Angelo

A text message dinged in my pocket. I reached into my suit jacket to check my cell phone. My blood ran cold when I hit play on the video. It was Gia. She was alive but for how long?

I squeezed my cell phone so tight I thought it would break into pieces. Horrified by the video that played before my eyes, I blinked a few times to make sure it was real. Gia was on a stage, stripping for a crowd of men screaming and waving sticks with numbers in their hands.

They were bidding on her.

I made a fist and bit down on it, my anger rocking through me.

Sonny came up next to me. “What are you watching?”

Instinctively, I pulled the phone from his line of sight. “The people who took Gia are making her strip for them. Whoever has her is auctioning her off.” Anger shook through me, causing me to tremble. “I will kill every last one of them.”

Sonny cupped my shoulder, and I shook him off. I hated being touched now more than ever.

“Where is she?”

“I have no fucking clue,” I shot back. “A strip club, maybe. Who knows?”

“Let me see.” Sonny held out his palm to me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you fucking crazy? You wanna look so you can go home later and jerk off to my girl. I don’t think so.”

Sonny rolled his eyes at me and sighed, his hand still out in front of him. “Hand it over. This is the only lead we have on Gia, other than a tape recording that told us nothing. One of us might recognize the place.”

“One of you?” I glanced over at Pete and Marco, who were hovered over Sal. “No, fuck that.”

Sal was still on the table in the kill room, with his feet and head bolted to a wooden board to keep him in place. His face was bright red from choking on the half gallon of water Pete had just dumped on him. He was a hard nut to crack. While Sal’s tip was good enough to take us to Enzo’s safe house, it didn’t lead us back to Gia. We are also nowhere near finding Dom or Enzo.

“What are you girls jabbering about over there?” Pete set the water bottle on the table and strolled over to Sonny and me. “Recognize what place?”

“Someone texted me a video of Gia from a blocked number.”

“Let me see it,” Pete demanded with his hand out to me.

“No, she’s naked in the video.”

Pete smirked. “Like I care.”

I stepped back from him. “This situation is fucked-up enough.”

Pete moved his finger toward me, his hand still outstretched. “Give it up, baby bro. We can’t find her without a lead, and this might be the only one we get.”

Grinding my teeth together, I turned my head to the side to avoid Pete’s gaze. He hated the word no, and he would never hear it from my mouth. I was too loyal for my own good.

“C’mon, Angelo,” Pete growled. “We don’t have all fucking night. Do you want to find your girl alive?”

As much as I wanted to deny him, I gave him my cell phone. He was right. I needed his help to find Gia. Even though it pained me to see her like that, at least, she was still breathing. She looked like she wanted to cry. But she sucked back the tears and put on a straight face for the men in the crowd.

Pete hit the button on the video with Marco and Sonny looking over his shoulders. I stood in front of him and stared down at Gia. She was being brave for her captors.

“I would have taken Gia off your hands a long time ago if I would’ve seen this,” Pete said, licking his lips at the screen. “She could work at Scores.”

“Fuck you!” I reached for the phone, and Pete moved his hand away from me, laughing. “I trusted you to look for a clue, not ogle my fiancée.”

Pete’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Chill the fuck out. I’m just fucking with you. It doesn’t matter who they’re attached to, tits are tits.”

“Gia has been gone for weeks now. I am not in the mood for fucking games, Pete. Stop staring at her tits and help me figure out where the fuck she is.”

Pete paused the video and stepped in front of me, pressing his forehead against mine. “Talk to me like that again, and you’ll be taking Sal’s place on that table.”

“You wouldn’t,” I countered.

“Try me, baby bro.” Pete pointed his finger into my chest and shoved me back, causing me to lose my balance.

“She’s in AC.” Pete handed the cell phone to me. “Looks like The Flamingo Lounge off the boardwalk.”

Pete looked to Marco who nodded in confirmation. “Has to be.”

If anyone knew the interior of any strip club in the United States, it was my brothers. They ran a significant portion of the whorehouses and strip clubs across the country on behalf of the family. We had an interest in almost any business involving drugs, whores, guns, and gambling. There was always a slice of the pie, waiting for us to take it.

I looked at Sonny. “Drive us to AC.”

* * *

We arrived at The Flamingo Lounge around four o’clock in the morning. The parking lot had a few cars scattered about, but for the most part, it was desolate. Only a real degenerate would be at a strip club this early on a Tuesday. Atlantic City was the smaller East Coast version of Las Vegas. And just as corrupt.

