The Body #1: Santo and Fiorella

Chapter 9 (Santo): An Old Friend

My phone rang as I was finishing a meeting with one of the business managers for our retail chains.

"He has her."

Lucio's voice came through the line, and I knew by his tone, by his words, we were out of time.

"You got her location?" 

Fiorella. My Fiorella. 

I should have killed Dario earlier, but that would have left the La Forte Body open to a war as various claimants to the Head battled it out for supremacy. Lucio was the closest blood relative to Dario and rumored to be his heir, but Dario had never yet named him officially and there were some other, older relatives of Dario's who could make a play for the coveted position. The plan Lucio and I had been painstakingly weaving together would have overthrown Dario and put the new management in place before any of the old regime realized what had happened. Our men would have dealt with anyone loyal to Dario or anyone claiming they should be Head.

Lucio would be Head, and I would be his second-in-command. We'd retire my father, but I didn't expect much push-back from him; he'd often complained when we were far out of reach of anyone that he wanted to be free to do what he wanted.

I could understand that given the regime he'd trained with, grown up under and had lived with in the years since Dario had taken over. The brutality you expected being a part of the Body, but the oppressiveness of the regime was wearing. Worrying about saying the wrong thing, to the wrong person, at the wrong time was draining. Always being on high alert, trained to never give one bit of emotion away, trusting few, always looking over your shoulder aged you quickly.

"I know exactly where he's taking her," Lucio said. "We have the place surrounded and the inside cleared out. I'm ten minutes away and the helicopter is already on the way for you. You should be here before him. He has no idea we know that he's on the move. He thinks he owns the people in your house, and they did exactly as directed and got in touch but didn't try to stop him. They were afraid he'd hurt Fiorella, so they didn't try to stop him from taking her."

Fiorella. I couldn't think about her being alone with Dario, about what might be going on in his limo. Focus on the mission.

I took two of my best marksmen with me in the helicopter and gave orders for the others we had in place to take their positions to remove the Dario loyalists I'd been tasked with taking care of. Lucio, I knew, had his men in place to take care of the other remaining loyalists.

Today had come sooner than expected. I wished we'd had a little more time, but Dario taking my wife had pushed us to the point where we had to act.

We landed, jumped out, and my men ran to the trees for cover. I headed for the house where Dario was soon going to walk in. 

With my wife. My Fiorella. Focus on the mission. Don't think about what could be happening.

Lucio met me and nodded. "Ten minutes, Santo. You good?"

"I'm ready to end this. You?"

"More than ready to burn this fucked up institution to the ground and rebuild it from the ground up."

"Youngest Head ever," I said to him, trying to keep my mind off the minute Dario walked through the door.

With my wife. With Fiorella.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us, Santo. I want things in place and settled enough in a month so I can take a couple of days to retrieve something of mine that got away."

"Ginevra." His wife of five years who'd pulled a runner on their wedding night.

"Yes. With Dario out of the way, it's safe to bring her back."