“HOW’S THE Skip’s pet doing today?”
“Did the big boss send the little boss to work in the slums with the rest of us today?”
“Oh, too good to look at us, Tom?”
“Sure he is, Randy. Little underboss-in-waiting hates getting his hands dirty, ain’t that so, Tom?”
Tommaso Rossi’s greatest enemies had always been boredom, and a severe lack of patience when it came to other people. He was easily distracted, but as quickly as his attention could be caught, it was lost. Add that into the fact he didn’t like to wait for anything, and it could be a bad combination for a man like him.
He blamed these characteristics of his on his father, Tommas Rossi. The man had given Tom both his name and his restless nature.
It helped that Tom’s father had also given him a decent drive to get shit done when it needed to be done. His father, an Italian crime boss for the Chicago Outfit, handed down the wisdom that blunt honesty was a better gift than lies. Deceit would do nothing for his end-game except make him untrustworthy in the eyes of others. A man in the mafia wouldn’t benefit from having a stain like being a liar on his back.
Tom worked hard. Constantly. Another lesson from his dad. His last name afforded him a certain amount of respect for some situations in their criminal organization, but it also meant fuck all if he hadn’t earned it.
That’s why when Adriano Conti’s crew members tossed insults and ribbed him with their comments as he strolled through the warehouse, Tom didn’t even look at the young guys. Stupid, useless fuckers. Replaceable foot soldiers.
He knew it.
They knew it.
Their words meant less than shit beneath his thousand dollar Italian leather shoes. They weren’t going anywhere at the end of the day.
Except maybe jail.
Tom didn’t have much issue with letting the comments roll off his shoulders on any other day. He was a secondary Capo working under Adriano—his uncle. Adriano had been Tom’s mentor—one of many—for longer than he cared to remember. Before he knew how to drive. Years before he’d ever gotten his dick wet properly. Men like Adriano had been the ones to teach Tom the business—the family.
A long time.
It was Adriano’s warnings and reminders from years gone by that Tom heard in the back of his head when the comments and ribbing started. The foot soldiers for Adriano’s crew had been coming for Tom on this level since before he was a teen.
It’s your rite of passage, Tommaso. We all dealt with that nonsense, too. There’ll come a time when they won’t even be able to look you in the eye.
Fact was, Tom got the insults worse than anyone else ever had, and he didn’t need Adriano or his father to tell him the truth. To the foot soldiers in the crew, Tom was nothing more than a spoiled, secondary Capo, underboss-in-training, and the son of a boss. That was it.
He couldn’t be like them. They couldn’t be like him.
“You can’t say hi today, Tom?”
Out of all the voices following him, Tom did care to acknowledge that one. One of his oldest friends—Lou.
Over his shoulder, Tom waved a hand in response. For now, that was the best he could do for his friend. It was better they didn’t seem too friendly while the other foot soldiers were around. No need for Tom to go causing Lou any problems on his side of things.
They all had fucking masks to wear, after all.
Lou was one of the only soldiers in Adriano Conti’s crew that didn’t treat Tom like shit whenever he had to be in the same vicinity. He was the only one that didn’t try to push every single one of Tom’s buttons just to see if he could get him to react.
He swore it was a game for them.
Tom let Adriano’s office door slam shut harder than he intended to. The space was empty. The Conti Capo hadn’t even showed up yet, but he made damn sure to tell Tom to roll his ass out of bed before eight.
Sinking into a torn leather chair, Tom scrubbed a hand down his face.
Once it doesn’t bother you anymore, they’ll back off. Don’t let them see it gets on your nerves, Tom, his father used to say.
Tom didn’t know how much more unaffected he could seem than avoiding all eye contact, refusing to speak, and demanding respect when he was in charge. He no longer engaged the insults and teasing unless he absolutely had to, and never with violence.
It wasn’t his place as only a secondary Capo.
He’d fucking hoped that by twenty-one years old—essentially the same or close to the same age as those guys out on the main warehouse floor—they would have at least tried to make room for him. They didn’t have to like him. He didn’t ask for anything except a little bit of respect and peace to himself.
Tom let out a heavy sigh, and scrubbed a hand down his unshaved jaw. Mostly, he made a conscious effort to rid his mind of the useless feelings. They wouldn’t do him any good.
A few minutes later, Adriano strolled into the office. The older man—and father of three girls—barely acknowledged Tom at all as he ended a phone call.
“Yeah, Lissa, I’ll grab you some Chinese tonight … yeah, that, too. Bye.”
