Wasted (Dirty Boys of Chicago #1) (7 page)

“
I
want
to set up a meet.”

I heard the other voice on the end of the line take in a deep sigh. “When? The boss is busy.”

I rolled my eyes. “The boss.” Like hell. Just some little shit taking other people's business. He wasn’t anybody's boss, but I did feel sorry for all the thugs that thought he was. I wondered how quickly they would crumble and fall without their fearless leader. “I don't care how busy he is. I heard he has some products that I'm interested in.”

“Product? Who sent you?”

I’d done my homework and was prepared for this. “I talked to the Mexicans, who else? They mentioned you had been helping them out. Maybe starting a line of credit? Is that true?”

“I'll set up the meet for you. Where, and when?”

“Tonight. Warehouses out east. Bring only one other man. I’ll only have one security guy with me as well. I don't need this to turn into some big meeting. You know how it goes, the more people that are involved, the more problems that could start.”

“Fine. Eight PM?”

“See you tonight.”

I slipped the cell phone back in my pocket and looked at Dante standing across from me in the back of the strip club. It was only one o'clock in the afternoon, but of course, it was dark in here, no windows. I couldn't make out his face. But I could tell by his boulder-like body that it was him. My father had sent him up to listen in on me, I was sure of it.

“I guess you're coming with me then.”

He emerged out of the shadows, his arms crossed over his thick chest. “Damn straight I am. What's this all about, anyway?”

I shook my head. “Gotta do a job for the family. Shouldn't you be over at the casino?”

He laughed at me. “I only have to go to the casino when I'm told to go. Your father hasn’t loaned out any money recently, so I don't have any clients.”

That was Dante's single job, being the muscle for gambling debts at the casinos. “So what have you been doing?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Looking out for your ass, what else?”

“For me? I haven't seen you in four years except these past couple days. Nobody's been looking out for me, except maybe my parents. You know they said they paid off some guards? Just to make sure that I was left alone in there.”

He shook his head and sat down in one of the chairs, watching a new girl I didn’t recognize on the pole. Before I went upstate, I knew all of the girls at the club. Now, it seemed like we had a whole set of new meat. I sat down next to Dante and the waitress brought over whiskey in a glass. I thanked her and raised my glass to Dante. “Salud.”

He raised his glass and did the same. I swallowed the golden liquid in one gulp. It burned my insides. I closed my eyes and put my hand over them to shield them from the bright lights of the floor while Dante enjoyed a private show.

Fuck prison. I tried not to think about it since I’d been given my freedom. But these past four years had been absolute hell. If my parents really were paying off some guards, I didn't know it. They sure as hell didn’t act like it.

I could remember my first week there. Getting in line for food, keeping my eyes on the linoleum floor. I didn't want to be noticed. I was the only one from the family in that facility. And when you don't have friends in a place like that, you only have enemies. I was next in line when some jackass pushed his way in front of me. It wasn’t in my nature to let anybody disrespect me like that, but I didn't want to fight. I'd already seen the guards manhandle some guy as they dragged his screaming ass to solitary. I wasn't ready for that shit.

So I just let it go. I took my ugly yellow tray right after he took his and I watched them slop some sort of disgusting food onto my plate. It was brown and it smelled like dog food. But as the guy got to the dessert bar, which had melted ice cream, he took two. He looked right at me and told me that I didn't need any.

“Virgins don't get none.”

I licked my lips. It took everything in me not to choke the life out of that awful son of a bitch. Instead, I spent the next several weeks plotting my revenge against him. Every day at lunch was the same thing. He pushed in front of me and took my dessert. Like some school kid being bullied by an upperclassman. But I was that kid that you had watch out for. The quiet one that you would never suspect.

I'd been there an entire month before I finally unleashed on him. The guards had known that he was picking on me at lunch, but they never did anything about it, so I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. It was visiting day. I remembered because I had overheard the bastard talking loudly about how he got to have a conjugal visit with his woman. I made sure that he wasn’t able to make that visit.

