Page 15 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

Chapter Eleven

Renzo Taviani

Present

I arrive at Uncle Pino’s office downtown fifteen minutes early, leaving my brother Gino to get up to whatever the fuck he does during the day. Nothing, I’m guessing.

Ever since we got back to Buffalo, the desire to cut him up and throw him into Old Harbor grows exponentially.

I thought owning a home and running a business together would change our constant need to compete with each other into an opportunity for us to work together, but I’m just dragging Gino around forcing him to give a fuck.

If this meeting with Uncle Pino goes well, maybe I can inspire him to help me out and get on his feet.

Uncle Pino messaged me and not my twin brother, which brings me a sense of pride.

I learned our family traditions in Italy and why they’re so important to maintain as America transforms around us into a vicious hellhole.

Throughout history, Italians have avoided brutal fascism and endless efforts by other peoples to beat us into physical or cultural submission.

Yet, we endure. The Taviani bloodline traces all the way back to the Roman Empire.

Our blood is both ancient and strong. Our blood should be kept pure.

My brother might have manipulated my father’s desire for a grandchild into submission over his deviation from our family values, but I notice the degradation he allows into his life by having a child who doesn’t share our heritage entirely.

Will the twins learn about Italian heritage from their brown-skinned mother? Unlikely.

For a meeting with Uncle Pino, I refuse to look sloppy.

Gino and I differ in how meticulously we look after our appearances.

We always wanted to find ways to differentiate ourselves from each other once we realized we shared a face and unless we both stop working out, we share every part of our physique too.

My body double dresses almost exclusively in extra-large black hoodies and sweatpants with black sneakers, occasionally black sneakers with red stripes.

To meet Uncle Pino, I wear a black tailored suit like the ones Luigi wears. I’m not as tall as my older brother, but at six-foot-three, my twin brother and I command a presence – especially when we enter a room together.

My younger sister Nicoletta works as Uncle Pino’s secretary at the downtown office for a summer internship. Dad refused to have her working for anyone outside of the family and ever since she turned twenty-one, she claims to need more spending money to go out with her friends.

“Meeting with Pino at 5:45 p.m.?” Nicoletta asks without looking up.

“Hi, sis.”

“Your cologne is too strong. I could smell you the second you opened the door.”

“Is anyone here yet?”

“Just Peter.”

That’s it? Just me and Peter. Strange.

A panicked thought enters my head. Are they going to kill me?

It’s possible, but it would be especially cruel to use my younger sister as an accomplice, or leave her as a witness.

If Uncle Pino were to kill me, he would have to kill her too.

He might go through with it, but that would add unnecessary layers of complexity to the situation. I have to trust this will go well…

If it ever comes my time to have a gun pointed at my head, I’m hoping it won’t be soon. Nicoletta pages me up and I take the elevator to my uncle’s office on the top floor. It’s slightly comforting to see Peter in the hallway sticking a Zyn in his lip when the elevator doors open.

They aren’t scheming about me at least. Peter salutes when he sees me.

“Ciao, Renzo.”

“Ciao.”

Michael and Peter don’t speak Italian and the few words they do speak are completely mangled by American accents. My fluency improved immensely during my years in Italy, but I wince privately, still more concerned with what awaits behind those doors.

“I didn’t know dad called you here,” Peter says, eyeing me suspiciously as I lean against the wall next to him quietly. Peter, like most other people, gets uncomfortable with how little I feel the need to talk.

Endless talking never achieved anything worth the trouble.

“He must want something.”

“Yeah. But why you and not Michael?”

I shrug. It’s not my turn or my time to ask questions.

In the future, when my brother takes on his expected role as the leader of the Taviani family, if I earn the right to play the role of underboss, maybe then I can ask questions.

Realistically, the job will go to Michael, although if his father won’t ask him a personal favor, maybe I stand a chance.

Unlike my brothers and cousin, I won’t deny that power appeals to me.

Power allows you to get everything you want in life without hassle and allows you to expand your desires to fill the infinite capacity of the human mind.

I get high off the slightest expressions of power, only gaining modest control over my yearnings as I approach thirty.

Our training in Italy helped.

Uncle Pino doesn’t give us much time at all to consider his reasons for calling us downtown. He opens the door promptly at 5:45 p.m., already reeking of his afternoon lowball glass of whiskey. Pino’s red eyes sit deeply sunken into his face as his wrinkled skin displays colored patches.

