Page 1 of Protected By the Mafia

one

The Last Day

Cristiano filled the windowless room with bright, yellow-white light. The overhead fixtures flared to life with a snap and the poor excuse of a man inside the box cell in the center of the room startled audibly. Cristiano smirked. “I have a gift for you, Tristán.”

The punk did his level best to glare out at Cristiano, despite undoubtedly still being blinded by the sudden intrusion of light. It had been three days since anyone had come to check up on him, after all. Seconds passed before the gangster who’d made the egregious mistake of pissing off the Boss of the De Salvo family shuffled enough to kick weakly at the bars between them. “Let me the fuck go, psycho,” he said, his words lacking the bite they’d carried when Cristiano had first hauled him into this isolated dungeon.

Cristiano made a show of walking wide around the side of the box containing his prisoner’s waste bucket and pulled his promised gift from a pocket. All the while making mental notes. The bucket needed to be emptied again, but that was no surprise. At least Tristán seemed to have stopped trying to make a filthy mess in his cell thinking it would get him out. On the opposite side, shoddily discarded bottles and shreds of cheap napkins mixed with crumbs, a portion of crust, and one sole remaining untouched granola bar, assured that Tristán had also stopped trying to starve himself. He even seemed to have learned a modicum of rationing.

When he was once more facing the twenty-five-year-old, Cristiano flicked the two photographs through the bars and onto the boy’s lap. “I thought you might like to see your family again,” he said as the laminated papers fluttered.

Tristán’s nostril’s flared and he straightened, scrambling for the pictures that had immediately tumbled to the side.

Cristiano watched silently, studying the way his prisoner’s dark eyes darted from side to side. It wasn’t hard to notice the way Tristán’s stare lingered over the vertically oriented image compared to the horizontal one. That one detail told Cristiano plenty. Even if it was the answer he hadn’t wanted.

Tristán finally looked up from the photographs, glaring again, and his fingers clutched so hard at the pictures that they crinkled in his hold. “Y-you sick fuck. Stay away from my family!”

Interesting. The punk had clearly had a stronger reaction to one over the other, but he still had enough presence of mind to try and hide his attachment. Cristiano let a frown bend his lips and dropped down onto his haunches. “We exited the bargaining stage of this relationship when you forced me to bring you here, Tristán. Everyone you’ve ever given two shits about is going to die, and all because you went and held a knife to the wrong woman’s throat.”

Tristán managed to shove to his feet and waved the photographs around violently. “They didn’t do nothin’! It’s the Blots who’re gonna burn your messed up family to the ground, motherfucker, not these people.”

Cristiano stood calmly, until he was once again looking down through the bars to meet his captive’s wide-eyed stare. “If you cared what happens to your family, you shouldn’t have started a war with mine. Moving forward, you should consider that the less you’re willing to talk, the more they’re going to have to suffer before they die.” He turned, intending to leave the gangster to stew with that information for a day or three.

Behind him, Tristán pounded on the bars in a fresh rage.

Cristiano ignored him and flicked the lights off again for good measure on his way out. He locked the door, reset the closed-circuit security, and continued to the end of the hall and up the flight of steps that led into the unassuming house above. From there, he pulled the designated burner from his pocket and texted a specific code to signal for a crew to go in and set up their guest to spend another forty-eight hours or so alone with his thoughts. Maybe less if Cristiano learned new information he could use as leverage.

Only once he was outside the building altogether did he remove the filter style plugs from his nose. He didn’t know why Dante hadn’t purchased the company that made the fucking things yet, for as often as the family went through them.

He was back on a main road, burner exchanged for his main phone and breathing lungfuls of big city pollution just minutes later. The quiet beat of the music in the car stereo cut out as he rounded a corner, followed by the auditory announcement of an incoming call. An ever-present reminder that he sometimes wondered if one of his cousins had bugged his favorite car. But Cristiano pushed the thought aside and tapped the button on his steering wheel. “Go ahead.”

“Since you’re back on the radar,” Mikey said by way of greeting, “Big Brother’s looking for you.”

Cristiano slowed to accommodate traffic. “Are you tracking me?”

“Only when I’m trying to get in touch with you.”

He bit back a growl. “I’ll call him.” Another tap disconnected that conversation, and seconds later the cab filled with the sound of a ringing line.

“You’re a hard man to find, cousin,” Dante De Salvo said when the line connected again. His tone was smooth, but Cristiano knew his cousin well enough to know not to be lulled by it.

Cristiano let his gaze flick to the dashboard long enough to confirm the time, though with the sun still in the sky, he wasn’t worried that he’d missed anything critical. Like a family dinner. “My boss is demanding,” he said. “But I just stepped out for lunch, so I have a minute. What did you need?”

“Someone has a sense of humor today. Did you get a lead?”

The flicker of humor zapped out of Cristiano’s chest and he tightened his grip on the wheel. “Maybe. I rattled him up with something new.”

“Good. I’m tired of picking off flies. I want the main dish.”

“I understand,” Cristiano said. He merged lanes as his exit neared. “It’s disappointing that wannabe sniper took the coward’s way out before we could catch up to him. We might have more information on their ringleaders by now.”

Dante grunted. “What’s disappointing is that the one we did catch could only verify orders from the punk in your dungeon.” He paused for a long second. “Remind me what you do know about him.”

“Tristán Garcia, age twenty-five, local kid. Barely graduated high school. Middle child. Before his association with the Ink Blots, he was known to hang around some smaller gangs. Most of those have been busted up.” Cristiano fast-forwarded the information he’d gathered on his prisoner in his mind in the interest of hitting the relevant highlights. “Seems like he got dragged into the gang scene by his older brother, who’s serving time for murder-two.”

“So it’s not a family affair, then?” Dante asked.

“Unlikely,” Cristiano said. He slowed as his building finally loomed ahead. “Older brother’s the only other one with a criminal record. The Ink Blots look more like your standard gang.”

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