Still, our business is on the shady end. We launder money. We organize online sports betting and gambling. We have escort services that provide services that aren't exactly legal in this state. We have interesting goods come through our warehouses that may or may not be legal.
We run it all through our mattress company. It's the perfect cover. Mattress are big and expensive. The profit margin is huge on a mattress and it allows us to have access to the docks and warehouses. It's the perfect money laundering company. No one asks questions about mattresses.
As far as most people are concerned, we're mattress moguls. As long as you don't look at the books, that's where my family's money comes from. If you look at the books, mattresses don't make much money.
My aunt however is a mobster with morals. We don't deal with drugs. We don't deal in people. No children, no murder for hire, no slavery. My aunt won't work with those that do. She makes sure the escorts are all well taken care of. In her eyes, they are just doing a job and deserve to be paid and treated as such. She makes sure that a portion of our profits are always donated back into the community and to gambling addiction help centers. There are legal companies with less moral standing than my family.
We're not legal, but we're not evil, either.
The Savio family has been in the “mattress” business for generations. It wasn't always mattresses, but always something just a little less than legal with a legal cover. We aren't the biggest or most famous crime family, but we are one of the richest. We were one of the first into online gambling and it has paid off in spades.
My cousin Vinnie is a computer genius. He created one of the best programs for online sports betting as well as online poker games. He did it right as the internet opened up the options. With the mattress stores, we're able to safely launder all of that money.
My uncle and aunt are the head of the Savio family. They adopted me and I'm their only child. I've been trained since I was twelve how to run this business. It's in my blood. It's who I am.
I am a mob princess.
Ethan walks into my aunt's office before I do. I'm glad it's warmer in here. My coat isn't heavy enough for the cold of the day. I can hear my aunt talking on the phone, obviously wooing a customer. I stand outside, waiting and trying to ignore the glances from the people working in the cubicles surrounding her office. It's all part of the business. The cubicles add legitimacy to our finances. They think they're working for a mattress supply chain.
Aunt Sophia finally hangs up the phone when she realizes Ethan is in her office.
“Is she here? Send her in.”
Ethan motions to me and I walk in. Aunt Sophia is fishing through a mess of papers on her desk. She's wearing a tailored dark blue skirt and business jacket. Her dark hair is streaked with silver. She sometimes jokes that it's from having to raise a headstrong girl like me.
“I hear you were at the warehouse.” She frowns and my chest tightens a little bit. I don't know how she already knows I was at the warehouse. Somehow, she still makes me feel like I'm twelve years old and need to prove myself.
“The alarm went off. It's that faulty sensor. I know the warehouse is half empty, but if we're going to have a security system, it should at least work most of the time,” I tell her.
“Your cousin Danny put it in,” she says, sitting down in her office chair. “He's family.”
“Yeah, so he should fix it,” I reply. She gives me a stern look. Aunt Sophia doesn't like being talked back to like this, but she knows I'm right. Still, I'm not to speak ill of family. I soften my tone. “I'll ask him again.”
“He's a little absent minded,” Aunt Sophia agre
es. She waves her hand through the air as if brushing the topic away. “But that's not why I called you here. Have a seat.”
I was hoping that that this meeting was for leftover turkey. Aunt Sophia made really good turkey. Sitting down made my dream of turkey a little less likely.
“Do you love your family?” She folds her hands on the top of her desk.
“Of course I do, Aunt Sophia,” I quickly reply. “You know I do.”
She nods. “Then I'm going to ask you to prove it. You have the option to say no. You always have the option to say no, you know that.”
Butterflies flutter in my stomach. She's never asked me anything like this before.
“What do you need me to do?” I ask, tugging on the edges of my jacket.
My aunt slides a photo across the desk. The man looking out at me from the picture is handsome. His dark hair hangs loosely over his eyes and he has an almost sarcastic smile on his face. There's a darkness in his eyes that makes me a little nervous. He looks familiar to me.
“That's Dante Russo, heir to the Russo Family.”
I do a double take. The Russo family is an old world mafia family. They have power and influence that my family could only dream of. They are rivals, only in the sense that we work in similar legally gray areas. They are much more in the import/export business than we are. Still, we run into problems with them every once in a while. Our two families aren't really friendly. More like wolves that share a border.
I don't know what I could have to do with him. Especially with her asking me to prove my love to my family.
My family doesn't put out assassination hits. At least, not regularly and never on someone like Dante Russo.