Joey wasted no time in using his Made Man status to whip up a wave of destruction that washed from L.A. to the East Coast, drowning those in its path as it went.
The protection of the Romanos was a gift from the heavens. Not only did it give him a free hand in L.A., as Bone and his crew ran the day to day operations of distributing the X as it came in from Israel, but he had the Piazza soldiers under his command, and was getting a good slice of income from their gambling, girls, and protection scores.
Cleveland was no longer an issue, there was nothing or no one there with the cajones to face up to him, and those that raised their head above the parapet to spit any venom in his direction were removed from the field with extreme prejudice. It felt good to flex his muscles in his new appropriated clothes of underworld respectability.
His father—recovered from the shooting, but now effectively retired—handed over the day-to-day running of the Diamanti family to Frankie Shots, and he was neutered effectively now that Joey was effectively a Romano.
Joey didn’t speak to his father, but he no longer felt the need to check with him when he wanted to see or talk to his mother.
Life was good.
Even if Enrico was still a problem, it was one that Joey could deal with when he needed to. The look of jealousy had damped down in his eyes a little, and when he wasn’t out of town, he spent all the time he could with Joey. Sitting patiently while Joey conducted business or making himself available for Joey’s dick and whatever he wanted to do with it, whenever he wanted to do it.
The only fly in the ointment was Te Amo. Joey was convinced now that she’d known about the hit the whole time. Known when it was coming and that it wouldn’t have resulted in any injuries to her or Joey.
The meeting at the funeral had obviously been a set up, and so had the meeting with her mother on the yacht. The Queen of Cocaine had kept her nose out of Joey’s business on the West Coast, but perhaps her markets in Miami needed to expand, and what better way to keep a constant flow of information from Joey’s activities, than by putting Te Amo into his operation, and have her Blood affiliates do all the legwork?
But Joey couldn’t work out why the hit had been set up in the first place. For a lot of the time he considered it had been done by his father, but the revelation that it had been Frankie Shots working on the orders of the Gambino family had come as unwelcome news. But then again, Sal had been his savior. Joey was untouchable now. There could be no further attempted hits on him while he was a Made Man and the Commission had not given their consent.
But this was all material to be dealt with in the future.
Right now, he was in New York, and it amused him to no end to know that he was about to make an offer Joe Pro could not refuse.
The old gangster, his face a mixture of worry and contempt, sat with his hands on the table. Behind him were two of Cleveland’s finest, now in Joey’s pocket. Giacomo The Snake Sentelli and his cousin Nunzio Basico. Both slightly older than Joey, and who saw where their bread might be buttered in the future. Snake and Zio stood with their palms crossed in front of their suits, heads slightly bowed like Pall Bearers. Joe Pro couldn’t have missed the symbolism, especially as they’d brought him to the back room of Joey’s club on the Lower East Side, screwed into a coffin that had been slid onto the back of a hearse.
“You cocksucker, Joey.”
“It has been known.”
“May you burn in eternity,” Joe Pro said in Sicilian.
“I hope you enjoyed your ride in the coffin. Gives you something to look forward to in your later years.”
“You’re not going to kill me, you crazy little faggot.”
“That is true.”
“Then what’s all this for, you dumb fuck? I don’t care if you’re under the protection of the Romanos, I certainly don’t care you’re a Diamanti. You have no family because you’re a piece of shit, Joey. No one wants you. You’re just being used.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe I want to get what I want. I don’t care, old man. Like you, there is no need for me to care at all. Because one day, you’ll be dead. And me? Because I have been charged by the Commission to tell you some facts of life.”
The color drained from Joe Pro’s face, and his eyes glittered, not with tears but with the dampness of anger and fear.
“What the fuck…”
Joey launched himself to his feet and slapped the old man across the chops.
“Don’t speak until you’re spoken to!” he screamed, spittle bursting from his mouth and spraying over the old man’s cheek as it turned.
“I’ve killed men for much less,” Joe Pro hissed, wiping the back of his hand across his face.
“Just be grateful I’m not killing you.”
Joe Pro took a couple of breaths. His hands came back to the table, and he was calm again. Joey was impressed, but he wasn’t going to show it.
“That’s better. I want to keep this civil if I can.”
“So. What’s the deal?”
“It’s not a deal. It’s an instruction.”
“Go on.”
“Congratulations on your retirement. I’m sorry we don’t have a clock for you.”
“Retirement?”
“Yes. Go to Florida. Go to Vegas. Go to Timbuktu for all I care, but your time in New York is done.”
“On whose authority?”
Joey raised his hand again. Joe Pro didn’t flinch.
“Okay okay, it’s on your authority. I assume the Commission has nodded this through?”
