Dagger in the Sea Read online

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you—”

  His eyes gleamed. The enthusiasm for his plan was still stamped on his face. “What?”

  I’d thought he needed me. I’d thought he’d wanted a relationship with me, with his son. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about me. This was about sticking it to my mother with a sharp blade.

  No enemy should ever go unpunished, he would later tell me after I’d completed my first assassination for him.

  “Look, kid, it had to be done. End of story.”

  “How nice for you, but it’s not the end of the story for me. I lost my job, I betrayed my mother out of some sense of loyalty to a father I don’t even know, out of—fuck knows!”

  “Calm down, dammit. I get it, I do.” He clapped a heavy hand around my bicep.

  “No, no, you don’t.” I pulled myself out of his grip, but he dragged me back in, his face suddenly stern. He was annoyed with me. I was being disobedient, childish.

  That word father had lost its luster for me right then and there. Father had been a cherished desire, now father was shattered into shards of broken glass I’d slid into, scraped and cut myself, made myself bleed.

  And I wasn’t quite sure how to clean up the mess.

  “You think she didn’t use you all these years to show off to me that you’re not like me?” he said on a growl. “That you never would be? Every little academic achievement, every athletic championship. Every educational and professional score.” His voice was laced with the acid of mockery. “Yeah, guess the bitch got that wrong, huh? I hope she’s loving this feeling right now. I got her. I finally got that Irish cunt good.”

  He shoved me back, and I stumbled. My stomach lurched, sour bile shot up my throat. I’d played right into his hands. He’d used me. I’d been duped by him, just like my mother.

  My father had been her shameless dirty adventure on the wild side, and although she’d deeply regretted her stupidity and carelessness, as had her parents, she didn’t get rid of me or give me away for adoption. She stashed me at her parents’ country house in Saugatuck, Michigan with a nanny while she finished college and then sent me to the finest boarding schools out East. Three, actually. I got kicked out of one for my anger issues, and another for instigating a fight which sent a kid to the hospital. Through the years, through my mother’s marriage, I remained, I grew up. I was the reminder of her feverish mistake of stepping out of the family coach and into a dirty puddle on the sidewalk in the big, bad, dark world. And Mauro Guardino knew it and enjoyed taunting her for it.

  “Come on—” Mauro held a hand out to me, and I blinked. “You shouldn’t be working like this. Let me do something for you.” His voice returned to that thick, velvety tone. I took his hand and got up from the floor. “She tossed her own son out to the wolves. Look at you now.” His hands gestured with that flair of Italian despair at my jeans and white shirt, the red waiter’s smock I wore. A wink. Mollification. “You call me tomorrow and come in, and I’ll have something for you. Least I can do.”

  The least. Yeah, the least.

  “I’ll do right by you,” he said.

  I snickered. “Yeah, okay.”

  He slapped a heavy hand around my neck yanking me close to him once more, I flinched. The cigar smoke, the women’s perfume mixed with his too spicy aftershave filled my nostrils. “Tomorrow at noon. You come over, you little shit.”

  “Okay.”

  At twelve noon the next day I went over. What the hell. I was curious. And he owed me. What was he going to offer me? He’d told me he was in construction, real estate, looking into some new business venture online.

  I met him at an Italian deli that had tables and chairs in West Loop. Muscled men hovered, elderly people slunk around him, glancing this way and that.

  “Boss, he’s here,” said a huge, bull-faced goon who showed me to his table and stood behind him.

  I held his gaze, my heart pounding. My father was the fucking boss of the Guardino crime family.

  He’d really lied to me. It had all been a performance to ensnare me, to humiliate my mother. He’d played himself out to be a lowlife thug always behind the eight ball—Cut me a break, son. I wish someone would, I really regret not being able to be there for you when you were growing up, believe me.—when, in fact, since my birth he had risen the ranks to king.

  I had been royally played. Duped. Fucked with.

  “You don’t talk to no one here about us, you got that? They’ll know I hired you myself, so there won’t be any questions asked. But no one can know you’re my kid. No one. You understand? I have a wife, a daughter, a son. They’re my family. Don’t expect no special favors out of me either. I’m giving you an opportunity here, you got that? You got to prove yourself like everybody else. We’ll see how you work out then I’ll give you special assignments.” That wink again. “First, you prove to me you can take it, that you’re a man.”

  Yeah, because, at the end of the day, he wanted to know that my balls were as tough and as big as his. He wanted them to be. I was his son. My balls were as tough and as big as his, and I could prove it. To him, to my mother, to the whole fucking world.

  I’d done everything my mother had asked of me and I’d fit into her world spectacularly. Honor student, championship athlete, well read, articulate, masters degree. I’d pranced on her stage brilliantly and earned the applause and the passport into her business. I’d brought everything she’d cultivated in me into her company and had been an asset for her.

  Then she dumped me.

