Franco Morelli was a fucking asshole. He’d been fucking with my family for my entire life. He and my father had been fighting over the same territory for their entire lives. In the olden days, Chicago had been run by one family, Carmine Giordano, but when Carmie died unexpectedly along with his three sons, he’d left no clear leader. My father, Sal Ranetti and Franco Morelli had been his Cappos. The two, had grown up together and were more than friends. They considered themselves brothers.

They shared the city first, each controlling half, yet working together. They shared leadership and manpower. Each man would back the other in decisions and they never did anything without consulting the other. Then one day something happened to cause them to have a falling out. Neither man ever talked about it and anyone who knew what had happened, wasn’t talking either.

The two men ended their friendship, and though they still ruled Chicago’s underworld together, it was run like two separate families. Each stuck to his own territory at first, but as new blood came in, loyalty was lost and the territorial lines began to blur. At first it was just small things like dealing drugs or shaking someone down in the other’s territory, but then it escalated to stealing each other’s shipments and putting out hits. It was an all-out fucking war now.

I thought I was getting the upper hand on the Morelli family when I heard that one of their gun shipments was coming through one of the docks we controlled. It would be easy to intercept and we would have it checked in and on the street before Franco even realized it hadn’t shown up. It was an easy grab, too easy. I should have been more wary. I should have brought more back up. I should have been fucking shot and killed when Franco’s men showed up. It would have been preferable to what actually happened. Who ever said that dying was the worst thing has never been captured by his enemy.

I recalled being shot, and watching two of my men go down. One I knew was dead the other had been badly injured. I’d been shot in the shoulder, but I hadn’t given up. I wasn’t a pussy. I’d aimed my gun at the son of a bitch Marco, who helped run Franco’s crew and was about to pull the trigger. That was the last I remembered. Judging from the pounding in my head, someone had knocked me the fuck out. If I ever got free and if I ever found out who did it, I’d make sure to put a bullet in his head...after torturing the fuck out of him.

I woke up in a vehicle with a bag over my head. I was in a shit ton of pain from my shoulder and my head, but if they thought I was going to cry and beg for pain pills or for my life, they were fucking crazy. I was Dante Ranetti. I didn’t beg for shit, not even my life.

I tried to pay attention to things, but with a cloth bag over my head all I could do was rely on my hearing. I could tell when the vehicle, most likely a van, pulled to a stop.

“I wish he was awake,” a guy with a deep voice said. “He might look little, but he’s fucking heavy.”

Little? Who the fuck were they calling little? I was 6 foot 1, 210 pounds. In what world was that little?

“Donnie, you think everyone is little, and he is awake. He woke up a while back,” a second voice said.

“How do you know?” the deep voice, Donnie, asked.

“Well, for one, his breathing changed. Also, he sat up a bit. You gotta pay more attention.” Whoever the second voice was, it was Donnie’s boss.

“Okay Boss,” Donnie said.

“Good news is, he can walk. Isn’t that right Dante?”

I wasn’t going to acknowledge them, but when I was pulled to my feet, I walked along with them. It wasn’t that I wanted to make it easier on them, I just didn’t want to be carried like a baby.

Getting up hurt, and walking hurt even more. I winced and held my breath to keep from crying out when my arm was jostled as I got out of the van. We were outside briefly. I could hear the birds and feel the sun on my skin despite the bag that was still over my head. Wherever we were, had grass and flowers. I could smell both. The amount of time I spent outside was short. I was led into a building and taken down some stairs. We walked for a short while and then my hood was removed.

The room had cinder block walls, no window and two doors. There was a metal framed bed centered in the room against the far wall, and one long dresser with nothing on it.

I knew what it was for. It was clearly a holding cell, and a much nicer one than I used for the men I kept for questioning. I’d keep them there, try to break them, then kill them. I always wondered why the men didn’t just try to fight until they died at the beginning. Instant death was far better than the fate that awaited them in most cases. It was what I would have preferred, and it was what I wanted now.

I didn’t have a death wish, by any means, and I wasn’t ready to die, but when facing the inevitable, instant death was better than being tortured to death. I gave it a shot.

