“Do you understand me, son?” asked Angelo, his voice still dripping with venom.
“Yes, father,” Marco gasped out.
Angelo removed the pressure of his arm from Marco’s neck, but didn’t back away.
“What was that?”
“Yes, father,” said Marco more loudly.
Angelo stepped back from his son with a shake of his head and picked up his whiskey glass again. Marco slumped against the wall and raked his fingers through his dark hair, cursing under his breath. Suddenly unfrozen, I stood up and picked my father’s chair up off the floor where it had been overturned in his hasty leap for Marco.
Angelo muttered his thanks as he lowered himself back into the chair with a gentle groan.
Simultaneously, Alessandro hung up the call and approached. He kept his voice low, mostly because Alana was in the room and, though she was privy to many parts of the Varasso operation, she wasn’t a cog in the machine like the rest of us. She didn’t need to know every single finer detail.
“Luca, there’s something we need to go take care of on the east side,” murmured my younger brother. Marco glanced over with a grimace at the mention of the east side of the city.
“East side?” I asked.
“It’s the Randolphs, isn’t it?” growled my father.
The Randolphs were a rival family. Smaller, less successful, and much less organized, but still worthy opponents in the Philadelphia drug trade
. Every once in a while they liked to stir up small bouts of trouble with the Varassos, either by intercepting shipments, maiming a runner, or tipping off the police to a deal.
They were a nuisance, like a mosquito buzzing incessantly in your ear, but over the years, the Randolphs had grown braver. They pissed Angelo off; if it were only up to him, he’d massacre the lot of them. But, that many deaths would draw attention, even in the underbelly of a large city’s organized crime world. And the Varassos, though powerful, were always subtle.
Alessandro nodded at our father, his mouth set in a frown.
“They went after Roman, I guess,” he replied, holding out his phone to explain that it was Roman himself, who was one of our smaller, less important runners, that had called. “Broke a couple ribs, gave him a black eye. They’re trying to get in on that side of town, I’m telling you. They took his stuff. Kid thinks they’re gonna move ahead with the deal as if it were their own clients.”
Angelo straightened up in his chair, shooting daggers.
“They stole Roman’s stuff?” I asked.
Stuff, as in drugs. Heroin, probably. I wasn’t sure what type of clients Roman had been delivering to, but it was usually opiates nowadays.
“They stole our stuff?” snapped Angelo.
Stealing Varasso goods was an incredibly risky power move for the Randolphs to make. It was like practically begging for trouble.
Angelo reached up and clapped a firm hand on my shoulder. “Go with Alessandro and take care of it, will you? Take Gabriel, too.”
I wanted to protest Gabriel coming along, but he was, after all, a Varasso. “Taking care of it” was part of the family legacy.
Just then, Alana stood up, both hands clutching her belly. “Oh,” she gasped, looking down at the carpet where a dark stain suggested sudden dampness.
I was at her side in an instant, wrapping an arm around her waist to support her as her knees wobbled and a loud, sharp exhale escaped her lips.
But, Alana was smiling up at me in wonder.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, utterly confused.
“My water just broke.”
“Christ almighty,” chuckled Angelo from his chair.
“Are you sure?” I asked Alana, pressing a hand to her stomach.