Page 32 of Sins of the Orchid
Amore was no exception.
Her long slender legs left a lot to the imagination. I wasn’t into girls, and she’d forever be that little girl crying that needed saving to me. But I’d be a blind man not to see Amore had grown. She was still a kid to me, but there was no mistake she’d be a gorgeous woman one day. A knockout.
You’d drown in a sea of green staring into those eyes. Like sparkling emeralds. They were the most striking green I had ever seen. With her red curls, you’d think she was Irish. Her father was don of the East Side, and her mother came from one of the most prestigious and well-known Manhattan families. The Regalè family owned a multi-billion-dollar fashion company, and Amore Bennetti was its sole heiress.
She had come a long way from that kid who sat in front of our restaurant crying on the sidewalk. Every once in a while, I’d still see that shattered look in her eyes, like today for a fleeting second. But most of the time, she was a happy kid.
The way she tilted her head was like a queen greeting her subjects. There might be vulnerability in her but also some incredible strength and a regal manner. After all, she was Regina's heiress. One day, she’d be one of the wealthiest women in the world. I was by no means broke, but the millions I owned didn’t scratch the surface of the Regalè fortune.
She and Adriano had always been close. Even with Adriano being in college, there wasn’t a day that went by where they didn’t speak.
Amore Bennetti didn’t know it, but the day she stepped onto Russo territory, she brought peace to two ruling families of the Cosa Nostra. Her old man and my old man came to terms and stopped sparring. Instead, we joined forces and started eliminating the Venezuelan Cartel from the city. The problem was that they kept coming back. It had something to do with her heritage, I was certain of it.
It was the main reason her old man agreed to send her to Italy. It was safer for her there than here.
I knew my father and Bennetti had a fallout over a woman. They both wanted her, but she chose Bennetti. But pride was a hard thing to swallow, and Bennetti ended up losing her too, just in a different manner.
Seeing his daughter off to Italy would be hard for Savio. Hell, it would be a hard one for my father too. He liked her being around. In another few weeks, she’d graduate high school, and at the end of the summer, she’d move to Italy. Adriano already planned weeks to visit her as much as possible over the next four years.
Like I said, joined at the hip.
* * *
My eyes darkened, and so did my mood as I stood in the midst of the container of dead bodies. There wasn’t much that churned my stomach, but this sight did. There were girls as young as twelve and as old as fifty, all dressed in white nightgowns. It made me want to rage, to fly to Venezuela and burn the motherfuckers to ashes. Leave nobody alive.
Rivalry was one thing, but butchering women was something entirely different. And the Perèz Cartel wasn’t even trying to hide it. A “P” logo was branded into the back of each woman’s hand.
The Perèz Cartel was causing too much trouble. No matter how many of them I killed off, more sprouted. It was like a damn hydra, each time you cut off one head, two more emerged.
Things escalated the night that Venezuelan scumbag attacked Amore, which was almost two years ago. On the surface, it looked like there was no connection between the dead guy and the Perèz Cartel. Amore insisted he was cartel and I believed her. After all, you don’t just forget your mother’s killer. So, we dug deeper and found the connection.
The Venezuelans were back to selling heroin on Cosa Nostra territory. And were fixated on the Bennetti girl. Suddenly, it looked like Amore and her mother weren’t targeted randomly. There was a lot more to this story than a random kidnapping by the cartel. The question was why they would target them considering neither Amore nor her mother participated in the underworld activities—before or after the old Perèz’s death.
Papà agreed. In an effort to somewhat preserve Amore’s perception of her freedom and independence and not send her into a panic, we set up men all around New York to keep an eye out. Everyone knew her and wouldn’t dare look the other way if someone attempted something. Besides, DeAngelo was one of the best, and he kept his sights firmly on her, like she was the apple of his eye. Bennetti had increased the number of men watching his territories too.
There was one thing I disagreed on with Pà and Bennetti.
They both refused to believe the Venezuelans would dare cross the territory. Bennetti said they had too much to lose. From where I stood, it looked like they had too much to gain. They’d expand their territory over the Costra Nostra and try to overtake New York. I wouldn’t let that happen. So, crossing into the Cosa Nostra territory resulted in their death. For any member of the Perèz Cartel that dared to step foot into our city.
I ran his information by my contact at the DEA. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the prick was the kid of George Anderson, the man that Amore believed to be her father for her first thirteen years. Of course, I couldn’t keep that piece of information from Bennetti. He was just as surprised when I told him. His only concern was Amore’s safety. I cared about her safety too, but I also cared about keeping the Cosa Nostra on top and all my territory. Because I knew if we fell to the Perèz Cartel, then none of us would be able to keep her safe.
The question was how did George Anderson’s son become connected to the Venezuelan cartel and Perèz Rothschild?
Even more intriguing was that there wasn’t a counterattack, unless they didn’t know who killed him.
My phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. It was Amore. She rarely called. Scratch that, she never called, but to answer her call now, it felt wrong. She wasn’t part of this world. I didn’t particularly like her grandmother, but I agreed with her on that point. Amore Bennetti didn’t belong among the Cosa Nostra. Even less among the cartel.
The men of our world would eat her alive. Heck, sometimes I thought Adriano would eat her alive. She let him get away with way too much. She was rather self-sufficient but letting a made man get away with so much was a recipe for disaster.
I declined the call then silenced the phone. Adriano was with her. He’d call if there was trouble. He hasn’t repeated the incident from that night when the Venezuelan scumbag almost got his hands on Amore. It sickened me to think she could have been one of these girls. No woman should ever find herself in this position; at the mercy of monsters that were willing to trade them like stock.
We did plenty of shit, smuggled drugs, guns, sold them with high profits, but we didn’t sell women. The ruling families of the Cosa Nostra had a standing agreement. Hell, it was one of the rare things all five ruling families agreed on.
This dock location was owned by my shell company. It had a prime spot due to its isolation. The Colombian Cartel was our prime drug supplier.
We had waited for our shipment of crates with the product we intended to distribute throughout the East Coast. Instead, we had death delivered to our door.
I unlocked my phone and shot a message to Carrera. Gabriel Carrera ran the Colombian cartel. Out in the normal world, his name was whispered in fear and his presence avoided at all cost. In our world, he was another ruthless bastard, just like the rest of us.