We controlled our fair share of brothels out West and a handful scattered up the Atlantic Ocean, including those we owned along the shore in New Jersey. The DiSalvo crime family owned The Flamingo Lounge and most of the clubs and bars on this stretch along the boardwalk. They helped us break into the business after my father had taken over for Jimmy “Scags” Scaglione. The DiSalvos cut us in on some of the action, the rackets at the casinos included. But we were visitors here and had no place to come down with guns blazing.

“You let me handle this,” Pete warned, glancing at me over his shoulder in the front seat. “Don’t open that mouth of yours. I can’t walk into the club, demand to see Dante, and then accuse him of taking your girl. There’s an order to things. Understand?”

I knew the order of things in our world. Like my father, Pete always made it a point to emphasize common sense shit to me, as if I was an errant child who needed a reminder. When it came to Gia, I had no limits. I would do anything to get her back, and that made me a danger to my family. I knew it as much as Pete did. Love made me do crazy shit, and for Gia, I would do anything.

I held out my hand to keep Pete from going any further. “Got it, bro. Calm down. I won’t say a word.”

“You’ve been a loose cannon ever since your girl went missing,” he shot back, throwing his arm over the headrest, pinning me down with his menacing gaze. “Let me do the talking. Better yet, you can wait in the fucking car with Sonny.”

Sonny rolled his eyes at me in the rear view mirror. He was pissed that I somehow managed to get him added to Pete’s shit list. It didn’t take much to annoy my older brother. If it were up to him, he would cut me loose. But the old man had insisted I become a Made man like him and every other man in my family. Being Made wasn’t a choice for a Morelli. It was a rite of passage.

Pete and Marco exited the car, slamming their doors behind them. I was angry with myself for mouthing off to Pete and for getting both Sonny and me reprimanded for it. I hated the hierarchy in our family.

Pete allowed Marco to have more freedom than Sonny and me. Even so, Pete was still in charge of all of us. One day he would become the boss of this family. Not me, and certainly not Marco, though I had no doubt Marco wanted the chance to succeed the old man more than Pete.

Sonny turned around, resting his elbow on the center console. “Thanks for that, dickhead. I’m sick of Pete putting me in the fucking corner because you have to go and have a pissing match with him every hour.”

“Sorry, Son.” I leaned forward in my seat to meet his gaze. “He makes me so fucking mad. You don’t understand. With Gia missing, I’m not thinking straight.”

“I miss her, too, Lo. I want her back just as much as you. We will find Gia. And I will help you take down whoever had a hand in her kidnapping.”

I was about to answer Sonny when I heard the first pop of a gun followed by several others. Without hesitation, Sonny and I got out of the car and headed to the entrance of the strip club. Pete and Marco had only been inside for a few minutes. I leaned against the brick wall, to the right of the door, and Sonny pulled it out toward us, using it to shield his body.

I poked my head into the building and caught a glimpse of an empty stage and tables. Unlike most strip clubs, a bouncer wasn’t posted up at the door. He had to be close by, though. With my gun in hand and Sonny covering my back, I took one step into the club. But Sonny tugged on my shoulder, releasing his hold on the door as he moved me out of the way. A bullet sunk into the metal. One more. Then another.

We couldn’t go inside, not without getting shot. So, we waited a few seconds, contemplating our next move.

“We can’t leave my brothers in there,” I told Sonny.

“Go around the building,” he whispered. “There’s another entrance the girls use. It leads to the dressing rooms.”

Marco had taken Sonny under his wing while I was in college. It was my job to follow Paulie and learn how to be my father’s consigliere. And it was Sonny’s job to learn the family business. My brothers preferred to stick with whores, where my cousin Tony and his crew liked to deal in drugs and stolen cars. Our businesses were split between different crews and family members, so no one had too much power. But my father controlled all of us. We were pawns in his game, nothing more than his humble servants.

I sucked in a deep breath, holding my gun out in front of me. “Lead the way.”

Sonny glanced up at the security camera on the wall above us to check its movements. He waited until it turned to the left before he got in front of me and inched along the wall. I followed behind him, glancing over my shoulder as we made our way around back. We snuck into the building through the back door and into a large, open dressing room, full of vanities and racks of clothes.

The shots we’d heard from around front were growing closer. Strangely, the sounds comforted me. It meant my brothers were still alive and shooting their way out of the club. After losing Gia, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my brothers too. Even if they were bastards most of the time, they were still my blood.

Sonny peeled back a curtain and stole a glance, before releasing his hold on the fabric. He took a few steps back, his gun drawn and ready to fire. A few seconds later, my brothers ran through the curtain past us with blood on their faces.

“Let’s go!” Pete yelled, pushing open the heavy back door.

Following behind Pete and Marco, I took off with Sonny on my rear. We hauled ass around the side of the building, with two men behind us. They fired several shots which barely missed my ear. Pete and Marco took off toward the bar next door. He ordered Sonny to get the car. Like a good soldier, Sonny listened to Pete, but I wasn’t about to let him go alone. He needed backup.

