Mafia Kings: Adriano: Chapter 3

It was a Friday afternoon. I’d finished up classes for the day, and I had a dozen things I had to do over the weekend:

A whole bunch of sketches for my design class…

A photoshoot for my roommate Emma, who’s in the same fashion program as me…

Not to mention my waitressing job. I had an eight-hour shift on Sunday.

But I hadn’t seen my parents in over a week. I wanted to check in on them, so I took the bus to their apartment on the outskirts of the city.

Florence is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. At least the old part of the city is – the section built in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

There are also modern neighborhoods that sprang up like mushrooms after World War II.

Some of them are nice…

And some of them are ugly and depressing.

My parents have an apartment in the ugly and depressing part.

They could have afforded a lot nicer place if my dad hadn’t lost so much money to gambling over the years…

And if he didn’t have to repay so much to the mafia.

As soon as I got off the bus and saw the fancy black Audi sitting outside their apartment, I knew something was wrong.

In that part of town, only the mafia drove expensive cars…

And when I saw one parked in front of my parents’ apartment, my stomach sank.

I thought about turning around and just going back to my own apartment –

But I couldn’t. I had to make sure they were okay.

I punched in the code to unlock the lobby door and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor.

I had a key to my parents’ apartment…

But I didn’t want to surprise anybody inside – like a gangster with a gun – so I knocked.

There was a moment’s pause. Then my mother’s voice said, “I can’t come to the door.”

“Mama, it’s me.”

There was another long pause…

And then the door opened as the hinges creaked loudly.

But it wasn’t my mother who answered.

It was Sergio Pasquarelli, one of the assholes who worked for the Agrellas – the family who ran Florence.

Sergio was about 40 years old with a meaty face and a stocky build. He always wore a cheap brown suit, and he was always sweating. Today wasn’t any different.

Of all the gangsters I’d met over the years, I hated Sergio the most. He was always leering at me and making inappropriate jokes.

Not to mention he liked to act friendly – then turn on a dime, become a raging psychopath, and threaten to bust my father’s kneecaps with a lead pipe.

Sergio had been the one hassling my father for the last six years.

Either the Agrellas liked to keep things consistent, and that’s why they kept sending him to harass my family…

Or he was too much of an idiot to get promoted out of a shit job.

“Heyyyy, look who it is,” he said with his lecherous smile. “Sweet little Bianca. Come on in, doll.”

I brushed past him into my parents’ dingy apartment. “Mama?”

My mother was standing in the living room with a worried look on her face.

Of course, she almost always had a worried look on her face. Having to deal with all of my father’s gambling and mafia bullshit had made her go grey prematurely.

But she looked especially stressed today.

It probably had something to do with Sergio and the other two goons in cheap suits standing in her living room. They were both tall, young, and extremely ugly.

“Bianca, what are you doing here?” Mama asked in a frightened voice.

“I just came by to visit you and Dad.”

“Good!” Sergio said as he shut the door. It creaked loudly as it closed. “Maybe you can tell us where he is.”

“Probably work,” I snapped.

“Nope,” Sergio said as he pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and started chewing on it. “Fact is, he ain’t been there today. Hell, he ain’t even been home since last night.”

I looked over at Mama in alarm.

She nodded reluctantly.

This was bad.

Whenever Papa went on one of his gambling benders, he’d disappear for days at a time…

Especially when he lost money.

I turned to Sergio. “How much does he owe?”

“Nine grand.”

Shit.

I closed my eyes… steeled myself… and opened them again. “We’ll get you the money. We just need a little time.”

“We both been through this enough, princess, to know you ain’t gettin’ me the money anytime soon. Call your dad.”

“It’s only been one day – ”

“Naw, he’s been gone for a day. He lost the money two weeks ago.”

Oh shit.

Then I got angry.

That bastard!

I’d been here just last weekend, and my father had lied to my FACE! He’d said he hadn’t gambled for over ten months!

“He ain’t pickin’ up your mom’s calls, so why don’t you call him,” Sergio said with a nasty smile.

“Look… if you can just wait until Sunday, I can scrape together a couple of hundred – ”

“That ain’t good enough. Call him.”

“But – ”

“CALL HIM.”

Sergio was on the brink of going full-on psycho. I could see it in his beady little eyes.

So I pulled out my phone and hit ‘Dad’ in my contacts list.

The phone immediately went to voicemail.

