Seducing the Mafia Boss

Order’s from Above

Gio’s POV

A splitting feeling runs through my head as I slowly open my eyes. After my situation with Silva last night, I took it upon myself to get completely trashed and obviously went a little too hard.

I don’t remember much of what happened, but it was clear at some point I made it back to my bed without having caused too much damage to myself.

Rolling over, I face the blazing rays of light coming in through the window. Its steady stream causes me to squint as I turn over to see Max passed out in his own bed. Grabbing a sock from the floor, I chuck it at him.

He groans without opening his eyes.

“That sock smells better than you do,” he grumbles.

“What happened last night?” I ask, genuinely unsure.

After Silva left, I felt pretty bad about how I approached the touchy situation, so I continued drinking to avoid having to think about her. I should have let her enjoy her birthday, and then sprung the news on her.

Max rouses himself, propping himself up on his elbows as he does.

“You sure you wanna know?”

Judging by the look on his face, I’m not so sure I actually want to.

I sit myself upright, a bolt of pain shooting through my head as I do.

“Yup. Let’s hear it.”

“Okay,” Max says, also pulling himself up to a seat. “Let’s see, where to begin…first off, you were an asshole to Silva, but like…even more than you normally are. You were mean-spirited and rude. And you said something to her—I don’t know what though, you wouldn’t tell me—that made her leave.”

I do remember all of that. Once she leaves is when things get a little blurry for me.

“Right,” I say, “what else?”

“After that you left the party and I guess started drinking on your own. Something must have really pissed you off, because you went after that kid Michele. You know, the one dancing with Silva last night?”

Suddenly my head starts pounding even harder as I start to remember.

“Oh god,” I say, putting my head in my hands. “What did I do?”

“Well,” Max says, stretching as he stands up from his bed, “Not too much, thank God. You threatened to beat the s**t out of him. You were pretty drunk and weren’t making much sense.”

Clearly, last night was not one of my finer moments.

“Yeah, but what happened, Max?” I ask, impatient.

He shoots a wicked grin at me.

Shit…

“What happened was you got your ass kicked.” Max says, trying not to laugh too hard.

I bolt up out of bed, immediately regretting it, as my hangover angrily reminds me who’s in charge this morning.

“What?” Now that doesn’t sound like me. I’ve never lost a fight in this school, especially to a nerd like Michele. Now I know he’s f*****g with me.

Max starts laughing even harder. I’d wipe that smirk off his face, except I’m afraid I might throw up.

“Yeah, turns out that you were just drunk enough for little Michele to trip you as you ran at him and he managed to throw a punch in your ribs as you went down.”

I run my hands over my side and, sure enough, it’s a little tender.

“That little bastard,” I grumble, wincing as I poke my ribs.

“If anyone is the bastard, it’s you, buddy. You started it. And you made a fool of yourself, crying and carrying on about how you aren’t ready to get married yet and all this crazy shit.”

I slowly walk over to my desk chair and sit down as gently as I can. Now that I’m more awake, more of me is hurting.

“So I guess that means I ruined your night too?” I ask sheepishly.

He shrugs and waves it off.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Olivia wasn’t up for it anyway. She was pretty pissed off, herself. A lot of folks were.”

He grabs his towel and heads for the door.

“I’m gonna take a shower. And listen, Gio, if you want some advice?”

Not really, if I’m being honest, but at this point, I can’t afford to turn it down.

“Don’t worry about me. Find Silva and apologize to her. I don’t know what you did, but it must have been pretty f*****g awful. I love you, buddy, and I think you can be a great guy, but you can also be a colossal prick sometimes.”

Max exits for the showers and I’m left alone with my thoughts. That’s the reason I started drinking more last night. I hate being alone with my thoughts. That’s why I always find new rules to break and new things to vandalise. If I’m alone, it’s more detrimental than causing a little mayhem.

My phone rings and the sound of it is so shrill in my ears, it pierces me like a knife.

I check the caller ID and it reads “Lou Lou”.

Fucking great. Just what I need.

“Lou Lou” is my dad’s capo, second-in-command, Lou Russo, but everyone calls him Lou Lou. He handles all the s**t my dad doesn’t want to, and sometimes, that includes me. If he’s calling me, it definitely isn’t going to be good news.

I reluctantly answer the phone.

“Hey Lou Lou—what’s the news?” I say, trying to sound positive.

“Hey kid, how’s it hanging?” his gruff voice replies.

“Just barely,” I respond. “What’s…ah…how come you’re calling?”

“You can guess, kid. Your dad asked me to give you a buzz and give you the lowdown.”

“What is it, Lou?” I urge him. I’m not the type to beat around the bush, especially right now with the splitting headache I'm dealing with.

“Yeah, we gotta get you out of there. Sooner rather than later. Capeesh?”

“What do you mean? Semester’s almost over. Just a couple of days left. What difference could it make?” I respond.

“I dunno, kid, I just do what your old man tells me, know what I’m saying? You gotta get outta there now. I’m sending a crew. There’s some s**t going down and he wants you back here with him. So don’t give me a hard time about it, all right?”

Is my dad really going to drag me out of school, right before the term ends? He should know me by now. I don’t really take orders well. I can handle myself for a few more days.

“Lou Lou, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, kid. What’s up?”

I’ve known Lou Lou since I was born, practically. He didn’t have any children of his own and I always thought he looked at me like a surrogate son, so I know he’d tell me the truth on this.

“Lou, is my dad serious? About marrying Silva Magliacano?”

Lou laughs then, a big, hearty sound.

“I think he told the Magliancanos that just to keep s**t calm, know what I mean? Although I hear she’s become quite the pretty little princess, eh?”

For some reason, one I can’t explain considering I had said worse to her, I didn’t like hearing Lou Lou talk about Silva like that. I wouldn’t let anyone talk about her like that. It’s disrespectful and even though I would never say this to anyone, I think she is gorgeous. And if anyone is going to win her over, it’ll be me.

“Yeah,” I say, “she’s alright, I guess.”

“I hear she’s more than alright, but whatever. I leave that to you, kid, but I’ll tell you this, stick to her like glue, before my crew gets there.”

“What? Why? What do you mean?” It’s never good when Lou Lou gives warnings like that. As much as she gets under my skin and is fun to f**k with, I’ll never let anyone harm her. I swore to that the moment I met her our first year here together.

“All I’m saying is that if you stick close to that Magliacano chick, that could help us in the long run. Some serious s**t is going down, and we’re doing everything we can to prepare. And making sure we got every bullet in the chamber. You get me?”

“Sure, Lou Lou. I get it,” I answer, but I’m not feeling great about anything he’s telling me.

“Good. See ya soon. Keep your head down, kid.” He says as he hangs up.

Well then…

Stick close to Silva, he said. At least it’ll make it easier to apologize to her. If I can ever manage to get out of the room without the world spinning.