Joey sat back down. “Of course. You’re old, Joe. You’re old guard. Things are changing.”
“And you’re changing them.”
“In part, but the millennium is coming, technology is advancing. This thing we do needs men of vision, men not afraid to embrace new alliances, get involved with new product, find new ways to diversify.”
“When did you get your MBA?”
Joey smiled. “I just graduated.”
Joey reached down under the table, pulled up an attaché case, placed it flat on the table and sprung the locks. It was full of one hundred dollar bills.
“One million…”
“Jeez that’s small change. You know how much I’m worth? I don’t even know how much I’m worth.”
“This morning we took inventory of your account codes, keys to your safes, and the portfolio of legit businesses in your personal collection. I know exactly how much you’re worth, Joe Pro, and right now it’s one million dollars.”
Joe’s eyes were wide and filled to the brim with the hottest anger.
“There will be one of these, every six months wherever you decide to settle…away from New York.”
“People aren’t fired from the Mafia.”
“And you’re not being fired. Look at it as a chance to spend more time with your money.”
“My sons?”
“They have a simple choice: continue running their end of the family, for me and Sal, or they can be retired too. But I hear the benefits aren’t as…beneficial. Your final act here in New York will be to tell them of your decision to retire, and that they are to answer to me, until further notice.”
“I would rather die.”
“And that’s why we’re keeping you alive.”
Sal sucked on a cigar as thick as a baby’s thigh, and he sniggered smoke out of his nose. “You took him there in a fucking coffin?”
Joey nodded, his own cigar smoldering between his teeth, “There were flowers too. You sent a wreath. It was very sweet of you.”
Sal’s mouth exploded a gale of laughter. “I like your style, boy.”
“I’m style and substance.”
“Ain’t that the truth?”
Joey took the cigar from his mouth and considered the end like it was a dick he’d just taken from between his lips. Hungry for the taste and the pleasure.
Sal’s eyes crumpled a little. However much the boy was bringing in the cash, he was still not utterly comfortable with Joey’s overt expression of his sexuality. Sal was old school, and when Joey made these kinds of gestures, he felt uncomfortable. For a man like Sal, feeling uncomfortable was not a situation he was used to. Joey could see the effect his mouth and cigar were having on the older man.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
“So,” Sal coughed, laying down his cigar and getting up from the desk. He went to the window, peering through the blinds over the white expanse of Central Park, frozen in its blanket of fresh snow. “What’s next, Joey? You’re not the kind of man to rest on his laurels. I know you’ve got ideas. Let’s hear them.”
Joey loved the feeling of being drawn further into the Romano circle. Being a Made Man was one thing, but now Sal was looking to him for ideas. It put him into a fine position from which to expand, not only the ambitions of the Romanos but also to advance his own.
“Florida.”
Sal turned from the window with a raised eyebrow. “The Trafficantes have Tampa sewn up tighter than a spinster’s snatch Joey, and there’s balance we don’t wanna…”
“Not Tampa, Sal. Miami.”
Sal’s eyes screwed up like they were caught in a wave of smoke, even though his own cigar was still back on the desk. Joey could see the calculations going on behind Sal’s craggy face. Miami was not an area the New York Families had traditionally seen as a place for expansion of business. The Cubans, the Colombians, and the rest of the Hispanic diaspora ran through the city like threads of shit woven into a golden carpet. The X operation Joey had run with Enrico through the Miami airport had been strictly limited, and in the great scheme of things—although profitable in its own way—small potatoes.
To beef up their presence in Miami would not cause ripples, it would generate tsunamis.
Sal raised his hands. “Joey, no. It’s not that I don’t think you could; it’s whether we should. You want to start a war? We got things good here in New York and now L.A. The richest time I can remember, and plenty of that is down to you. We don’t need the distraction…”
Joey flicked the end of his cigar with his tongue, and Sal looked ever more uncomfortable…but he wasn’t going to say anything to the boy.
Joey in turn knew that he wouldn’t.
Sal would be happy for Joey to run the operations out West and to contribute to how things were shaping up in New York. In those respects, right now, Joey was irreplaceable. But that might not last forever, so Joey knew he had to press his advantages now while he could. “I’m not going to start a war.”
“I don’t see how we could move fully into Miami without starting the mother of all conflicts, Joey. Like I said, you have style boy, but you don’t want to run before you can walk.”
“Sal,” said Joey, standing up. “I was born running.”
Her skin was golden brown, her body firm and pliable. The white bed sheets were dazzling in Joey’s eyes as he pressed down on her shoulder blades and stroked in and out of her warm wetness. The slow rocking of the cabin on the gentle swell of the harbor complimented his rhythm perfectly, making him feel at one with nature in all its glory. He was the swell, he was the shift, and he was the motion.
