Title: Mafia Nanny
Matteo
A new message appears on one of the computer screens on my desk, followed by a photo of an old apartment building taken from afar.
We’ve located them.
I narrow my eyes and zoom into the photo, looking into the bright lights coming through the curtains on the third floor. So they aren’t even trying to hide their presence, huh? Very blunt for a band of thugs that have no idea what they’re doing. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they’re
celebrating the mistake they count as a victory.
Well, their celebration won’t last long. They’re about to find out what it means to mess with the kings of the Mafia world.
At the same time, I hear the tapping of a keyboard and indistinct muttering in Russian through my earphones. I keep an open phone call with Georgiy to make sure that we all move as one team. While I’m coordinating the moves of our Italian group, he’s in charge of the Russians who, at the moment, are supposed to be a few streets away from my men.
“Do you see them?” I ask out loud, not looking away from the screen.
“Yes,” Georgiy says without a second of delay, and I hear more intense keyboard tapping. “Ivan is by the pharmacy. You?”
I glance at the highlighted name of the pharmacy at the corner of the street before turning my attention to the dots on the map showing my group’s location. There are five of them-three recruits, one sniper, and one commander-scattered over the narrow street across from the building.
Marco, the one who’s in charge, has directed the recruits to take the most advantageous positions for an attack while waiting for me to check the Russians’ readiness and give him a cue to move forward.
“Marco is on Washington Street,” I report to Georgiy, watching the dots move around. Daniel, the sniper, is already making his way into the building nearby to climb to the third floor. Good move.
Ivan is at the corner of the street. I automatically send the message to Marco and ask out loud, “Thirty seconds?”
“Forty.”
“Got it.”
Be ready in forty seconds.
While I type the message to Marco, another one pops up on the computer screen on the right. This one is from Riccardo, the don of the
Messina Clan and my younger cousin, so I can’t just ignore it. Keeping an eye on the clock and the moving dots on the map, I check the message.
When you’re done, send the night patrol to Bill’s club OK Riccardo knows better than to bother me during an important mission, so he quickly leaves me to it. Besides, being always available is a part of my duty, so I can’t blame him for distracting me. I’m used to switching between tasks anyway.
You see, I’m an intermediary of the Messina Clan, the biggest Mafia family in Chicago. What it basically means is that I’m the first person other members come to when they need to deliver a message or check the situation in general. I keep track of every person on duty, and if anything out of the ordinary happens, I’m the first one to know.
I coordinate the movements of our patrols and help them hunt down our enemies-like a stray gang of criminals that deemed themselves strong enough to claim a piece of neutral territory for themselves. As the biggest Mafia family, along with the Russian Bratva who are pretty much on our same level, the Messinas are supposed to maintain balance in the underworld of Chicago and get rid of anyone who tries to break the rules.
Neutral territories exist to be a buffer between the Mafia families and to provide a safe space for us to interact without provoking a conflict. No one can spill blood there-so it’s time for us to remind them what the punishment looks like.
“Ten seconds,” I say to Georgiy, hearing a confirmation in return, and I send Marco the same message.
“Five,” Georgiy says from his side, counting with me. Three. Two. One. I take a deep breath and send the message. Go.
I’ve done it a thousand times already, but I hold still for a moment when the dots on the map start moving toward the building. Even though I’m at home, miles away from them, the wave of adrenaline reaches me as well. Are they moving quietly? Are they being careful? Does Marco know what he’s doing? It’s a dumb question-he’s been a part of our clan for decades now, of course he knows what he’s doing-but I can’t help myself.
“It’s clear,” Georgiy says, probably on a parallel call with one of his men.
I nod to myself, keeping my eyes on the dots that now enter the building. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be the one responsible. Even a small mistake of mine may cost our men’s lives, and it’s a heavy load to carry through every operation.
An intermediary is a demanding position, I’m not gonna lie. But in exchange for the responsibility and mental strain, it allows me to spend most of my time in the safety of my house. I rarely join missions in the field, so to speak, and don’t take part in hunting down our enemies and risking being shot every other day. Still, it’s not easy to keep up with all my duties, and it leaves me little to no time for my personal life-and sometimes, that creates a problem.
