I chose to say nothing.

And any amusement fled as soon as we pulled up to an iron gate.

“The boss is sleeping,” the guard at the gate said.

“It’s important enough that he’ll want you to wake him,” I responded, trying to keep my annoyance at bay.

We didn’t sell fucking insurance and sure as fuck didn’t keep office hours.

But you wouldn’t know that from the way my boss acted.

The fact that I was contacting him before he reached out to me was proof enough that his head wasn’t in the game.

What had happened tonight was unacceptable, and should have been his top priority.

Yet here his guard was telling me about his fucking beauty sleep.

I clenched my fists as Enzo sped forward, not waiting until the gates were fully open before I drove through.

“You know he’s going to bitch about you interrupting his sleep,” Enzo said.

“Watch your fucking mouth. He’s the boss,” I said.

Enzo furrowed his brow, but didn’t disagree.

Sure, the boss pissed me the fuck off sometimes, but there was protocol to consider, and when little shit started to slip—a disrespectful comment about the boss here, a little skimming off the top there—then the big shit started to slip.

And that was when people started to die.

I wouldn’t allow that to happen.

Enzo parked, and we got out of the car and walked up the wide stairs and into the boss’s house.

Mansion, really.

I hadn’t counted, but there had to be twenty rooms in the place and God only knew how many fucking bathrooms. Plus two kitchens, and outdoor kitchen, pool, jacuzzi, gym, theater, and the entire bottom floor was a bowling alley.

Much too much for one family, to say nothing of one lonely old man.

I walked across the grand foyer, back to the library, which was the room where the boss spent almost all of his time.

He was there now, sitting in his leather chair behind a big stately desk. The entire room looked the part, expensive furniture, dark wood, books lining the shelfs.

A perfectly put-together place for gentile business meetings— until things took a turn.

I wondered if everyone else had figured out it was a facade.

I’d learned that lesson decades ago, and had been waiting for everyone to catch up.

Waiting for the boss to catch up too.

It hadn’t happened yet, but what could I say? I was an optimistic guy.

“You’ve come with good news, Nico?” the boss said. He had a comically large cigar in his hands and hadn’t looked up at me yet.

I didn’t take it personally. “Good news doesn’t come this time of night, Don Carlo,” I said.

He laughed, the sound almost bitter. “Don’t I know it.”

To look at him, you’d would think he was every bit the formidable boss that his reputation portrayed.

There were a few flecks of gray in his dark hair and his jaw had a touch of softness, but otherwise, he was hale and hearty, and there was nothing in his appearance that would give away his seven decades.

Except for his eyes, for anyone smart enough to look.

His eyes gave away the whole story.

I’d first glimpsed it when I was little more than a kid, one who the boss had personally taken under his wing.

His way of paying me back for my loss.

He hadn’t said that, of course. Instead, he’d tried to fool me with bluster, fill me up with lies about the potential he saw in me.

But I’d seen through all that. Had seen his weakness, his uncertainty.

His fear.

It should have made me hate him, and one some level, maybe it had.

But even more, seeing the truth of my boss had made me determined to protect the people that he couldn’t.

It had become my job to save people the pain that I had experienced because of his weakness.

For years, my life had been dedicated entirely to that, despite the boss’s efforts to stop me.

“Did I interrupt your time with your lady friend, boss?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he cocked his head toward the door, “all three of them are counting the seconds until I get back,” he said. Then he let out a big belly laugh, as did I and Enzo.

It was one of the boss’s favorite jokes, and complete and total bullshit, and we all knew it.

But we performed as expected, like good little soldiers, all for the boss’s benefit.

His wife and son had died in a car accident thirteen years ago.

He’d never recovered.

Sure, he kept up appearances, went to the clubs, kept a stream of beautiful women on his arm. Performed all the trappings required by the role of “boss.”

But I knew the truth.

He’d always been a weak man, more suited to the life of the quiet businessman that his office portrayed instead of the dark and violent life of a mafioso. But after his wife and son died, a weak man had become a broken one.

And it had become my job to make sure no one else saw it.

“What happened?” he asked, the humor of moments ago gone as if it had never existed.

“Posturing, mostly. The Genovese think you’re planning to move on their territory, so they paid a visit to the club,” I said.

“And they did not come bearing gifts, I assume?”

“If by gifts, you mean automatic gunfire, then yes, they came bearing gifts,” I said.

“Did we lose any of ours?”

I looked over at Enzo, who shook his head. “They wrecked the place, but only two casualties on our side,” he said.

“And theirs?” the boss asked.

“Four. So far,” I said.

“You intend to escalate this?” Don Carlo asked.

“No, I simply intend to respond in kind,” I said.

Carlo looked away, then shook his head.

“Nico, now is the time for cooler heads,” he said.

I didn’t contradict him, though I wanted to.

“What you mean, boss?” I asked instead.

My gut churned, but I knew my role in the family, and this was a part of it.

Playing the stupid, lost boy the way I had for years.

“This…provocation is an attempt to get us to act irrationally,” he said.

“So the same thing they were doing when they attacked the warehouse?” I asked, referring to an attack on one of our key warehouses three weeks ago.

It was an accusation dressed as a question.

I knew it, and so did the boss.

So did Enzo.

But like always, we pretended.

“Exactly. The Genovese are trying to provoke us into reacting in a way that is not beneficial. We can’t allow that,” Don Carlo said.

It was bullshit.

What the Genovese were doing was engaging in a full-on attack against the sanctity of the Moretti family, and they were banking on the fact that Don Carlo wouldn’t respond.

For years, for decades, really, I had walked this tight rope, working as quietly as I could to ensure that the family was protected, while the boss saved face.

I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to keep it up.

Because if the Moretti family didn’t respond now, the Genovese would smell blood in the water.

And they would seize on it.

“If they lost four of theirs, that should be warning enough,” Don Carlo said.

I stayed quiet, pretending like I was considering his words, both of us knowing I’d predicted how this conversation would go hours ago.

“So maybe we make a display, remind them of the consequences should they step out of line again,” I said, like the route I had already decided on had just occurred to me.

“No more bloodshed, Nico,” he said.

I shrugged. “I understand. But some…theatrics might be in order,” I said.

Don Carlo waved me away. “Fine, fine, but don’t escalate this,” he said.

“Very well.”

“You need anything else from me?” he asked.

“No. I’ll keep you in the know,” I said.

The boss slumped into his chair. “Fine. Now I must rest,” he said.

I nodded, and then I left.

My cousin was seething, but fortunately he kept his mouth shut. Besides, Enzo didn’t need to say anything.

I knew exactly what he was thinking.

Don Carlo was exhausted, even though he had done nothing.

If we let this stand, the violence would escalate, and before the boss decided to act, we’d be at a terrible disadvantage.

I knew all that, just as I had anticipated the boss’s response.

Which was exactly why as I drove away from Don Carlo’s cavernous mansion, the men were already working.

The Genovese would find their friends.

They’d be in pieces, of course, scattered throughout the Genovese territory, a clear message that their bullshit wouldn’t be tolerated.

Now all I had to do was hope I could keep my boss from getting his entire fucking family killed—and keep my mind off that fucking girl.