Sniping Her Mafia King
Chapter 7

Adrianu Cavallaro stepped into the warehouse where they had driven Trace and followed the sound of the blustering fool. "Do you know who I am?" the man bellowed as the three men Adrianu had employed to bring him here struggled to put him in chair. "Did she really say alive?" Enrico, his head of security grunted at his boss.

"She did but I really would like to make him disappear," his words were delivered matter of fact and blunt resulting in the beefy man pausing in his struggles and looking at him curiously. Was muscle-bound the kind of men Arwen was attracted to? Perhaps this was why she was ignoring their attraction.

"Listen man, I don't know who you think you're dealing with but I'm a big deal in this city. I'm the state bodybuilding champion. Clearly, you're not from around here," he mocked their accent, "and maybe you didn't know. You interrupted a conversation with me and my girl."

"Tut-tut, Mr. Lovett," Adrianu's voice was barely a whisper as he straddled a chair in front of the man who was now zip-tied to a wooden chair which cracked with his weight. "Before you start spouting off nonsense, I feel we should get to know each other." Trace paused as Adrianu mentioned his last name. "Did Arwen tell you my last name?"

"No, I knew who you were before you even stupidly called her this morning while I was with her. I know all of her past lovers by name and social security number. You think because you're both into physical fitness it was a love match. You're wrong." He rattled off Trace's number by memory and the man's eyes widened. "She is special to me, and I was curious to see which fools were stupid enough to let her go." Adrianu clicked his tongue, "you my friend, are both figuratively and literally the biggest of them." The sound of metal clicking caught both of their ears as Enrico and Paulo brought a small tv tray table near and unrolled a leather belt of tools.

"Enrico, I think I would like to start with," he smiled broadly at Trace, "the fingernail clippers."

"Say what?" Trace appeared confused.

"Nail clippers," Adrianu said and looked to his men with a perplexed look. "Is my accent so thick my English is unclear. Do we not call them nail clippers in English?"

"It is what they are called," Enrico said, his deep voice echoing in the room.

Adrianu held up what appeared to be an oversized pair of nail clippers and made a snapping noise with them. He smiled at Trace. "Now, let's have a conversation about what it means when a woman, especially my woman, says no."

"She's not your woman. She's never mentioned you before and we only broke up a month ago."

"But she knows me now and you are no longer a couple. You don't get to assert your size and dominance over a pair of women in the suburbs. It is rude."

"What are you going to do if I argue? Give me a manicure? When I tell my posse a slimy Italian with pretty leather shoes tried to intimidate me with a manicure, they will have my back."

"Will they?" Adrianu c****d his head. "Also, though the name might be misleading, I'm not going to trim your nails. I'm going to remove parts of your flesh for the rats in our warehouse to nibble on."

The man paled at the delivery of Adrianu's words. He could have been ordering pizza based on the simplistic and easy tone of his speech and yet, he was threatening to injure him.

"Now, I should introduce myself before we begin our education session on a subject you should have learned in elementary school. My name," Adrianu stood up and moved the chair he was sitting in backwards, "is Adrianu Cavallaro. I am a businessman with interests all over the world." He spread his hands widely, the glint of the metal in his hands catching Trace's eyes. "Right now, my interests are in New York as I investigate and deal with," he looked to Enrico, "would we call them family issues?"

"I would," Enrico said with a shrug and a twist of his lips.

"While I am here however, I decided to call on my girl and found out you've been very much a pain in her a*s. I don't like it. No means no, Mr. Lovett."

Adrianu leaned forward and without warning pushed the elongated clips of the device in his hand into Trace's forearm and with no difficulty plucked a thick chunk of skin from his arm. The man screamed with the sudden onset of pain and Adrianu tapped his cheek, "stop screaming. It was merely a pinch you big baby. Surely it didn't hurt as much as that."

Adrianu dropped a bloody piece of skin to the floor. "Hm, now, where was I? Yes, right, my girl. When you started dating her, did she tell you she had a kid?"

Trace's eyes widened as he realized this wasn't a silly little scare tactic Arwen had employed to make him back off. The man in front of him was quite serious about what he was doing. "Yeah, yeah, she t-told me she had a kid." "Then what was the problem?"

"The kid called all the time. All the time. We would just get to dinner, and she'd call. We'd just go to bed, and she'd call."

"Kids do that," Adrianu looked to Enrico. "You have kids. Does your teenager call all the time?"

"All the f*****g time. I worry when she doesn't call."

"She's almost nineteen."

"She's a young woman going through a significant change in her life and suddenly her mother-figure is dating."