“They’re in,” Georgiy says, and I tense up, holding my fingers above the keyboard in case they have to retreat.
At the same time, I hear a notification and glance at another screen, one of the three in front of me. Louis, my cousin, just sent me a message saying that there’s a fight in Orland Park and they need backup. Shit. Not the best time, but I know a couple of young recruits nearby that could be helpful. I search for them on the map while keeping my attention on
Georgiy’s voice in my earphones-when all of a sudden, the door swings open.
“Papa, I’m-ouch! It hurts, Papa, it’s scary, make it stop!”
Romeo stumbles into the room with a loud cry, sobbing and holding up his arm as if trying to show me something. Our golden retriever, Dolce, follows right after him, whimpering in tune with Romeo’s sobs and wagging his tail in distress. Oh, come on. I frown, hearing Georgiy huff on the other side of the call, and raise my hand to gesture for Romeo to stop.
“I’m in the middle of an important task, Romeo. Wait just a few minutes, okay? And then-”
“No, Papa!” He bursts into a louder sob that sounds almost hysterical, and my heart tightens. Romeo is already seven, so he deems himself mature enough not to cry without a good reason. “It hurts! Help me, Papa, please, I-”
He cuts himself off with another sob, stomping his feet, and I can’t help a surge of worry as I take out my earphones. “What happened?”
“A wasp, there-ouch, ouch! There was a wasp, and it-it stings, Papa!”
“What?” I glance at the clock, feeling wired just from the sound of his sobbing. “It’s almost seven, where did you find a wasp?” “I don’t know!”
Romeo chokes on his tears, and everything inside of me tenses up in distress. Shit. I can’t just leave my group on its own! I hear another notification, probably from Louis, and it makes my mind spin even harder which results in me freezing in my chair. Okay, wait, what should I do first?
“Go deal with Romeo. I’ll take care of your men if they ask for help,” Georgiy says all of a sudden, and I hear a note of an understanding smile in his voice. He has two kids, after all. He knows the feeling.
“Thanks,” I breathe out and grab my phone, rushing to Romeo. “Alright, let’s find you an ice pack.”
As soon as I get up, Dolce perks up and, out of curiosity or desire for attention, stomps in front of me, wagging his tail and blocking my way. I bark at him to get out of the way while typing a message on my phone, ordering the recruit closest to Louis to find him ASAP. Okay, that part is done.
Romeo’s sobbing turns into whimpers and hiccups by the time we get to the kitchen which is a good sign already. His honey-brown eyes are still glassy, though, and his round face is red and swollen from tears. Oh, dear. I sigh and wipe his cheeks with my sleeve before directing my attention to the red swelling on his wrist.
“It’s going to be alright, I promise,” I murmur, studying the sting before giving Romeo an encouraging smile. “Don’t be scared, okay? I’m gonna put some ice on it, so it’ll hurt a little more.”
“No!” Romeo’s eyes widen with fear, and he bites his wobbling lip. “No, I don’t want it!”
Ah, this kid. I purse my lips and quirk an eyebrow at him. “The pain won’t go away until we do it, okay?”
After a moment of pouting, Romeo grimaces in pain again and nods, watching me walk to the fridge to grab an ice pack. Okay, wait, I have to distract him from the pain or he’ll throw a fit again. So I hum and glance at Romeo over my shoulder.
“Now, how did it happen? Where did you find a wasp?”
He sniffles, rubbing his nose, and looks at Dolce, who has already made himself comfortable on the floor next to Romeo’s stool. “I don’t know. It just got in when I opened the door for Dolce, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“Well, trying to catch it with bare hands wasn’t the best idea.”
I chuckle, taking a hold of his arm and pressing the ice pack to his wrist. Romeo immediately flinches, trying to pull away, and grimaces when I don’t let him go-but at least he’s not crying anymore.
“I didn’t try to catch it,” he says with indignation and shakes his head so fast his black curls bounce from the movement. “I wanted to protect Dolce.”