Her hands reached forward under his weight, grabbing and tugging at the sheets in ecstasy. Joey slid home and held the pressure against her as her body shuddered through the orgasm he’d created. Her head pushed away from the pillow, a throaty purr escaping her lips.
“Joey…I…”
“Shhh,” Joey said raking his nails down her spine, causing her back to arc in an ever tauter curve. “Just enjoy it…”
She rolled her head over and around on her neck, as he pressed in harder. The pressure pulsing warmly across his thighs.
Joey cursed inwardly as he felt the moment slipping away from him with a sudden jolt. That unwelcome feeling when the man isn’t sure if the erection is sustainable, as if his dick could lose interest and be followed in quick succession by the mind.
A tiny flicker of doubt shivered in his head.
But Joey knew how to deal with this.
He took his left hand from her shoulder blade and pushed the palm gently against the back of her skull, pressing her back down onto the pillow. Muffled sounds of pleasure vibrated against his hand; he hadn’t pushed down too viciously, but it had the effect of lifting her desire, and she began grinding her ass back up, rotating her hips.
Joey spat on his fingers and in one practiced movement slid an index finger between his belly and her ass, into the puckered hole above her pussy. She gasped, squirmed a little but accepted the invasion gladly. When Joey shifted, and slid his middle finger in to join the first, there was a small vocalization of surprise, but again she rolled with it. Pushing back, meeting the thrust of his fingers.
When he was in past the second knuckle on both fingers, Joey widened the hole against the resistance of the muscles. Opening her up enough for the next round of their sex.
Joey closed his eyes.
It wasn’t the woman on the bed he conjured up in his mind, her legs working wantonly against the mattress, toes curling. It was Enrico.
The attention in his dick came back on point almost immediately as he thought of his erstwhile lover and friend. Enrico was no longer in Joey’s orbit.
It was Joey who had pushed him away. Enrico had got crazy and moody over Joey fucking Bianca that day three years ago. Joey was on the verge of becoming Made and Enrico was playing spoiled brat and spurned lover.
Joey kept him around for another few months, but even taking that ass against Enrico’s will had lost its allure. Joey didn’t need Enrico bitching and carrying on like a jealous teen. So in the end, after the most insane argument as they always were, Joey had told him to get the fuck away from him. He could still work for the family, but he didn’t want him in the same bed any more.
Joey knew that in the end he would be cutting off his own nose to spite his face, because Enrico—when he wasn’t bitching or whining—was an exceptional lay. But Joey knew he needed to have his focus on consolidating his position. So he had cut Enrico out of his life with extreme prejudice.
He’d not taken any of Enrico’s calls, and he’d worked the X end of the business through other parties, who would give Enrico his orders by proxy.
But there were times, like now, as he pushed his dick into the woman’s tight ass, when flashes of Enrico would be conjured up from his memory to help with sexual focus. Joey admittedly liked women more in the aesthetic sense, and he could happily fuck them with his head in the right place. But this fuck wasn’t pleasure. It was business. It wasn’t about getting his dick sucked, it was about cementing a deal, and for that Joey needed the image of Enrico.
He needed Enrico front and center in his head.
The woman bucked back, hungrily swallowing Joey’s dick to the root. She wanted it hard, and she wanted it fast. In that respect, she was the opposite of Enrico, and so Joey—to replicate what he needed—told her to slow down. “Take it easy baby…I don’t want to finish before I have to…”
She groaned and shivered beneath him, but pleasingly did as she was told. Joey made his back strokes long and smooth, as his thrusts built gently.
In Joey’s head, Enrico was golden against the same white sheets, sweat pooling in the small of his back, his shoulder muscles bunching, his fingers starred and his ankles bending up to press against Joey’s thighs as he always had when they fucked in this way.
Joey could feel the blood rushing hard through his head, his heart was a gunshot, and his loins were full of electricity.
He was nearing the point of no return. On the bed the woman who was Enrico in his head, was orgasming in long, unending shudders of pleasure.
Joey’s dick was a piston, the rush building from his nuts to the shaft. Edging up his dick like sap in the Spring, he was on the borderline of a shattering, Enrico-enhanced orgasm himself. He pushed at Enrico in his head, and the woman’s back rose as she came, first up onto her elbows, and then onto her hands. Her hair brushing Joey’s chest like a summer wind.
“Joey!” the woman screamed.
“Enrico.” Joey hissed through his lips.
“Mother?” said Te Amo from the doorway of the cabin. “Mother? What the fuck are you doing with Joey! Joey Diamonds! Get the fuck away from my mother!”