Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

I climbed out of the car with my mouth still hanging open. The entire front courtyard to my mother’s manor was blanketed with bouquets of white roses, my favorite flower. I could barely see the front door. I stepped carefully on the only available pathway up to the door and walked inside. Ricky was standing there with a large, silly grin on his face, his hand already outstretched with a card inside.

I didn’t need to open it to know who it was from, but I opened it anyway. My heart raced, in a confusing and upsetting blend of frustration and anticipation.

Willow —

I know that you likely still haven’t forgiven me for what’s happened with us in the past, so forgive this foolish man for asking an even more foolish question.

Will you have dinner with me?

— Sandro

6

Alessandro

My meetings were bleeding into one another, so much so I was losing track of who I was talking to. High-ranking members of the organization may as well have been grunts for how much I was paying attention. My mind was at a manor in a Philly suburb, wondering what Willow’s response to my request for dinner was going to be.

I never expected seeing her again to be as difficult as it was. My stomach was still trying to unknot itself. Did I know what I was going to say to her if she agreed? Of course not. I was just as likely to sit down at dinner and treat her like a business associate as I was to run in, drop to my knees, and beg her to take me back. I was a trailer park, and Willow was a towering tornado. There was no way to know what would hold to the ground and what would go flying into the sky. She made me feel out of control and grounded at the same time.

“Mr. Varasso?” I snapped to attention, noticing that one of my henchmen was standing in my office with a look of concern on his face. “You good, Boss?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I shuffled some of the papers on my desk from one side to the other, pretending I was doing something of importance.

“Because I asked you for the blueprints for the new Tarot House, and you handed me your lunch receipt.” He held up the receipt to prove it.

I snatched the receipt from him before flipping papers over, looking for the blueprints in question. “Why don’t you get them from Luca?”

“He’s out of town, sir. He’s visiting the expansion in—”

“Baltimore. Right, sorry.” I had the blueprints. Where the hell did they go? I continued to shove papers all around until I accidentally tipped over the glass of water I had, sending it washing over the papers and drenching them. “Shit!”

The henchman rushed from the room. “I’ll go get a towel.”

I had to get it together. I still had a business to run, and with Marco gone, and Luca out of town, and Gabriel being Gabriel, it was up to me. If I could get a few minutes alone with Willow, I was certain I could talk myself out of the funhouse I was in. I needed her to know that I still loved her and probably always would. I needed her to know that I’d regretted my decision ever since I made it. Seeing Marco fall in love and find a way to be happy with his wife, it made me realize that I sacrificed my own happiness for something that was always crumbling. That’s all the life was, using a small bucket to toss out water while more and more holes break the helm. One day, I was going to drown. We all were. Luca had found Molly, but what did I have? My dad was here one day, and then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone. What did he have to show for his legacy? Four sons, most of whom had ambivalent feelings toward him, a wife, deceased, and a slew of enemies on a bloodthirsty trail that didn’t stop with him. Did my dad take his final breath feeling like his life had been worth it? Something told me, probably not.

“You made a mess.” Gabriel rounded the corner into my office with a towel in his hands. He started pulling papers out of the deepest puddles on the table and setting the towel down. “I just passed Johnson, and he said you were a wreck. What’s going on?”

“I sent flowers to Willow.” Even as the notion left my lips, my soul abandoned my body, knowing it was cursed to a life of idiocy.

Gabriel lifted the cup off the table and set it to the side. “What like a dozen or something?”

I reflected back on myself having pressed the send button on the order of a hundred and fifty dozen roses like it was a marvelous idea. “Or something.”

“Why? I thought you decided to wait for her to call you after giving her your card.”

My eyes narrowed at Gabriel. “I didn’t invite you in here to remind me of my past decisions.”

“Technically, you didn’t invite me.” He snickered. “Sorry. What did she say?”

I sat back in my chair, my eyes finding the ceiling in the hopes that the most recent wallpapering contained some sort of magical ability to solve my problems. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her yet.”

“When did you send them?”

“I ordered them last night to be delivered this morning.” I imagined Willow waking up this morning, seeing the flowers, and being so blown away that she would call me immediately and agree to see me. In the same fantasy, she told me she loved me and wanted me to take her to the nearest hotel. Neither version of Willow had manifested as the afternoon sun started to crawl it’s way back toward the horizon. “Her lack of an answer is probably a no, right?”

Gabriel poked his bottom lip out and to the side. “Probably, bro. I’m sorry.”

I did have Willow’s number. She’d changed it the day she left for California, but Ricky gave me her new one. He made me promise not to pressure Willow into anything, but he also believed we were made for each other. I’d planned not to use it. I already made a pitch to her, twice now, and if she wanted to see me, she knew how to get a hold of me, and where I lived, for that matter. I wasn’t so weak-minded that I would allow someone to continue rejecting me. The ball was in her court.