Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

“Look,” Ricky continued. “It’s not like I think anyone in here said anything. Obviously, we didn’t, but if one of us is tapped somehow and we release a story, we can at least identify that it might be one of us being spied on,

that’s it.” He looked at me. “I’m sure you were planning to reimage all the phones and computers, but hold off just a minute. Let’s see if something turns around based on this conversation alone. I’ll let you guys know when we’ll move to step two.”

Ricky was talking like he was one of the boys. He’d only served as our legal aid up to that point, but he probably felt like he had more skin in the game since he was the only one speaking to Marco when he got the card. He still didn’t know his address, but that kind of serendipity was always cause for suspicion.

Gabriel was sitting silently off to the side. He didn’t often speak up during meetings. He knew better. He and Luca were at odds at best, but when tensions were high, Gabriel always got the brunt of Luca’s wrath. Still, as we sat there, his hand shook as he held it in the air. We all stared at him for a minute until Luca got irritated.

“What?” Luca spat.

“Um. I was doing a little bit of research, and I found something,” Gabriel started. He opened his phone, pressed a couple of buttons, and then started talking. “Testing.”

We all jumped as Gabriel’s voice came screaming out of Ricky’s pocket. Ricky stabbed his hand into his pocket, returning with his phone in hand, Gabriel’s voice still grumbling out of it.

“What the hell is going on?’ Luca growled, hearing it echo from Ricky’s phone.

Gabriel pressed a few additional buttons, and then he disconnected it from whatever it was connected to and slid it back into his pocket. “It’s related to the GPS systems we use.” He looked over at me as the resident tech guru of our family. “I discovered it completely by accident. I was trying to figure out how to turn down the volume on the GPS app and realized it has a built-in intercom system that will allow us to communicate with anyone else on the same network.”

My whole body got colder, and my mind went numb. I was responsible for vetting and implementing a GPS system that would allow us to track everyone within the organization with ease. Another thing Luca had inherited from my dad was his paranoia, not that it wasn’t well-placed in this kind of business. Was all of this my fault for overlooking a simple little feature?

“All it would have taken is one accidental button press,” Gabriel said.

“But none of us knew Marco’s address,” Ricky replied.

Gabriel nodded. “None of us do, but Marco does.”

It hit us like a freight train. Marco had a brand new baby, and even though he probably swapped his phone for a new one once he was placed in witness protection, I know the first thing I would have done to feel close to my family is download the app that tracked their movements. He handed the phone to Amanda, she absently pressed some buttons, and boom, his location is transmitted to someone else.

“Fuck!” Luca barked. He looked over at Gabriel. “Good work.”

Gabriel swallowed hard, sitting back in his chair. “Thanks.”

Luca turned to me, and I knew I was about to be torn open. “You had no idea this was a thing?”

“None. If it weren’t for the bleeding danger of it all, I’d actually think that was pretty cool,” I responded. “I don’t so much anymore.”

Luca sighed. “All right. Well, we need to get in touch with him, but we can’t do it on that phone. We all delete that app off of our phones, and Gabe, I need you to make sure the entire organization gets rid of it as well. You watch them delete the app. Alessandro, can you change the password?”

“I’ll deactivate the account right now,” I said. “No one will be able to get back in.”

Luca nodded, and I was kind of surprised he wasn’t angrier at my fuck up. “Ricky?”

“I’ll call him from a burner,” Ricky replied. “I’ll let him know he needs to delete the app immediately.”

“Tell him to change his phone,” I said, “and Kelly’s, too, probably.”

Ricky nodded. “Got it.”

Luca took a deep breath in and then let it out. “This is bad, but we can fix it. We just have to be more careful, okay?”

Ricky, Gabriel, and I were all looking at one another like we were in the twilight zone. In any other situation, I’d expect Luca to be burning with rage and screaming until he was red in the face. His new calm demeanor was shocking, if not a bit frightening.

“You okay?” Ricky asked.

Luca looked at me, his eyes dropping into mine. “Yeah. I just realized recently that it’s hard to be prepared for this stuff.”

Tectonic plates were shifting. It was just a simple conversation, nothing more than a shared moment of absent dreams between brothers, but it had altered a mindset, the exact same way it had with Willow. None of us really wanted to be here, but generations before us had walked us into hell and left us there to figure shit out. Luca did what my dad had never quite figured out how to do; he descended from his heavenly throne and became human like the rest of us.

Go figure.