Page 107 of A Taste Of Darkness

“I might have an idea,” she whispered to me, burying her face into my chest. “I don’t know if it’s stupid, though.”

“Can’t get any more stupid than Arlo’s.” I chuckled. It could’ve been worse, I realized, but admitting it to her wasn’t going to happen. Sterlie shouldn’t have been worrying about things like that. Getting us out of here was something that I had to take care of, not her.

“I’m just going to assume there’s no such thing as a mafia law book?” she stated. “I gathered that you have rules of some sort, are they written down somewhere and can they be suspended or overridden?”

My eyes met Arlo’s for a brief moment, but he shrugged, as clueless as me.

“There’s no physical book or anything,” Arlo answered, his eyebrows scrunched together. He reached for his coffee but didn’t take a sip until he continued his thought. “And at the end of the day, Milo calls the shots. Whatever he says goes, so if he chooses to ‘override’ a rule, then that’s it.”

“As long as it doesn’t harm the family,” I added. “Everything they do has to be approved by me, and if I’m not available, they have to run it by Arlo. That’s a basic rule that everyone’s aware of. As well as not harming innocent people or getting involved with the cops. Also, I’m the only one who’s allowed to raise my hand to a made man. If my brothers got into a physical fight, it could get them killed if I chose to raise their hand. There are a few more basic rules, but other than that, I can do whatever the fuck I want. And everyone has to listen to me.”

Sterlie nodded against my body before she looked up, smiling. “You’re like… the president without restrictions.”

I chuckled. “Well, I have some.”

“Can you go on vacation?” she asked.

Now that was random. “I mean, yeah? It’s not like this place is an actual prison, even if I’d like to pretend it is. I can go on vacation and stuff, why?”

Sterlie hummed. “So, you go on a monthly vacation.”

My eyebrows drew together. “Monthly?”

Sterlie nodded. “I get you have obligations here, so you handle them and show up every now and again to be present. For stuff that’s not as important, Arlo could have a say so you can be in Toronto. Does that work?”

“That’d be a lot of traveling,” Arlo remarked.

“You could spend a month or two here sometimes, and then go back to Toronto so it isn’t as obvious that you’re simply avoiding everything and everyone here,” Sterlie suggested, though she didn’t sound very confident about it. Perhaps she wasn’t sure if it could work.

“Yeah.” Arlo nodded and snatched a notepad and pen from the table. As he scribbled something, he said, “You could claim to be meeting with important people, and since nobody is allowed to question you, it could work. I can handle everything while you’re gone, even make deals and shit, and you can live your life, answer phone calls and stuff.”

It sounded good in theory, but there was one big flaw. “I’m not going to fly back and forth between Canada and Italy for the rest of my life.”

“Not for the rest of your life.” Arlo waved me off, still scribbling on that stupid paper. “Just for a few years; until you successfully destroyed this place. That’s your plan, no? You want this family gone.”

While that was my intention at first, I wasn’t a hundred percent convinced I could do it. And it wasn’t very safe either. If they found out what I was doing, I could be killed and apparently, I wasn’t going to do shit that could get me killed anymore.

I guess it was safer to find a permanent solution with me still in charge in some way.

“Or…” Arlo held up the notepad, showing the scribbles. Once again, I was disappointed by his abilities.

I expected something great from his scribbles since he decided to over dramatize it… but it was just an airplane and two flags.

“You separate the family and move a chunk of us to Canada. Expansion is great. There are tons of mafia families in the US, some of us included. Why not expand to Canada, right?” he said. “Even if they tried to argue the expansion, they couldn’t. And Tartarus would be a great excuse. You can turn it into?—”

“I’m not turning Tartarus into anything.” That place was like a first-born child to me. I built that place up from the ground. It was my haven.

“Okay, so don’t. But it still makes a shit load of money. Even if you don’t plan to make it a mafia business, you can always claim it is. Therefore, some of us have to be there to make sure it’s going smoothly. You could choose a couple of guys who are less likely to question you to go with you, so it’s more peaceful. Of course, you’d still have to stop by here every once in a while and answer your phone as the guys here would still have to run plans by you, but a phone call is nothing, right? This seems like your only way out of here.”

I couldn’t believe I was saying this, but Arlo might’ve actually had a good idea for once. Sure it was built upon Sterlie’s initial idea, and fuck if I wasn’t proud of her for being so goddamn smart, but it was still a surprise that Arlo was able to turn her idea into something that could work.

55

AFTERNOON DELIGHT

Sterlie Adams

“Are you hungry yet?” I asked as I walked into Milo’s office.

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