Taming the Monster by K.J. Thomas
Chapter 10
Asher
I look down at my watch, one that’s been passed down through five generations of the Mancini’s. The only person I’ve known was my father and he wasn’t worth remembering but I didn’t know any of the other people that passed this down. Maybe there was a decent Mancini generations ago, there hasn’t been one for years.
Vito and I have been in back-to-back meetings since he found out he was sick. He has a deep and extreme love for his granddaughter. It’s like he’s holding on to life for her. She’s the ultimate being, the one that would continue the bloodline of the Romano’s, for Vito.
I don’t know if I’m turning into a fucking pussy or what, but every time I even think about the man and what he’s going through, my eyes want to tear up. I’ve never given a shit about anybody else before except for Avery.
This explains why all my time is pretty much been for Vito, getting his affairs straight so is granddaughter has less to do.
“I’m in love with your granddaughter.” I didn’t mean for that to come out but it’s been hanging on the edge of my tongue forever and I needed to tell it to somebody. I should probably tell it to Avery.
“I know,” Vito says as he glances up and gives me a wink, then goes right back to doing what he’s been doing.
I chuckle a little bit. “We’re going to have lots of little babies and their last names will be just Mancini,” I say with a smile, but Vito’s face doesn’t return it. He goes slightly pale and fuck man, Vito Romano’s eyes gloss over. I keep thinking, ‘fuck’ over and over in my head. Don’t do this man, don’t make this awkward, I shout in my head hoping Vito can read my thoughts.
Vito takes a couple deep breaths and shakes them away. We’re guys, we don’t have to say anything else. And this will never be told to anybody. I know how much he loves Avery and what he’s going to miss, great grandkids. It fucking sucks that this man had to get sick.
Really fucking sucks balls.
I’ve never had anybody that resembled a father figure, grandfather figure, anything. But Vito Romano was that for me. I’ve learned so much from this man personally. So much about myself, not just the business aspects.
“Fuck!” I snap. Vito’s eyes look up to me worried. My eyes gloss over.
I pace around the room. Fuck, I don’t want to be seen this way, so I make my way outside the door. A quick walk should knock everything off that I’m feeling.
The day I found out how sick Vito was, I swear I lost a part of my soul, not just for myself but for Avery. She finally gained somebody that was important to her, now she’s gonna lose him, too.
I researched as much as I could. I had Mac and a couple of the other guys help me but Vito wouldn’t qualify for any of the trials. Nothing could be done for this rare type of cancer he has. There is regular shit like chemo and new FDA approved pills. I guess it’s supposed to make everything a little better but it doesn’t.
I calm my ass down enough to where I can walk into the room. Vito gives me a tight smile when I come in, neither one of us need to say anything. Guys don’t usually work that way.
“The kids can be named Romano-Mancini,” Vito says all the sudden, twenty minutes later with a huge smile on his face. “I should mention that to Avery.”
I start to laugh and crumple up some papers and throw it at him.
The families know how this works and so does Avery. They might not have the Romano name anymore but they will be Romano’s. I’ll make sure Avery and Vito know this. The old fucker’s just trying to lighten my mood. It’s working.
“Okay,” I start to say as I look through the papers on my desk in the office. Vito is working on the other side of me. “I’m going to divide the families up between the guys. Me, Mac and Carter should be able to reach out to all of them. We’re going to have some trouble with the Armenians and possibly the Irish. The Russian and Spanish families should be fine. I have the other guys set up to contact the smaller families, then this way we can make sure that Luca hasn’t taken any of them into his spell, and they don’t know where he’s at.”
Vito looks at me for a minute and then starts to nod. “They know that our families are connecting. It would be a good idea for them not to fuck with us.”
Which is totally fucking true. There is no way I’m letting go of Avery. The Mancini’s and the Romano’s will join together, connect. I’m the strongest on the East Coast and Vito’s the second. The two families coming together will make us so huge that we’ll be impossible to penetrate. Which is exactly what we need.
I know the time has come for me to ask properly. We’re always talking and joking, but I need to do this the right way, now, before Vito gets too sick.
I’ve never done this before, but it doesn’t matter, the only thing I can do for Vito is let him give me shit. I know he’s okay with me and Avery together already.
“I’m gonna marry your granddaughter, you okay with that?” I spit that shit out before I even had a chance to really think about it and I cringe. What a fucked up way to ask for somebody’s hand in marriage. I continue on my stupid escapade before Vito tries to stop me. “I’m going to do it anyway, but I would like your permission. I would appreciate it, and I know Avery would, too. She needs you to walk her down the aisle.”
