Man of the House(64)

These days I had my own apartment in the city. I found it more convenient to stay there when I was bringing women home from whatever club I had gone to with my crew that night, though I still spent a lot of time at the compound.

The Barone crime family was the largest mob in the city, just ahead of the Russians. The compound was the heart and soul of the mob, the place where we did our dealing, where we trained our people, counted our money, fucked and fought and lived. It was like a home to me, and the mob was my fucking family.

And I was one of the youngest captains in mob history. After my old boss, Lucas Barone, son of the head of the family, Arturo Barone, promoted me to mob captain, I quickly began to gather power and influence around me.

Lucas had taught me well, and I was using those skills to strengthen myself within the family. Arturo was barely holding on to his power, and Lucas was too busy getting his wife fucking pregnant all the time.

As I drove up the long driveway heading toward the main house, I shook my head, annoyed with Lucas. Ever since he’s gotten married to that girl Natalie, he’d been too busy pumping out babies and spending time with his family to really get deep into the politics of the mob. Sure, he was still running his crew and was still one of the best captains. He was definitely first in line to succeed his father. But he was no longer actively trying to overthrow Arturo and take control of the family.

Not like I was trying to do that, either. I liked where I was for the moment. But Lucas used to be a fucking gangster.

Since he had softened, I had gotten much, much harder.

That was our way in the mob. When someone made a little room, you took as much as you could. Since Lucas had given me my own crew and some power, I’d been slowly muscling into territory near my own, taking it street-by-street, amassing wealth and power and reputation.

I wasn’t fucking around. I wasn’t the type of man to take these things halfway. It was all or nothing, like everything in my life.

I parked my car and climbed out, tossing the key to the valet. He nodded to me and climbed in as I walked into the main foyer of the house.

The Barone mansion was fucking ridiculous. It was the epitome of wealth, with gilding and expensive paintings and million dollar chandeliers everywhere. Since the mansion was meant to be the center of the Barone power structure, it had to exude all the wealth the family had. It was like a centerpiece, meant to show exactly how the family meant business.

As I moved through the foyer, a familiar face appeared by my side.

“Morning, boss,” Rafa said.

“Morning,” I grunted. “Food?”

“In the office.”

Rafa was the second in command of my crew and, ever since Lucas went all fucking weak on me, my closest confidant. I had brought him up through the ranks back when I was promoted, and I trusted him with my life.

We moved down a few hallways, finally entering into a side room. It was my office, very literally my office. There was a desk in the back, a small table against one wall, a computer, filing cabinets, and a little desk for Rafa. There was coffee and bagels on the table.

I grabbed some coffee. It was weird for a mobster to have an office, but the mob wasn’t what it used to be. Sure, we still went around breaking knees and being violent fuckers, but it was also a business these days. We had accounts, we had investments, and I needed a place to manage all that shit, somewhere that wasn’t my piece-of-shit apartment. I could get business done in the Barone mansion, and since they had way more room than they knew what to do with, it had been easy to carve out a little spot.

Rafa sat at his desk. “You hear from Bao?”

“Not today,” I grunted.

Bao was our contact with the Chinese and the guy I was dealing with for the most part. He was a shady man but had come through for me in the past, and so I trusted him.

“Shame. I heard some boys saying they didn’t think the deal was going down.”

I raised my eyebrow at that. “Do you think that’s true?”

“Nah, boss. Of course not. But people are talking, is all.”

“It’s happening,” I said. “And when it does, our crew will be the best-armed in the whole fucking mob.”

“Damn right.”

I sat back in my desk, kicking my feet up on the top. I took a sip of the coffee and sighed to myself.

This fucking deal was a huge pain. Bao was supposed to sell me a bunch of old army surplus weapons and equipment, shit like rifles and body armor, but it was hard getting it into the country. We’d hit a few problems recently, and I could tell my people were starting to get concerned. We had a lot of money tied up in this, and we needed the goods.

Especially if we were going to keep expanding our territory. We’d been chipping away at the gangs around us in the past few months, but with some serious firepower, we could take it all in one fell swoop.