I turned to look at Marco. “Should have shot you.” I sneered.

“Probably,” Marco said, with no affect in his voice, walking me over to a bed.

The hell if I was gonna go without a fight. I had no idea where I was, but I had to try to escape. “You should do it now,” I said, trying to break free as I twisted my body.

Donnie wasn’t having any of that. He grabbed me, squeezing my shoulder.

I cried out in pain, and then everything went black.

When I woke, I was still in the same room, only this time I was alone. My good arm was handcuffed to the bed and the arm that had been shot was bandaged up, though it still hurt like a mother fucker. Since there were no windows in the room, I didn’t know how long I’d been there or even if it were night or day. All I did know was that I needed to take a wicked piss.

“Hey, you fuckers! Anyone out there? I gotta take a piss.”

I pulled on my cuff hoping it would break, or the bed would. It was a shitty bed, metal headboard, no footboard. I might have been able to break it apart if my shoulder didn’t hurt like fuck. I wondered if I had a bullet in me.

I worked at the cuff and the bed, but the more I moved, the more my shoulder hurt. I also realized there was little to no chance that the door to the room was locked. I was surprised to see two doors. I wondered where the other one led.

A while later, maybe thirty minutes, the door finally opened and Marco walked in.

I hadn’t been able to get to him before, but I wasn’t going down with a fight. I knew very little about Marco other than he seemed to be Franco’s top advisor. He wasn’t a relative of Franco, but he’d lived with him for a long time. He grew up in the organization, his father was doing twenty for something that proved his loyalty to the family. I didn’t know anything about him personally though. He didn’t run his mouth, didn’t get in fights and he didn’t seem to make enemies on the street.

About all I knew was, he had this one girl, and he was faithful to her. This made no sense to me. He was a decent looking guy, as guys go. He was tall, decent build, had the long, in your face hair that chicks went for, and a decent face. I mean, he could have gotten laid if that’s what he was going for is all I’m saying. He didn’t dress like a typical Italian guy in The Family. He wore a pair of tan slacks and a pullover rather than a suit and tie. Then again, he was likely here to torture and kill me, so maybe he didn’t want to get anything too special dirty.

He closed the door behind him, and locked it, putting the key in his pocket.

If I got free, I’d punch him in the throat and take that key. I needed to get him riled enough to get him off his game. “You might as well shoot me now faggot, cause I’m not telling you shit.” I was hoping the reference to being gay would stir up something. Most men, in general, don’t like their manhood questioned. Italians even more so from my experience. I hoped the reason he didn’t talk much was because he was stupid. Not unusual for muscle. Most of them couldn’t figure out change for a twenty.

If I got inside his head, maybe he’d get pissed off and shoot me, saving me the torture. But he wasn’t muscle, he was an advisor. And I quickly learned I hadn’t struck a nerve at all.

Marco answered me calmly, walking toward me, “I’m not a homosexual, though I do enjoy a nicely decorated room and a good glass of wine. As for shooting you, that really wouldn’t be in my best interest and I’d end up having to clean up your brains from the floor then dumping your body. I really love these shoes too.” He held up his foot to reveal a zig zag pattern on the bottom. “Like em? My girl got them for me for Christmas. I love the soles. See, if things get really crazy, I can show you how they leave these exact marks behind...right on your ass.”

Shit. I wasn’t getting to this guy. He was no meatball. This fucker was intelligent, and a bit funny. Hell, if he wasn’t on their side, I might have liked him. But he was on their side and I couldn’t let him get away with saying he’d kick my ass and leave footprints.

“Now, I am going to check your wound. Are you going to be still, or do I need to knock your ass out again?”

I glared at him as he moved closer to me. When he reached for my shoulder, I grabbed for him. He was quicker, something that didn’t usually happen. I felt the prick in my arm. “Choice number two I see,” he said laughing.

If I ever got the chance, I was going to punch that grin off of this fucker’s face. I fought to keep my eyes open as the room got fuzzy. I might have lasted five seconds before everything went black.