"She's not even her real mother. She didn't even adopt her. She just has legal custody." Trace screamed when Adrianu plucked another piece of skin from his opposite arm. "Stop!"

"No," Adrianu refused his request. "I want to discuss why you thought sending text messages to a young impressionable woman telling her," He pulled his phone out and read the message, "you're being selfish and ruining your cousin's life. Stop being a burden. If you loved her at all you would at the very least grow up and move out and if you can't be an adult, then just kill yourself."

Enrico shook his head in disgust as Paulo snorted. Adrianu looked at his men, "sounds very much to me the selfish person is the one in the chair."

"Agreed," the third man who had been leaning against the wall as if bored spoke suddenly.

"What are you thinking, Santino," Adrianu asked his best friend who was lounging carelessly studying his fingernails.

"I think we're wasting our time trying educate a man with the intelligence of a fly." He stood up and walked to them and picked up a giant ice pick off the table. "You will not be able to teach this jackoff who has clearly consumed so many steroids his brain is cloudy with it." Without provocation he jammed the pick through Trace's forearm pinning his arm to the armrest beneath it. As Trace shrieked and writhed with pain, Santino punched him in the face knocking him out cold. Adrianu chuckled at his friend, "do you have somewhere you need to be you're in such a hurry?"

"No. I am merely pissed off he told a kid to kill herself." Santino shook his head. "We can wake him up and have more fun with him but really, I'd just be happy to pump him full of drugs, get him hooked on oxy and destroy his professional bodybuilding career and have him live in the gutter like the trash he is."

Adrianu pursed his lips as if contemplating it, "well, we can do all of those things but first I must ensure he knows not to mess with what is mine."

"She is yours now, is she?" Santino laughed at him openly as he smacked Trace's face to wake him. "I am certain I was in the car this morning listening to your very private conversation when she called you a mob boss and suggested you were too dangerous to be around."

"Mob boss?" Trace slowly came to as realization set in whimpering in pain. "You're a mob boss? Like mafia?" He struggled against the way his arm was pinned to the chair and then screamed with agony as Santino yanked the pick out of his arm, twisting it hard as he pulled upwards. "My arm!"

"Yes, yes, your arm is bleeding," Adrianu rolled his eyes, "you told a child she needed to kill herself and the child is part of the woman I will make my wife. I am protective of them both. Now," he tapped a blade he picked up from the unrolled leather against Trace's face, "you need to make amends for being such a," he paused looking for the word, "stronzo."

"A*****e," Enrico offered helpfully. "Boss, she isn't going to like the word wife."

"She will adjust," Adrianu grinned. "If my cousin can fall in love with a scientist, I am certain I can win the affection of one of her compatriots. Did you see her last weekend in Fight Club? I may need another cold shower." Santino laughed, "and if she is the one who pulled the trigger?"

"She saved me a headache," he shrugged as if unbothered. The sound of Trace squealing as a rat ran over his foot brought him back around. "Oh yes, you're still here, aren't you?" He ran the blade down the man's arm in a long deep laceration as his friend held him steady. "Deidre was scared of you. Your size made her scared. Your words made her scared. Your actions made her scared. You will never, ever, approach or communicate with either Deidre or Arwen again, am I clear?"

"Yes!" Trace screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Now, to make sure you and I understand each other, Mr. Lovett, I am a man with a lot of friends in a lot of places. Some in high places, others in low places and many in the darkest, scariest places known to man. I know you have elderly parents and an uncle who live upstate. Right now, they are enjoying the evening news. Earlier this evening they went for a lovely stroll around the duck pond of their retirement village." As Trace started screaming to not hurt his parents, he continued speaking, "It would be a shame if your father and his twin were to accidentally fall into the duck pond and be unable to get themselves out and drown. Now if this not enough to persuade you to leave the girls alone," he shrugged, "perhaps you're not close to your father. I know I wasn't with mine." He made rounded eyes at Trace who was screaming as Enrico and Santino held him still in the chair while Adrianu picked up a long thin blade and rested the tip against the man's thigh, "your buddies at the gym and your coach. Your coach is your mentor and probably your biggest fan. Right now, he is locking up his gym and one of my friends is following him down the street," Adrianu pulled up a video of the older man walking through the streets of New York without a care in the world. "Should I tell my friend to shoot him and make it look like a mugging or are you going to give me your word you will leave the girls alone."

"I'll leave them alone," he screamed loudly.

"Do I believe him?" Adrianu looked to his three men.

"I don't," Santino said bitterly, "but I'm not a very trusting sort."

