Catherinelle by Diane Portman-Ray

 

2

 

“Why did you call my sister a bitch?” The boss spoke over the rim of his glass, fixing me with a dark stare.

Don Gino Nucci. The Boss. My Boss. Most people would quiver in their shoes in front of him, and they’d be smart to do it, but I wasn’t scared of him. Gino, Roman and I had walked shoulder to shoulder for many years. Never equals, but always together.

“I didn’t call her a bitch. I told her she was acting like one.” I took my glass of vodka with Kinley and downed it in one shot. “And she was.”

He shook his head and shrugged because there was no doubt I was right. Catherinelle was the rare diamond of the Nucci family. Beautiful, but she could easily cut glass if she wanted to.

“I’ll need you to let it go. I’m leaving tonight for Italy. I need to take Muse away for some time, give her time to heal.” The girl was hit hard after she lost her brother. No one was judging him for this decision. “I want you to stay at my house until I’m back. I’m leaving my sister in your care, Mustafa.”

Two thirds of a life lived in the grim embrace of a cruel mother – the mafia – would teach even the worst card player to keep his face straight and hide his emotions. In this life, a twitch of an eye could dig your grave. I knew no one could read anything on me, but under my skin, the muscles of my arms flexed, and my jaw locked. Gino’s request melted my brain, and I was sure it was leaking through my ears.

Boss wanted to cage me in the same house with my own curse. It wasn’t Catherinelle’s bitchiness I worried about. It was her serene blue eyes and the shape of her body that I didn’t want around more than was necessary. Time had done something to Cat; the past few years fucking transformed her into a woman when she was still a child. I shouldn’t have eyes to notice that – I knew for a fact that Gino would carve them out with organic pleasure – but along the lines, my mind refused to take my orders and started noticing Cat. I’d been trying to put walls and locked gates between us ever since, until her ever loving brother decided the little miss needed a new bodyguard who was not stupid enough to lose her twice in the same week.

“Don’t you need me for something else, boss?” I tried my luck. “If you’re gone, you’re going to need eyes and ears in the city.”

“Roman will take care of it.”

Another set of muscles flexed hidden from all eyes. The consigliere was taking the crown. Gino and Roman, my two brothers, raised under the same cross as me but bound by ties that I could never touch. Roman was one of my most trusted friends too; there was no trace of competition between us, but I earned my trust year after year, crawling through the mud, and it still wasn’t enough. It would never be because I, unlike Gino and Roman, wasn’t marked by Nucci blood. I was just showering in the blood of those who threatened their family.

At my twenty third birthday, right after I got out of my first three-month conviction for armed robbery – that wasn’t a robbery, in fact. I was collecting some overdue taxes for the Don – Umberto Nucci swore me in into his famiglia and declared me to be Gino’s underboss. It was no surprise; Roman and I were groomed for our positions on his left and right side since we were too young to understand it. Back then, I just knew I was given a house where no one was cruel, a warm bed, and some school work in the world of the rich, but time made it clear.

Roman was born into this family. Simona and Umberto Nucci held him in their arms when he was christened, so his place in the family was guaranteed. His parents – that had passed away two years ago when their car caught on fire, which was suspicious to say the least – wanted him to get that good education, so he was guided to study law. Harvard, NYU and Columbia, he worn out the benches of all of them, spent his time in the public library while I was busy partying ‘till five in the fucking morning and getting high on prime weed with whatever pussy landed on my lap.

How did I end up being an underboss? Umberto had a sweet spot for me. He saw something so fucked up from the first day he saw me, then made it his purpose to make me his number one weapon. The man was a sack of shit, a spiteful, evil son of a bitch that betrayed everything his people stood for.