Vito’s eyes start to tear up, making us both extremely uncomfortable. “What the fuck. Stop that shit before one of the girls comes in here and sees us both blubbering like babies.” Vito starts to laugh.
“Of course you have my permission,” Vito says with the sincerity that can’t be matched by anyone else.
I relax. I don’t know why but it was just so important for him to approve of us even though he already does. “Thank God, what’s my dowry?”
I hold a straight face as long as I can. “It’s going to be a shot in the fucking head.” I start to laugh, not a full on laugh like Avery does but it’s a good little chuckle and it lightens the mood.
I pull out my phone to send a group text to all the guys. We need to start dealing with this shit now. It’s time to find out what the other families know. “Let’s get started,” I say as Vito and I both stand up. This game is going to end very soon.
* * *
Mac,Vito and Carter shut the door to my office as they walk in. Walker, Liam and Noah have been working on other odd jobs that I’ve assigned for them. Doppler and Devin are supposed to be helping them out but I haven’t heard from those guys for a while. Everybody does their own thing and are called back when needed, if they can come.
I shake away the worry when I think of Devin and Doppler. Those guys have been with me for years, but haven’t been around lately. It makes me a little antsy, but I know that they’re both extremely loyal so I’m not too worried about it. Devin didn’t follow us when we came to New York, and he’s still not with us in Chicago. He’s been working in California on some computer contracts that he has. He’s always done work for us and helped us out, it’s a bummer because he was freaking awesome. I could probably entice him if I kept pushing, but he’s on his own jobs right now.
I look at all the guys. We’ve all broke away from everything for a couple hours to eat lunch and make phone calls. “Anything?”
I search everybody’s eyes trying to find if there might be something, a spark of something, some kind of hope to hold onto, but they all shake their head.
Mac leans forward in his chair slightly crumpling the paper that he had. “Nobody knows a damn thing. I tried enticing them, but it’s hard to know for sure since I’m not there with them.”
Vito holds up his hand stopping everybody. “The other families know how big we’re getting. They don’t want to do anything to harm us, so if they haven’t seen anything, then I’m okay with that. I’m pretty sure that they haven’t.”
All of us nod. Vito Romano has about ten times more experience in all this shit than we do. And that’s not just including his age. He had to redo the whole Romano line, which led to the connecting of the other families. The others were killing too many innocents. They had to stop it before the cops at a national level, agencies with more clearance than the CIA, started to bear down on us.
I don’t know what it was like before, but I’ve heard the stories from other family members in the Mafia. It used to be pure war zones on the East Coast. Thankfully Vito dismantled everything, because who knows if we’d even be alive now if things kept going the way they were.
I open my mouth to continue talking because we need a plan, as the office door burst open.
A very pissed off looking Avery and Tate stomp their way in.
“We have a right to be here,” Avery snaps as she looks at the rest of us. Her eyes soften when she looks at her grandfather.
All of us snap our attention toward Vito. We might be scary Mafia guys but scorned women are not our jam.
“I ain’t fucking dead yet!” Vito snaps and is clearly annoyed by the girls barging in. “When we feel that you guys are ready, then you will be in the meetings. You’re not gonna rise to the top in one day, girl, you need to earn it.”
The rest of us are trying not to laugh, we’ve never heard Vito talk this way. I know he’s doing it for our benefit and the girls, who are still standing there with their mouths open.
Nobody says anything for at least a minute as we all just stare at a very shocked and speechless Avery and Tate. Waiting for them to walk the fuck out.
Avery instantly blushes and then mouths sorry to her grandfather. When she turns in my direction, I give her a wink letting her know it’s okay.
When the girls leave and shut the door, Vito chimes in. Looking at Mac he says. “Weren’t you the last one in? You need to lock that damn door.”
I can’t stand it anymore and I burst out laughing. Vito Romano is one scary mother fucker, but he never talks down to anybody and this is just freaking hilarious.
Mac tries to keep a straight face as he gets up and slowly walks his way to the door shutting it, pushing on it to make sure it’s shut and locks it. He stays in that position for a minute as his shoulders shake. The rumbles of his chest are silent at first, but then they get louder. All of us are starting to laugh. Vito tries to keep up with his angry façade, but it only lasts about two seconds till he joins in.
It takes us at least ten minutes to get out of our shit and quit laughing.
Carter clears his throat, he’s the only one that wasn’t laughing very much. His cold and dead eyes just stared at Avery’s best friend Tate. Damn, that girl does not know what’s coming. She definitely pissed off the wrong fucking Beckett. All of his family members are moody and psychotic. Carter barely needs anything to push him over the edge.