He had his phone turned off, the son of a bitch.

“This is Fabrizio Lettieri… leave a message.”

“Dad, call me when you get this. IMMEDIATELY,” I snapped, then hung up.

“That’s bad,” Sergio said with a nasty smile. “That’s really, really bad.”

I looked over at Mama. She had a sickly look on her face.

“Do you have any money?” I asked her.

She shook her head no.

Dammit.

I looked over at Sergio. “Can we go out in the hallway to discuss this?”

“What, so anybody passin’ by can hear us? I don’t think so.”

“I don’t want my mother involved in this.”

“Bianca – ” Mama started.

“Mama, shh. You’ve had to put up with Papa’s bullshit long enough, and I’m sick of it.”

“So you wanna talk in private?” Sergio asked, a nasty leer on his face.

“Yeah,” I snarled.

He chuckled, then looked at his goons. “Boys, why don’t you escort Signora Lettieri back to her bedroom for a few minutes? I gotta hash out some shit with her daughter.”

“Bianca, don’t,” Mama whimpered.

“Just go in the bedroom, Mama. It’ll be fine.”

She looked at Sergio in fear, then shuffled off towards her bedroom. The two goons trailed along behind her.

As soon as she was gone, I turned to the mafioso. “What kind of bullshit are you gonna make my father do this time, huh?”

Sergio grinned. “I got no idea what you mean, doll.”

“You never lend him money unless you want something from him. What is it – one of your guys get picked up for murder?”

“I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about, sugar. Your daddy owes us some money, pure and simple.”

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “Since he’s not here and he’s not picking up his phone, what exactly do you want?”

“A blowjob would be nice.” Sergio laughed after he said it, like he thought he was clever.

“Yeah, that’s never happening.”

“Never say never, little girl.” Suddenly he got a crafty look on his face. “You really want to help your dad?”

“No, I want you assholes to break his legs again. Of course I want to help him.”

Sergio grinned. “You got a mouth on you, that’s for sure. How’d you like doin’ a little somethin’ for my bosses?”

I sighed angrily. Sergio had been trying to recruit me as a sex worker for the Agrellas from the day he first met me… when I was still 16.

Piece of shit.

“I’m not going to trick for them, so stop asking,” I snapped.

“It’s a one-time deal. Tonight at 8. You’d be entertaining a few out-of-town guests, probably just a few hours. They got a business meeting with my boss – this’d just be for drinks beforehand.”

“I’m not going to fuck anybody,” I said coldly.

“You won’t have to. You just gotta look pretty, make some conversation… and make ‘em think you’d fuck ‘em.”

“And why would I do that?” I asked in disgust.

“You do it, and I’ll give your father another month to pay up. Hell, I’ll even knock off the interest so he only owes the six grand he borrowed.”

Papa had only borrowed six thousand euros, but they’d charged him 50% interest for two weeks.

That’s mafia financing for you.

“What’s the catch?” I asked.

“No catch.”

I frowned. “You’re offering to knock three thousand off my father’s debt and give him another month to pay. There’s got to be a catch.”

“The Agrellas don’t wanna use any of our girls to do it. It’s gotta be models or somebody from outside the family’s operation, and they gotta be hot. Top shelf.”

“Why me?”

He shrugged. “You’re hot, it’s last minute, and they’re havin’ problems gettin’ hot enough girls. You want the job or not?”

I hesitated.

When the devil offers you a bargain, you should always walk away.

…IF you’ve got a choice.

“What happens if I say ‘no’?”

Sergio gave me an incredibly unpleasant smile. “Let’s just say I might have to take a down payment from your mother. Might let my boys have a crack at her, too.”

Piece of shit scum of the earth motherfucker –

“Alright,” I hissed. “Where do I go?”

Sergio pulled out a business card from his suit jacket and handed it to me.

It was silver with words embossed in black:

Agenzia di Modelle Fiorentina

Florence Modelling Agency, basically.

There was an address and a telephone number.

“Go there,” Sergio said, “and they’ll set you up.”

“That’s all the way across town. It’s 4 PM now, and you said the thing’s at 8 – ”

“Okay, I’ll drop you off. We can go right now… and leave your mother in peace,” he said with a suggestive smile.

I glared at him…

But I didn’t have much of a choice.

Not if I wanted to buy my father some time…

And make sure my mother wasn’t touched by these assholes.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”