I was twenty years old, a high school dropout trying to find my way in the mob. I had options despite not getting my diploma. I could’ve gotten my GED or taken a job in construction like every other neighborhood kid that didn’t make it through school. No, that wasn’t the road I aspired to go down in life. Since I was twelve years old, all I wanted to do was be part of Victor Pastore’s world. The summer before my thirteenth birthday, my old man skipped out on my mom, sister and me, forcing us to move into a two-bedroom apartment across the street from the Valente’s. It didn’t take long for Mike Valente and me to become friends. Sure, he was five years younger but we both liked playing handball in the schoolyard down the block from where we lived. Despite the age difference, it was an easy friendship. Mike was all right for a seven year old, barely got on my nerves and his father was a fucking legend in our neighborhood. People called him Val, he was Victor’s underboss and known on the streets as one of the toughest motherfuckers in the mob.
Val was such a nice guy; it was hard to believe the rumors at first. I couldn’t imagine him being capable of removing someone’s eyeball with an ice cream scoop, all because the poor schlep didn’t pay Vic the money he lost in a card game. He knew my dad bailed on my mom. So he would always include me in whatever he was teaching his son; like how to throw a football or how to change a tire. He even taught me how to drive.
Some people might say that Val was a stone cold killer, no fucking good in their book but in my book, he was aces. I grew up thinking of Val as a father figure. He was someone who I could respect and look up to, someone to teach me how to be a man.
I begged Val to give me a chance, but he always shot me down explaining that his life wasn’t glamourous – it was ugly. It wasn’t until I interfered with a guy trying to put the moves on Vic’s fifteen year old daughter that the mob boss himself first acknowledged my existence. I had to cut the eighteen-year-old kid some slack. Vic’s daughter, Adrianna, did not look to be only fifteen years old. She was fucking gorgeous, like drop dead gorgeous, and had the body of a woman not a girl. Her face alone was enough to make a man drop to his knees. She had the most perfect features, making her real easy on the eyes, but her full lips were my favorite part of all.
Adrianna was fifteen years old, a mobster’s daughter, completely off limits. I knew all this, but it didn’t stop my twenty-year-old ass from fantasizing about her. So when the little shit tried getting into her panties at one of Mike’s parties, I put that shit to an end real quick. The next day Vic sent Val to grab me for a sit down. Apparently, Adrianna had told her father I had rescued her from some sleaze ball. The thing was, Vic thought I had done it because I was a standup kid. The truth was, I did it for purely selfish reasons. I didn’t want anyone else to have her.
Vic took an interest in me from that point forward, giving me jobs here and there. I was a glorified errand boy; parking cars for racketeers when there was a meeting or running out for coffee. It was all bullshit, but I guess everyone had to start at the bottom and make their way to the top. At least that’s what I told myself when Vic called me with some bullshit job that had absolutely nothing to do with the mob.
It wasn’t until one afternoon when he called that I really thought he was about to give me a real piece of the pie. I figured he’d start me off with something small, maybe lifting a truck full of goods, or kicking around some sucker that didn’t pay his debts. My days of bringing espresso to the big dogs were done. It was my time; I was finally going to see some action.
Victor summoned me to his home to give me my orders directly. There I was, standing in front of him like a blithering idiot, when he told me my big break into the mob consisted of taking his daughter and Mike to the movies. I was a fucking chauffeur, taking the gang banger kids to the goddamn movies.
“Vic you can’t be serious,” I stammered, finally finding my voice and the courage to question the boss’ decision.
“I don’t think you understand what a major responsibility this is,” Vic stated, leveling me with a steady glare.
Yeah, real fucking major. Should I sit between them to make sure they don’t share a fucking tub of popcorn?
“There is nothing more important to Val and me than our children, so for me to trust you with our kids, that is a major deal,” he said, his voice sounding both reassuring and amused.
“Right,” I drawled, not believing his bullshit for one goddamn minute. “So my big job is to take your kids to a movie; that’s it?”