Mafia Daddy by Aster Rae
3
Igor
Two days later
"Where's the money?"
Moonlight shines as I stare down at the badly beaten man in front of me.
Dark splotches cover his neck.
He's my soldier Chester Archer.
He lost my money. A lot of money.
He claims he was walking home through Central Park when three armed men jumped him and stole my hard drive with ten-million-dollars of cryptocurrency.
Yeah. Really.
I smell it too.
Bullshit.
Motherfucking bullshit of the highest degree.
"I already told you," Chester wails. A bead of sweat drips down his grimy cheeks. "I brought it to Central Park to give to your brother Nikolai last night. Three men stopped me."
Rage flares in my gut. This is a bald-faced lie.
Nikolai retired from the business last month.
He gave up his profession to take care of Christian full-time.
I clench my fists. "Nikolai retired last month. He hasn’t spoken to us since his engagement party. Tell us what the fuck is going on."
Chester chokes beneath my fingers. "I don't know."
“Hit him." Timofey’s eyes turn to slits.
Rearing back my fist, I slam him in the face.
Crack.
"Stop," Chester screams, but I don’t give a fuck.
"Tell us what happened,” I say.
"You’re a piece of shit, you know that?"
"Where’s my money?" I growl.
"A group of men assaulted me," Chester whines. "They grabbed the hard drive with the crypto and threatened to kill me if I followed them."
I pull out my gun. “Who took my crypto?”
"You're insane," he cries out.
“Who took my hard drive?”
"It was stolen."
I cock the gun and aim it at his head. “I won't give you another chance."
His body collapses in on itself. "Giuseppe Ricci took it."
A ringing starts in my ears.
"Giuseppe Ricci?"
"He stole it out of my duffel."
"Where?" I command.
"By the pier."
"When?"
"Last Thursday," Chester confesses. "I was bringing it to you and Timofey. Giuseppe’s soldiers confronted me and took the money from me."
Darkness unfurls inside me.
I should kill Chester.
This rat bastard has lived one too many lives.
"It's your lucky fucking day, Chester,” I growl, handing my gun to Timofey. “Normally, I’d blow your fucking head off and feed your body to sharks. But I'm still in a good mood from my baby brother’s engagement party, and I don't want your filthy Italian blood on my hands. Instead, I'm going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Chester sniffles. "What's the deal?”
“You have five minutes to get the fuck out of here and never speak to me again. Tell Giuseppe Ricci that I'm going to blow him to pieces if he fucks with my money again.”
Timofey and I untie Chester’s bonds.
Chester shoots us one last terrified look before he scurries off into the darkness.
Timofey faces me when Chester leaves. "This shouldn't have happened. The feud with the Riccis is over."
Timofey is dead right.
Last month, Nikolai put a bullet through Giuseppe’s brother Luca and killed him.
It was supposed to end a decades-long feud between our families, the two most powerful Mafia families in New York.
"We overlooked something," Timofey growls.
I wipe sweat on my coat. "We overlooked the fact that this family is a bunch of fucking morons who can't keep their hands off our shit."
The Riccis were supposed to back off our territory in Manhattan, Soho, and the Bronx.
But Giuseppe Ricci and his Italian Mafia brethren are more reckless than we thought.
They reneged on their promise.
The fact that they stole money from my soldier Chester proves they’re getting reinforcement from the outside.
Cartels. Rival gangs. The Chinese Mafia.
One thing’s certain.
Giuseppe Ricci isn't working alone.
"Giuseppe's getting reinforcement from the outside," I grunt. "He doesn’t have the resources to fuck with us after last month."
Timofey and I open a canister of gasoline.
We douse the warehouse in the pungent liquid.
I pull a Zippo lighter out of my breast pocket and flick it open.
The flame illuminates the darkness and a whirring sound reaches my ears as I let it fall.
Timofey and I head across the concrete parking lot as the warehouse explodes behind us in a burst of flame.
BOOM.
My Porsche stretch limo waits for us.
A man in an expensive black suit exits the driver’s seat and opens the back door.
I slide in and instruct my chauffeur to hit the gas.
"We need to call Demetri," I rasp in the darkness as the limousine barrels out of the parking lot and hurries toward my penthouse in Manhattan.
Demetri is my impulsive sociopathic mobster cousin.
He's a fixer who scrubs crime scenes of DNA evidence and traces of crime.
He's also a ruthless bastard with a hair-trigger temper who once shot my father at a Mafia barbecue because my father ordered him to put away his gun.
He’s a psycho.
A lunatic.
And a bonafide miracle-worker for the Russkaya mafiya.
"Like hell," Timofey grunts. "I’m not fucking getting involved with him."
"Demetri will help us get to the bottom of this," I growl.
"This is our battle," Timofey growls.
"I’m calling him," I say. "This bullshit has gone on too long. We have shipments of weapons we need to move next month and we can't afford to let the Riccis stop us any longer."
We’re more powerful and connected than their second-rate family will ever be.
We must show them we’re in control.
Right. Fucking. Now.
I find Demetri's number in my phone.
But I've barely pressed the phone to my ear when I get the text.
Unknown Number:Hiiiii. This is Rowan. I want to talk :p