  I could achieve in Mauro’s world, be his asset. I’d make him respect my balls and regret he’d ever turned his back on me. I’d make my mother shudder and regret that she’d turned her back on me.

  I took the challenge and took his job. He introduced me around using that nickname he called me, ‘Turo.’ With his help, I changed my last name to something Italian so I’d fit in, but there would be no hiding the fact that I was half-Irish.

  No resumes necessary, no interviews to pass. No scrutiny by middle of the road minions. Just me. Me in action.

  On call all hours of the night and day, I collected money on the street, transported packages, picked up packages, delivered all sorts of “messages” on the Boss’s behalf. Got paid sporadically at best, had to pick up the tab countless times for my overseers. Dirty work, crazy, and the craziest part?

  I liked it.

  I could feel the fear in a room when I approached. My temper was now a useful commodity, not a shameful thing to be punished for. The harder I was, the thicker the fear I invoked. That gleam in people’s eyes? Panic. Dread. Respect.

  Three years went by, and then I finally got a regular gig in one of his many businesses. “I guarantee it’s better than waiting on tables.” He winked at me, a lift to his chin that said this conversation was over.

  I had to pick up money. Nothing new there. Seedy, run down large apartment, flowery sweet scent spritzed all over, thick dark curtains on all the windows, votive candles trying hard to lend some sort of atmosphere. Women were seated on a grouping of worn out sofas in various stages of undress, looking bored on the edges and looking like they were capable of blowing my cock to the next galaxy the minute they caught my stare. Disney SexWorld for a horny twenty-something like me.

  “Turo, you gotta wait a bit, all right? Sorry about that. Ms. Morantz ain’t ready yet,” said Eddie, the madame’s bodyguard, at the entrance where I waited.

  “No problem. I’ll go grab some coffee and come back.” I turned to leave, but my eye had snagged on a curvy redhead in the corner.

  Eddie nudged my shoulder. “Go ahead, man. Go for it. It’s on the house. Mr. G said anything you wanted anytime.”

  “Oh yeah? He said that?”

  “Yeah. You like Suzy over there, huh? It’s been a slow morning. Warm her up for her work day. You’d be doing us a favor.” He let out a laugh. “G’ahead. Get to know the product. Hey, Suzy!” Eddie slanted his head in my direction. Suzy uncrossed he
r legs and smiled big as she rose from the sofa, her short purple negligee falling open revealing huge, bare tits and a tiny thong. She prowled toward me, my pulse throbbing louder and louder with every click clack of her very high, very garish heels on the scuffed wood flooring.

  Click clack. Click clack.

  Her dark eyes focused on me like sonic lasers burning into my flesh. “Hey, baby,” her voice soft and inviting.

  Eddie brushed her chin with his fingers. “Be good to Turo. He’s working with us for Mr. G now. We’ll be seeing a lot of him from here on in.”

  “Oh, nice,” Suzy’s voice cooed as she put my hand on her formidable ass, leading me to a tiny bedroom in the back. Something told me this would be very different experience from the college girls and office and bar hook ups of my past. Once in the room, Suzy got on her knees and went down on me. She slid off at the perfect time and we fucked, her coaxing me to go harder, faster, moaning wildly like I was the best she’d ever had.

  Something click-clacked, all right, as I pumped inside her furiously, coming like I’d never come before. This was a game, a game I liked. A game I was always guaranteed to win. A game played by whatever rules I wanted and I didn’t have to convince the girl under me to like it, and I sure as hell didn’t have to pull myself back from being as rough as I wanted. We fucked non-stop until Eddie knocked on the door telling me the money was ready.

  Optimum job satisfaction reached that day. In the weeks and months that followed, I got to know all the girls.

  Mauro Guardino was a very smart man. He kept my dick entertained, kept me hitched to his wagon and his businesses always with the hinted, unspoken promises of more, more, more. And as the years went on I’d taken on more and more to get that more, more, more. Assassinations, clean ups, heists, threats, clever accounting. He appreciated my Ivy League white collar background and used it with certain clients, and I proved my worth over and over again. When the time was right, I told him I wanted to run his whore business.

  He gave it to me to manage.

  I was a success.

  But I hadn’t forgotten my mother. So I devised a stinging, crude plan. I seduced her friends one by one, her close circle of three—one was divorced, the other married, the other newly separated.

  They were flattered by my attention, obviously attracted to me, my manners, my repartee, my sexual suggestiveness. I already knew each one’s interests and did further homework. I planned each one carefully, and one by one down they fell.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The first was a one night stand at her apartment where I’d fucked her against the wall in her foyer the moment she’d led me through her front door. The other gave me head in her chauffeured limo after the ballet. The third dragged it out into a two week sex fest, meeting me at hotel rooms on her lunch breaks. Yes, everyone gave in to their dark little desires eventually. And I was happy to satisfy them.

