One thought kept running through my mind.
I was Nicky D’Angelo, the proverbial tall, dark and handsome Italian man, with a business mind second to none and a cock that would make most men envious and most women salivate. I had a Master’s Degree in Finance from Wharton. I lived in a luxury penthouse downtown and had my own limo and driver. I was the founder and CEO of a successful financial services company that had made me a multimillionaire before I was thirty years old. I was twice voted one of the city’s most eligible bachelors and had dated more beautiful women than I could even remember.
I was young, rich, and had the world by the tail.
So what the fuck was I doing here?
One word: family.
My full name is Nicholas Ramone D’Angelo. I had been called Nicky since the day I was born. In a big Italian family like mine, everybody has a nickname. You only hear your full Christian name when your mother is pissed off and screaming at you.
Tony’s full name was Anthony Luigi D’Angelo; Tony for short. Jimmy Fist’s real name was James Orson White. He wasn’t Italian, but he got a nickname anyway, like naming the family pet. Jimmy was an Irish mick whose father worked for our grandfather as a bodyguard and enforcer. Jimmy grew up with us and Tony gave him the nickname Jimmy Fist because he used his fists more than he used his brain. It fits him still today.
I’m the only son of Ricardo and Marina D’Angelo. Grandson of Luigi D’Angelo, and one of the heirs to the D’Angelo family fortune. The thing is, I don’t want anything to do with the family business or the family fortune. Unlike Tony and the rest of my shithead cousins, I prefer to make my own way in the world, not because I don’t want the money, but because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail.
The D’Angelo family is involved in lots of businesses, some legit, most not. I knew all along growing up what my family did for money and while I didn’t involve myself in any of it, I certainly enjoyed the spoils.
Family money put me through Yale, then through Wharton Business School, where I earned my Master’s in finance and graduated with honors. I started my company, Phoenix Capital, on family money and my first clients were my mother and father, then my uncles, and cousins. I manage their investment portfolios and retirement accounts. I make my money off their money.
I know. I’m a fucking hypocrite, but I keep telling myself that once my company is firmly established with non-family clients, I’ll turn over the management of my family’s money to someone else. Until then, I’ll do the best fucking job for them that I can and pretend that I don’t know where the money comes from. And therein lies the issue because I can’t ignore the fact that much of my family’s wealth has come from the pain and suffering of others.
The D’Angelo fortune was built on drugs, prostitution, loan sharking, gambling, racketeering, money laundering, extortion, and other more violent acts that I try not to think about. Like most criminal empires, it’s one that’s built on a house of cards that could come tumbling down at any time. One good jailhouse snitch or one random conversation picked up on a wiretap could bring the Feds to my grandfather’s door.
I refused to take part in anything criminal. The money I managed for the family was done so legitimately, no money laundering here. I made damn sure every cent was vetted by my in-house counsel before accepting the wire transfer. I felt that I owed the family a debt for getting me here, and nurturing their fortunes, making them grow, was my way of paying them back.
I also told myself that family was the reason that I was sitting in a bar surrounded by drunk, horny men, and naked women at two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Tony was my cousin, my best friend, and I loved him like a brother. He had asked me to come out for brunch and we ended up here, as we did most Sundays. And like most rationalizations I come to about my family, this one was bullshit, too. I enjoyed Tony’s company, but I also enjoyed the attention of the girls, even if I didn’t partake as much as he did.
I’m a red-blooded American male with raging testosterone and a fondness for blondes with big tits and blue eyes; especially if those eyes are looking up at me while she has my cock in her mouth.
I’d had my share of lap dances and I’d even fucked a few of the girls in the backroom, but I always went home alone, unlike Tony, who liked to caravan all the girls back to his place so he could have as many girls at a time as he wanted. And like a good cousin, he always invited me to come along.
We’d done a lot of gangbanging in our younger days. Tony was like a carnival ride in bed. He liked to have a girl riding on his cock, a girl riding on his face, and a girl riding on each hand. I had to admit, it was pretty impressive to watch.
The truth is, playing the field is getting a little old for me. I’d love to meet a nice girl and settle down, but it’s been my experience that women are more interested in what you can do for them than having a serious relationship. I’m surrounded by strippers and hookers and gold diggers who will do whatever I tell them to in the bedroom but expect a gratuity in exchange for spreading their legs to me.
I’d love that ring, Nicky.
Oh, look at that convertible.
Wow, Nicky, wouldn’t I look great in that mink coat?
I’d tried dating models, actresses, socialites and spoiled rich chicks, but they’re even worse because they don’t need your money. They act like you should be honored just to be fucking them. I swear, I fucked this chick you would recognize from TV and she just laid there while I fucked her. It was like shoving my cock into a corpse. It literally gave me the creeps.
I was ready for something different.
I needed a real woman, one with a brain as we
ll as a body.
One with ambitions and passions that rivaled my own.
It wouldn’t hurt for her to have big tits and like it up the ass once in a while.
Like I said, I am a red-blooded American male.
CHAPTER THREE: Katrina
I left my father sitting alone at the table feeling sorry for himself and went downstairs to open the bar for the Sunday night crowd. Maybe I should have gotten up and given him a big hug and told him I loved him. Or reassured him that somehow, some way, we’d figure it out together and it would all be okay because that’s what families did, they put their heads together and came up with a solution when one of them had done something so incredibly stupid that it might get them all killed. Or at the very least I could have told him that I’d miss him when he was gone. Maybe I should have done all that, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. At least not yet. So it was tough luck, pops, but you’re getting what you deserve. Thanks for stealing my savings and ruining my life. You’re just the worst dad ever… you selfish prick.