Page 10 of Mob Saint

Cormac has the same arrangement with a woman he met at our club the same weekend I met Makayla. They’re friends. Neither he nor I bring women to our places. It’s not safe or practical. We also like to shut the door to the outside world and be alone.

We’ve both considered having an apartment just for the time we spend with our subs, but neither of us wants that kind of permanence despite being with our partners for years. No one would live full-time at these imaginary condos, but it feels too much like we’re bringing someone home if we own them. We’d rather the noncommittal arrangement of going to their places and leaving when we want.

It's not like we fuck and run. But they aren’t romantic relationships, and they’re not quite friendships either. We exchange pleasantries beyond how’s the weather, but we don’t chat. At least, I don’t with Makayla. I doubt Cor does with Deirdre.

I nod to my brother. “Have fun. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Later. Mo ghrá thú.” Love you.

“Grá agat freisin.” Love you, too.

Our parents and aunts and uncles drilled into all of us to say we love each other when we hang up the phone or say goodbye. No one wants the last thing they said to be something other than an expression of love. We don’t always end every call with it or even say it instead of goodbye when we’re together. But we say it to each other—our cousins included—at least once a day. If anyone understands the fragility of life, it’s a mobster. If anyone understands family before all else, it’s a mobster.

I turn on my Albanian language program as I head to Queens for the night game. All of us speak more languages than people realize. Spanish and a healthy dose of Yiddish aren’t unusual for native New Yorkers. No one outside our family knows we’ve studied Russian and Italian. All of us are basically proficient in both, while some of us are closer to fluent in one, the rest of us are closer to the other. With all the shite we’ve dealt with recently and how the Albanians keep trying to fuck us over, I decided it was time to add that to my dossier.

The app says it takes eleven-hundred hours to learn the language. I’m getting close. I gotta be going on around nine hundred. We have bugs planted in several Albanian leaders’ homes and at some of our informants’. I test my skills by listening to them without watching the translation on my computer. If I don’t catch something, then I can look it up.

Cormac’s working on Japanese since we’re doing more business with the yakuza. Shane’s pretty proficient in Korean, and Sean’s studied Mandarin and Cantonese in college and grad school. His grad degree in national security merited at least one foreign language, so he started learning Mandarin in high school, knowing he wanted to pursue that. He picked up French because he loves shitty art-house movies. He wanted to impress a girl in high school. She didn’t last, but his crap taste in movies did. Finn’s proficient in Polish and German, and Dillan’s nearly fluent in Arabic and proficient in Hebrew.

We like people thinking we’re ignorant. We like people thinking we’re all brawn and no brains. Underestimating us gets us everywhere we want to go with barely anyone noticing. Let them laugh because our name—mob—isn’t sophisticated like theirs—bratva, Mafia, cartel. We couldn’t give two shites since we’re all, individually and as an organization, richer than the rest of them. We take perverse pleasure knowing they don’t know.

I pull up to the athletic complex as Tiera’s getting out of her car. I gird my loins.

I grab my stuff and hurry to the restroom. I hate changing out of my custom-tailored suits—nothing off the rack is going to fit any of us—in a public restroom. Gross. But I have no choice. I’m back out in a couple minutes and take my clothes back to my car. I’m not wadding up my four-thousand-dollar suit. We might go through them fast because of our line of work, but I take care of my belongings.

“Hi.”

I pass where Tiera’s standing with a couple teammates as I jog by. She’s waiting for me to respond, and I’m being a little bitch because I don’t want to get my feelings hurt again.

“Hey.” As noncommittal as her greeting. Seems like I have a fear of commitment in my conversations and my relationship with my sub.

Cor and I are the serious introverts in the family. Shocking since our mom and dad are the most extroverted of their sets of siblings. They’re not boisterous or gregarious. They’re just way more outgoing and enjoy being around people way more than my brother and me. We’re not followers by any stretch, but we never feel the need to be ringleaders. It meant we got caught the least out of the seven cousins. We hung back just enough to let our parents and aunts and uncles swoop in and round them up while we stood looking on. No one ever narced on each other, but neither did our cousin Colleen—Dillan’s younger sister—ever let us get away with no consequences.

I’m done warming up, and I’m done letting my mind wander. I’ll have to re-listen to that Albanian lesson since I don’t remember any of what I heard. My mind was all over the place while I drove here. I’m on the field, looking straight at Tiera. My dick would love it if I took off this fucking cup. It doesn’t appreciate being confined, but I don’t need every person on the field knowing I’m getting a hard on.

“How’re your ribs?” I can try to be polite.

We’re facing each other at the center line. I see her competitive nature wonder if I’m sincere or if I’m trying to judge whether I can knock her over by hitting her bad side. She smiles, and it’s like angels are singing.

“The arnica’s really helping. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate it.”

“Happy to.”

There’s no time for more chatting as the ref blares the whistle. It’s game on. I watch her, and she’s magnificent. She weaves among my teammates; her ball handling clearly comes from years of practice. I looked her up when I got home last time. She played varsity collegiate soccer all four years and captained the team for three. Even after the scrimmage, I see my team’s underestimating her athleticism because she doesn’t look like she should have the endurance she does, be as strong as she is, or as confident as she deserves. They’re fools.

I watch Emily target her again like last time. I don’t know what her deal is, but I don’t like it. I saw Tiera hip check her when Emily kicked her ankle. As they get close this time, Tiera squares off. She’s giving Emily a silent warning to back off. Emily’s at least three inches taller than Tiera, but she’s out of her league with skill, so her plan to use her height to intimidate Tiera is a waste. Tiera shifts sideways to take one evasive maneuver, but I know she knows Emily isn’t giving up. I know she knows where the ref is since I saw her check right before she got close to Emily. She twists just enough so her shoulder rams into Emily’s, pushing her backwards.

“Oops.”

Tiera’s not loud, but I’m no longer in midfield like I’m supposed to be. I’m trailing her like a puppy. My teammate steals the ball mid pass as she kicked it to her own teammate. I nod when mine looks at me. He sends it back across the field to me. I have control of the ball now, and I’m moving it back toward midfield, where I should be. I drive it forward.

“T, take the barge.”

I hear someone on the opposing team calling out, but I don’t know what it means. I get the take, but other than Tiera, I don’t know who on their team has a name that starts with T. I definitely don’t know who the barge is, so I’m assuming it’s me since I still have possession.

“Seamus, man on!” That’s Todd.

Someone’s too close to me. I sense the person approaching from behind, but there’s no one coming from either side. I push harder, faster than most people. Sometimes you stand and fight, and sometimes you move your arse and run. There’s not a slow member of our family, and that’s why we’ve lived through some fucked-up situations.

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