Page 7 of Savage Proposal

“Don’t say shit like that,” I reminded him.

“Okay. Jesus.” He tossed the opener back onto my desk; blood left a little spatter across the top, staining my desk blotter.Damnit. “So, you’re just going to ignore the minor families forever? That’ll go over well.”

Fucking Christ. Elio was right. The minor families weren’t going to back off any time soon. They had started pushing their daughters on me six months after Sienna’s murder, and it had taken me putting a bullet in a Don’s forehead for them to back off then. Now, it was six years later, and I was edging in on forty, and the families were pushing hard to get their daughters in front of me. “Never mind all that for now,” I said, waving off his concern. “Did the shipment come in for the casino?”

Damian flipped through the files on his phone. He nodded, but his mouth was drawn down in a frown. “It’s in, but Tommaso said that it’s light.” He glanced up from his phone. “That’s the third time in the last two months.”

“Tommaso keep a hold of the delivery boy?”

Damian nodded.

“Sounds like you’re up, El,” I said, looking at my cousin. He was practically hopping in place: Elio was as big as me, all long legs and wide shoulders, but he was quicker to smile, even when he was getting his hands dirty for me. Maybe especially then. Elio might not have finished the tenth grade, but he was one of my most loyal men. “Bring him back here for a talk.”

“You got it.”

After Elio left, quiet fell between Damian and me. I preferred it like this. As far asvicecaposgo, Damian was the very best. He understood and anticipated me, just like I could him. So, I knew the quiet wasn’t going to last for long. “You know we can’t ignore the minor families, right?” he asked some fifteen minutes after Elio departed. “We need a plan, Enzo.”

I had been playing with an idea, but it was risky. Idiotic, even. “I won’t get married,” I said. I would never put myself in that position again. “But what if I had a child?”

Damian was quiet for a moment. I could see him formulating what he wanted to say. “I don’t think the families would accept a bastard as your heir.”

“They will if I fucking tell them to,” I snapped. “Besides, I’m not talking about a bastard. There are ways to have legitimate children without a spouse nowadays, you know.”

“Enzo.”

I looked at him. “What?” My voice was sharp, daring him to say something.

He sighed. “I think you should talk to Cristian about this,” he said. “Get some perspective.”

Cristian was my younger brother. He had joined the seminary at the age of twenty-three, much to our father’s chagrin, and after nearly a decade of studying, he was set to graduate with a Master of Divinity soon, and within six months of his graduation, he would be ordained. The seminarian process had not been easy for my brother, coming from the family that we did, but in a little less than a year, he would get what he wanted and become a priest.

“I’ll do that,” I said with a nod. Cristian had done what he could to leave the Cosa Nostra, but he gave advice and counsel when I needed it. “He’s coming to take my confession in a few days anyway.”

Damian nodded, and just like that, the subject was dropped. We continued working for another half an hour or so, and when I was ready to call Elio to hurry the fuck up, my cousin came bursting into my office, half-dragging a terrified delivery boy behind him.

“He’s a Gallo,” Damian said the moment he laid eyes on the man. “A second or third cousin of mine, I think. Marco.”

“Dante,” the man said, as if his name actually mattered.

I hummed, acknowledging, and then met Dante’s eyes. “Have you been the one doing my shipments for the last two months?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, you’ve been the one shorting me?”

The young man’s eyes widened. His skin lost most of its color. “No,” he insisted. “No, I promise that I haven’t.”

“So, you knowingly delivered light deliveries,” I said. “Should I be having this conversation with your boss?”

“No,” Dante said. “No, Don Gallo would kill me.”

“Then, tell me why I’ve been getting light deliveries. I’m nearly three kilos short; that’s thousands of my dollars owed to me.”

Dante shook his head over and over. Tears were on his cheeks.Pathetic excuse for a man. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he insisted. “I picked up your product where they told me to and took it to your casino. I didn’t even know what was in the package. Don Gallo told me that it didn’t matter what I was carrying so long as I drove fast.”

“Except somewhere along that fast drive, Dante,” I said, “you lost the product that I paid upfront for. You can understand how that would upset me, right?”

Dante was sucking in halfhearted breaths, still shaking his head. “Don’t kill me,” he begged. “Please, please don’t kill me.”

---