I refocus my attention on Carter when he starts to speak. “We had some seekers out. They went through and searched the grounds that Luca used. They searched the whole area and interviewed anybody that might’ve seen anything. They pulled surveillance cameras from a gas station that was a few miles away from the compound, nothing panned out.”
We all are quiet now, the stuff with Avery and Tate long forgotten as we each pay close attention to what Carter’s saying. We’ve been waiting for information on finding that dumb fuck, but it’s taking a while.
“He lost all of his guards. He might have one or two more close people, most likely Armani.” All of us cringe at that, my teeth feel like they’re going to snap and I just want to start throwing shit.
“He up and disappeared. None of the other families know anything.” Carter takes a deep breath. I can tell he’s very annoyed with the situation but Carter is normally annoyed with just breathing. I’m close to pushing and stabbing him to continue but I know he needs to do it on his own. I don’t want him to forget anything.
“He can’t be too far, we would’ve seen something. Someone would’ve seen something. Unless we didn’t ask the right questions. One thing I did notice is that we need to not just ask about Luca, we also need to ask about Armani and anybody else that Luca is close with. His right-hand man is named Seth.”
Carter did make a really good point, we’ve probably been looking at this the wrong way. Searching for the wrong man.
I nod, that makes total sense. I look over at the guys. “Get back with the families. Ask about other people that Luca will be around.” I glance over at Carter. “I didn’t even think about that, thank you.” He just gives me a tight nod, no smile, he looks pissed as usual.
Vito stands up and comes and stands next to me. “Also, we need to make sure that we check on our alliances. Make sure that nobody’s going to swing the other way in favor of Luca.”
The guys nod, at least they know what to do for the rest of the day. Everyone starts to make their way out of the office, then that’s when it hits me.
I walked toward them. “Luca doesn’t have men anymore. Even if he was able to find some, there’s no way that they could truly be loyal. The lockdown is over.”
I watch the guys to see how they feel. I don’t know if anybody’s going to reject this offer or try to argue with me but none of them do. Even Vito nods his head.
“There’s no reason for us to hide anymore. The girls want to go to school, they need to be able to apply, even if they go online, they still gotta get their shit. We have more than enough guards to watch and keep us all safe. For everyone’s mental sanity, we are no longer on lockdown.”
I look over at Mac. “Make sure that everybody has a good rotation schedule. Keep us all safe and let me know.”
“Will do,” Mac nods with enthusiasm. “We got enough men and supplies, we’re good to go.” Thank God, I think to myself as I nod at Mac. It’ll be good for all of us to be able to go outside and do things, especially for the girls.
We refuse to hide against this bitch anymore. He’ll show his face soon and we’ll be ready. Hopefully we can just find the bastard first, but I doubt if that’ll happen. I don’t think we need to worry that much, Luca will come to us.
Our lives have been on hold for too long, no more, we’re done. It’s time for us to start living again and to quit hiding especially from someone so tiny.
In the back of my head I’m always careful, but now I’ll make sure we’re safe.
“Carter,” I yell. He’s the first one that left and is already down the hall. He stops and slowly saunters back toward me. Like we have all the time in the fucking world, dick.
I smile at him. “Get something prepared for training.” Carter gives me a weird look before I finish. “It’ll be good for the girls to have some more training and some of the guys.”
Carter holds up his hands to start talking but I quickly cut him off. “A lot of people here are trained in one area. It’ll be good to multi-train in different avenues. I’m not sure how well the girls are trained. Tate isn’t and Avery is not bad but she could use a lot more.” I think on that for a second and quickly add. “Don’t tell her I told you that, since she has been training for years.”
Carter takes out his phone and starts typing on it, most likely notes from what I’m saying. “I want everybody in on this except for maybe Vito. The maids, the cooks, drivers, guards, the girls, anybody that lives and works here.” Free training is usually awesome.
Carter keeps nodding his head as I talk. I glance down at my watch and notice the time, it’s still early. “Get it set up as fast as you can and meet me back here. It’s only early afternoon, so there’s no reason we can’t start today.”
* * *
I decidedto set us up in the basketball court. More level ground here. I chuckle to myself when I realize that Vito doesn’t have a tennis court, the man is slacking.
Less than two hours later the guys managed to bring us around fifty people. There are over three-hundred people here at any given time. The amount of guards we have is astronomical, but it’s worth it. Everybody’s been through the ringer and we trust every single one of them. For some reason it’s just family we can’t trust.
