Page 5 of Cruelest Contract
He’s still sulking but the speech also made an impression. He doesn’t feel guilty. I’m not sure he knows how. All of his badass flexing isn’t just for show but his loyalty is never in question.
Holding his tongue for once, Getty nods before meeting my eye again. “I get it. Lecture’s over.”
Good enough. I slap his shoulder as a message that the matter is now settled. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us and I’m so fucking hungry I could eat one of the horses.”
Getty snorts and hops on the back of his mount. He intentionally bumps into Tye as he steers out of the clearing and Tye curses before giving chase. Fort waits until I’m in the saddle and then follows our brothers, leaving me as the last one to guide my horse away from the scene.
The man we killed and buried was an enforcer in Chicago’s Bonafaci family. Two months ago he showed up at the ranch looking for work with a story he’d just finished serving three years in Idaho for robbery. The name he gave checked out and his skills showed he’d spent time on a ranch. My guess is he killed the real ex-con. He caught my attention when our foreman mentioned he’d picked a few fights with the other cowboys. That’s when I took a much closer look at his story.
I’ve learned never to be surprised when some cocky upstart makes a foolish plan. He was sent here by his bosses, either to gather intel or make some trouble.
We’ll never know his objective. But nothing raises my hackles like a double crosser.
We took that bastard in. Put a roof over his head. Gave him a living. And he chose to pay us back with treachery. That’s nota redeemable offense. I would have preferred to extract more information from him before sending him to hell but Getty jumped the gun and sliced him from ear to ear in a fury.
He bled out in less than a minute while we watched. It’s a fucked up way to die. Men who get their throats cut always try to push the blood back inside with their fingers. And they always look so surprised when they can’t.
The dead man will never be mentioned at Storm’s Eye Ranch again. Our foreman is loyal. None of the wranglers will question the story that he packed his shit up and fled in the night. This happens sometimes and for any number of reasons.
Now our Chicago affiliates are primed to teach the Bonafaci family a painful lesson; you fuck with the top of the food chain and you’ll get eaten alive.
When all is said and done, there will be nothing left of them. The meager territory they’ve been so desperate to keep will be under our banner. Serves them right.
It’s funny, but not long ago I came across a news segment about the modern Mafia. Some suit and tie dipshit with a polished Ivy League smirk declared, “The brutal and secretive Mafia network that was glamorized by Hollywood and held entire cities in its vicious grip for decades is on life support these days.”
Ha! I got a hell of a laugh out of that. Then I showed it to my brothers and we all cracked up together.
If these civilians enjoy curling up under their covers at night and dreaming about the extinction of the Mafia, so much the better. To their eyes, we might be mildly interesting as a wealthy ranching family. We’re the ones who benefit when they don’t look any deeper at the vast web of connections that combine into our empire.
A light rain begins to fall when we’re still a few miles from the ranch. Every once in a while I remove my hat to shake awaythe water on the brim but otherwise the weather doesn’t bother me. The taste of spring is everywhere and the hills are painted a deeper green every day. All the seasons of my life have been spent here and I’ll never tire of celebrating the warmer months after a long and dreary winter.
I’m a few paces behind my brothers and halfway listening as they make plans to drive into Laramie tonight. The university is still in session for a few more weeks and there’s a far more impressive selection of hot girls than we get to see in the nearby small town of Vigilance.
Fort turns his head and searches me out. “You coming, Jul? You should.”
“How about it, big brother?” Getty flashes a wicked grin that promises trouble. “Why not clear those cobwebs off your cock and live a little?”
Tye finds this insult way too funny and howls so hard he nearly falls off his horse. “Cobwebs,” he cackles and slaps his thigh.
I’m not going to defend the state of my cock to these assholes. When I reach my limit and need a fuck, I never have any trouble finding a pretty face who wants a good time. But one negative feature of living and working so closely with your own brothers is they know when you haven’t been serviced in a while.
Flipping through the calendar in my mind, I hold back a wince when I realize that I haven’t touched a pair of tits since a trip to L.A. last summer.
In my defense, I’ve been busy. Being Cassio Tempesta’s eldest son and right-hand man isn’t a role for anyone who expects a lot of leisure time.
I’d like to pass on the Laramie outing. However, my brothers get too unruly when all three of them are out drinking. I’ll probably tag along to supervise even though ten minutes inside a college bar leaves me feeling like I’m the fucking promchaperone. Frankly, I’ve reached the phase in life where my patience for giggling college girls has worn thin. Most spend too much time babbling about sororities or whining about roommates.
If some sexy, intelligent woman who behaves like an adult wants to drop out of the sky and land in my lap then I’m all over the opportunity. But I don’t have the time to go hunting for her.
We’re coming up on the last bend in the creek before we get a view of the valley. Storm’s Eye Ranch has now swelled to a hundred thousand acres, which makes the eyes of newcomers bug out until they find out the acreage belonging to some of the country’s largest ranches runs to nearly a million.
Over forty years ago our grandfather correctly predicted a massive federal crackdown was on the horizon and decided the New York climate was no longer friendly. A lot of old Mafia families were left in the dustbin of history within a decade but our family pivoted. And we thrived.
Although the ranch is not even close to our main income source, we’re bonded to this place. We always will be, in spite of everything that’s happened here.
Or maybe because of it.
There’s no shortage of wealthy hobbyists snatching up land for bragging rights but the ranch means something far deeper to us. This is a working cattle ranch in every sense and it will stay that way.