It’s harder for my uncle to process his liquor the older he gets. I abstain from drinking to keep my mind clear and to stay free from the debilitating physical effects. My older siblings both drink too much and I don’t believe it’s because they’ve had “tougher lives” the way they say.

“Peter, Renzo. Thanks for coming down here. Join Uncle Pino for a drink…”

Cigar smoke thickens the air in Pino’s office. Peter coughs as he steps into the room and I follow his lead by taking shallow breaths as I trail behind him. He’s older and outranks me, so I follow to show respect. Uncle Pino notices those small details. He’s from that traditional time.

He also comes from a time that doesn’t believe in getting straight to business. We talk about baseball and the weather as we sip from lowball glasses until 6:20 p.m. My glass only has sparkling water in it, so I watch my uncle and Peter loosen up as my mind stays utterly clear.

I sense him drawing closer to the point and I feel my nerves heightening despite my outward efforts to keep cool. Pino Corsini is a tough old dog raised in the old ways and by the old rules. The mood of this meeting could shift in an instant.

“I received pretty disturbing news the other day,” Pino says, sitting at his desk after Peter and I are properly sunk into our chairs on the opposite side of his CEO-seat.

Large (and illegal) ivory elephant tusks adorn the shelf behind him along with memorabilia from my cousin Mikey’s high school and college football career. Peter wasn’t the hometown sports hero his brother was and to this day, he still kisses his father’s ass constantly to make up for it.

“What was it?” Peter asks. “If anyone insulted or offended you, I can handle it.”

See? Kiss ass.

“I gave your brother specific instructions regarding personal liaisons and it has come to my attention that he ignored those instructions.”

Peter and I both nod, but Peter’s body language shifts. I hope I’m not that bad at hiding my true feelings… But I can’t blame him for being nervous. Like I said, the mood with Uncle Pino can shift in an instant.

“What sort of personal liaisons? Mikey hasn’t been doing shit but working out and looking after CC at home.”

Well, he must have done something else, or Uncle Pino wouldn’t have summoned us here. The thought occurs to me that my uncle might not want to kill me, but he might ask me to do something almost as horrific as facing my own mortality. He could ask me to kill his own son.

I wonder if money should have been enough to tempt me down here.

“Your brother has been far busier than that,” Pino says calmly, swirling a sphere of ice around his lowball glass. “I have good information that he slept with one of the blacks we hired a long time ago and he not only did that, but he has her at home with him.”

Again, Peter struggles to hide his true feelings. He might be older than me, but it’s hard not to think about him as an imbecile when he betrays his feelings to Uncle Pino of all people without any effort at all to conceal his hand.

“Mikey wouldn’t do something like that.”

Peter’s answer is completely foolish. Does it sound at all believable that an Italian man wouldn’t fuck whomever he wanted?

Clearly, Michael is guilty. If nothing else, he’s guilty of not being careful enough.

The racial aspect of his break from tradition bothers me, but I don’t personally view the crime worthy of the death penalty.

Uncle Pino might think differently and worse, he outranks me. I accepted this job before knowing what it might entail with absolute trust that Uncle Pino wouldn’t ask me to do something… too difficult.

My uncle notes my silence with a pointed stare before shifting his gaze back to his son, who is far slower to catch on.

“I warned him against breaking his oath of blood purity. It would be one thing if I hadn’t warned him, but to blatantly defy my wishes…” Uncle Pino trails off and shakes his head in disbelief that his eldest son could be the one keeping him in such an unfavorable position.

“You want me to talk to him?” Peter asks.

Again. Foolish.

Would Uncle Pino want to send such a weak message about his bloodline?

“No, Peter,” Uncle Pino says gently. Most likely because of what he’s about to ask.

“I will triple the offer I made to the two of you if you kill Michael and the bitch he knocked up. I want him to watch her die and then I want her left breast cut off and brought to me on ice.”

Peter’s face grows pale. He’s killed before, but he’s never killed a woman.

It’s one of those unspoken rules in our family.

Women might not have much worth, but they have enough that killing one would be at the very least impractical if not defying some silent code of honor regarding our family’s continued bloodlines.

“Dad…”

Pino returns his pleading gaze with cold indifference. “I won’t change my mind, Peter. I want them both dead. ”