For the Empire - Inganno

Chapter 44

JOHN PAUL

I startle awake to the sound of my phone chiming from a text messing coming through on the nightstand. I open the message and see it's from my father, telling me to meet him in his room.

I sigh, rubbing my face; so far, I'm not enjoying all these fucking meetings lately. I get up quietly and get dressed quickly, not wanting to wake up Charmaine, who's still sleeping soundly.

I smile as I look over at her, remembering how unexpectedly confident she was the night before. I pull the cover over her, careful not to wake her, and walk out of her room.

When I reach the bottom floor, Joey walks out of the kitchen with two coffee mugs, and he hands me one as he looks me over.

"Weren't you wearing that yesterday?" He smirks before taking a sip of his coffee.

I avoid his question by asking him another. "Did you shower already?" Noticing his curly hair appears damp.

"I wanted to get in an early workout before meeting with Tony." He shrugs. I look at him, narrowing my eyes at him. He's never been one to wake up early; even if there's business to attend to, he literally waits until the last second to get up.

"Before 7 a.m., why?"

Joey looks up at the ceiling, annoyed. "I don't know, man, I couldn't sleep, alright? My mind is just running non-stop lately." He takes a deeper drink of his coffee. I look at him closely, and I see the light shadows under his eyes.

"Is this about Annalisa?" I ask, genuinely curious.

He stops walking. "What? Why the hell would this be about her?"

Even though he's on edge, I look him directly in the eyes. "Joe, you haven't been the same since that night, on the dinner cruise. I know you said nothing was bothering you that night after we got back to the beach house, but you know you can talk to me, man."

"Are you two about ready?" My father's stern voice has me turning around.

Joey and I both nod and follow him silently. His large room has a corner office where he stands behind the desk pulling out a long tube from under it. The familiar scent of his cologne lingers in the room, as well as the faint smell of cigars.

His desk is bare except for a photo of me as a kid, wearing my old baseball uniform when I played little league. On the other side is a picture of my mom when she was younger, and the cross necklace she used to wear dangles from one of the corners of the frame.

He opens the tube and slides out another roll, and unrolls it, laying it out over the top of the desk. I lean over and look at the blueprint and see it's a layout of the event center where the benefit will be this year.

"This year, the benefit will be held at the Broadway Event Center in Manhattan. It is going to be a masquerade type of an event, which makes things a bit more risky for us, as everyone attending is required to wear a mask."

"We, of course, will be wearing comm pieces so we can communicate with one another, but the masks will be a hindrance in not being able to recognize one another. Each of us has a blueprint of the building; you both need to study the layout and know where each exit is located in each building area if something happens.

With you just arriving yesterday, it doesn't give you much time, but something is better than nothing. We will rotate assigned areas throughout the night to keep everyone's eyes fresh."

I review the blueprint, the layout is basic--not too many intricacies that would pose an issue, and then a thought comes to my mind.

"Why don't we have everyone that is with us wear the same type or style of mask? It would help in being able to recognize who's with us while we are there."