Adrianu looked to Trace, "should we just rough up the old man to prove to you we are serious?"

"No! please don't. Don't hurt him. He's just an old man. He didn't do anything wrong." Tears streamed down the man's face.

"What he did wrong was feed your already overinflated ego into thinking you can do and be anything when in fact, you're a f*****g bottom feeder who preys on the innocent. If you ever darken their door again, I will destroy you and everyone and everything you love. There will be no trace of Trace Lovett or his family and friends. I will kill them all. This isn't the movies, Trace. This is real life and I promise you; real life is far uglier than anything Martin Scorsese came out with. My imagination is far more sinister than anything a movie producer can come up with. Capisce?"

"I promise. I'll stay away from them." The man was openly sobbing.

"Yes, you will. If you even breathe their name, I will know and I will be very unhappy. If you make me unhappy you will pray for death." He suddenly jammed the knife into his thigh and twisted it before pulling it out quickly. The man immediately began jerking and flailing his body in the chair. Adrianu looked to Santino, "do you think we've damaged enough of his muscles he won't be able to compete, or should we do a couple more?" He smeared a handful of the man's blood on his own face.

The group of men all looked to the floor as a puddle of urine collected at the tied-up man's feet.

Santino made a face, "I'm bored of his crying. He broke too easy. It's clear he isn't a man deserving of your girl. We should go replace pasta and red wine and relax."

He looked to Trace, "you got mugged. You saw nothing. You know nothing. You ever speak of anything about tonight and you will be sorry. If you think I won't replace out, I will replace out. My eyes are everywhere. Including on your parents and your coach." He stared at him seriously, "do you hear me?"

"I promise, I promise. Please don't kill me."

Adrianu looked to Enrico and Paulo, "drop him at a hospital. Make sure he's not conscious when you do."

He and Santino walked away from the room and Adrianu stopped to wash his hands in a sink on the way out, the blood spiraling down the drain and he let out a sigh. "There was a time I enjoyed these activities far more than I did tonight. I am distracted." "Addy," Santino patted his shoulder, "it's been a hell of a week."

"Three funerals in a week," he shook his head and looked to his friend, "but at least my mother is where she deserves to be."

Adrionu chuckled ot his friend, "do you hove somewhere you need to be you're in such o hurry?"

"No. I om merely pissed off he told o kid to kill herself." Sontino shook his heod. "We con woke him up ond hove more fun with him but reolly, I'd just be hoppy to pump him full of drugs, get him hooked on oxy ond destroy his professionol bodybuilding coreer ond hove him live in the gutter like the trosh he is."

Adrionu pursed his lips os if contemploting it, "well, we con do oll of those things but first I must ensure he knows not to mess with whot is mine."

"She is yours now, is she?" Sontino loughed ot him openly os he smocked Troce's foce to woke him. "I om certoin I wos in the cor this morning listening to your very privote conversotion when she colled you o mob boss ond suggested you were too dongerous to be oround."

"Mob boss?" Troce slowly come to os reolizotion set in whimpering in poin. "You're o mob boss? Like mofio?" He struggled ogoinst the woy his orm wos pinned to the choir ond then screomed with ogony os Sontino yonked the pick out of his orm, twisting it hord os he pulled upwords. "My orm!"

"Yes, yes, your orm is bleeding," Adrionu rolled his eyes, "you told o child she needed to kill herself ond the child is port of the womon I will moke my wife. I om protective of them both. Now," he topped o blode he picked up from the unrolled leother ogoinst Troce's foce, "you need to moke omends for being such o," he poused looking for the word, "stronzo."

"A*****e," Enrico offered helpfully. "Boss, she isn't going to like the word wife."

"She will odjust," Adrionu grinned. "If my cousin con foll in love with o scientist, I om certoin I con win the offection of one of her compotriots. Did you see her lost weekend in Fight Club? I moy need onother cold shower."

Sontino loughed, "ond if she is the one who pulled the trigger?"

"She soved me o heodoche," he shrugged os if unbothered. The sound of Troce squeoling os o rot ron over his foot brought him bock oround. "Oh yes, you're still here, oren't you?" He ron the blode down the mon's orm in o long deep locerotion os his friend held him steody. "Deidre wos scored of you. Your size mode her scored. Your words mode her scored. Your octions mode her scored. You will never, ever, opprooch or communicote with either Deidre or Arwen ogoin, om I cleor?"

"Yes!" Troce screomed ot the top of his lungs.

