OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(38)
“That's good news, at least,” Don grudgingly admitted. “You found anything yet that we could use to take 'em down?”
“Still working on that,” Carla said.
“Huh. Well, now that I know you're alive, I reckon I'll let you get some rest...”
“Don?” she said timidly. She didn't know why, but she suddenly felt like she wanted to hear his comforting drawl and country-fried idioms more than anything else in the world. The reality they represented seemed like it was a million miles away from Gio and his room full of bizarre implements.
“Yeah, darlin'?”
“Can you...stay on the phone and talk to me about your family for a little while?” she asked.
“Lurlene an' the kids?” Don answered, confused. “You've never asked about 'em before. Why now?”
“Please?” Carla insisted. “I'd just...like to hear about something normal right now. Anything that's not this case.”
“All right,” Don said. “If it means that much to you. Let's see...well, Althea just turned seventeen last week, an' she's about to start applyin' to colleges. I keep tellin' her she's got the grades for the Ivy Leagues, but she says she wants to go to Texas A&M like her daddy. 'Gender Studies,' can you beat that? I told her, 'There's men an' there's women, so what's to study?' An' Lurlene, heh, she don't wanna get bogged down with the whole empty nest syndrome like when Ben left for the Army, so she's already lookin' into gettin' a realtor's license...”
Carla kept listening to the folksy twang of Don's voice until the sun started to come up.
Chapter 18
Gio
Mario snapped his fingers in front of Gio's face impatiently. “Hey! Are you fuckin' listening to me, or what?”
Gio blinked, waving Gio's hand away. “Yeah, Papa, sure, I heard you.”
In fact, Gio had completely tuned out from his father's latest lecture. Instead, he'd been savoring the sweet memory of Carla's expression when their eyes met during the moment of climax—scared, awed, utterly powerless, like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a hungry snake—and he'd just started thinking about what he'd do to her during their next session when Mario had interrupted his reverie.
From the look on Mario's face, it was clear that he didn't believe Gio at all. “See, you coglione, this is exactly what I'm talkin' about,” he observed, rolling his eyes. He reached into the top drawer of his desk, withdrew a large Cuban cigar, and neatly trimmed the tip with a letter opener before lighting it and taking a puff.
Gio tried not to cough as the thick blue smoke settled in the air around his face, but he couldn't keep his eyes from stinging and watering. He'd always hated the smell of his father's cigars. Mario often bragged about their quality and expense, but to Gio, it just stank like exhaust from a garbage truck—and it brought back too many memories of stern lectures in Mario's study, like the one he was enduring now.
“You can be a pretty bright kid sometimes, Gio,” Mario continued. “You ain't no genius, but you're still a damn sight smarter than a lot of the meatheads who hook up with our organization. You play your cards right, keep your pay-ups regular an' show some initiative, an' you could be a capo with your own crew by the time you hit thirty. Then underboss a few years later, an' after that, you could find yourself takin' over for me if—God forbid—anything should happen to me.
“But in order for you to start walkin' down that path, you gotta show you're dedicated,” Mario continued. “Focused. Responsible. Willing to make sacrifices, capice?”
“I am, Papa,” Gio insisted. “Ain't I always done what you told me to do?”
“I ain't talkin' about just followin' orders,” Mario growled. “A fuckin' trained chimp can do what it's told, but that don't mean it's got what it takes to run this family. You gotta show how committed you are, an' that means lettin' go of distractions that could get in the way.”
“What kinda distractions?” Gio asked. He tried to keep his voice casual, but he didn't like the direction this conversation was taking.
Mario gave him a don't-shit-a-shitter look. “You know exactly what I'm talkin' about, kid. You're really gonna make me say it? When I was just a few years older than you are now, Big Ed Colicchio got whacked by those crazy Russians comin' out of his weekly card game, an' I had to step up as boss. You would've been about five years old then, so you probably remember that for about two years after that, I barely even had a chance to see you an' your mother. That's how hard I was workin', makin' the moves that had to be made an' tryin' to show everyone I deserved their respect.