Page 10 of Taunt Me (Dark Odyssey 2)

We leave the house and look around the places we know are linked to Antonio and come up with nothing.

It’s clear there’s more to this than I thought. He’s left Chicago…

Why?

We’re standing by the docks now, at a warehouse we know he uses. When we got here the workers just kept quiet. No one wanted to talk to us. A pack of Giordanos asking questions about anybody is a serious thing. If a Giordano asks you a question you better answer if you value your life. What takes precedent over that is if you’re warned to shut the fuck up by a De Lucca.

Worse if that guy is Antonio De Lucca, practically head of the family for his ruthlessness.

“Gabe…” Frankie says after we step outside the warehouse. The look on his face tells all.

I know we’ve come to a fucking dead end and maybe it was a dead end to begin with.

“Gabe...” He says again and I give him a long hard stare as I steel my spine to stop from crumbling.

“Please let’s just keep looking,” I say. “I can’t allow that bastard to take her. I can’t.” I hate begging. It’s not me, not my style, but I’ll beg my brother for her.

I look at all their faces and they must see my desperation. Salvatore is always quiet so I don’t expect him to say anything. Vincent however thinks he’s boss so he’s always the one giving arguments of reason and restraining the madness we get up to.

Nick is the wild child and I’m sure when he first heard what happened he would have grabbed his jacket and his piece. He’s a balls-to-the-wall kind of guy like me who’d die in a fight because he doesn’t stand for shit. Any kind of shit.

Even he’s not saying anything though.

Vincent steps forward and rests a hand on my shoulder.

“We’ll keep looking.” He nods and his words surprise me. He looks back to Frankie for confirmation and Frankie tips his head, giving it.

Frankie’s about to say something when his phone goes off.

He answers and I can hear the low timbre of Pa’s voice from here.

The call is brief and the dark look that comes into Frankie’s eyes is a tell that the call wasn’t a good one. Maybe it’s gotten back to Pa that we’ve lost our minds looking for Antonio, a member of what we call an assassin family. That’s the best way to describe it.

“That was Pa, he wants us home. Says it’s urgent and we’re to come now.” Frankie explains.

“Urgent? What the fuck? Pa never makes calls like that,” Nick surmises.

“He sounded off, like he didn’t want to talk on the phone. We need to get home.” Frankie’s face is stern and his dark brown eyes are filled with the edge of concern.

We all have our own houses but home is the house we grew up in with Pa and Ma.

“We’ll go home and come back out, get the rest of the boys on the street to help us look,” Frankie assures me, and I give him a grateful nod.

I hate feeling helpless. I hate feeling like shit. I hate feeling useless as fuck.

* * *

The minutewe get home I see things are definitely not right. There are three black Sedans parked on the drive and two on the lawn. It’s a minor thing but Pa is very particular about the lawn and anyone visiting would never park on his grass. There are also skid marks going over it.

I already know that whoever is here is not a friend.

Sure as fuck, they’re foe.

We get inside the house and I see I’m right. There are two men at the door holding machine guns. Men I know aren’t our guys in my father’s house that is usually heavily guarded.

There are two more ahead of us at the entrance to the grand hall we hold meetings in.

Frankie leads the way and we follow. It feels like I just walked into someone else’s house. Not my parents’.

---