Mafia, Take Me Home

Chapter 3–Lost and Found

[Lucas]

The DelMonaco Family has taken her. I know, because they sent me a video demanding my presence at the warehouse on 5th Avenue.

“No backup, just you, or she’s dead,” Mickey DelMonaco snarled in his video, his beady black eyes promising pain and vengeance. “Give me back my men, or I’ll make sure your b***h never sees the sun. Capiche?”

To drive home his threat, Mickey’s shot panned over to show Amelia tied to a chair, her mouth gagged with a greasy cloth, her eyes wide with fear. She is the one person in this world who cares for me as Lucas, instead of fearing me as “Lucky” Blasi, prince of the Blasi mafia family–or at least she was. After this, there’s likely no going back to how things were before.

“You know where to meet me,” my enemy’s slick hair dangles before his eyes as he grins his million-dollar smile like we’re two friends catching up. “You have exactly one hour to get here before I start having fun with her,” Mickey licks his lips, leering at Amelia. “What do you say, sweetheart, wanna play dolls with me later?”

I could hear her screaming as the screen went black. Closing the phone, I inhaled deeply, struggling to get my anger under control.

He won’t hurt her, not right away. Mickey DelMonaco wants me to feel what it’s like to lose someone I care about, and he won’t be satisfied until I’m there watching him take her apart piece by piece.

Mickey DelMonaco, second son of the DelMonaco mob family, and his older brother Miguel, has been out for my blood since the body of their younger brother, Marco, washed up on the beach 5 years ago. Nobody knows who killed him, but the DelMonaco family and the Blasi family have been at war for so long, nobody knows who started it, so the natural assumption is that I was the one to do it. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t do it, or that they have no proof. All that matters is that everyone BELIEVES I did it. Especially the DelMonacos’ men, who will die willingly for family honor.

But none of this should have anything to do with Amelia. I’ve worked hard to keep her from all of this. I didn’t want her to ever see this side of me.

I only hope she can forgive me for what I’m about to do.

“Tony,” I look up from the phone folded in my hand, lifting my voice and my attention to my right-hand man. “Get the boys ready. We need to be geared up and at the garage in less than an hour.”

[Amelia]

One moment I was struggling, screaming for anyone to help, and then the next moment my head snapped back as a fist found my chin and I tumbled backwards onto the cold concrete of the alleyway between class buildings.

When I opened my eyes, I was certain I had fallen into my nightmares again, the one I kept having of the night where I heard and saw too much and almost ended up dead in the street outside the garage. In reality, I was saved by Lucas, who found me injured and knocked out on the side of the road. But in my dreams, he never finds me. I hear a gruff voice say “kill her” and it all goes to black as the bullet enters my skull and everything is lost.

But this isn’t a dream or a nightmare. It’s real, which makes it so much worse.

I am strapped to a chair, my eyes blurry as I blink up into a harsh, white light hung from the ceiling of that same garage, the one I hoped to never return to.

“Oh look who’s awake,” a soft voice, both smooth and slick, hisses into my ear. “No wonder Lucky likes you so much, you’re quite a beauty.”

The man takes a step back and I see that he’s clean shaven and well dressed.. From a distance, someone might mistake him for a businessman, but from the fine cut of his impeccably tailored Italian suit, to the way the others in the room give him space, all of them men with large muscles and big guns, I can tell he’s the leader of a mob gang.

“Who the hell are you?” I try to scream, but I’m gagged, and it all comes out as mumbled grunts. He laughs as he pats me on the face taking a step back so I can look him up and down.

Getting his men to hold me down as I struggle against my bindings, the stranger begins filming on his phone. “Smile pretty for the camera, sweetheart. Your boyfriend, Lucky, will be watching.”

Lucky? That’s the second time he’s used that name. The thugs who grabbed me also mentioned a “Lucky” Blasi, but the only Blasi I know is named Lucas.

But what would Lucas have to do with any of them? These guys are mobsters and Lucas is one of the sweetest, kindest, most honest men I’ve ever met. Did he make a mistake like I did, and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Does he owe the mob a debt?

Oh God, is Lucas in danger because of me and what I saw that night? I need to warn him. I need…

The stranger turns on his phone and begins to take video, I realize that I was wrong.

If Lucas is this Lucky person, he knows this man very well, not only knows him, but has something, or someone, he wants bad enough to take me in revenge.

Which would mean…no, that can’t be true.

Struggling to breathe around my gag, my chest heaves as I take quick, short breaths through my nose. Lucas can’t be Lucky. He can’t!

“Calm down, Doll. I’ll play with you later,” the well-dressed man with the smooth voice sweeps my hair to the side and I gag as he places a kiss on the curve of my neck and I shiver in disgust as he appraises every inch of me aloud to the amusement of the men gathered. Even though I’m fully clothed I feel almost naked under his scrutiny. “Oh you’re going to be so fun to break, but it can wait until Lucky gets here. I wouldn’t want to spoil the show.”

Turning my chair, he points up towards a clock posted on the wall above the door leading to the alleyway beyond. “Your lover has until the clock strikes 12 to come get you,” he grins brightly. “Watch the door, sweetheart. For every minute he’s late, I’ll take a piece of clothing. For every hour, I’ll start taking pieces of you.”

The men behind him guffaw and I struggle not to cry as I watch the minutes tick by. As much as I want Lucas to walk through that door to save me, I pray that they are wrong and that all of this is just a terrible mistake.

With only 5 minutes to spare, the door opens with a resounding bang as it is kicked inward, the lock broken by the rugged man wearing a gun at his waist, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows revealing intricate tattoos of swirling snakes twisted around a long dagger. As he turns his head, his hazel eyes sharp with hate, a flood of equally rough men move in a wave around him to flank both sides. As they raise their weapons towards the men behind me, they look askance over their shoulders at their leader, the man standing boldly in the center, his magnetism marking him undeniably as their leader.

As his gaze touches mine, I gasp around my bindings, my heart both glad and horrified simultaneously because I know at once all of my worst fears have come true.

The mob has finally come for me.

And Lucas is one of them.

[Lucas]

The tears in her eyes as she realizes the truth make me realize two things at once: I love her and I hate myself for hurting her.

As we lift our guns and distract Andy, my men come in from behind and silence his people one at a time. The enemy soldiers fall like dominos, and as they do, I feel her heart shattering with every bullet. As I lift and shoot, I feel shame seeing the light dying in her eyes as she looks at me, knowing that I’m the one causing them to dim.

I am destroying her faith in me, one shot at a time.

And if she knew the truth, that I almost killed her the night we met again, she’d hate me even more than she does now.

As the last enemy falls and my men take Andy away, I bend down before Amelia, holding her tightly to my chest as I wipe away her tears. “Amelia, you’re safe now. You’re…”

“Don’t touch me,” Amelia’s anger is palatable as I remove her bindings and she tries to scuttle away from me but Tony grabs her by the arms, holding her in place while she continues to struggle. “I don’t want you anywhere near me! You’re one of them! You’re…”

Tony comes behind her, and pinching a pressure point on her shoulder, puts her to sleep. As she tumbles to the floor I rush forward to catch her, holding her to my chest as I scoop her into my arms.

“Boss,” Tony's careful tone lets me know all he wants to say about this situation. “Are you sure…?”

“Nobody touches her but me,” I hold myself straight so that the others don’t see me shake. “She’s mine, capiche?”

“Si, Signore Blasi,” Tony bows his head deeply. “As you wish.”