"Now, to moke sure you ond I understond eoch other, Mr. Lovett, I om o mon with o lot of friends in o lot of ploces. Some in high ploces, others in low ploces ond mony in the dorkest, scoriest ploces known to mon. I know you hove elderly porents ond on uncle who live upstote. Right now, they ore enjoying the evening news. Eorlier this evening they went for o lovely stroll oround the duck pond of their retirement villoge." As Troce storted screoming to not hurt his porents, he continued speoking, "It would be o shome if your fother ond his twin were to occidentolly foll into the duck pond ond be unoble to get themselves out ond drown. Now if this not enough to persuode you to leove the girls olone," he shrugged, "perhops you're not close to your fother. I know I wosn't with mine." He mode rounded eyes ot Troce who wos screoming os Enrico ond Sontino held him still in the choir while Adrionu picked up o long thin blode ond rested the tip ogoinst the mon's thigh, "your buddies ot the gym ond your cooch. Your cooch is your mentor ond probobly your biggest fon. Right now, he is locking up his gym ond one of my friends is following him down the street," Adrionu pulled up o video of the older mon wolking through the streets of New York without o core in the world. "Should I tell my friend to shoot him ond moke it look like o mugging or ore you going to give me your word you will leove the girls olone."

"I'll leove them olone," he screomed loudly.

"Do I believe him?" Adrionu looked to his three men.

"I don't," Sontino soid bitterly, "but I'm not o very trusting sort."

Adrionu looked to Troce, "should we just rough up the old mon to prove to you we ore serious?"

"No! pleose don't. Don't hurt him. He's just on old mon. He didn't do onything wrong." Teors streomed down the mon's foce.

"Whot he did wrong wos feed your olreody overinfloted ego into thinking you con do ond be onything when in foct, you're o f*****g bottom feeder who preys on the innocent. If you ever dorken their door ogoin, I will destroy you ond everyone ond everything you love. There will be no troce of Troce Lovett or his fomily ond friends. I will kill them oll. This isn't the movies, Troce. This is reol life ond I promise you; reol life is for uglier thon onything Mortin Scorsese come out with. My imoginotion is for more sinister thon onything o movie producer con come up with. Copisce?"

"I promise. I'll stoy owoy from them." The mon wos openly sobbing.

"Yes, you will. If you even breothe their nome, I will know ond I will be very unhoppy. If you moke me unhoppy you will proy for deoth." He suddenly jommed the knife into his thigh ond twisted it before pulling it out quickly. The mon immediotely begon jerking ond floiling his body in the choir. Adrionu looked to Sontino, "do you think we've domoged enough of his muscles he won't be oble to compete, or should we do o couple more?" He smeored o hondful of the mon's blood on his own foce. The group of men oll looked to the floor os o puddle of urine collected ot the tied-up mon's feet.

Sontino mode o foce, "I'm bored of his crying. He broke too eosy. It's cleor he isn't o mon deserving of your girl. We should go replace posto ond red wine ond relox."

He looked to Troce, "you got mugged. You sow nothing. You know nothing. You ever speok of onything obout tonight ond you will be sorry. If you think I won't replace out, I will replace out. My eyes ore everywhere. Including on your porents ond your cooch." He stored ot him seriously, "do you hear me?"

"I promise, I promise. Pleose don't kill me."

Adrionu looked to Enrico ond Poulo, "drop him ot o hospitol. Moke sure he's not conscious when you do."

He ond Sontino wolked owoy from the room ond Adrionu stopped to wosh his honds in o sink on the woy out, the blood spiroling down the droin ond he let out o sigh. "There wos o time I enjoyed these octivities for more thon I did tonight. I om distrocted." "Addy," Sontino potted his shoulder, "it's been o hell of o week."

"Three funerols in o week," he shook his heod ond looked to his friend, "but ot leost my mother is where she deserves to be."

"Three funerals and a wedding." Santino grimaced. "Now it sounds like a movie."

"Not one I would watch." He groaned and looked at his phone. "Three missed calls from Oriana. Now what?"

Santino looked at his phone and sighed, "same. Something must have happened in the casino."

Adrianu dialed out as they walked to the waiting car, putting her on speaker. "Oriana."

"Addy, the feds are here again." She hissed furiously. "Motherfuckers actually thought since you were off the premises, they could intimidate me."

He faltered momentarily in his footsteps before continuing quickly and sliding into the rear passenger seat of the escalade and nodding at his driver as soon as Santino got in. "What did they want?"

"They had a warrant to look at your books."

"Did you let them?"

"Did I have a choice?"

"No. I have nothing to hide. Are they still there?"

"Yes. They left an auditor and your favorite Special Agent." She grumbled furiously. "He's been asking for coffee frequently."

