Father Roman

Chapter 3

"Feeling any dizzy?" Saint didn't bother masking his worry.

"My god, stop it," Nico had to fight hard not to let his grin show. "You're worse than nonna."

"Don't be an idiot, Niccolo, just show me how bad it is so we can get it over with."

Knowing Saint wouldn't ease up, not until he got his way, Nico lifted his t-shirt with a small sigh, "See. It's just a graze."

Just as Nico had said, the bullet merely grazed him, a little deep but nothing a couple of stitches couldn't solve.

Saint wouldn't admit it out loud, but he was a bit shaken.

Of all the conflicts that he has been involved in, this was his first ever threat directed too close to home. No one dared to cross their family under any normal circumstances. Their reputation preceded them.

He didn't like the implications of people thinking they were now going soft since Ciro was gone.  

A few things had to change.

Fear was the only effective way to keep people in line.

"What the hell happened out there?" Saint frowned, trying to make sense of it.

"I thought you said you handled our FBI problem." It almost sounded accusative.

Saint lifted a brow. "Which I did."

"Well, it didn't look like it." Nico reached for the Krug yet again seeing Saint was taking his sweet time opening the bottle. "It was a blood bath out there, Santino." When the Krug started fizzing, Nico captured the spilling champaign with his mouth. "We were completely obliterated. We lost a lot of our men today."

It wasn't often that Saint was at a loss for words, but as he stared at his brother, his underboss, he couldn't get past the gravity of the situation at hand.

"What are you talking about," Saint ground out, his eyes flashing with anger. "Everything was taken care of. I made sure of it myself."

"I'm telling you now boss, nothing was taken care of." Nico's eyes flicked back to Saint's cold ones. "The feds knew we'd be unloading at the docks today, our time of arrival, our containers, everything. They confiscated all our clean cash."

Saint's frown deepened. "It doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't make sense is the 100kilos of coke that was embedded as part of our shipment," Nico ran a hand through his beach blond curls he'd inherited from his Swiss mother—a glaring reminder that he was a product of Ciro's whoring phase. He took a big swig at the Krug and passed the bottle back to Saint who gladly accepted. "And before you even ask, yes, I got rid of the coke. They won't be able to trace it right back to us."

Saint's eyes narrowed. "Everyone in the famiglia knows we don't mess with drugs, like ever."

The Cosa Nostra was old school like that. Drugs held a much steeper sentence and being convicted with an intent of drug trafficking was an unnecessary risk of tempting family members to rat amongst themselves. There were far much better businesses with way lesser risks compared to drug trafficking. Upscale money laundering being one of them. 

A muscle jumped in Nico's cheek. "Which means someone's messin' with us."

Saint took a deep breath before letting it out loudly. "So who did we lose?"

For a moment, it looked like Nico wouldn't reply, but lastly he said, "Lombardi, Carlo, Gino, the new kid, Chevy, Vinnie, Sammy..."

As the list grew longer, Saint's jaw visibly ticked.

"Salvatore and DeLuca survived but both are in critical condition," Nico informed. "I've the doc working on them as we speak."

Confused and enraged, Saint squeezed the bridge of his nose. The last thing he wanted was a mass funeral for his fallen men soon after his father's death just made news headlines. It didn't look good on them. Even if death was quite inevitable in their line of work, losing people was just draining. It left them in a vulnerable position both emotionally and physically.

"By the way, Gino is the one who saved my life," Nico said stiffly. "He took a bullet that was meant for me—the blood on my shirt was mostly his."

For a moment the cemetery was absolutely silent except for the distinguishable sound of hummingbirds that could be heard from a distance.

"We have a huge problem." Saint finally said and swallowed some of the Krug. It was already halfway gone.

"A lot of jobs have been going terribly wrong lately."

Saint nodded in agreement. "And I doubt if it's a coincidence." 

"I didn't want to think along those lines Saint, but with everything going on," Nico said in a voice so eerily calm. "We have a traitor." 

A beat passed.

In that very moment, Saint's phone blared halting his thoughts. It was Adriano Moretti, the accountant.

"Moretti, talk to me." Saint acknowledged him.

"Boss, the last truck just came in but I wanted to inform you we're fifty million euros short."

"How's that even possible?"

"The driver said the St. Francis vault was blank when he checked in today," continued Moretti. "Told me he assumed there was no transit from the church this morning."

"Meaning we've been robbed." It wasn't a question and Moretti knew better not to interrupt the boss's thinking process.

Rage began to fill Saint's chest.

"Get ahold of the bishop," came a quiet command. "I'd like to have a quick word with him, preferably at the Sandfort Estate." 

Then he hung up.

"Let's go," Saint said and strode toward the cemetery exit without even bothering to check if Nico was following him.