Alessa—or Lissa, to only a select few in Adriano’s family—was Tom’s aunt. His mother’s only sister. Actually, Alessa was his mother’s only living family besides her kids and in-laws.
They didn’t talk a lot about it. Nobody did.
Everybody that grew up in the Chicago Outfit had come to a silent understand over the years that The Chicago War between the four families within the organization had done enough damage. It had taken enough people. There was no reason to pay it lip service, too.
“You look like shit,” Adriano said.
The guy didn’t even look at Tom when he said it. Tall, broad-shouldered, and built in a way that spoke of his football years, Adriano Conti was not a man to be messed with. He also didn’t indulge whine-fests from any-fucking-body.
Tom included.
“It’s nothing,” Tom said.
“You sure?”
“You wanted me to handle something today, didn’t you? Here I am. Let’s get to that, Adriano.”
“No uncle for me today?”
Tom scoffed “Like that would help my fucking case, right.”
Adriano lifted a brow, and then his gaze drifted to the closed door. “The guys were quiet when I came in.”
“As they should be for their Capo.”
“But not for you.”
Tom clenched his teeth in an effort to stay quiet. All it did was make his jaw tight, and his uncle didn’t miss it.
“Just … don’t bother,” Tom told him with a subtle shake of his head. “It’s like high school with those idiots out there. People all say the same things to me about it. Ignore them. Don’t let them bother you. If somebody says something to them, it only makes it worse.”
“You’re usually better at brushing them off, Tom.”
He didn’t need Adriano pointing that out to him. He was quite aware that his irritation levels were climbing higher by the day.
It brought him back to his biggest enemies.
Boredom.
Patience.
Tom didn’t know what he was bored with—work, Chicago, the same old shit every day, or what. He didn’t know what would fix his boredom. It should have been simple. If he wanted something, he went out and got it. He just didn’t know what it was he wanted.
His lack of give-a-damn was seriously starting to mess with his patience, though. It showed every single time he had to force himself not to put his fist through one of those idiots’ heads.
Tom’s father had the patience of a saint.
His mother? An angel.
Tom?
Less than zero at the moment.
“You know what,” Adriano said, “I can handle this myself today, Tom. Take the day off. Go do something else for a while.”
“I can do what—”
“It’s not your choice to make. I don’t need you here in a bad mood, and halfway to kicking somebody’s ass. Two boosted trucks are supposed to keep those fools busy. I’ll put Lou in charge of watching them.”
“Lou’s good,” Tom said with a nod.
“Yeah, I know. One fool, I might not mind letting get somewhere in this business of ours.” Adriano flicked his hand toward the door. “Get. Don’t make me tell you again.”
Tom pushed up from the chair and exited the office without a goodbye. Adriano wouldn’t want one, anyway. He made it halfway across the warehouse, nearly to the front entrance doors, when another insult came hurling his way.
He didn’t even know what the guy said.
He barely heard it well enough.
Tommaso should have let it go.
It took a single spin of his shoes against the cement floor, and five long strides before his fist crashed into the guy’s face. Jake, or some equally generic name that could be forgotten. The crunch of bone smashed against Tom’s knuckles.
Something akin to relief settled through Tom. The teasing feeling skimmed along his now bruised and bloody knuckles, but it didn’t reach where he needed it the most. It still wasn’t enough. He reared back and punched the guy again.
All the while, Tom never said a word. He didn’t even blink. He didn’t have shit to say, just a damn point to make.
They thought he was some weak-ass rich fuck who couldn’t go toe-to-toe with them on anything, certainly not on the streets.
Tom had news for them.
He fixed his jacket as he walked away, but a form caught his eye in the office doorway. Adriano leaned against the doorjamb, and shook his head once.
“Go see the boss,” he heard his uncle say. “A day off will not be enough, Tom.”
What in the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Where’s Sara and Rebeka?” Tom asked.
Tommas, his father, worked on lighting the cigar in his mouth as he spoke. “At school, Tom. It’s the middle of September.”
Ah, yeah, shit.
Usually his little sisters would be tearing up a storm in the house. Sara was almost a decade younger than him, and Rebeka, twelve years younger. He tried to make time for them, when he could, but work kept him away from the Trentini mansion far more often than he was inside.
“Are you going to stand in the doorway and draw attention all day, or sit down?” his father asked.
Tom took a seat in one of the bucket chairs across from his father’s desk. For a long while, the two sat in silence. Tom, lost in his thoughts and irritation. And Tommas, puffing on a cigar that would likely have his wife barking at him later.
Some shit just never changed.