When his son, Galliano, the old boss and Gino’s grandfather, stepped up to the plate, he never exactly handed over the reins of the business. He was a stubborn man, and letting things go was hard for him. I didn’t think he had truly retired out of the game until a few months ago when Gino finally put his foot down and told the old man to get back into his lane, for real this time. Umberto didn’t like the to be bossed around by his old pop, so sometime in the early ‘80s, he went in business on his own, doing everything he swore not to do. He flooded the streets of the poor neighborhoods with drugs, selling to kids, and the most disgusting part, he opened some brothels. New York city had more than enough drugs and more than enough whores; in the big picture, Umberto Nucci was just another dot in a sea of stains, but the details of his rogue operation were disgusting. The motherfucker bought the girls from Tijuana and didn’t once bother to check if they were there on free will. And their ages? Motherfucking kids, man. The Nucci family would never wash that from their history, and if the bullet of a jealous husband he cuckholded hadn’t wiped him out, his own family would have soon.

I would have been happy to pull the trigger; after all, that was what he thought me to be: a ruthless monster. While Gino was taught the ins and outs of the syndicate by his grandfather, Umberto put all his time and energy into polishing me into a killer. Death walking amongst men. He dedicated more time to me than he did to his own son, and if there was always a wedge between Gino and I, it came from that. He was carrying Umberto’s name, but it still wasn’t enough to get his affection, while I, a hooligan who ate half-eaten hot dogs from the Central Park trash cans, suddenly became the prodigy. I knew he was hurt as a kid. I was fucking sure of it, but time showed that Umberto chose me because his son was halfway to becoming a man of honor, a true Capo, while I was just a bag of dirt. I had nothing and no one to lose. I didn’t care for family or honor like Gino had since he was in diapers because the world never fucking showed me that. So Umberto sharpened my skills to be the most lethal assassin I could possibly be. Gino’s underboss, the Albanian Monster. Ironically, even if I was chosen to be Don’s right hand and made ready to take his place, his father brought me up to be less than him, lacking all the traits that made him the leader of the Nucci family. I was less.

“Alright, Gino. When do you need me to be there? I have some plans tonight.” One plan, multiple people.

“The twins again?”

“I told them to stop by before getting to work tonight. I’ll be done by midnight.”

“Good, I’ll tell Cat to wait up. Muse made a chocolate cake yesterday and saved you half because you told her you like it. It’s in the fridge.”

He found a good one, this brother of mine. Sweet girl, with a good heart. When he first started to be obsessed with her, I didn’t give a damn; we chased skirts and the long legs under them for years. She was just another one on the list. Soon, Muse became the center of his life, stripper making the most powerful mafia don on this coast kneel in front of her. Those in the Nucci family obviously had a sweet spot for the poor and hazed. She was now famiglia, ready to marry and take his name. I had my doubts, and so did Roman, but the girl just kept winning everyone on her side.

“I’ll make sure to thank her.”

“You better send her some damn flowers too.”

That was a weird request.

“Too busy to do your own job, boss?”

“No, jackass, but she’s been trying to get into your good graces for some fucking reason, and you aren’t giving her a damn inch. Why do you think she packs breakfast for you every morning you come and pick up my sister? My fiancé isn’t a fucking slave, Mustafa.”

He got lit up pretty fast, which wasn’t unusual. The wrong breath in Muse’s direction could set Gino up like a matchstick would a keg filled with gasoline.

“You know I don’t hold an ounce of bad blood towards your woman, Gino.”

“Then show her. She’s not well yet, brother.”

Fuck, yeah, I know. She just lost the only family she had left, by the hands of her father, no less.

“Is Muse mad at me for some reason?”

He took a deep breath, exhaled, then shook his head.

“No, man, but she’s not used to you. I know to read your moods by your growls, but Muse thinks you’re pissed at her half the time.”

Yeah, it happened a lot. It was why Catherinelle was so damn hell bent on making my life a living hell. The more I pushed her out, the more she struggled to get in.

“I’ll take care of it.” There was no need to elaborate. If I made a promise to my brother, he knew it would be honored. There was no guarantee needed because I never in my life said I'd do a job and didn't finish it.

We hung around for another half hour before Gino went back home, and I got into the car to go to my place. My company was supposed to arrive soon, and if it was the last action I was about to get for two fucking weeks, I had to made sure it was memorable. Especially because Cat’s tight ass in those shorts she was wearing around the house would shake in front of my fucking eyes. The moment that thought hit me, I shook my head to make it disappear, and I grabbed the wheel tighter. No. Fucking. Way.