Mafia Blood (The Five Families, 1)

FIVE . your worst nightmare

VITTORIO

THE SOFT BREEZE BRUSHED AGAINST my face as I inhaled the contents of my cigarette, my hair ruffling from the wind. My throat began to burn, and after a few moments I took my lips off the cigar and blew smoke into the air.

Smoke clouded my vision for a moment and I squinted as I stared down the vacant road, a small chill traveling through my body.

As I placed my right hand into my pocket, keeping my hand with the cigarette at my side, the silence that I had been basking in was broken by someone clearing their throat.

Turning my head, I gazed over at my companion silently. He stood beside me with a straight unwavering posture, his arms crossed firmly over his chest. The bottom of his suit began to wrinkle because of the blow of the wind, but he didn't seem to care about how chilly it was. A frown was plastered on his lips, his light brown eyes seeming to be lost in thought about whatever was clouding his mind.

"Simone, are you alright?" I asked him in our native tongue, my eyebrows furrowing.

His brown eyes met my blue ones, and he gave me a haunted smile, his pupils reflecting ghosts that were invisible to me.

"I'm just thinking," he said with a dry chuckle as he looked down at the ground for a short second before meeting my eyes again.

"You know," he continued after a moment, "I'm starting to believe there's no redemption for people like us."

As I stared into his eyes I could tell that he meant what he said, but his sentence was so unexpected that it took me a moment to respond.

"If you're worried about what we're about to do, don't be. It'll be over before you know it, and completely worth all the trouble," I said hoping I read him right and that he was nervous about us succeeding in finding out the information we needed.

But he wasn't wrong, as I knew there was no way that even God himself could forgive our past sins and the ones we were about to commit.

In response Simone nodded his head slowly, raising his right arm and running his hand through his combed hair with his left hand.

As I tried to think of a few more words of reassurance, the sound of a car pulling up caught my attention.

I turned my head away because of the bright headlights, and looked back at the silver car once the lights were off.

Simone and I silently watched as the person inside of the car stepped out and approached us.

They straightened the jacket of their black dress suit as they walked forward, and then placed their hands inside of their pockets once they stopped in front of us.

"We got him. We found Amerigo De Luca. "

Simone and I shared a quick look at his words before meeting his gaze again.

"Where'd y'all pick him up, Cosimo?" Simone asked him, his eyes filled with surprise and relief.

I was also shocked as I'd never imagined we'd actually find anyone. Most of our leads were dead ends.

Quite literally.

"We got him when he was going home from his new job. He's going by Roberto Alessandro now. Retired. He has a normal life now. Married an Italian woman who probably knows nothing of his former life, and he has children," Cosimo informed us, combing a hand through his dark hair as he pierced us with his gray eyes.

We could use that to our advantage, I thought with satisfaction.

We had to break him first before we interrogated him. Men who worked dangerous jobs didn't confess easily. No one fancied a snitch.