The Thorned Rose

29

I looked outwards at the sea of people, that all contained my loyal men and women, and I coughed, causing the room to fall to silence and all heads to turn to me. It was time to rally the forces.

"You all know Sav, well, she is a part of this family. She is an honorary Russo. My mother, Donna, sees her like one of her own, my brothers and sister see her as a sister and I... I see her as something more. What happens if someone kills a Russo?" I shouted. There were various cries out, like death, torture etc.

"Do you know who ordered her death? DOMENICO, the scumbag Domenico." There was a roar of anger throughout the room, and the slamming of hands on the table.

"If someone kills a Russo, we torture them, we kill them in the most inhumane way there is," I yelled, and cheers erupted around me. "We cannot let Domenico and his men treat us this way, can we?"

"NO," they all yelled.

"We deserve to be on top, not a woman-beating, child-smuggling, innocent-killing beast who kills and hurts for the fun of it, without a real reason why!"

"YEAH," they shouted back to me.

"Tonight, the head of a Bosnian company of assassins (Haris Velic) and all his employees, and the head of the Bosnian mafia (Nasir Velic) and all of his men are arriving. Tomorrow, Aleksander Koltun, head of the Polish mafia is arriving. When they arrive, we will make a plan, and we will take what is rightfully ours!"

"YEAH!"

"And we will find Domenico, and all his men that have done cruel things, and we will kill them. Now, I want you to scour the CCTV footage, follow his car, and find that dickhead. Get a good night's sleep tonight, you will need your energy for this war!"

There were cheers and 'woops' and 'yeahs' and all sorts of 'hoots' and clapping, and everyone was hyped up for the war, which is exaclty how I wanted them to be.

Once they had left and I was back with my capos, we discussed where all these people would stay, and decided on renting out the entirety of one of my hotels, also offering rooms in my house to the likes of Haris, Nasir and Aleksander, and a few others if they wanted. I told the maids to get everything ready, and called up the hotel to prepare for the arrival, and to move everyone currently in the hotel into rooms in my other hotels in Rome, paying only the same price as the original room and having a discount on food and their next booking.

There were still two hours until Haris and Nasir arrived, and my mother saw this gap as an opportunity to drag me into the kitchen and cook lunch with her; I guess she wanted to spend time with me or something. We chatted as we cooked about all sorts, she told me how she had a nice evening last night meeting up with some of her girl-friends, and she told me how she missed me, and she asked after Sav, and I suddenly realised I had asked her to stay with Sav, but she told me Loretta was there still. I was slightly irritated, but I moved on quickly.

After lunch, I decided I would visit the hospital, to see Sav before I had to spend the whole evening being a good host. When I walked into the hospital, I saw Loretta was sitting in the soft-seating area outside the intensive care unit.

"Why aren't you next to her?" I hissed.

She held up her hands in defence. "Someone else came."

"And you let them?!"

"She said they knew eachother, and she wanted time with her, so I left them to it," she replied.

I grunted, but then softened. "Hey, I'm sorry you didn't really have as big of an eighteenth birthday as you hoped for... we will make it up though," I smiled at her and she smiled at me back.