He was in the shower when I shanked him. I opened up his neck so badly that there was blood on three of the four walls. I had made the shiv out of my toothbrush. The three weeks that that I spent in solitary as a result were worth it. Not to mention I gained some friends. Two other guys took the fall with me, said that it was a joint endeavor. Even though it wasn't. It was only me. Everyone wanted that asshole dead, but I was finally the one with enough balls to take care of him. In prison, you have to be the bully. Command respect from the other inmates. I earned theirs that day.

Nobody ever cut in front of me for food again. I never sat alone. I was the one that could bounce between the Blacks and Whites and Latinos and nobody cared. But that was because of respect and fear. That was what the mob had taught me. The respect I earned was worth three weeks in solitary, and it made my sentence a lot more bearable.

As the song ended and the girl bent over and collected her cash, I pulled out my phone and texted Farrah. A part of me wanted to call her, or go to her, find out the truth about what she was really up to. But I didn’t have time for that shit right now, I had to keep everyone else happy. I couldn’t afford for them to go snooping around. If Pops got to her before I got the truth, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Are you up yet?

It only took a few seconds to respond.

Sure am. Join me for lunch?

Can’t. Too much work to do. I won't be home until tomorrow.

I don't like the bed empty.

Her words made my dick stir in my pants. I looked at the naked woman in front of me collecting her money off of the floor. She looked up at me and winked. If I hadn’t found Farrah, then maybe I would have had some fun with this chick. But now, she wasn’t at all what I wanted.

It won't be for long. I'll see you in the morning.

My phone rang—it was Pops. I didn't even answer it. I killed the rest of my whiskey and slapped Dante on the shoulder. “Family’s calling. Let's move.”

He nodded and followed me into the back of the club and down the staircase. The office was filled with smoke as usual, and there was a group playing poker in the corner. My father was on his phone, and it seemed like he was leaving a voicemail.

“You're here? You're here and you don't even come down to say hello?” He was addressing Dante, the only man who could make that giant feel small.

Dante look sheepish. “It was my fault, sir. I was watching the girl upstairs. The new one, looks like she's got some promise.”

Pops rolled his eyes. “Like I care about some slut with promise. Now did you set up the meeting?”

Dante and I sat down in the chairs across from him. “Sure did. Eight tonight. I made sure he was only to bring one guy.”

“And you think he'll actually do that? He doesn't even know who you're affiliated with.”

“I told him I knew the Mexicans. He bought it.”

My father's mouth dropped open a little. “The Mexicans? Jesus! He actually believed that? I don't work with those dirty assholes! It makes us look bad, weak. They ride around in their trashy cars, while I sit in the back of the Mercedes like I'm supposed to.”

“Yeah those Mexicans are a wreck. But no one wants to mess with them because they’d put a bullet in your ass in a second. Trust me. I learned all about them in prison.

He rolled his eyes. “Great, now we're working with felons.”

I shook my head at him. “Pops. I am a felon.”

Pops put his hands up in protest. “No you're not. You are doing a job. A job that is paid. That doesn't make you a bad person. These people? They're just drug pushing assholes. Bad apples.”

There was no use arguing with him. In his eyes, there would always be a difference between our family’s business and the low life crime that packed the prison cells. To him, I was perfect, because I'd always followed the rules.

“Go upstairs and get something to eat and then take one of the cars and go handle this. I want it to be done and over with. I'll call Armani and let him know that the situation is handled tomorrow morning. And then I expect to see you at mass on Sunday.”

I nodded. “I'll see you Sunday, Pops.”

He nodded to both of us and we filed out of the office. My phone was burning a hole in my pocket; all I wanted to do was call Farrah and find out everything that was going on. She didn't want to be involved in family business, but it seemed she had her own to attend to. I would keep her out of these interactions in the future, if we even had one.

I still had to deal with her when I got home.

X
avier was going
to be gone all day. It was the perfect opportunity to take a good look at his apartment and see what I could find out about my father. Ramsey needed me to tie him to it. All this time, they just assumed it was Xavier who killed him, and they needed me to find the proof that he did. The entire Salvatore family was ready to move on my command. And as much as I needed to find something, to gain some closure, a much larger part of me wanted to find something that exonerated him. I didn't want Xavier to be guilty of this crime. Of course, I knew deep down that he was a murderer. I had known that growing up. But now he was mine. And I needed there to be some sort of redeeming quality about his work. If I found something that would prove that he did not kill my father, I wasn’t sure what the Salvatore family would do. I knew I needed to be careful. Because if I wasn't, they would take me away from him. Or worse, they would take him away from me.

