Trials and Tribulations

Epilouge

Stephen

Three Years Later

I wiped the beads of sweat on my forehead. It was hot as hell in this villa. I adjusted my shirt, so it could stop sticking to my chest. I picked up some binoculars and looked in the distance at the ocean. Nothing in sight so far.

"Damn, can we get some air conditioning up in this bitch?" Vinny complained as he came through the door. He sat down and picked up a paper fan. He started to quickly move it back and forth. "This is so pathetic."

"Well we could either be dead with air-conditioning, or alive and just getting the fuck over it." I retorted at him. He ignored me as he continued to try and cool himself down. I eventually just opened the buttons on my shirt as I began to run comms.

I moved the dial back and forth on the radio and picked up the mic.

"Can you hear me? Giovanni? Damien?"

"Loud and clear." Damien replied back.

"How's everything looking out there?" I asked them.

"Oh just peachy. No danger on the horizon." Giovanni replied. I nodded. The last thing we needed was the coast guard pulling up on our ass. We already were in a huge ordeal. We couldn't afford to draw attention to ourselves. Our lives depended on it.

"Start making your way back." I told them, "Then we'll muster some kind of meal together."

"Making our way now." Damien said. "See you in a bit."

"Yep." I moved the dial back to stop the frequency and everything went silent. I put the mic back down as I sat back in the chair. I wiped my face with a towel to try and stop the sweat. It was so hot though. I never want to be in this type of climate again. I looked at Vinny to see he was sitting back on the couch with his eyes closed.

"Vinny?"

"What, man?" He replied, annoyed. This heat was really killing his mood.

"Just seeing if you're still alive. Go down to the ocean and throw some water on your face. That could help." I suggested. He didn't reply back and kept his eyes closed. Well, I tried.

I sighed and tried to find something to do while waiting for Giovanni and Damien to get back. I started to look around the villa and my gaze stopped on my black wallet on the windowsill. I hadn't used that thing in a long time. I stood up and went to pick it up.

I opened it to reveal a picture of Jazmin and Aria. It brought a small smile to my face. Having this picture was the next best thing to seeing them.

I hadn't seen them in approximately five months.

It was really affecting me in a bad way. Not seeing them for so long. I only have myself to blame. Unfortunately, this life requires you to take some drastic measures. This is something I had to do.

All four of us had to do.

We got in some deep shit with a couple other mafia families. I never ever let anyone cross me or hide from anybody. This situation was different though. Something had changed while I was away from Italy. I have a lot of haters and people who want to see me dead. A couple families had built a coalition to kill Damien, Giovanni, Vinny and I.

Each one of us had a twenty million dollar bounty on our head.

Everybody from any and every direction wanted to kill us and claim that cash reward. I wouldn't blame them either. If opportunity presented itself to get the kind of money, I would've taken it too.