Arranged love

“Now, Matteo,” I snap, knowing I told him earlier to stay next to me at all times. I’m not in the mood to listen to his shit right now. I have blue balls and need to get this over with.

He lets out a sigh but turns and runs back to my car to put the bag away.

One down.

Picking up the dead body, I throw his fat ass into the back of the van and shut the doors. Not much I can do about the blood on the ground, but the cleanup crew will take care of that once I make the call.

Pulling my gun back out, I open the back door of the building and creep inside the chapel. It’s quiet, letting me know that whatever is happening is upstairs. Rossi never transformed it like the first floor.

I make my way up the stairs quietly, my gun steady in my hands. Once I hit the landing, I look both left and right. It’s cold. Doesn’t matter how long the funeral home has been out of use, the smell of dead bodies lingers. It’s in the walls. No amount of bleach or paint could ever cover it up. That’s why I’m so surprised anyone would want to get married below it.

I make my way down the long hallway, and a single light buzzes above my head. The old flowered wallpaper ripped off in spots. The brown carpet stained and chunks missing. I come up to a door on my left and crack it open. It’s empty other than the large two side-by-side metal plated crematories.

Hmm, we can make use of that.

Closing the door, I continue, opening the next one. The concrete floor is covered in dried blood, and the back wall has three metal doors. This is where they store the bodies. There are two metal slabs with sinks at the end where they wash them off before placing them inside the refrigeration system.Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.

Entering the room, I shut the door behind me softly. Walking over to the doors, I open one up, but it’s empty. I close it and open the next one. To my surprise, it has a body. I thought it was out of commission. But we’ve always suspected the chapel to be a front. A tag on his toe tells me his name was Jacob Miller. Thirty years old and was an organ donor.

I bet he was.

This is what they did in the past. They’d steal bodies from the hospital, remove all the organs, and then pack their bodies full of drugs and or money. Then they ship them. Hard for search dogs to recognize the smell of drugs when you have a rotting corpse in front of them.

“He’s in here,” a voice calls out.

Shit!

Closing the door, I open the one that I know was empty and crawl in. I lie down and look up into total darkness. This would frighten any person, except for me. For my family. I saw my first dead body at ten years old when my father killed my uncle. At the time, I was scared of what he was capable of, but it didn’t take me long to understand. A month after my uncle’s murder, my aunt Ava was gunned down in her own home. My father didn’t make me witness that one.

The Mafia takes their code of silence very seriously. You don’t fucking talk. To anyone, about anything.

“When are they shipping out?” a familiar voice asks, and my jaw clenches. Davis Ricardo is Rossi’s most loyal follower, but he wants to be number one. He wants to be the one on top and in charge, and in order to achieve that, he’ll have to fuck him over. It’s just a matter of time. He’ll get tired of waiting. Eventually.

“Tomorrow. Don’t want them sitting still for too long. We’ll put them on the plane and fly them out. They’ll reach their destination by Friday.”

No, they won’t.

“Okay, put the woman in this one.” I hear him slap the door to the one I’m in.

Shit!

I hit the side of my Apple watch to light up what small amount of space I can see. Thankfully, it’s open. Normally, these would have individual slots for each body, but these bastards can be cheap, and they chose to purchase the kind where each level is open, so it costs less to cool.

Thank God for that.

I quickly crawl over, trying to be quiet, and hold my gun so I don’t drop it on the metal tables. The space is cramped and cold. Once I get to the next one that is available, I lie back down and close my eyes, turning off my light.

Where in the fuck is my brother?

“How long will it take?” Donatello asks.

“Shouldn’t take me longer than thirty minutes to pack the body.”

“Get it done,” he orders.

I smile to myself, ready to get this show started. I can take them all on at once, but I prefer one at a time.

I hear the door open to the room. “Sir? Gabe is dead.”

Fuck!

“What?” Donatello snaps.

“I found him in the back of the van,” a man rushes out. “Throat slashed.”

“Find whoever did this,” he barks. “I want the place surrounded. Now!”

“Yes, sir.”

Then the room grows silent. I hold my breath to listen for any kind of noise but hear nothing. I open the door and peek out, looking for my brother. Nothing.

“I want everything shipped tonight,” Donatello orders from down the hall, but I can’t see him. “Someone, somewhere has fucking opened their mouth.”

“But sir, the pickup van won’t be here until tomorrow.”

“Then make a fucking phone call and assure me that it will depart tonight,” he barks. “If you don’t make this happen, I will stuff your body with these fucking drugs myself.”

Walking down the hall with my back pressed into a wall, I hold my gun up and turn the corner. I see Donatello standing at the end of another hall with two guys flanking each side. His bodyguards. He wears a black suit with a red button-up, and a black and white tie, cutting into his double chin. His once dark hair is now shaved close to his head. He holds a cigar in one hand and a gun in the other.

“I think we should evacuate, sir,” one of them suggests.

He snorts. “Rossi will kill each one of us if we don’t get this shit moved.”

Ricardo comes into view. “I’ll stay behind and take care of it. You need to leave. I’ll call Rossi and inform him of what is happening,” he says, running a hand down his stubble. He’s nervous. Good.

Rossi will question his loyalty. Not because he’ll think he talked, but because he’ll think he got careless and somehow tipped someone off and was followed.

I raise my gun and aim it right at Donatello, waiting for Ricardo to move out of my way to give me a clear shot.

“Fine,” he growls. “I’m going.” Ricardo takes a step forward, giving me a clear shot, and I take it. But at the last minute, he moves again, and the bullet whizzes right past him. Ricardo leaps on top of him, shoving him to the tile floor. With gun raised, they aim them in my direction, and I jump out of the way, falling to my side and sliding across the floor as gunfire erupts in the small space. I pull the trigger, over and over until there’s nothing left. Pieces of the wall and ceiling fall down around me. Jumping up, I run into an adjoining room, shutting the door behind me. I drop the now empty magazine and replace it with another one I pull out of my pocket before aiming at the door. It opens, and I go to shoot but see that it’s my brother.

I lower my gun. “Where the fuck have you been?” I whisper harshly.

He turns to face the door as well. His shirt is covered in blood along with his hands. He’s wiping them on his pants. “Was on my way back from the car and saw two men walking out the front.”

“And?” I snap at his vagueness.

“Killed Isaac. The other got away,” he explains with a growl. My brother hates to lose.

We were raised to be competitive. He once played baseball for our high school. He was removed from the team after he slammed his fist into the coach’s face when he was made to run a lap after striking out in practice. That was his one and only week as a Tiger.

“What about you? Killed any more?”

I shake my head and walk over to the door. “Nope. But we need to wrap this up.”