I wasn't going to let this end that way. I wouldn't let them kill him.

I was searching under the bed when I found a shoebox. It was old and dusty and it looked like it was something that would belong to a child. I pulled it out from its hiding place and blew the dust from the lid. When I opened it, I found old baseball cards and an old
Playboy
magazine. I let out a small laugh. They were mementos of Xavier's past. I closed the lid and pushed the box back underneath the bed. I moved my hand over and something hard brushed across my skin. I pushed my hand up and felt the distinct outline of a gun. I carefully unstrapped and pulled it out. It was a 9mm. I looked around the room and realized that the way that his bed was angled, it was so that he could crouch behind it and grab the gun if he needed to protect himself. There was nothing but a couple feet between the bed and the wall. When I had first arrived, I had thought his bed’s placement was at a strange angle in the room, but now it all made sense. He was always thinking ahead. Being in his family, he had to. I re-strapped the gun to the mattress and moved toward his nightstand.

I went through his drawers and meticulously made sure I put everything back exactly the way that I found it, but there was nothing. There was no information here about my parents. What if I couldn’t find anything? What would the Salvatore family do to me then, when I wasn’t useful to them anymore?

I dialed Ramsey's number and he answered again in just one ring. “What?”

God, he made me nervous. “I can't find anything that ties Xavier to my parents. His place looks like it was decorated by his mother. Knowing him, he wouldn’t keep incriminating evidence that he killed my father just lying around. You have to give me more information. Why did my mother leave your family?”

“That's not important.”

“It is important. To me. Now I want the whole story.”

He sighed. “Fine. Your mother left because I told her to.”

“What? You never told me that before!”

“Listen, she wanted to marry someone that we didn't approve of. He wasn't part of the lifestyle, Farrah. He didn't understand our nature. He wasn't good enough for her.”

“So you disowned her?”

“For a while. Until she was killed, then we avenged her. Got that asshole locked up for life.”

“Wait, you know who killed my mother?”

He sighed, obviously annoyed with his admission. “Yes.”

“Tell me.” I held my breath.

“A friend of your father’s. He was like a brother to him. He was the one who ended your mother's life. But had she never gotten mixed up in the Santini family, none of this would've happened.”

“None of what? You abandoned her! Why have you never told me this before?” Ramsey and the Salvatore family had always made themselves out to be saints to me. They had taken me in in my time of need. They blamed the Santinis for the death of my mother when really, they had taken her in when her own family abandoned her. The Santinis weren’t as bad as the Salvatores had made them out to be.

“Why did the Santinis give my mother a job? Did they know about her affiliation?”

“Yes. We were at odds back then. Mr. Santini knew that your mother had done the books for me for years. She had grown up in the lifestyle, and she understood our ways. So they took advantage of that, and when she needed out of whatever stupid situation she had gotten herself stuck in, they gave her an opportunity.”

“She worked for them for years. Had they known that my uncle was coming for us, they would've protected her! She was important to them.”

“I can't even begin to imagine what they would have done. They're not our family. But you are. You’re our blood. And this whole nonsense with your mother started because of her poor choices and the Santinis putting a hit out on your dad. Your blood.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands. “I have to go,” I said between labored breaths as the tears started to roll down my cheeks. Here I was trying to implicate Xavier as a murderer and he might have had nothing to do with it. The Santinis would've protected my mother. They would've saved her if they had been given the opportunity. Just because my uncle and his family had avenged her death by putting her murderer away, it didn't mean that this twisted relationship was better than the Santinis relationship with my mother.

It was in that moment that I realized I was in the middle of a blood feud, and I was just another pawn in their giant chessboard. And I was the only one who had the ability to stop it.

I was going to own up to Xavier about why I had been so easy to claim. About my mother. About the job Ramsey was forcing me to do. I would save him from the Salvatores if I could.

What I felt for Xavier could not be stopped. He was like a drug that I always needed to get my fix of. We would not be ripped apart again like we were when we were kids. Xavier and I would be together. No matter the outcome.