Page 2 of Kidnapped By the Boss
Devrick nodded. “It feels like a trick,” and everyone laughed.
The two of them had opted for a secret elopement not long after shit hit the fan with Maksim and the police department. Seeing the way that all shook out scared them enough to want to not waste another second pretending they hadn’t fallen head over heels for one another. I always expected Mario would throw himself a disgustingly huge wedding if he ever got married, because helovedbeing the center of attention, but Devrick wasn’t that kind of man, and I found that Mario pretty much did whatever he wanted. According to them both, they were happy to have skipped the massive nuptials, and they appeared to be plenty over-the-moon with the reserved city hall ceremony they opted for, so I was happy for them.
Mario looked up at Katya and grinned, “And you tricked that one… Although I think she may have tricked you too, so I suppose you deserve each other.” There were more muted laughs. “Still, it’s been an absolute pleasure getting to watch you two grow as partners, lovers, and as parents. I don’t consider either of you friends, I consider you family, and I wish you a lifetime of happiness together.” Katya and I exchanged a look and it was clear we were both pleasantly surprised by Mario’s speech, then we each smiled at him and joined in the applause as people clapped. To end the toast, Mario held up his glass and exclaimed, “To the Costellos!”
Everyone in the tent held their glasses up as well and toasted to us, then Katya and I kissed under another rain of silverware against the crystal.
Dinner was served not long after Mario’s toast—a traditional Russian feast with Italian flair to honor both of our heritages—and then the DJ got the music going and people began to dance. Neither Katya nor I were big dancers, so we skipped a traditional first dance and just enjoyed hitting the dance floor with our guests and seeing people having fun.
Though we had a designated table, we spent very little time there. Katya was committed to mingling, and her mom was shadowing her, enjoying the sight of her daughter in her stunning wedding attire, so I ended up retiring to the table with our wedding party to give her the space to do her thing.
“Congrats, Vince,” Devrick said as I sat. “I echo Mario’s sentiment that I never saw you getting married, but I gotta admit, you two are pretty perfect.”
I’d already lost my suit coat, but I loosened my navy tie and let it hang a little looser around my blush vest. “Thanks. I still can’t really believe it myself, but I just keep looking at her and thinking… ‘This is my wife. Katya is my wife now,’” I said. “It’s an amazing feeling.”
“Considering how you started, this is a pretty good ending,” Taylor quipped. He had been serving under Devrick when my old man was still around, but took on a more important role in his ranks when my dad died and I became the boss. I made Devrick my consigliere and he relied on Taylor for assistance. After realizing the kid was solid, I ended up making him one of my caporegimes. “I don’t think I ever would have anticipated that between her father blowing up your estate and nearly killing you, and then you and Mario running off to Russia and nearly getting killed that you two would be enjoying a beautiful outdoor, summer wedding.”
I snickered. “You would not be the only person surprised about that fact.”
Mario looked around a bit and then leaned towards me and said, “Did Devrick fill you in on what we—” Before he could finish the sentence, Devrick elbowed him in the side. “Ow! What?!”
“Kat wasclearthat she didn’t want work talk on the wedding day,” Devrick said. “I know you didn’t even bother to read the three-page text she sent, but the rest of us did, and I imagine Vince got an even longer one.”
“It wasn’t a text for me, but a forty-five-minute conversation,” I replied. “But what? What’s wrong?” I looked over my shoulder and Katya was clear across the room entertaining some guests with her mom, not even paying me the slightest bit of attention. “Come on. Let’s just take five minutes, otherwise it’s going to bother me for the rest of the night.”
Devrick held up his hands. “You two can go. Leave me out of it. I’m not about to get my head bit off.” Taylor and Annie both raised their glasses to that before tipping them back.
Mario waved his hand, scoffing at his husband and cohorts before sliding backwards from the table. “C’mon Vince. We’ll make it quick so you can get back.”
Throwing one last look in Katya’s direction and making sure she was sufficiently distracted, I led Mario out of the tent, skirting along the side so as to attract as little attention as possible, and took him down the way from our massive yard to the section of smaller buildings that separated the front of my estate from my personal home where only my family and most trusted friends were allowed to be. Amongst these buildings was my fortified office. I used my fingerprint to let Mario and me into the front lobby. Of course the receptionist was at the wedding, and I subsequently let us into my office.
“Let’s make this quick,” I said, sitting down on one of the couches that sat on either side of the fireplace in my office. “If Katya notices us missing, we’re both dead meat.”
Mario walked over to my liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle of gin and a couple of shot glasses, holding them up slyly. “What’s wrong with a groom and his best man sharing a shot to celebrate his wedding?”
Though I accepted the glass when he handed it to me, I smiled and shook my head. “Whatever. I’m not about to lie to Kat, but you can if you want.”
Popping the bottle open, Mario started to fill both shot glasses as he started to speak. “DevandTaylor gave me some not so good news last night. Three more of our one-stop-shops have been burglarized. Two of our soldiers have been shot, one is dead, and unfortunately, one of the store owners was shot as well.”
My eyes widened. “Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”
Our newest venture, our ‘one-stop-shops’ were a design of Katya’s, where all of the product we slung could be purchased from a single person, usually in a cover store—dry cleaners, liquor store, mechanic’s shop. We had about a dozen places all over the city and were preparing to expand to New Jersey and south to Pennsylvania. It made our soldiers something like traveling merchants, which made it much more difficult to be detected by the police and much more difficult to be contested by any rivals. It was a brilliant move that had already earned us three quarters of a million dollars in the six months since we put it into action, but about a month ago, our stops started getting hit—seemingly random attacks that had just one or two miniscule similarities that made me think they weren’t so random after all.
“You were already in bed, and I knew you needed sleep for today. Don’t worry, I cleaned up. Got rid of the body, covered the soldiers’ medical attention, dealt with all the discretion.” He sat down on the opposite couch with his glass in hand, crossing one leg over the other. “I did all the underboss stuff. You said so yourself, I’m good at my job.”
“You are,” I told him, and it was true. Mario had truly risen to the occasion as underboss. He was already my most trusted ally, but he’d gotten even more reliable, learned more about the business, and had made my life incredibly easy, which as a new family man, was important. “The same problem children?”
Mario nodded. “Yep. The Wreckers. My soldiers clearly described that same big, bulky guy and that slick chick that have been at some of the others.”
“What about the product?” I asked.
“Drained,” Mario said simply. “We’ve got our trackers out now looking for it, but I anticipate it’s going to go up in smoke like the others.”
Of our places that had already been tagged, all of our product had been stolen, and despite the modern and technological devices in place to protect my merchandise, we hadn’t been able to hunt them down, which was odd. Normally, when someone stole from me, which on its own was a rare occurrence, we could find the product before it was resold, or at least track it down once it got in the hands of a buyer, but these were different. It was like these people were hitting my spots, stealing the product, and then dumping it in the Hudson.
Which meant they were tagging my spots for personal reasons, and that made me angrier than if they were just some upstarts looking for a come up.
“Have you started looking into it beyond just trying to track down the stuff?”