Meadow: A Sopranos Fanfic

The Return of the King

A junior agent at WME  called him sometime at noon, but he let it go to voicemail while plowing down the PCH, parking his used 2007 Audi R8 at Bulgwang beach, grabbing a Cuban sandwich and plopping himself on the sand. He surfed, but only on his phone, mindlessly scrolling for an hour while smiling at women that largely ignored him. He was the typical Hollywood douchebag, a step up from being a dreamer, almost a somebody, but not exactly someone anyone particularly cared about, especially as he tried to escape his reputation for having started out producing porn. He had a few clients that he represented in a town with a thousand similar people all representing a million similar faces. Still, he was making a living, which most likely had nothing to do with his skill and more to do with who he was and knew.

His main vice was coke, but he tried to even it out with Prozac so as not to crash like he used to a decade ago. On days like this, he'd exhaust himself looking at the ocean, sipping tequila based drinks by the water.
Many, many days were like this.

The only close company he kept was with his family,  Bobby Bacclieri, who was related because his Aunt had been married to Bobby's father years and years ago before his death. He and Bobby had finally become friends when the young man had come out to study film at UCLA and even helped him get a leg up in the industry after graduation. Bobby had somehow been a bit more lucky since breaking out and just wrapped the new Green Hornet remake in Hong Kong before all the protests had started.
When his phone rang and Bobby's voice exploded on the other end, his mood immediately soured and he pursed up his lips, mouthing the words 'what the fuck' as he listened.
"Dude, I'm telling you, just check it out and call me back," Bobby said to which he replied, "I don't even know what to search for you fag."
"Trust me, it won't matter.  Call me back," and the phone went click.

He did as he was asked with contempt, which he had a lot of for these days seeing as Bobby's success showed no signs of waning. It all washed away the second he saw the first Google reports in the feed. The log line that caught his eye read; 'THE GODMOTHER? HOW INCLUSIVE IS TOO INCLUSIVE?' and under that; 'RUMORS FEAR MAFIA PRINCESS IS CRIME FAMILY'S RISING STAR.'

He put his phone down and looked out into the sunny ocean, feeling punch drunk and blindsided.

After a moment a seagull walked up beside him, startling him sideways. His upper lip was sweating in the face of the pacific sun and he looked at it as if itself has told him to fuck off and die. A memory popped into his mind of a bird looking at him directly through the window of some basement apartment. He looked down and he was rubbing his hands together, a burning prayer card between his palms. Funnily enough, the memory felt alien to him, and he couldn't quite place when he'd ever done that before. The bird culled a moment and it made him catch his bearings.

"FUUUUUUCK!" he yelled at the waves starling the bird into taking flight and went online to find a quick deal, booking two flights to Newark International.

***

Benny was on full alert since Meadow gave him the news that Patsy was in fact the rat. It was killing him but he knew it wasn't anything that could be helped for now. They just had to play the game for a while longer. Besides, nowadays everyone was a rat.
He counted his lucky stars that he hadn't been compromised, but guessed that's why Meadow had put him on driving duties instead of... well... worse stuff. Not that any of them needed to do that anymore, the "Corso Street Crew," as Furio's men were now being called had everything under control in the land of the dead.
The Blundetto Twins were now shadowing the Corsos, learning everything they could while Enzo took up M's bodyguard duties. In case of a tight situation, it'd be up to his driving and Enzo's trigger finger to protect the Boss. Paulie, on the other hand, had taken things much better and was pivoting his work to be exactly what he was meant to be, a figurehead to keep the cops and the other New York family's focus away from Meadow.
He had to give it to her, she was better at this than anyone he'd ever seen before including T... except for this one thing.