Pete and Marco waited off to the side of a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot, while Sonny and I used the few cars around us for cover. My brothers lucked out and lost their tail. The two men followed Sonny and me, continuing to shoot at us. They either had the worse aim ever, or someone was watching over us. Each bullet barely grazed our bodies. We made it to the car just as another bullet hit the fender.

Sonny peeled out of the lot and drove over to where Marco and Pete were waiting for us. My brothers got in the back seat and slammed their doors as Sonny drove off the lot. The bullets stopped once we were on Pacific Avenue.

I turned around in my seat to face Pete and Marco. “What the fucked was that about?”

Pete wiped the blood on his forehead with his hand, smearing some of it down the side of his face. He was out of air, his breathing shallow. “I asked to speak to Dante. His men told us to wait for him in a private room off the back of the building. Something was off. I could feel it. So, I decided to cut our losses and bail.”

“But Dante had other plans,” Marco added. “We had to shoot our way out of there. He had six men on us. The whole thing was a setup.”

It wasn’t until I took a better look that I realized Pete was bleeding, and that it wasn’t the blood of a man he killed. “You need a doctor.”

Pete rolled his eyes at me. “I’m fine. Nothing a bottle of whiskey and a blow job can’t fix.”

I shook my head, laughing. “Suit yourself.”

Pete glanced out the window as Atlantic City passed us by. “Gia wasn’t there. Two girls were dancing on the left stage, but I didn’t see her anywhere. If Dante has Gia, she’s not at the club.”

“None of this makes sense, Pete.” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from blowing up. Rage bubbled inside my chest, which always fueled me to do stupid things. “Why would he send me a video of Gia at his club if he didn’t want us to come after her?”

“We did what Dante wanted,” Pete shot back. “He lured us there to kill us.”

“Is he on Enzo’s side now? I thought Pops was on good terms with the DiSalvos.”

Pete blew out a puff of air, frustrated. “So did I.”

“Whatever Pop did behind our backs is blowing up in our faces.”

He pointed his finger at me. “Don’t talk about Pop like that. He wouldn’t put all of us in danger without warning us first.”

“Dad only cares about himself, Pete.” I gripped the headrest, my teeth clenched in anger. “When will you see that for yourself? You’re so blind when it comes to him. We’re nothing more than toys he takes out when he wants to play with us.”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Angelo.” Pete’s voice rumbled in the quiet air.

“Your loyalty to him will be the death of us all.”

I should have listened to his warning. Before I could move my head, Pete leaned forward, gripped me in his hand, and slammed my head into the window.

An intense pain burrowed into my skull and spread down my back and arms. “Fuck,” I screamed, reaching for Pete’s hand.

He released his grip on me and sank back into his seat. “When will you ever fucking listen? That mouth will be the death of you. It’s probably the reason your girl’s gone.”

I wanted to swing at Pete, but I knew better than to talk back. He would only make it worse for me once the car stopped. Whether I liked it or not, Pete was in charge. Being a member of his crew wasn’t like showing up late to work and losing pay as my punishment. When one of us fucked-up, we either got the shit beat out of us, or paid in some embarrassing way that satisfied Pete’s sick sense of humor.

“So, what’s the plan?” Marco broke the silence in the car.

Pete turned to look at Marco and shrugged. “We need time to plan. It’s obvious Dante’s working with Enzo and Big John.”

“Enzo’s turned all of our allies against us.” Marco leaned his head back and pushed a hand through his hair, agitated. “How the fucked did he manage that?”

“We still have Sal,” Pete countered. “He might not have another location for Enzo, but he sure as hell knows who Enzo’s working with.”

“What about Gia?”

Pete narrowed his eyes at me. “What about her? We have bigger things to worry about. Whoever took her is after all of us. Every war has casualties.”

I ground my teeth together. “Gia won’t be one of them.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“The other families must want something from Pop.” I was so pissed my anger shook through me. “Otherwise, why are they doing all this shit? Why take Gia? Why would they lure us to AC, or turn Enzo and his men against us?”

Pete folded his arms over his chest, his deep brown irises fixed on me. In the dark, his eyes reminded me of shards of onyx, so dark and cold they had no life to them. “With Pop and all of us out of the way, that leaves room for the other families to step in and choose someone they want to run our city, and that’s not gonna happen. Over my dead fucking body. Let them come for us. We’ll be ready next time.”

An eerie silence filled the air. None of us spoke a word on the ride back to Philly. We were preparing for a war, one I wasn’t sure we could win without help from the other families.

Without an ally, I wasn’t sure I would get Gia back alive.