Capo Dei Capi (Secrets of the Famiglia Part 1) novel Chapter 11

His grey-brown eyes frown at me, jaw ticking. Lorenzo is young, with lots of potential, but hot-headed and hot-head people get killed.

I happen to need him alive and well. He is the good son. He is going to be a lawyer. We never have enough of those. Deno has already done 6 months in prison while we found a soldier to take his place and plead guilty. It was a small-time away from home, and he needed it at 21, but still shouldn’t have happened.

Deno walks toward us, and I see the young man has stopped moving altogether, openly watching us. I don't mind as he is the one who offered me this information for protection.

Such protection was costly, especially from a Stone. The Stone family is one of The Elites. A group of powerful families who own their own town and live by their own rules.

They also paid handsomely for artifacts and other stuff we felt needed to stay in safe hands that didn’t sweat when a CIA agent came peeping, or some bad men decided they wanted something to sell.

The Elites belonged to their own, and we kept ties with them open.

But Michael Stone isn’t just a Stone, he is a genius technologist with a liking for valuable pieces and Luke Lore is very valuable, much more than any penny or pound. Which is the reason I allowed Luke to wear out my fucking carpet while I savored a few glasses of brandy enjoying his show.

Deno holds Lorenzo's t-shirt covered shoulder, his ring sticking out.

“Oh, brother, how do I explain it to you? These men are like mice who just made it past the door, if we strike now, they’ll scurry away and hide. Mice are hard to catch when their guards are up. So, we leave it alone, make them think we know shit, so they get comfortable while we lay our traps…”