Mia Figlia

Chapter 4 ✔️

PoV Riccardo

Lucius and Romano drove together with me to one of our warehouses located at the port. In contrast to other mafia families our biggest source of income was legal. We did not deal with drugs nor weapons. Sure, we bought armory for ourselves. But we did not trade in weapons. My family owned a few restaurants and clubs, further the biggest casino in town. On top of that, we held a couple of housing corporations, construction companies and, since we lived in the state nicknamed America's Dairyland, we made a huge income with farm machinery.

We did not reside in the city, but in the village Richfield, hence driving to the port took us forty minutes. Lucius finally stopped the SUV in front of the warehouse where we stored construction material. One of my men had discovered, that our supplier was a greedy asshole. Instead of high-quality concrete, the bastard had supplied us with cheap stone meal. Scrap concrete was a danger to the public. Since the concrete was to be used for a primary school, I was accordingly pissed off. My bad mood from earlier had worsened. Luckily for me, my men caught the guy, and he was waiting for me. Not voluntarily of course. I clenched my fists as I entered the warehouse.

"Where is the bastard?" I growled at one of my men.

"Please follow me, il mio padrinho." We walked behind him, until we reached a metal door. I entered first. My target sat in the middle of the room onto a plastic chair, his hands tied up behind his back. His slick hair was greasy, and he wore one of his usual cheap suits. A cheap suit for a cheap guy. He hung his head and did not notice me so far. Well, that would change soon enough. I walked up to him and cleared my throat. His head shot up. His lips and chin trembling, his eyes rapidly blinking. This man knew he fucked up massively.

"Well, well. Who do we have here?" My voice sounded foreign to my ears. Icy cold like a winter storm. It was different from when I was in the presence of my daughter. Yet this was the real me, when dealing with scum like him.

He winced, beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. To scare him a little bit more, I walked around him, breathing noisily, before I continued.

"Did you really think you could betray me and get away without repercussions?" I got closer to him, baring my teeth, and making him flinch.

"You thought wrong," I muttered into his ear. Then I took two steps back.

"Lucius, what should we do with this betrayer?"

"According to his crime, he might want to have a chat with the fishes," my loyal employee answered.

"I'll go get the concrete. Of course, not the cheap stone meal shit," Romano added with a smirk.

Our supplier, whose name I did not remember, started to writhe on his chair.

"P-please, don't hurt me. I-I thought you wanted something cheaper, to make a bigger profit." He struggled hard to make his shrill voice sound normal, but in reality, he sounded like a crying puppy.

"Who cares for children anyway?" he added with a nervous laugh. I fought the urge to hit him right into the face. This bastard knew that the concrete was meant for building a school, which made his crime one hundred times worse in my books.

"I know you do not care a fig for children." He now looked me straight into the eyes. "Otherwise, you would be married already."

Figlio di puttana! I took a deep breath. Nobody could know that children were my weakness, hence I played along.

"True, but I do care about my reputation. And a collapsing elementary school I built, would not only crush some children, but also my reputation as reliable businessman. And in my world, my word and my reputation are the most important." I gave him a dismissive glance.