Slowburn

Chapter 26 (Renzo's POV)

        I was smoking a cigarette outside of the warehouse while I watched my guys back the truck into the port so they could unload the shipment we just received from Belfast.

The New York Italians do wanna buy the new crazy guns from us, which means they hadda outbid Chicago, which they did. Crazy Jimmy Colombo and all his guys were even paying us to drive them up there instead of sending a truck themselves. They said they're rivals could potentially follow them and try to rob and destroy the shipment.

With us coming they wouldn't expect it and everybody gets what they want. For me that will be a shit load of money. Yeah, the Chicago guys are pissed off, but I told them they'll receive their normally scheduled shipment. They just weren't getting the newer guns. They could have paid for them. They didn't. That's their problem.

        I was sucking down that cigarette because I was pissed off and stressed out. My brother noticed but for now he didn't ask questions. That's smart because I'm not opposed to whacking him should I need to.

He's two years older than me, but I have always been more in charge then he is. He's the good time guy anyways. He doesn't seem to care. I've been the moody brother my entire life. On the playground as kids everybody knew not to fuck with Renzo Revello unless they wanted a kick in the ass and their face in the sand.

        In high school I was always thrown out for fighting, but Dad paid money to the school to fix the gym and fields outside where we played sports sometimes, and so the school magically took me back in every time.

Maybe in the playground I was rough, but not dangerous, and maybe in high school I was untouchable but only slightly dangerous. Now all I am is dangerous and everyone knows it.

        I guess I got my reputation from the wedding incident that occured when I was 19 or 20 years old. Everybody got drunk, and the bride and groom's families were both Italian, but from different crime families that had a little bit of old beef still lingering in the air. One drunk asshole hit another and next thing we knew a whole bloody brawl started right in the middle of the beautiful reception room.

Everybody was using fists and maybe a chair or two, but Dante pulled a knife on a guy because he's a crazy bastard, and the guy reacted and pulled a gun on him.

I saw him draw his weapon and I pulled mine faster than a wild west movie and shot him straight through the ears. In through one side and out the other. The guy dropped harder than a sack of potatoes and people screamed, but I jumped on the table with my weapon drawn and told them their cousin, uncle, brother whoever the fuck he was, had pulled the gun on my cousin first.

        I never mentioned the knife and Dante had sense enough to put it away before anyone noticed. They couldn't say shit because everyone knows you don't draw a weapon in a room with armored crime families unless you are declaring war, and so I had the right to shoot him first.

Some mothers wept but the men mostly grumbled and cursed. They know the rules. I warned the father of the bride that if they tried to retaliate we'd pull their connection to the hispanics and crumble his line of drugs he was smuggling up to Canada. I told him how disrespected we felt because of that man who dared pull a weapon on a high ranking member of our organization, and by the end of the conversation the fuckers were apologizing to me while I still had splatters of blood on my shoes from their own family member. 

I kind of built up a reputation after that. Respect me or die.

        When I flicked my cigarette out I went inside the warehouse to count the crates as they came out to be inspected. One of the guys dropped his end of the crate and the sound just set me off for whatever reason. I grabbed the guy by the back of his sweaty wife beater and bashed his head into the side of the truck. He was still on the ground rubbing his head as he told me, "Sorry boss."