Page 3 of Romeo

Every muscle in my body is tense to the point of trembling, but I know I can’t stop. I can’t look back. Nowhere is safe anymore, yet I don’t know where else to go except back to the apartment.

I swear every step echoes louder than the gunshots from earlier, but I keep going. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, making my heart hammer against my chest in an attempt to break free.

When I stumble onto the porch steps leading to our apartment door, I reach into my pocket for the keys, dropping them three times before finally getting the right one.

Once inside, I frantically search for anything to block the door. No one is after me now, but I’m not stupid. I know they’ll come. Whoever they are.

We don’t have much furniture in our studio apartment, but I shove the little kitchen table against the doorway, as well as the chairs, coffee table, and bookshelf.

As if on cue, my body collapses as soon as I have the last piece of furniture in place. I have nothing left. No energy. No tears. No fight. No family.

I’m utterly alone in the world.

Crawling over to the bed shoved in the corner of the room, I grab a blanket and pillow and huddle up at the foot of the bed, squeezing myself between the corner and the old, lumpy mattress.

As amped up as I was a few minutes ago, I can barely keep my eyes open now. Fear still courses through my body with each beat of my heart, but I don’t have the energy to do anything about it.

Just a little rest,I reason.Then I’ll come up with a plan.

CHAPTERTWO

ROMEO

“And you’re sure it was a hit job?” I growl at my second-in-command, Dante. “Martin Branson wasn’t exactly the smartest man. He could have pissed off any number of punks with an itchy trigger finger.”

“This was too clean,” Dante responds in his crisp, no-nonsense tone. “And they did it out in the open to send a message.”

“Fuck,” I mutter, resting my head in my hands. “Do we know who did it?”

Dante shakes his head, not even blinking when I utter a string of curse words. He’s used to my wrath and takes it all in stride. As the underboss of the Di Salvo crime family, he’s my closest ally. He’d be my best friend if men like me could afford to have friends.

“What will this do to our day-to-day operations?” I ask, leaning back in my chair and crossing one leg over the other.

Dante gives me a breakdown of the ramifications, and I nod along while piecing together a plan.

Martin is the head of the UFCW union, which is in charge of the many workers employed at the meat packing plant in north Brooklyn. The Di Salvo family has had a long-standing arrangement with him. More specifically, our ill-gotten gains are laundered through the union pension fund, which can only happen if management is on our side. In return, the Di Salvo family offers their protection and guarantees fair pay, plenty of sick leave and vacation time, as well as a generous health plan, including maternity and paternity leave.

But all of that disintegrated overnight after Martin caught a bullet with his temple.

“Do we know who his replacement will be?” I ask sharply, cutting Dante off.

“No, Boss. I have Valentino working on getting intel since that’s his territory.”

I grunt, sitting up straight and resting my elbows on my desk. Looking at my second in command, I sense there’s more he’s not telling me.“What else, Dante?”

“It’s likely nothing–”

“Out with it,” I growl, my patience wearing thin. This is not how I wanted to start my Monday morning, and now I have a shitstorm to deal with on top of the meetings I was already drowning in.

“Martin’s body was found alongside someone else. Thomas Brooks. Thirty-eight, plant worker for over a decade, and a sloppy drunk by all accounts. We’ve ruled him out as nothing more than a wanna-be thug who got caught up in a much bigger game than he could handle.”

“And?”

“He has a twenty-year-old sister. Thalia. They live together in a block of apartments behind the plant. She’s no threat, but she is a loose end. Even if she doesn’t know what’s going on, she’s bound to question her brother's whereabouts if she hasn’t already.”

I grunt in acknowledgment, swallowing past the unfamiliar knot of tension in my throat.

“Honestly,” Dante continues, “whoever took Martin and Thomas out is probably already on their way to find and deal with her, so we shouldn’t have to worry about it.”

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