“I had always hoped you’d enter the priesthood. It was a stupid hope, I suppose, but considering the family... Well, you’ve always been a good boy.”
“Thanks, Ma,” he got out around a mouthful of sweetened ricotta cheese.
“But now you’re hanging out with people who aren’t worthy of you, Anthony. And if... well, if you aren’t a priest you might as well work more with the family.”
“Gee, Mom, way to dance around our family’s criminal involvement. Priest or life of crime. No in between, eh?”
“We have legitimate businesses, too. Uncle Vits thought you might work in one of those.”
“I have a job, Ma.”
“With the nephew of a Mexican drug lord.”
“Luke isn’t like that, Ma. He wants nothing to do with his uncle.”
“Yet Icherra showed up here, causing trouble.”
“And what do you know, Ma? You always told me that dad doesn’t talk to you about business.”
“He tells me what I need to know. And I don’t like one bit that Icherra’s associates kidnapped you.”
“Now, Ma, that’s not true at all.”
“Oh, so you weren’t kidnapped?”
“I was...” Saks admitted. “But Luke got me out.”
“That’s the least he could do.”
“The Rojos aren’t involved with Icherra.”
“Wake up, Anthony! Dogs always sniff around money.”
“Ma, I love you, but both you and Dad are out of line. I’m not marrying a Serafina woman to smooth over whatever troubles Uncle Vits stirred up with them. And I want nothing to do with any of the family’s businesses, legit or not.” He stood and put on his leather jacket. When he turned back, his mother had a wooden spoon in her hand and shook it at Saks.
“You’ll at least meet with the Serafina girl. Uncle Vits went to a lot of trouble to set this up, and you will satisfy the family honor.” His mother, at least a head shorter than him, looked at him with such fierceness he shuddered. Even his father didn’t elicit the fear that Marie Parks did when she angry.
He dropped his head and relented because he couldn’t fight his mother. “Okay, Ma. One date. But that’s it.”
She lowered the spoon, though the fierce look only relaxed. “If you wear that nasty jacket, she’ll drop you on the spot and you won’t have to worry about marrying her.”
“Good plan, Ma.” He kissed her cheek as she rolled her eyes. “Dinner was great. I’ll see you later.” He headed for the door but didn’t get far before she hurled her last words.
“Call your mother sometime.
Family. You can’t live with them, and you can’t murder them without getting at least twenty years. He grinned as he turned the key to his bike, igniting the engine. As it roared to warm up, Saks wondered how to get out of this mess. It was clear through his mother that not only she, but his father and Uncle Vits also considered the Spawn a corrupting influence in his life. Nothing was further from the truth. Though the club had its troubles, it was one place he could be himself.
Perhaps that was the corrupting influence. His mother called him a good boy, but the truth was he saw a life dodging the law a low percentage shot. Law enforcement had too many surveillance tools and was too good at infiltrating crime family ranks to make it a winning lifestyle choice. The FBI had decimated the ranks of many families such as his, sending whoever survived into the shadows, hiding within their legitimate businesses. With that and the rise of the Hispanic gangs in Connecticut, it was difficult to move with the flexibility and profitability they once had.
Saks didn’t have the sadism needed to crack knuckles or knees for a numbers racket. Nor did he relish the prospect of pimping girls into prostitution or have the desire to sell drugs. Each of those things had a human cost even if, as his uncle said, people did those things to themselves. He didn’t have to aid and abet other people’s self-destruction. The money made in such enterprises was akin to crack. Gained by guile instead of hard work and sweat, that cash often found its way to girls, gambling, or booze.
His father had a penchant for girls, of which he was sure his mother knew, but pointedly ignored. When Saks found out his father cheated on his mother, he lost respect for him. He could barely stand it when his father acted the proud patriarch at family functions. Other times he wondered if he had any other siblings out there, unacknowledged and ignored. Perhaps that was the biggest legacy his family passed on, an uncertainty of what consequences they’d suffer from a family member’s past actions.
The Rojos kidnapped and beat him. The ostensible reason was his connection to Luke, but he didn’t forget the insults that Hispanics hurled at him while they beat him. Those insults had nothing to do with Luke, and everything to do with his connection to the Rocco crime family.
And now his uncle wanted him to marry into the Serafina family? He was fucking nuts. Being connected to one crime family was awful enough. He didn’t need ties to another one.
The road slid under him as he drove in the gathering gloom of dusk. What was he going to do now? Go home? No. What waited for him there was another stunning evening with Netflix and a six-pack. Luke kept the Hades’ Spawn clubhouse closed on Sundays to give him, Emily, and Robbie family time. There was just only one place to go, so he wasn’t alone.