Page 2 of Twisted Throne
“Mmmm… Emilio isn’t helping the situation,” Carlos replied. “He’s a cold one. All of the girls at the club are terrified of him. It seems he has certain… tastes that even the pros don’t like. I heard that he was what Antonio and Matteo were fighting about.”
I had heard stories about Emilio as well. While I was by no means a stranger to violence, the new Sabitino underboss was one of those who enjoyed inflicting pain just for the pleasure of it. Men like that you had to watch out for, especially combined with Antonio’s stupidity and impatience.
“It’s late, meet me at the office in the morning. We’ll talk to Angelo then go from there,” I said, heaving a sigh. Tomorrow was going to be a long day indeed.
One way or another I was going to find out who the traitor was, and by the time I was done with them they would wish they’d never been born.
Chapter Two
Gia
It was dusk, and I quickened my steps as I walked towards my apartment building. I gripped my keys tightly in my right hand, and my pepper spray in my left. This wasn’t the safest of neighborhoods in broad daylight, and at night it turned outright dangerous. I ducked my head and pretended not to notice an obvious drug deal taking place on the corner across the street as I hustled into my building. The lights in the hall were on the fritz again and I had to squint to see well enough to get my key in the lock. Once inside, I triple-locked the door and shoved a chair in front of it, feeling only slightly safer inside.
My first week living here, someone tried to kick in the door and damn near succeeded. That’s when I installed the extra lock, but it only made me feel a little better. Mom had been sick for a long time before she passed, and the medical bills had piled up. I had to sell the house to pay off the debts and ended up having to move here, to a sleazy downtown high-rise that was a short step up from a flophouse.
I had spent such a long time being Mom’s full-time caretaker that I didn’t have much work experience. Employers don’t particularly love it when you’re twenty-four and have practically no job history. The only thing that I’ve been able to find so far is a temp agency. My paychecks were spotty and I was barely able to squeak by. I made the rent on time—well, mostly—but I didn’t think I could put by enough to move to a new place any time soon.
Being screamed at by customers for eight hours today had really taken it out of me. My back was killing me. Since I was only a temp they had me working at a beat up desk in the corner with a broken chair. I definitely needed the cash though, so despite being miserable there, I was still hoping they might decide to let me stay on after my temp contract ran out next week. It would be great to have a regular paycheck that I could count on every week. Then maybe I would be able to save up a little bit, move to a better place, and get out of this hellhole.
I dug an only slightly freezer burned TV dinner out of the mounds of ice in my freezer and stuck it in the oven. There was one last box of Mom’s personal items still left to go through. I’d been putting it off, but I needed to just bite the bullet and get it done. I grabbed the box and dragged it over to my sagging love seat. I took a deep breath, then opened the box.
Stacks of old pictures spread across the top of the worn cardboard box. Most of them were from before I was born. Mom, posing on stage before a performance, laughing with friends at a beach. It made me smile. This was how I wanted to remember her. Full of life and fun, not the way she was at the end.
Okay, get it together already.
I set the pictures to the side, digging a little deeper through the old programs and costume jewelry. At the very bottom of the box was a small decorative, locked wooden box. It had been sitting on top of her dresser for as long as I can remember. Whenever I’d ask her what was inside, she would tell me that she had lost the key and that it was empty and she just kept it for decoration. But I would often sneak into her room and shake it, trying to guess what was inside. It definitely wasn’t empty, I could hear something sliding back and forth inside, although the box wasn’t heavy.
I finally stopped asking and pestering her about it, but I never lost my curiosity over it. I had so much to deal with after she died—bills, moving, so muchgrief—that I hadn’t had the time or energy to try and open it until now.
My eyes teared up, thinking about me and Mom singing and dancing around the kitchen. I wasn’t a bad singer, but Mom had something special. On the other hand, she had two left feet and I loved to dance. She had put me in both dance and gymnastics classes the second I was old enough. I dropped the gymnastics after a couple of years, but I’d taken every dance class I could find. Ballet, tap, jazz, modern. I even took a belly dancing class once during high school. I’d thrown myself into every school drama, starting with the kindergarten presentations where I bounced around with a flower costume, and Mom had always been there front and center with a bouquet of roses to cheer me on. It didn’t matter to her if I danced the lead, or was nothing more than a body in the background. I had actually gotten in a semester of college as a dance major before the sickness killed my dreams and then my mother.
It was hard to sing now, without her here.
I took a deep, fast breath, blinking back the sting in my eyes. To distract myself, I examined the box closely. I would rather not damage it, but it wasn’t like I knew how to pick a lock. But when I turned it around I saw how rusted and flimsy the hinges were. Grabbing a screwdriver I was able to wedge it between the metal and wood, snapping the hinges. I was surprised at how easy it was.
Opening the box I saw only two items. There was a delicate gold necklace, with a pendant of what looked to be real diamonds. I had never seen Mom wear any jewelry like this. It had to have been expensive; it wasn’t her style to spend a lot of money on things she deemed “frivolous”. I’d never seen a design quite like it. The pendant wasn’t one of those dainty little teardrops you see on the jewelry commercials. It was rectangular, with a large, square diamond in the center. Intricate filigree encircled the gem and had smaller diamonds at each corner. It had to be handmade, or a custom piece from one of those luxury designers that peons like me would never see. This had to be worth a fortune.
Enough for a security deposit on a decent place to live, I bet.
No, no matter how much I needed the money, this had obviously been special to Mom. I couldn’t just take it to some sleazy pawn shop. I lay the necklace down on the table as I picked up the second item in the box, a sealed envelope. Hopeful that the letter might answer some of my questions about the necklace, I studied the front of the letter closely. There was a name on the front of it, but no address. For some reason, it had never been mailed.
“Angelo LaRosa… I’ve heard that somewhere,” I muttered to myself. Maybe just on a billboard or construction sign, but I knew I’d seen the name in print recently. Then it clicked. Angelo LaRosa had been on the news not that long ago. I tried to remember the details. Something about him being under suspicion for money laundering maybe?
But why the hell would Mom have an unsent letter to someone like that? Although she was always something of a free spirit, her being connected to some sort of crime ring was unbelievable enough to be laughable.
It was all I could do not to just rip into it, but I forced myself to open it carefully. My hands were trembling so much it took me a moment to focus on the words. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to steady myself, opened my eyes, and began to read.
***
Angelo, you have a daughter.
I read the first line over and over, my lips slowly parting in understanding.
Mom had never really talked to me about my father. When I would carefully approach the subject over the years all she would ever say was that he wasn’t the kind of man that would be a good father and that was the end of it. She never elaborated as to why.
I know I should have told you sooner, you can’t imagine how many nights these past few months I’ve lain awake and thought about if I should have done things differently. But you have to understand, I don’t want to bring a child up in your world.
His world? Does that mean what I’d seen on the news about him was true? Nobody had that many lawyers without something to hide, did they? I picked up the necklace to study it more closely. Despite having sat in a box for years, the diamonds still sparkled. I continued to read.