Captivated

Damien

* * *

I’m climbing the fucking walls here. It’s Sunday night, and I haven’t heard or seen her since she left here on Friday. I knew there was a possibility that I wouldn’t, but I had no idea how that shit would make me feel.

I paced my place back and forth until I was tired of the sight of the park outside. Nothing held my interest for more than a few seconds, and if this fuck Dray says one more thing to me, I’m gonna end his ass. “You want me to go get her? It would be a quick in and out.”

He was serious too. He wanted me to authorize a grab in broad daylight in the middle of fucking New York City. If he weren’t as good at what he does as he is, I’d have buried his ass somewhere already.

It’s only here in the privacy of my home that he shows his true colors when we’re out and about he plays the buffoon very well, but there’s a reason for that; the fucking FEDs won’t stay out my ass. Ever since gramps stepped down and passed the baton to me, all eyes have been looking my way.

Trying to take the business legit was harder this way, but it’s something I’d promised to do ever since I was old enough to understand what all the ‘uncles’ and ‘cousins’ that hung around our family mansion was about. Why ma and I, along with my sisters, never went anywhere alone.

The Lazaros had a reputation long before I came into the world, going back to the days when my great-great-grandfather stepped off the boat at Ellis Island more than a hundred years ago. I’m the first one to want to change shit up, something that did not sit well with everyone.

But as the only son of the daughter my gramps favored, he’d passed the reins to me amid objections that I’d stomped the fuck out as soon as my ass landed in that seat at the head of the table. Pops could care less; he’d never been part of the business, which when I think about it is strange as fuck since he’s the only one.

But because gramps had a soft spot for his only kid, he’d allowed her to marry the boy she chose, a kid from a family of lawyers of all things. I’m still celebrating Xmas and Hanukah because of her shit.

On one side I have gramps, who ran half of the New York underground that stretched all the way into Jersey and Philly, and on the other, I have bubbie, who came from a family of merchants who’d made sure their offspring got the best education this country had to offer. In other words, half my family was either lawyers, doctors, or businessmen, and the other half was straight up thugs.

My great uncles, gramps’ brothers, and their sons thought the business should’ve been split between me, and them, but gramps had other ideas. That’s where Dray the fuck came in. He’s the asshole gramps stuck on my ass three years ago when he passed the business over to me.

I didn’t need a shadow and told the old man as much, but when he said it was either I keep the fuck or walk away, I had no choice. I give him shit, but he knows his shit. Funny thing is, he’s more like my dad’s side of the family if you know what I mean—Ex Mossad with a mean streak a mile wide.

His over-educated ass isn’t only here as muscle either, though most people don’t know that. But he’s playing an essential part in helping me bring the almost billion-dollar franchise into the light. When people say crime don’t pay, I wonder what the fuck crime they’re talking about. Ours paid like a motherfucker.

But now it wasn’t the business that had me worried, though I’d stayed up many a night with that shit. We were almost in the clear there. No, it’s this little slip of a girl no taller than my damn shoulder who’s tying me up in knots.

“We can’t risk it; maybe another drive-by?” He looked at me skeptically. We’d been by that house about four times already in the last two days, and it looked like nobody lived in that bitch. Not even lights were on, not that we could see from the front, and I’m tempted to go ring the bell and be done with this shit.

I’m holding out because of her fear, but on the other hand, that’s the shit that makes me want to go after her. Just what the hell is she so afraid of that she won’t even call me from inside? I know that fuck her sister’s married to is a spawn from hell, but what about the sister? Wouldn’t she protect her baby sister from that monster?