That’s all a mother really wants for her son. Somebody out there who thinks about him as much as I do before I kick the bucket. You’ve got to be good to him, Sarina, he’s been through a lot with all this. That’s all I want you to promise me.”
“I can’t promise that… unless you make me a promise too,” said Sarina.
“What’s that?”
“I need you to promise to stick around for a while to make sure I keep my promise. You need to fight for every day. No more of this “we’ll see” and “bucket-kicking” bullshit.”
“Well… I can’t say I approve of the language. I hope that doesn’t rub off on my Ryan, but… OK. I’ll promise to fight. That’s the best I can do.”
“Good enough for me, Ms. Crewe,” said Sarina.
“Oh, you. Call me Diana. Hey, do you like baking? I was just reading a brownie recipe in this magazine I bet you could fatten Ryan up with.”
Ryan
I craned my neck up at the Acardi building, wondering if Alberico was up there right now. If I hadn’t had that meeting with him right at the start of my arrangement with the Acardis, I might have wondered if he was a work of fiction, because I hadn’t seen him since.
Just inside the main entrance, a few men wearing “W. Darrin & Co Construction” high visibility vests came and went amongst the more professionally dressed members of the Acardi Crime Family, and the people who worked in the various businesses housed in Trafford Tower who had no idea who they really worked for.
They thought they were travel agents, accountants or personal assistants, many of whom had been pretty pissed at being temporarily relocated as the construction workers made their way through the building, checking for damage and making repairs as necessary since the earthquake. In reality, they were cogs in several interconnected money laundering machines, but at least their inconvenience was coming to an end, as the work was almost complete.
I sighed. I had big plans for this building. Plans that would entail a shitload more inconvenience for everybody, to put it mildly. Especially the Acardis.
Lately, though, all that had seemed to fade into the background in terms of importance. Ever since the night of the Halloween party, Sarina had decided that we’d moved slow enough for her liking and we’d been fucking like bunnies.
All I could think about was shaking Sarina’s body again and again, tasting her, and hearing her scream my name, when she was capable for forming words at all. Then, when we weren’t fucking, she was the sweetest, toughest, most supportive person I’d ever met.
My mom hadn’t looked this healthy in over a year. She glowed when she saw Sarina and I walk through her door, and even in that stark hospital setting, I felt complete. Maybe it would be easier and ultimately more satisfying to just disappear with as much of the Acardi’s money as I could, rather than take their place in a bloody coup.
The idea of all that power was still wildly alluring. To own a city, and then who knows where I might go from there? On the other hand, to earn the love of a woman like Sarina was incredible too. A large and growing part of me thought it was more powerful.
Was it possible to have both? A question like that was going to take more than the time required for the elevator to take me up to the forty-seventh floor, and my monthly meeting with Giovanni.
I’d barely started the mental logistics of leaving the path I’d been walking on for the last couple of years, when I had to dismiss that train of thought and concentrate on the scowling Mafioso behind his desk. Giovanni looked unhappier and more full of himself than usual.
“Sit the fuck down,” he said. “At least you’re not late this time.”
I sat the fuck down in the chair in front of Giovanni’s desk, hoping this was at least the kind of rant that I could autopilot my way through without having to really think of how to respond. Nod and agree at the appropriate places, take my money, order the shit I needed and get out before the insults got a rise out of me.
“Kid, you are a pain in the fuckin’ ass.”
I nodded and fought to stop my eyes from losing focus.
“You may have struck a deal with Alberico when he was feeling generous, but when you start fucking up like you have been, the