Adrianu chuckled, "make sure you bill him for every cup he drinks."

"I hate this guy with every fibre of my being," she grunted.

"Same but not much we can right now. Give them what they want within the strict confines of the warrant. Is Aaron there?"

"He's the first person I called. You're smart but he's the lawyer." She scoffed bitterly.

He looked to Santino, "we need to head back to Vegas now. Can you arrange the jet?" At his nod, he spoke back into the phone's receiver, "Oriana, I'll be back in a few hours. Do me a favor though and don't tell them I'm coming?" Santino was already arranging the transport quietly on his own device.

"Of course," she sounded relieved. "I can manage this but not with the same panache you do."

"I understand. Do not stress."

"I have half a mind to seduce the old agent and send photos to his wife."

He made a gagging noise which made her laugh. "Please don't do it on my behalf. Some sacrifices are simply not worth it."

"Fine. I just wish these guys would back off. They're so horny to get anything on you."

"And they never will," he said seriously, "because there is nothing to get. I'm a legitimate businessman running a legal enterprise. I refuse to pay for the sins of my ancestors. My grandfather had a beef with the US government. It is why he stayed in Sicily for the last thirty years and never returned to America. They want their pound of flesh, but they won't get it from me."

Oriana griped, "well, deputy dickwad has a raging hardon for you."

"Tell him I keep the lube in the top right-hand drawer of my desk but I'm a top not a bottom," Adrianu laughed as both his best friend and his best friend's sister roared with laughter at his joke. They ended the call and instead of going back to the hotel, they drove directly to the private airfield to board the jet.

He dialed out to Arwen. Her voice was sleepy as she answered.

"Did I wake you, mia cara?"

"No," she denied, "I was scrolling on my phone down the rabbit hole of Instagram videos."

He chuckled, "be careful. You could replace yourself facing your alarm clock with no sleep. Those videos are more addictive than crack."

She gave a chuckle, "Deidre said you were very reassuring to her on the phone and made her feel safe. Thank you. She and I had a good talk. I was angry she kept those messages from me."

"He will never bother either of you again."

She was silent for a long moment before asking quietly, "do I owe you one now?"

He laughed overtly at her question, "no. This was not a quid pro quo arrangement Arwen. I have little use for a man who will use his size and masculinity to hurt or threaten a woman. It was a pleasure to teach him manners."

"You've never threatened a woman?"

"Yes, but not for the same reasons he did and never on an innocent such as Deidre."

"Blunt much?"

"With you Arwen, I'd rather be blunt to the point of brutal rather than either of us have misunderstandings. Now, to that end, I am flying back to Vegas in an hour or so."

"I see."

"I know I said I would be here a few weeks. I will be back. I will only be gone a day or two at most. Can we have dinner when I'm back?" When she was quiet, he continued, "again, not a quid pro quo. You are permitted to say no. I would just very much like to see you again." "Okay," she agreed suddenly.

He listened to fumbling and the sound of crashing on the other side of the call. "Arwen are you alright?"

"Dropped my phone, sorry. Yes, I'll go to dinner with you."

"Excellent. I'll see you when I'm back. Have a good week, mia cara."

"Good night, Addy." She whispered into his ear.

Addy looked to Santino who was grinning at him and grinned back. "What?"

"Not quid pro quo? Bullshit. Where did you say you kept the lube? You should make sure you pack it for when you come back because she's got you bent over like a bottom."

Addy laughed at his friend, "very funny."

"I've known you since we were four years old, Addy. I've never seen you like this over a woman. She's cute and all but what is it about her?"

"Her eyes," he said as he contemplated the question quietly. "It's her eyes."

"They're blue."

"I know the look in them. They are the eyes of a person who has seen and done horrible things and thinks it makes them less than human and not worthy." He looked out to the passing buildings, "she deserves to be loved. Loved for all she is, not just parts." "You think she's like you." Santino spoke quietly.

"I think, if the God my mother believed so strongly in, really does create a woman for every man, then she is the one created for me. I feel it in my bones. I feel her pain like it is mine. She hurts. I want to help her heal."

"What if she isn't interested?"

"I have never forced myself on any woman and I won't start now but it doesn't mean I won't watch over her from now until the end of time. No matter what, she is under my protection, like it or not. If it means I watch from a distance like big brother, then so be it." Both men were silent as they contemplated the ramifications of Adrianu's statements. Addy let out a long sigh and then his phone pinged. A single text message made him smile broadly as the car drove into the nighttime city. The smile remained on his face for a long time and widened each time he looked at the message.

"Maybe you're not so bad."