Page 3 of The Taker

Give no fucks, want no fucks.

Now I’m sitting in the restaurant’s business office, and I have to suffer through Officer Sunshine asking me questions because some moron called the cops. The cops are on our payroll, so interacting with her is just an annoying, waste-of-my-time formality…

“Um… Mr. Vettore, can you p-p-please tell us what happened?” the female detective stutters, breaking me from my thoughts.

They sent this newb to question me about the incident because I wouldn’t be caught dead inside a precinct. She can’t meet my eyes and stares at the tile floor. Her whole body shrinks in on itself as she trembles. Which is a shame, she’s cute in that plastic bimbo kind of way. She obviously knows who she’s talking to, and she’s scared shitless. How did she make it on the force, let alone become a detective?

“Of course,” I reply. “I was at dinner with a business associate, trying to hammer out a real estate deal. He didn’t like the terms Vettore Enterprises had to offer and had a few too many glasses of wine, so he pulled a gun on me. The young man jumped in front of me and was shot. I put pressure on his wound until the medics came.”

While that was mostly true, it left out anything incriminating. The business associate is a leader from a rival gang.Real estateis really code for a dock warehouse to hold all of our cocaine, designer drugs, and counterfeit botulinum. The recent divorcees from the Upper East Side go bananas for that injectable crap. And the terms were me reminding him that hewas lucky to get the deal I offered. It was a formality—because the cold, hard truth is that I run the fucking docks, andNueva Notteruns this city.

If we want something, we take it. We only offered to buy the Brass Bruisers’ warehouses because it’s a cleaner, legal way to go about it. Ever since my uncle gaveNueva Nottea legal face, we keep up the pretense of being a respectable business.

“Oh, okay.” She fidgets, glancing around the room. Her eyes land on the open door next to her, where one of my guards stands, watching her like a hawk. I don’t care that the local precincts are on our payroll and they sent someone who seems to be the most non-threatening, incompetent airhead in existence to question me—I don’t trust anyone.

“Is that all?”I snap. It’s my thinly veiled way of sayingget the fuck away from me, you dumb bitch.

“Um, can I have the name of your associate and any contact information you may have?” she squeaks.

“No.” I gesture toward the door. “You can leave now. I’m sure you’ll handle the incident from here.” I catch a glimpse of her defeated frown before she leaves.

My mind wanders back to the young man who took a bullet for me, Leo Costa. His boss said he works as a cook in the kitchen. That explains why I’ve never seen him before, because if I did, I would have remembered his face.

When he looked up at me with those big blue eyes—all hope draining from them as fear flooded them—it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The utterly pathetic, desperation on his angelic face was a work of art, and I regretted not capturing a picture of him to keep for eternity. I want to see that look on his face again while he’s kneeling before me, tied up, gagged, and so precariously on the edge of pleasure that he’s unable to move, let alone think for himself.

He needs to be mine.

I readjust myself in my pants, aware that getting hard in the middle of a restaurant after an attempt on my life isn’t appropriate. I don’t give a fuck but I did promiseZioAlessandro I’d try to rein myself in. When theDonasks you to do something, you do it.

Despite my proclivities, he’s always loved me and treated me like one of his own sons. His fatherly advice from the day I was initiated intoNueva Nottefilters through my mind.

“You’re just like your father, Rocco. His darkness lives inside you, itching to crawl out and make its mark on the world,” he says fondly, despite the downturn of his lips. I can see how much he misses Dad from the melancholy in his eyes. “You were made for this life…but you need to keep that chaos in check. Control it so it doesn’t control you.”

He hands me a dish towel to wipe the blood off my hands and face, then a paper bag for my clothes.

“Do you have it too?” I ask as I wipe dried blood from my cheek, genuinely curious. My Zio is theDon. I can’t imagine someone so put together and calm carrying this inside him.

“Of course I do. Every Vettore does, even Max and Maddie.”

For fuck’s sake, they’resix. My Zio is raising twin murderous mafiosos.

“The sooner you control it, the sooner you can wield it for your own gain.” He claps me on the shoulder as he makes his way to the door. “The body should be dismembered and on its way to the farm by the time you’re done cleaning up. There’s a suit hanging on the door for the celebration. Welcome toNueva Notteson.”

My phone rings, breaking me from my memory. My tech-genius cousin Maximo’s name flashes across the screen and I answer his call.

“You’re on speaker, Roc. It’s me and Maddie. Heard you almost got shot,” he quips.

“You’re like a feral alley cat that never actually dies. What life are you on now?” she teases me.

“Five, I think? Shit happens. Did you two dig up the information I asked for?”

“Sent you encrypted files, the email will delete itself in twenty four hours,” Max informs me.

“Thank you.”

“Please be careful. Dying on us would be really inconvenient. You’re the only person who challenges me at the shooting range these days,” Maddie awkwardly laughs. She acts tough—because she is tough—but I know she’s affected by this.

“Yeah, yeah. I guess I can try, but we all end up in the ground sometime.” I’m not one for goodbyes or pleasantries, even with my family, so I hang up and open their email.

---