Tom liked it when it was just him and his dad like this, though. His mother used to call them twins, as their behaviors, habits, and features mirrored back at one another more often than not. By the time Tom was seventeen, he stood eye-level with his father at six-foot-two. He shared his father’s chiseled jaw and sharp cheekbones. The squared chin, strong nose, and blue-gray eyes. He had once worn his dark brown hair a bit longer, but now opted to have it cut short, while his father’s was peppered with a bit of gray at the temples. Their smiles were more smirks or grins than anything else.
“Adriano called,” his father said.
“What, like a little tattletale? Am I going to get punished by my dad now because I got pissed off, and let it show?”
A chuckle echoed from across the way.
“No,” his father murmured. “I’m surprised you went this long without knocking somebody out, honestly. What was it today that got to you?”
Tom shrugged under the weight of his Armani suit. “Nothing in particular. I’ve heard it all before. I just had enough, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I’m bored out of my damn mind, Dad. I work with those same idiots every day. As long as they think they can get away with it, they don’t leave me the fuck alone. I’m starting to think there isn’t much point to keeping my cool when breaking their faces gets me better results.”
Tommas let out a thick cloud of gray smoke, and set the cigar on the edge of a crystal ashtray. “You know, nobody ever told you that the way we handled our business as young, made men is the same way you have to handle it, Tom.”
He eyed his father, considering the words.
“Kind of seems like it.”
“Why, because nobody’s jumping in for you when it’s happening?”
“I mean—”
“You know that won’t do anything for you at the end of the day, don’t you? It’s you who is responsible for making your name and position with those men clear, Tom. Nobody else can do that for you, son. If the way you want to do that is with fear and brute force, then so be it, but do so and be fucking consistent about it.”
Tom laughed under his breath. “You think?”
“We all have to do what we have to do.”
Yeah, he knew that, too.
“I am, though. Bored. Tired.”
Tommas sucked air through his teeth, and nodded like he could see all of those things. “Frustrated. Restless. Irritated. Why, though?”
“I don’t know. I’m not …”
“What? Tell me, and then maybe I can help.”
“I’m twenty-one, Dad. Isn’t it time for me to figure out my own shit?”
Tommas cracked a smirk—the closest thing he ever got to a smile when Tom’s mother wasn’t involved. “Still my boy, no matter your age.”
“And my boss.”
His father’s grin faded fast. “And that, too, yes.”
“I don’t know what I want, Dad. That’s half the problem.”
“I don’t understand.”
Tom scratched at the underside of his jaw—a nervous tic, and one of his only tells. “Have you ever felt like you wanted something, or were missing something, but you just didn’t know what in the hell it was?”
Tommas lifted a single brow high. “No, I can’t say that I have. I always knew what I wanted—she was simply out of my reach for a while.”
Abriella, his father meant. Tom’s mother.
“I don’t think it’s a woman,” Tom said. “I’ve just been at a point lately where nothing is doing it for me. I’m bored.”
“You said that already.”
Tom lifted an empty palm and tipped it over as if to say, That’s what I got.
Nothing.
He had nothing.
“Is this about the gunrunning thing again?”
Tom scowled.
He didn’t even try to hide it.
His father didn’t miss it.
“So it is,” Tommas said.
“No.”
“You can’t run guns, Tom,” his father said. “I made my decision on that. I’ve told you this a hundred times already. It puts too much attention on you, and as it is, our organization already has enough attention. You want to move up in the family—gunrunning and other business will force too much of your attention away from where it should be.”
“Dad—”
“We’ve had this chat, Tom.”
They had.
A lot.
“Then why let me do it before?” he asked.
Tommas leaned back in his chair, and stared hard at his son. “Theo needed an extra pair of hands. You have a liking for guns. It worked. You made a friend with that Cross Donati while you were doing it. It’s not like you didn’t get something out of that, Tom.”
“I was good at it, Dad.”
“And you’re good at this, too.” Tommas shrugged, adding, “Here’s the thing, son. I intend to move you up in the Outfit, and you know this has always been our plan.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I will not have your attention split between responsibilities, or worse, have men in the organization thinking you’re the weak link because the top is not where you want to be. My motives for keeping you where you are happen to be well intended.”
“I’m not one for the politics of the mafia.”
“And yet, you still need to be, Tommaso.”
Tom knew he was going to get nowhere fast with this conversation. His father wouldn’t budge. He hadn’t budged an inch since Cross—the gunrunner for the Chicago Outfit—headed back to New York a couple of months back. Tom thought maybe his father would let him pick up a bit of Cross’s slack in some areas, but that was a fucking pipe dream if there ever was one.
