I went from running New York to ruling a federal prison. Everyone is in my pocket, from the COs to the warden, they all answer to me. The feds want to think they took me off the streets, cleaned up the city and freed it from the mob, but that isn’t so.
There was no elaborate case against me that took years to build. I was a man on a mission to save what I had destroyed—my family. Not the one I ruled but the one I created with my wife, Grace. I was too busy building an empire to realize I was losing the people that mattered most to me. The flashy lifestyle they were accustomed to became more of a burden than something glorified, and as everything spiraled out of control, my daughters both threatened to fall victims to the mob, each of their lives compromised.
I had a choice to make.
My empire or their lives.
I confessed to every crime I committed, every hit I ordered, and gave my family one final gift—sparing them the life I brought them all into as a judge sentenced me to spend the rest of my existence in a cell.
They are free of my sins, my crimes and my organization.
Free from me.
My eyes wander to the photograph of my daughters taped to the wall of my cell. Their smiling faces stare back at me—those faces are the legacy of Victor Pastore—the husband and father.
“Vic, you have a visitor,” the guard calls, forcing me to tear my eyes from the photograph and glance over my shoulder at him. I watch as he unlocks my cell, sliding it open and stepping aside.
“Thank you,” I say, stepping out of my confinements and pat him on the shoulder. The inmates stare at me as he escorts me down the cell block. They call out to me, “You the man, Vic. You the man.”
Those words used to make me feel something but they’re lackluster now, just words. A man is nothing without his woman or his family. Without them a man becomes lost in the bitterness.
They buzz me into the visitor’s room, my eyes immediately dart around, searching for one of the men I summoned here. The clock is ticking for me and it’s time to put all the final touches on the plans I’ve worked hard to create. In a few short weeks I’ll be transferred down south where the ultimate enemy is, the G-Man, the man I vowed to bring to his death.
One last hit.
And it can go either way.
My life or his.
There are ends I need to tie and people to say goodbye to.
The end is near, the curtain will close and all that will be left is the name that made headlines and the legacy he left behind.
I spot the suit, threads of silk, colored in a deep charcoal and tailored to fit the man.
I taught him well.
He lifts his head, leans back in the metal chair as he takes in his surroundings. His green eyes finally pausing when they met mine. He pushes back his chair and rises to his full height to greet me. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a tie and the top button of his dress shirt was unbuttoned, his collar was popped, we’d have to talk about that.
“Uncle Vic,” he greets, stepping around the table to extend his hand to me. The guard stares at my nephew’s hand before turning his back and allowing the gesture. I slide my hand into his and pat his cheek with my free hand.
“Rocco,” I say, shaking his hand. “Thank you for coming.”
I tip my chin toward the chair as I drop my hand from his.
“Sit,” I order, watching him do as he was told.
Rocco was Grace’s sister, Anna’s son, her eldest child and the one who struggled most of his youth between right and wrong. His father, Rocco Spinelli Sr., was a drug trafficker and when his kids were young, he was deported back to Italy. Anna took Rocco and Gina, her daughter, to Italy afterwards to live, wound up returning five years later after her husband was murdered in a drug deal gone south.
Anna died seven years ago after a long battle with breast cancer and her son came to me, looking for a job. He despised what his father stood for, hated the fact drugs and greed were associated with his name, deciding he wanted to change the way people perceived Rocco Spinelli Junior.
I gave him a job within the organization and he worked his way up to becoming the soldier in charge of the trade business. Rocco was in charge of the docks, controlling the Longshoremen’s Association and the local union contracts I had in my pocket. He reminded me a lot of myself, thirsty for power and eager to make a name for himself.
I schooled him on the values and code that the Pastore family abided by. We weren’t about drugs, and no innocent children would overdose on our watch. We kept the streets as clean as possible, shutting down any dealers that threatened to sell their product on our territory. After he mastered that I sent him down to Miami Florida and put him in charge of my interests there. I owned three night clubs down there and business was thriving. Miami was flooded with drugs but they didn’t touch my clubs and that was all Rocco’s doing. He kept things clean and profitable.