Page 3 of Sweet Prison

With a deep breath, Elmo nods. “Thank you, Massimo.” He taps my chest with his palm and the next second, he’s out the door.

I turn around, ready to finish my business here. Carlo is clutching a kitchen towel to his bloody hand, whimpering like a pussy.

Four pairs of eyes trace my path to the shelf where Peppe left the shears tucked between two jars of sun-dried tomatoes. I pull a lighter from my pocket and hold the slightly curved blades of the shears over the flame. “Let me see your hand.”

“Why?” Carlo croaks.

“Lots of blood vessels in fingers. Wouldn’t want you to bleed to death, right? You die, and who’s gonna pay your debt?” I nod to the guys, my handpicked crew of enforcers. “Hold him down.”

Carlo tries to fight back, but my men subdue him easily. Peppe grabs the sniveling bastard’s wrist and presents thewounded hand to me. Shoving the lighter back into my pants, I get ahold of the unreliable idiot’s palm.

“You have three days,” I bark.

Then, I press the heated blade to the bleeding stump of his finger, and the smell of burned flesh fills the room.

“Massimo.” The pantry door swings open, revealing Salvo. “Elmo said you’re here and… What in the hell is that smell?”

“Persuasion. For deadbeats.” I step to the side, giving him a direct view of the now passed-out Forino.

Salvo swallows audibly. His eyes are wide as they roam over the blood stains and pause on the severed finger on the floor. “Sweet Jesus.”

I shake my head. Salvo and I attended the same prep school and have been best friends since day one. Whereas I’ve never let the high-society glitter get to me and have been doing this shit for years, he’s fourth generation Cosa Nostra and accustomed to all the pomp and circumstance that goes along with money, power, and prestige. His father is a capo, and his grandfather was an underboss in his time. This means that Salvo doesn’t usually get his hands dirty or even stoop low enough to witness how the shadier parts of our business are handled.

“What do you need?” I ask.

“Don V. has been asking when you’re going to join the guests,” he mumbles, eyes still focused on the severed finger.

“As soon as I wash my hands.”

“Um… okay.”

“Save me a few shrimp before Leone eats them all,” I toss at his quickly retreating back.

***

I enter the great hall, taking in the glitz and glamour that is all my mother’s handiwork. The guy in the flashy white suit is still playing the piano, but thank fuck he switched to a livelier tune. The don and my mother are having a pleasant chat with a few of the city’s higher-ups on the far side of the room, right next to the elaborately decorated Christmas tree. If there were any doubt, the big grin Nuncio is wearing as he stands just to the left of Judge Collins shows how truly he enjoys all the fanfare and other benefits that being at the helm of the Family affords him.

If the plan had gone as it should have, it would be me in his place. Too bad sometimes shit doesn’t go as intended.

I was raised and have been trained to assume the leadership of Boston Cosa Nostra since I turned twelve. While other fathers took their sons to football games, mine dragged me to shady clubs and derelict buildings to meet with our suppliers. Instead of playing video games like my friends, I was learning how to shoot. While other boys my age were leafing through porn magazines, I was sitting with my father in our accountant’s office, learning how to launder money. Any time there was a big deal going down, my father brought me with him to witness the deed. Despite my father being the Boston don, I was not pampered like the sons of other privileged Family members. Our blood was definitely not blue.

My father started out as a lowly worker, laboring at one of Cosa Nostra’s warehouses. He became a made man at seventeen and spent two decades rising through the ranks until he became the underboss. Then, eight years ago, he took over leadership of the Boston Family. Dad believed that only someone who’d experienced all roles on the ladder of Cosa Nostra would make a good leader. Because only someone with personal knowledge ofthe plights of the soldiers would act in the best interests of every member ofLa Famigliaand not only the higher-ups. And since he wanted me to succeed him as the don, that meant I had to go through it all, too.

So I did. Collected money from the men who owed us. And beat the shit out of those who couldn’t pay. I can’t even count the number of times I got home with bloodstains on my clothes after witnessing how the Cosa Nostra justice was served firsthand. I accompanied the foot soldiers on their rounds around the neighborhood or went with them to retaliate against other crime organizations. I spent more days in a dive bar by the waterfront with the organization’s muscle, playing poker and drinking, than I spent evenings with my friends from school. I didn’t get to go to my junior prom because I spent the night sprawled on a wooden bench in the back room of a casino while a doc dug a bullet out of my thigh after a drug deal went sideways. Quite a thrill-filled life for a teenager. And I liked it that way.

I never minded my lost childhood because I knew I was being groomed to take over the Family when the time came. But that time arrived too soon. I was barely eighteen when my father died. A decade too early for anyone to even consider me for the role. I was a young pup among seasoned dogs. And those bitches couldn’t be taught any new tricks.

At the quickly assembled Family meeting, Nuncio Veronese was voted in as the next don. It was an unexpected turn of events. Until it happened, I was sure it would be Batista Leone who’d take over. Older. More experienced. My father’s underboss. I think even Nuncio himself was rather surprised when he ended up as the leader of the Cosa Nostra in Boston.

Veronese had young kids and had lost his wife in childbirth only months earlier. So at that same meeting, a deal for him to marry my mother was struck. They married soon after. A wisemove. There’s no better way of strengthening your position as a new don than marrying your predecessor’s widow and bringing his son under your roof. Considering my age—old enough, just not for sitting at the head of the table—I was relegated to the position of Nuncio’s glorified “left hand.” A messenger, doling out judgment and discipline on behalf of the new don.

Loud, joyful laughter erupts from the group standing by the Christmas tree, pulling me back to the party. Nuncio probably delivered one of his jokes. Fancy dinners and parties with our investors, public appearances, and fundraising events for the organizations we launder money through are always my stepfather’s jam, and he pulls them off impeccably.

The charisma the man has is unparalleled. Nuncio Veronese can talk an otherwise rational person into cutting off their own hand and convince them it’s for their own good. They might even have the urge to thank him for it. People always gravitate toward him like he’s the fucking sun. Important, powerful people. He plays golf with the chief of police every second Wednesday. Has an open invitation to all influential households in the Greater Boston region. Every socialite and power-hungry member of the Boston elite has attended at least one of Nuncio’s summer backyard BBQs. He even managed to get a fucking Massachusetts State judge to come to our New Year’s party.

Ever since my father’s time as the don, Cosa Nostra has been swinging toward a more “populist” approach and avoiding open confrontations with the law. That’s probably why Nuncio was chosen to succeed my father. The Family was convinced they made a good choice.

They were wrong.