Tom and his father were close—he loved Tommas fiercely. Just like his mother.
They had one issue.
This was it.
Tommas let out a quiet exhale, and picked up his still-burning cigar. “I think what you really need is a break, Tom. All good made men need one occasionally. Besides, it’ll give you some time to reflect on things. Issues here. How to handle them. Whatever else. You’ve earned the break, son.”
“Oh?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And where should I go for this break?”
His father flashed his white teeth in a grin. “That’s for you to figure out. Say hello to your mother on the way out. Also, don’t even think of heading out of the city without doing something with your sisters first.”
That was that.
Tom found his mother in her library. A massive, bookshelves from floor to vaulted ceiling, room in the mansion that Abriella hid in more often than not. Family portraits—young and old—covered one far wall. A wall of bay of windows overlooked the estate grounds, showcasing colorful leaves littering the ground.
His mother smiled over at him from her white chaise as he entered the space. She rested her book beside her, and waved him further in.
Old paper, leather, and ink wafted through the air. Vanilla and lavender followed right behind. His mother loved her candles and oils. Teas and sweets.
This was Abriella Trentini Rossi’s space.
Her room.
No one else’s.
Here, Tom knew his mother worried about nothing. She shed no tears. Other worlds sucked her in, and she only came out when called.
Like now.
“Hey, baby,” Abriella said.
Tom bent down to kiss his mother on the top of her dark-haired head. “Hey, Ma.”
“You look … stressed.”
“That obvious?”
His mother smiled a little. “Always, to me.”
“Dad said I need to take a break.”
“I bet he’s right, Tom.”
“I bet we won’t tell him that, will we?”
Abriella’s smile bloomed wider. “Never.”
Her hand patted his cheek with a soft touch, but she said nothing to push him on what was wrong, or how he planned to fix it beyond what he already offered. It was one of the many reasons why he loved his mother.
“Sit for a while,” she told him. “I’ll read to you.”
“What, like when I was a boy?”
“Reading is good for the soul, Tom.”
“Depends on what you’re reading, Ma.”
“A thriller.”
Tom could do that. He grabbed one of the leather chairs, and pulled it closer. Sinking into the seat, his mother started to read. Between the silence of the library, the familiar scents clinging to his every breath, and the comfort of his mother’s presence, he could almost sleep. He was relaxed.
Problem was, as soon as he left the mansion, it would all be gone.
That’s when Tom got it.
He was looking for something like his home. Or he needed something like it. He just didn’t know what in the hell that even was.
Tom unceremoniously dumped a black duffle bag on the foot of his bed as he dialed a familiar number on the phone, and put it to his ear. His two-level house just outside of the city limits wasn’t anything to scoff at, but it didn’t feel like home to him, either. He’d bought it on a whim, as his trust fund afforded him the ability to do so before he had been making decent money himself. He had wanted to be closer to business and family and not right in the heart of Chicago in a cramped apartment.
He hadn’t even bothered to really decorate the place.
In his ear, he heard the call click.
“Donati here,” a familiar voice answered.
Tom balanced the phone between his shoulder and ear as he grabbed a couple of things from the closet. “Cross, man, what’s up?”
“Not much, Tom. Something come up with the next run, or what?”
“Nope.”
Tom wasn’t surprised the first thing Cross thought at his phone call was business. It was just who Cross Donati was at the end of the day. Business first, and everything else was secondary. Cross came from a New York Cosa Nostra family—another boss’s son, like Tom. The two had made fast friends when Cross and Tom got put together as partners when the Outfit started trafficking guns. It helped that Cross was only a couple of years older than Tom, but didn’t treat him like a kid, or as though he was where he was because of his last name.
Their friendship lasted.
A couple of months back, Cross headed home to New York after living in Chicago for almost three years. He hadn’t been back, but a gun run was coming up soon. Tom figured he would see his friend then.
Fate had different plans.
“You busy?” Tom asked.
Cross chuckled dryly. “Man, I am always busy. Not more than usual, though. Heading over to my parents’ place today to see them.”
“No, I mean for the next week or so. Maybe more.”
“What?”
“I thought I might visit,” Tom said.
“Door’s always open for you, Tom.”
New York was a sufficient distance from Chicago to make it worth the cramped flight. A familiar face made it welcoming enough, too.
“My flight leaves tomorrow in the morning,” Tom said.
“Let me know when you land.”
Friends like Cross were hard to come by.