Indebted to the Mafia King

Dante

A few days after dropping Eleni off upstate, I sit in the cheap, plastic chair of the Sing Sing Correctional private visitation room and eye the guard standing in the corner. He's not our usual guy, but Hank promised this guy would be just as

good.

"I'm Dante," I say to fill the silence before my prisoner arrives.

He grunts. "You bring the shit?"

Certainly not the conversationalist Hank is. I pull the plastic-wrapped Cubans out of my inside jacket pocket and slide them across the table. The new guy picks them up, sniffs them, and they disappear in a crease in his uniform, in the way every prison guard I've ever met seems to have mastered. I've never been inside myself, and I'm not looking forward to that day, if it ever comes. I knock surreptitiously on the engineered-wood table and hope that's enough to scare away the bad luck.

The door buzzes, then opens to admit Uncle John, with his wrists and ankles chained together as always, and another guard. The new guy nods to the guard escorting Uncle John and takes over. The escort looks me up and down. I smile my most innocent smile and spread my arms to show I even submitted to the indignity of changing into sweatpants for the visit because I accidentally got rid of my only pair of suit pants with no metal fixtures. The escort leaves, and Uncle John looks at the new guy.

"No Hank?" he asks me, still looking at the guard.

"Daughter's birthday," I reply. "But I figured this visit couldn't wait."

The new guy grunts and unchains Uncle John's wrists.

Uncle John sits, rubbing his wrists, and sighs. "No, it couldn't. You have anything for me?"

I pull out a pack of imported Italian cigarettes, and Uncle John snatches them up.

"Christ, this is the good stuff. I'm not even going to trade these." He smiles at me. "All right, Dino, I'm not gonna waste your time."

I don't look at the new guard to see what he thinks of the old family nickname.

"I've heard the rumors," he continues. "I knew you were scrapping with the Lombardis, but what the hell are you doing getting the Coppolas on your ass? You slumming it in Jersey?"

I crack my knuckles. Uncle John got caught a couple months before Frank Lombardi took out my dad, so he still thinks of me as the heir apparent, not the king.

"Thano set me up," I say. "He fed us crap information, and when Tony and I went to check it out, a handful of Coppola goons jumped us."

Uncle John blows out a long breath through his teeth. "Why were you relying on Coppola information in the first fucking place?"

"I needed more eyes." I shake my head. "But that's not the point. The point is, Thano claims he didn't know about the set-up. Fucker claims he didn't even know about the information Tony got, and I'm not stupid enough to buy that." Uncle John nods. Gianna mostly got her mom's looks, but I can see a little of her in Uncle John. The greasy, salt-and-pepper curls could've turned into the mane Gianna obsesses over, and he's got the same way of holding his head when he doesn't quite believe someone. The same way he's holding his head right goddamn now.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing." He shakes his head and looks away.

"You think I'm stupid?" The plastic chair creaks underneath me as I shift. "I know he could be telling the truth. He could have a mole in his operations, planted by the Lombardis or someone else. He could be playing me against Luca so he can swoop up the city when it's done. I'm still looking over my shoulder."

"Shit, Dino, I said it was nothing." He shakes a cigarette out of the pack and holds it up to the guard for a light.

The man grumbles but flicks a lighter until the end catches. Uncle John takes a deep drag.

"I guess I'm just wondering why you needed the Lombardis fast enough to bring in outside help," he says through his exhale.

Because the first day I walked into the Greek Corner, Eleni took my breath away.

No, it was more than that. She's beautiful, and smart, and aggravating enough to keep me up at night thinking about what the fuck she's going to do next, but she's also...normal.novelbin

My whole life, I've been the prince of the Staten Island Saints. That is, until I became the king. I can't look twice at a girl without every outfit worth knowing about between Boston and Trenton catching wind of it. That first day in the restaurant, I didn't feel any of that. I was just Dante, and she was just Eleni. No title around my neck, no blood on my hands.

I told her at the house that she was making stupid choices, but I was the real moron. I'd let my heart lead me since that moment. Even at the auction, I sprang into action so goddamn fast because I wanted to protect that little bubble of normalcy, to keep her out of this life. And then what did I do? I held the door right open and invited her in. If anything happens to her now, it'll be on my head, and I'll burn the world to ash before I let anyone get away with that. Maybe I'll burn the world to ash anyway. Coming home to an empty house these past few days has been so much worse than I expected.

But I can't tell Uncle John that.

"I was sniffing around for anything that would give me the in to revenge Dad," I say, "and an innocent got caught in the middle. She's in danger until I tie this up, and I'd rather not waste manpower on bouncing her from safe house to safe house because I'm dragging my feet."

Uncle John tilts his head again, and I know he can tell I'm playing fast and loose with the truth. I just hope he hits on the safe house stuff I'm saying because this new guard isn't vetted like Hank and not anything about Eleni. "An innocent, huh?" he says. "I heard a little about this innocent. Heard her name was Calimeris."

I swallow a grimace. It's not good that her name made it all the way to Sing Sing. "So?"

Uncle John shakes his head. "You've always had a soft heart, Dino. This is about Christos, isn't it?"

My stomach flips. "No."

"Uh-huh." Uncle John smiles teasingly. "Don't worry, I won't tell that the boss of the Staten Island Saints is a softie."

I stand. "You and I both know that the number one thing Dad taught me was to always pay my debts. If this were about Christos-which it isn't-I'd be paying my dues, not going soft."

"You done already?" Uncle John raises his eyebrows. "I thought we were gonna shoot the shit."

"I have places I need to be." I nod at the guard, who re-cuffs Uncle John. "Call me with any further rumors you hear."

"I'm not in here much longer, Dino." He stands.

He has a month left on his sentence. The guard buzzes the door, and I stride out. I have nothing to say to Uncle John about any member of the Calimeris family.