Vito brings out a worried looking Tate and Avery. I walk up to my girl. “Hey baby,” I say as I give her a kiss and a tight hug. She relents and wraps herself around me. Thank God, I was afraid she was still snippy from earlier and I don’t want to deal with that shit now.
Everybody’s crowded around. I know when the shift change happens, more guys will get word and more will join. You can never have enough training in this job.
Carter starts to organize everybody with Mac. Mac knows pretty much most of everybody’s talents. It astonishes me that he has it in his head, he can tell their weaknesses and their strengths. He has half of the guys set up to start teaching, and the other half ready to learn.
Some of my guys are very well trained in knives. Some well trained in guns, all different types. And some of them are well trained in fighting. I noticed that that’s the area that Avery is practicing in.
From my understanding she’s been fighting just with her fists and her feet since she was a toddler.
I focus my attention on Tate who looks as pale as a freaking ghost. I start to laugh and I wave her over to me.
She takes a deep breath, making her eyes wide, showing me that she’s paying attention and she’s manning the fuck up. “Don’t worry, they just want to give you the basics. Out of everybody you are the least trained but we want you to have something in case you get yourself in another vulnerable position.”
Tate nods her head and awkwardly stands next to me. I get Carter’s attention when he glances in our direction and I nod toward Tate. He’s on her instantly, not even saying anything as he grabs her arm and drags her to another area so she could start practicing.
It sucks the Mancini’s have never really been for training girls. It’s the old way. Let the man take care of everything and they can just service. How stupid, a lot of the women died when we were attacked because they didn’t know what to do. Some were tortured and raped. I’ve heard stories before from long ago. This is one thing that I want to continue doing, making sure everybody’s trained, even the help. Most people won’t refuse this because it’s extra and it might save your life, especially in the world that we live in. The world that they decide to live and work in.
Everyone is just standing around looking awkward and Vito notices this. I was hoping they would dive in, but it didn’t work that way.
“It’s okay to practice,” you could hear Vito’s booming voice all across the court. “In fact, we recommend it. You’ve always wanted to learn a different area, then now is your time. Also, if you’re really good at something, I would recommend that you try to teach others.”
I can just feel the air relaxing more that Vito has given a pep talk to his guys. Fuck, I’m gonna miss that old man.
Once everybody gets situated and start practicing, I can relax and move toward Avery. More people keep coming back to the courts. Some are watching and some are trying to coax the others into working. Virtually all the maids, cooks, butlers, the help staff is on the sidelines.
They’ll ease into it,I tell myself as I move to watch as Avery goes against Mac.
I smile, when everybody notices they all stop what they’re doing and start to crowd around those two.
They both have their fighting positions ready; their legs are spread shoulder length and their arms are up. Like a wrestling position. They continue to circle each other until Mac makes a move. Avery is quick on her feet to slap it away and move.
A bunch of wolf whistles are heard and Tate shouts. “Go Avery!”
Neither one of them lose their attention, they’re completely focused. Mac smiles right before he makes his next move, a roundhouse kick, that if Avery doesn’t defend herself against, he might just knock her fucking head off. I step forward as Avery returns one of her own kicks, knocking Mac on his fucking ass.
I smile at my girl as she starts to crank her neck back and forth like the boxers do and run in place. She is good. Tate starts to scream and runs over and jumps up on Avery wrapping her arms and her legs around her waist. Avery’s jumping as Tate holds on screaming and laughing. All the guards are hooting and hollering. Mac gives me a smile and a wink.
We both know there’s no way in hell that Avery could take him. Well, I might have to change my mind on that after seeing that Avery seems a little rusty, but she does have some moves and that might save her later. Mac does have a little limp in his step. Maybe the fucker is giving me a wink to save face. I start laughing as I watch everybody scream and run around and hug Avery and Mac.
After about an hour, we have well over one-hundred people out here now. Twenty-five of us are currently teaching. Avery and Tate have moved over to knives. God, that should be interesting. I’m not as worried about Avery as I am Tate. Maybe she’ll just become a knife wielding bad ass, but I doubt it. She’s the clumsiest one of us. Carter catches my glance and I strain my eyes at him to make sure he knows, don’t let the girls get hurt. I’m about ready to walk in and find them a complete set of armor, but I know they need to do this. Avery’s had a good amount of training, but there’s so much more she needs, especially to be able to fight off Luca.
I smile as I sit down and lean against the tree that’s by the court. This is the first time in a while that we’ve had some peace and happiness in our lives. Vito sits next to me and hands me a beer.
Yeah, everything is going to be just fine.