“Protect him, huh?” I quirk an eyebrow and look at the retriever
with a false accusation. Dolce doesn’t seem to be bothered and only taps his tail against the floor in response.
“Yes! The wasp was following him everywhere, and he even barked at it. He was scared. I had to do something,” Romeo finishes with a proudly lifted chin. He even tries to cross his arms, probably to emphasize the importance of his deeds, but I’m still holding his wrist and he winces when he tries to move it.
“Alright, well, it was a good thing to do.” I nod, moving the ice pack away to check the sting. It doesn’t look as painfully swollen anymore, but it’s clear that it’s gonna take a couple of days for it to disappear. “But when you’re helping someone, you have to think about yourself as well, okay? Next time, find a towel or a newspaper first.”
Romeo nods with pursed lips and a very serious frown, and I can’t help but chuckle, feeling my heart swell with fondness. God, this kid. What would I do without him? I ruffle his hair, earning a pout in return, and sigh with a gentle smile.
“You know it’s gonna hurt for a while, right?”
“Yeah,” he grumbles under his breath, glaring at the ice pack as if it’s his personal enemy. But a moment later, Romeo suddenly blinks and looks up at me with wide eyes. “Wait, Papa?”
I hum, trying to remember where the antihistamine cream is-it should help with the swelling a little.
“Actually, I didn’t kill the wasp. It…it stung me and flew away.”
Well, shit. I sigh with exasperation and look around. So it’s still here somewhere. “Look, I gotta get back to work, can you…”
My voice trails off when I turn to look at Romeo. He looks back at me with wide eyes full of terror, and despite the ice pack pressed to his wrist, he reaches out to grab my sleeve. Even before he opens his mouth to cry, I know I have no choice but to find the wasp first.
Finally, some fifteen minutes later, after Romeo agrees with me that there’s no wasp around and I apply the cream to his sting, only then do I get back to my office. The screen is flashing with new messages, and the dots on the map are already moving in different directions. Well, at least it looks like the mission was a success.
“How was it?” I ask as soon as I grab my earphones, and I can hear Georgiy startle with a Russian curse on his lips.
“Hey, you have to warn me before entering like that,” he complains, and I chuckle, checking the messages. One of them is from Marco, informing me that they’ve cleared out the building. The gang of thugs is no more.
“Everything went smoothly,” Georgiy says in the meantime, typing on his keyboard. “They shot one of my men in the shoulder, so that is unfortunate.”
But it’s good enough. If the shooter aimed a few inches to the side, Boris wouldn’t have survived.
“Have you captured anyone?” I ask mindlessly, typing a message for Marco to go to the warehouse, our main office, to report about the mission to Riccardo.
After Marco, I switch to the conversation with Louis where I see four unread messages. Damn, did something go wrong? But no, Louis is only complaining that the guy I sent wasn’t that good in the fight, so Louis had to deal with the drunks on his own. But the fact that Louis is there to talk to me about it means that there were no casualties, so the guy wasn’t that bad either. Louis sends me an angry emoji when I text him that, so he’s fine, just his own goofy self.
“No.” Georgiy yawns in the meantime, and I hear his armchair
squeak as he leans backward. “They wouldn’t tell us anything useful, and after the thing with the three Mexicans, Olga isn’t in the mood to deal with captives.”
I hum under my breath. Yeah, I can imagine.
Olga Pushkova is the head of the Russian Bratva, and last month, they caught three out of five Mexicans that were rummaging around their territory-the other two were shot when trying to escape. The Russians got some information from the pawns of the Escarra family, the third biggest Mafia family in Chicago. But eventually the Mexicans managed to escape, blowing up a storage of weapons on their way out. Olga is still kinda pissed about it, going after the Mexicans with the fervor of the past, but can you blame her, really?
“So,” Georgiy drawls after I say nothing for a long minute, entirely focused on the unread messages.
It’s nothing weird, to be honest-I often spend hours in silence, just typing messages and murmuring under my nose, and Georgiy knows it as well. So when he clears his throat, I know he wants to talk about something, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is. He understands my problem better than anyone, after all.
“What happened to Romeo?”