Trials and Tribulations

Chapter 15

Hey I never asked you guys this. How you feel about the new cover of the book? I know it's been a minute, I just forgot to ask :)

Enjoy.

Stephen

I sighed as I sat at my desk.

Mafia work was not fun.

I was going through a couple files to see what operations to hit and things like that. Nothing too fancy, nothing out of the ordinary. I'm definitely still looking into Castor, and that whole thing. Even though it got slightly put on hold.

Everything kind of came to a halt when Vinny returned. His loss of hearing and for the time being, he cannot walk. That struck me a little.

I know, I know, I put my men into danger everyday, but I will admit. When it's your own, it hits different. I couldn't look pass that.

At the moment, I decided to fix some local problems. Territories that I run in the city, rather than worry about Italian business, or Russian business.

A couple of businesses within my territories haven't been paying their "fee" to me. They know the agreement, my guys ride around their businesses all day long. This is how the game goes. I will personally be paying a visit to them today. I don't normally do it myself, I usually have my guys do it for me. But like I said, for a minute I was going to stick to local business. So this is a start.

I got up and put on my black suit jacket. I made my way out of the office and to the front entrance. Someone opened the double doors for me and I went into my matte black Escalade.

"Hey stranger." Giovanni said. I rolled my eyes at him. "You've been in your office all damn day, didn't think I'd see you." The only thing between me and him at the moment was the arm rest in the back seat, and I was about to come across it.

"Giovanni, I have been working my ass off. What have you been doing exactly?" I glared at him.

"Running comms." He said proudly.

"Wow, running comms, so you've just been on the fucking walkie talkie all day. You lazy son of a bitch." I looked out the window as we pulled out of the driveway. Two Escalades accompanied us, all full of my men.

"Fuck you, Stephen." Giovanni replied.

"Yeah, yeah." I wave him off. We were silent for a few moments, taking in our surroundings. "Where the fuck is Damien?"

"He's running training for the new guys." I nodded, well at least that was something. "Why are you doing local business today? You don't usually." He asked. I shrugged.

"I thought I'd take a step back for a moment, I didn't feel like dealing with overseas at the moment." Giovanni pressed the privacy screen button that separated us from the driver and my other guy up front.

"What happened with Vinny shook you that bad huh?" I swear this man could read me like a book.

"I mean, yeah. I just didn't want to get into anything else. That was enough for the time being. I'm still on top of Castor. Damien should be looking into that soon. I just can't afford any fuck ups because you or Damien could be next. In a fucking wheelchair or some shit. Hell, you may end up dead. That's a risk I can't afford right now." I actually sounded scared at the moment. I knew he could hear the fear in my voice, there was no way I could hide it.

They are my brothers and I want them to know I'd rather lose all my men, than for one of them to be dead.

"I completely understand where you're coming from, fratello. Just know that I signed up for this risk," Giovanni shook his head, "I don't want you to go forward feeling like it's on you because our legs got blown off, we permanently lost our hearing, or if we even end up dead. That's not on you, fratello. We took this risk together. If one of us, a couple of us, or all of us end up dead, it was for each other. Okay?" That was tough for me to hear. I didn't anticipate us dying when I took on this life. I always thought of us as being invincible. When we first got into this, we felt on top of the world. No one could bring us down.