I look her up and down, and I know she can feel my eyes on her, but it’s not just a sexual look. I can’t believe that my future Boss is such a blood thirsty unafraid-of-getting-her-hands-dirty kind of woman. Hell, she’s capable of being even more ruthless than Alonzo, but she does it without needing emotional rationale to get the job done, no anger necessary to fuel her fire…Alonzo cut his teeth on laundering and bookkeeping when he was starting out, violence was and has never been his first option. This girl was a perfect enforcer.
“The real question is how many are the lies,” I can’t help but mutter from my observation position.
She turns her head at me, and even though it doesn’t crack her emotional wall she’s erected, she smiles, a toothy kind of grin that lets me know that what the media is reporting on The Priest, isn’t even the half of what she’s really done.
Luca
Bones and Cobra crack malicious smiles as we drop like flies as Priest takes to the task of gaining information. I don’t even care that I am the first guy to drop, I can kill a man and watch the soul leave his eyes without thought, my masculinity isn’t damaged by knowing that my soon to be boss is more than capable and willing to electrocute a man and not bat one of those full black eye lashes in any sense of remorse. Honestly, I’ll probably sleep better at night knowing that she isn’t relying on us to be her knights in shining armor, there to keep her hands clean. Her hands have been stained long before we ever came to the picture, and she is stronger for it, if not a bit of a monster…
Good thing for her I am a monster too.
“You gonna be able to keep down lunch? She kept it pretty tame but you wouldn’t and won’t be the last unable to eat after witnessing…her handy work,” Cobra says, like he’s trying to assuage what I’m sure he things is my eviscerated masculinity.
“I have no doubt that there have been many a man to have been unable to do much of anything after seeing a woman as beautiful and a lithle as her do her work,” I say, and I feel my natural smirk tug across my face.
Bones’s eyes flash and its easy to see that there is more than friendship on his side of things. I make a note of that, well because that’s what I do for the family. I collect information, any way necessary outside of the traditional beat ‘em and break ‘em, that’s Tony’s speciality.
I pull a cigarette from my pants, something I usually don’t do when the boss is around, but after witnessing that woman, all of those beautiful curves and long neck arches, I was at my ropes end and needed some sort of release, Alonzo’s presense be damned.
Cobra just chuckles, and waves his hand in a host like manner to one of the other warehouses.
I look behind me to find Giovani and Alonzo in a hushed conversation, Alonzo’s eyes looking a little wide in shock, and I wonder what he thinks of the woman that came from his genetics. Does he think she’s too much like his father, who had more than just a traditional mafioso’s love of blood.
Alex doesn’t look ruffled at all, but having known him my whole life I can see the tight way he’s holding his jaw. He was always bad with smells, and the smell of burning flesh has always been a trigger for his gag reflex.
I nod at Cobra and follow him and Bones into the other warehouse, leaving the rest of the Conti family to follow.
Inside the warehouse that appears to be more of a bunkhouse of sorts, with cots in the back, a kitchenette area in the front, and a long family-style table dividing the sleeping area from the small kitchen. There's a tv mounted on the wall opposite a couch, and while the couch looks like the most comfortable seating in the buildings, all of us take seats at the table.
After a moment Bones gets up and starts making coffee, his large deep brown hands swallowing the white sugar bowl and coffee mug as he putters around until he places the creamer and sugar in the center of the table as Cobra talks.
“Alonzo, you're going to want to be careful with those types of tests,” his voice is guarded and the warning clear in his tone.
Alonzo says, “What do you mean, It seems like she can handle it just fine.”
Bones places a coffee cup in front of the boss with a little too much force for my liking, it makes a large clanking sound before he releases it.
“It’s not that she can’t handle anything you might think to throw at her. She can handle anything,” Bones says a smugness in his voice.
Cobra calls his name and they have a staring contest that lasts a few minutes before Bones finally grumbles under his breath and goes to lean with his back to the nearest wall, ankles crossed as well as his arms, blatanly unhappy with their silent showdown.
“As Bones said, she can handle anything you throw her way,” Cobra says, “She’s grown up in a world where there was no other option. You need to be careful about threatening her people, Alonzo.”
Alonzo makes that scoffing sound before throwing a hand out at us enforcers, “We are her people,” he starts, but Cobra cus him off with a harsh shake of his head.
“No, you are her blood, but in her world, the rights of blood have to be earned through deed. Everyone she considers her’s have already earned that right. She might be a mafia princess in your world Alonzo, but here, out here she’s a crew queen,” Cobra says, then takes a drink from his cup.
“Like a game of chess, the queen is more powerful than any of the other pieces on the board. Do you know why that is Alonzo?” Cobra askes.
Alonzo rolls his eyes, clearly frustrated, “I’m sure you’ll educate me.”
Cobra just rolls his eyes back, before speaking, “I have a theory, you ass. When you look at how many of the kings of old ran their kingdoms it was for power, with an emphasis on gaining more power, very little did it ever cross their minds to tend to the people in those kingdoms unless that tending led to some benefit for the crown. Men quick to start wars they did not usually see action in...but the queens who ran their kingdoms...woman usually view their people as their children to be taken care of and are more likely to negotiate with other kingdoms, but while men might start wars, women are more vicious and have more machinations up their sleeves...all for the betterment of their people...not only do they love their subjects, their subjects love them. Queen Elizabeth used her hand in marriage as a political tool, to the betterment of her people and gave them many years before being forced into a conflict with Spain...something a king could not have done. All for her people. Women rulers tend to be like wolves, loyal to their subjects and ready to tear the throat of any who would threaten their pups.”
We all take a moment to think on this while Cobra takes his time adding more cream and sugar to his coffee cup, then continues, looking Alonzo directly in the eye.
“Priest doesn't take threats to her people lightly, and you've already done it twice in the span of what? Two hours? Do not go for a third Alonzo, because like a wolf, if you make her feel like you might actually do it, you will no longer get the growling and bared teeth...you will be silently stalked in the dead of night and won’t know it until she is staring you in the eyes as she rips out your throat.”
Bones rolls his eyes at Cobra before muttering, “No wonder Priest calls you a creepy-ass chess player behind your back.”
Cobra doesn’t even try to hide the smile that plays around his lips at that, but he reigns it in quickly to look at Alonzo.