Page 21 of My Young Mafia Daddy

‘I think tonight I actually feel like a humble beer,’ Rico says. ‘So don’t say I never do anything nice for you. Your bank balance can live to see another day at least.’

‘Yeah, even if Luca Conte wishes both of us would drop dead right here and now,’ I retort.

‘He’s a problem,’ Rico agrees, nodding his head. ‘We’ve got more than enough in us to take him out. But these things aren’t always easy. Sometimes, the easier a target someone is, the harder it is to make a successful hit. Luca’s got contacts in high places.’

‘Really?’ I say. ‘You mean in legit places?’

‘Yup,’ Rico says, nodding and taking hold of two beers from the attentive barman. ‘We need to be careful. This ain’t a simple blazing guns maneuver.’

‘True,’ I reply, going against my desire to simply find Luca Conte’s location and turn up there with a semi-automatic and a full cache of bullets.

‘The problem is that Luca is buying up too much real estate,’ Rico continues. ‘And with real estate comes connections. What makes it real bad for us is that he’s doing it on our patch. If he starts to own too many properties on our side of the city, then that could quickly turn into a bad situation for us.’

‘That asshole shouldn’t be buyinganyproperties in our part of town,’ I say. ‘Conte knows he’s crossing a line with us, but he’s doing it anyway. That’s some serious disrespect. And I ain’t going to stand for it.’

‘Me neither,’ Rico says. ‘No fucking chance in hell.’

I can see that Rico knows this is serious, the same as I know it is.

I’ve seen other mobsters try to gain influence and control of rival territory before, but never like this.

Usually an up-and-coming gangster will make a war in the streets and take out a rival family’s street soldier or something along those kinds of lines.

But Conte’s making a more sophisticated move.

Conte’s got serious money behind him, and with money there is always a connection to authority. It might be that Conte is bribing judges, the police, and he certainly has his hands involved with the city planning department too.

But all of this will count for nothing if Conte is dead.

No – I meanwhenConte is dead.

There are no ifs in this game.

It might be up to me and Rico to come up with a plan of action to remove Conte before it’s too late. I know that these situations can escalate quickly, and it’s usually the player who moves quickest who comes away with the spoils.

‘What are you thinking?’ Rico says, breaking me out of my thoughts.

‘We need to strike,’ I reply. ‘It’s just about finding that angle.’

Rico nods and we clink our beer bottles together.

‘Hey, anyway,’ Rico says, gulping down a long slug of beer. ‘Tell me more about this boy…’

‘I don’t know, I…’ I say, unsure whether I’m ready to open up just yet.

‘Hey, don’t bullshit me,’ Rico laughs. ‘I know you. And I know when you’re getting feelings.’

‘Well…’

‘Oh shit. You’ve got it bad,’ Rico bellows. ‘You almost don’t need to say any more. Butdefinitelydo say more. Like, much-much-much more…’

‘Okay, I’ll start from the beginning,’ I say, knowing that Rico won’t give up until I spill every last drop of the situation.

As I begin to talk and the words soon start to tumble out of my mouth, it becomes obvious to me that Eddie is pretty much the boy I have been looking for my whole life.

I kind of felt this already, but somehow the process of speaking my feelings out loud is just making it all the more obvious to me.

‘And that butt…holy hell, thatbutt,’ I chuckle, signaling over toward the barman for two more beers.

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