Unforgivable Ties

Chapter 2

Vincenzo

I took one last glance at Stephanie. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about her intense gaze and the slight tilt of her head as she worked that intrigued me. Her hands had been warm and skilled as she tended to my wound, almost like a musician playing a beautiful melody on a piano.

Stephanie stared back at me before finally crawling back behind the shelf. I shook my head and turned away from it. Now, I would have to forget about her and this chance encounter.

Two grunts and I had been meeting up with a small street gang in NYC. We were their supplier for meth in the area, and they were buying a rather large order. Before we had left, I had texted Rocco and Felix that I had a bad feeling, and that if I didn’t text them in twenty minutes to come to the scene.

My intuition was right. They brought extra men with them, and had tried to steal the drugs. The two grunts I had brought with me and myself got into a shootout with them, and it was a bloody and chaotic scene. Both of my men were dead, and five of the six men from the street gang were dead.

I would be dead too, if it weren’t for Stephanie. Before my mind could wander back to the redhead, Felix and Rocco stormed into the warehouse, guns drawn.

“It’s just me,” I said, trying to prop myself up off the floor. My voice echoed around the shadowy confines of the warehouse, bouncing off its cold concrete walls.

“Jesus!” Felix said as he and his twin rushed to my side. “What the fuck happened?”

“Let’s just get out of here for now,” I said as they helped lift me off the ground. “And get the bodies in the back of the van.”

Rocco helped me into the passenger seat while Felix began throwing both our men and the gang’s men in the back of the van. Then Rocco helped his brother gather the remaining bodies, and we headed out expeditiously. I didn’t think anyone had called the cops, but we didn’t want to be there to find out.

“Cesare next, I presume?” Rocco said as we drove down the rows of containers.

Cesare was both our trusted doctor and a man from a close Italian family. In the dangerous world of the mafia, we couldn’t risk bringing attention upon ourselves by showing up at a hospital in times of need. The risk of being caught or having unwanted attention drawn to us by curious cops was too great. So instead, we relied on Cesare’s expertise and discretion to handle any medical emergencies that may arise within our group.

“Yeah,” I responded, turning down the AC to the lowest temperature. “We need to keep these bodies cold.”

“Still thinking about work while bleeding out?” Felix said, not bothering to hide his amusement.

I didn’t mention meeting Stephanie, or that I had my wound sewn shut. “Someone has to keep things running.”

“So what happened?” Rocco asked. He was always more serious and levelheaded than his twin brother.

“Weak ass street gang got a few extra members and let it go to their head,” I responded. “They thought they were tough enough to steal a shipment of meth.”

“And I’m guessing they were very wrong.” Felix chimed in, a smirk hanging off his lips.

“Dead wrong,” I deadpanned, my fingers absentmindedly tracing the bandage under my blood-soaked attire.

Felix snickered at the morbid pun, while Rocco shook his head disapprovingly. “This is not a laughing matter, Felix,” he chastised.

“Yeah, yeah. They’re just a small distributor. After we punish them for this, they won’t have any members left,” he responded, waving his hand.

He wasn’t wrong. Still, it was not a headache I felt like adding to my plate when I had so much other crap to deal with.

Rocco expertly maneuvered the car through the bustling city streets, weaving in and out of traffic with ease. Within minutes, we arrived at one of our many warehouses. Cesare’s “doctor’s office” was tucked away inside. Inside, rows of nondescript shelves lined the walls, until you walked into the back of the building, where medical equipment and a morgue filled a quarter of it.

Felix extended his hand, offering to help me out of the car, but I waved him away. Every step felt like a knife stabbing into my side as I made my way into the building. My hand pressed tightly against my aching ribs. I focused on reaching Cesare as quickly as possible; I needing some fucking painkillers.

Two grunts were hanging out in the front of the building. “Get the bodies in the truck refrigerated,” I commanded them. Without a word, they scurried off to fulfill my order.

The trek to Cesare’s office felt like an eternity, but I finally arrived. When I opened the door, he was sitting in a chair, waiting for me. He was watching me like a cat, unblinking, with no expression.

“Well?” I asked, gesturing to my wound.

He simply glanced at me over his glasses, his bony fingers reaching for a pair of latex gloves. “I take it things did not go as planned?” he said, his voice as cool and dispassionate as ever.

“You could say that,” I grunted, sitting down on the examination table.

He lifted my shirt, revealing the bandaged wound underneath, and tilted his head in curiosity. “How did this happen?”

I was so frustrated by the situation I hadn’t thought about how I was going to explain my patched wound to Cesare. It was too professional for me to say I had done it myself.

“Well…” I sighed, and told him the entire story.

“A civilian? Who just happened to be there?” he asked skeptically.

“I’m pretty sure if she was an enemy she would have offed me the minute she saw me,” I responded, running my hand through my hair. “Either way, don’t tell anyone.”

“Alright,” he said, raising his eyebrow. “But are you sure it was the right move letting her go? Who’s to say she won’t go to the cops?”

“I’ll deal with that if it happens,” I snapped, wincing as Cesare unwrapped the bandage from around my torso. He simply observed me with those cold eyes of his, his lips tightening into a tight line.

“This is great work. You said she was a student?”

“Yes,” I grumbled, “Second year, I think?”

“Would’ve never guessed.”

We were quiet as he assessed me using various medical tools. The machines beeped and whirred as they tracked my vitals and inspected my injuries. Eventually, he concluded that there was no internal damage and the stitches Stephanie had given me would heal properly.

“I can’t believe you can just leave the bullet in there,” I muttered, glancing at my abdomen.

“You’ve been shot plenty of times. How did you not know that?” Cesare asked, not bothering to hide the look of judgement on his face.

Every other time I had got shot hadn’t been near a vital organ. Cesare had always effortlessly pulled the bullets out of my arm or thigh and stitched it up.

“Just make sure to not get it wet and change the gauze,” he said, wrapping my wound in new gauze.

“Got it,” I said, nodding absentmindedly. My mind drifted back to Stephanie’s help, and the way her brown eyes had softened when she looked at me, when most people recoiled in fear.

“And do you know how much overtime I have now? How many bodies are there?” he asked with a sigh, peeling off his gloves and discarding them into a bin next to the examination table.

“Seven,” I said with a grimace, rubbing my thumb over the wadded gauze bandage on my side. The doctor flicked an unimpressed glance my way before scribbling something onto his clipboard.

“Do you know how long it takes to get organs out of one body, let alone seven?”

“They’re in rough shape. Doubt you’ll be able to get much.”

Cesare groaned, running a hand through his silvered hair. “Just what I need,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “More work and less profit out of it.”

“Thanks for the help,” I said, sliding off the examination table. “I’ll see you later.”

I ignored Cesare’s bitching as I walked out of his office. What he had said had been bothering me—did I make the right decision letting Stephanie go? Yes, she was kind to me and helped patch me up. I was certain that she was now thinking about the situation she had gotten herself into, and she must have thought it would be best to notify the police about the shooting.

Whatever. We had a lot of crooked cops on our payroll. If they caught any inkling of something we might have done, they’d let us know we were on the police’s radar.

I’d just have to forget about it, and her, for now.