  I made sure Erin noticed. Once at a gallery opening, another at a ballet premiere, a fundraiser at one of her restaurants. I wanted to provoke her. To show her I was indeed the blight on her great moral compass. I wanted her anger and indignation. I wanted her to be offended and horrified. A duel. But each time Erin Cavanaugh Bradley would ignore her friend, glare at me for one long moment, her cold eyes spearing mine, then look away and glide on. Not quite the explosive response I’d hoped for. Fuck it.

  Mauro was married and had a son and a daughter a few years younger than me. Sometimes, he’d invite me to have a drink at his favorite bar, just the two of us. He would tell me that one day, when his two kids got a little older and settled, he might share with them that I was their brother. “Sure,” I’d say. “Sure. Whatever you think, it’s up to you.” He’d raise his glass at me, his eyes suddenly glassy and wink, saying a soft, “Salut.”

  He appreciated my understanding. I liked that, that was good. I felt liberated from any constraints. I was the master of my own life now.

  Or so I thought.

  2

  Turo

  2003 - present day

  “I need to see you.”

  Simple words. A simple request from a mother to her son. If we were an ordinary mother and son.

  Erin Cavanaugh Bradley and I hadn’t spoken in the ten years since she’d fired me. We’d seen each other around town on occasion, but had only exchanged heavy looks. She remained unapologetic, and I bitter. Yet my pulse had raced the second I heard her clear firm voice on my cell phone. The blare of horns and sirens on Michigan Ave fell away as she invited me to her office.

  Eyes followed me as I moved through my mother’s spectacular new corporate offices in River North, a loft in a converted factory on the Chicago River. I recognized a few faces from when I’d worked at the company years ago. The sleek, minimalistic space was impressive. I’d read the article about her moving the company here in Chicago Magazine, seen the photographs.

  “Hello, Marjorie.”

  Erin’s personal assistant stared at me, eyes wide behind her glasses. She stood, her posture erect, stiff. “Let me take your coat.”

  I handed her my Burberry trench and her thin lips pressed into a barely recognizable smile, like being polite to me was bitter medicine she had to swallow. So loyal.

  Marjorie asked, “Would you like coffee or—”

  “Nothing, thank you.” I smoothed a hand down my suit jacket.

  “She’s waiting for you.” She opened Erin’s office door.

  I strode in, and my mother stood and came around her massive desk. Her eyes—my eyes, we shared the same amber hazel color, she and I—held mine.

  As beautiful and well maintained as ever. Not a lock of that professionally blown out honey golden hair, which fell to her shoulders, was out of place. We both stopped moving and took each other in. To be in her presence again, after having worked side by side, learning from her, making decisions, brainstorming, getting excited, complaining together, arguing, laughing.

  “Turo.”

  She used my nickname. She knew all about me, it seemed. Accepted my new life.

  “Mother.”

  Her chin lifted a degree at the sound of that familiar yet now somewhat foreign word. “Thank you for coming. Please, sit.” She gestured at the sofa beyond her desk in front of the huge swathe of windows revealing a cloudy, rainy Chicago.

  “Would you like coffee or—”

  “No, thank you.” I sat down on the sofa, my fingers smoothing down my trousers along my thigh. “I just came from a breakfast meeting.” A business meeting where my cock ended up being breakfast for two prostitutes. They were my employees after all.

  One well-groomed eyebrow arched ever so slightly as she sat and crossed her slim legs, her posture as straight as a ballerina’s. I pressed my back against the stiff red leather sofa. I couldn’t wait to hear what she needed from me.

  “I’m about to open a new restaurant in a month’s time,” she said. “Everything’s on schedule, except for a few minor things, and one major thing: the liquor license.”

  I suppressed the smirk that began its creep along my lips. Ah, now she needed my help. My under the table magic. I’d been waiting for this moment for years. That one day she’d call on me and be desperate for the help only I could provide in this town.

  “I’ve tried every avenue possible,” she continued. “Everything and everyone I know.”

  “You need me to grease the right wheels for you?”

  “No, this isn’t about that. I’ve been cockblocked.”

  “Cockblocked?” I let out a dry laugh.

  “Yes.” Her gaze leveled with mine. “And it’s not the first time.”

  She crossed her legs in the other direction. Graceful and elegant as all hell even when she was laying down the law, going for the jugular, giving no quarter. I’d seen many a man taken aback by her in this mode, and it had always made me proud. I took in a breath.

  “I need you to get your boss to let it go,” she said.

  My boss. “You think it’s Mauro?”


  “I know it’s him.” She never said his name. She detested him that much.

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me so himself.”

  My pulse twanged. “You spoke with him?”

  “He misses no opportunity to speak with me. We’ve been playing a chess game for years. His pocketed politicians and city planners against my political friends and city planners.”

  I shifted on the sofa, leaning forward, my jaw set. I had no idea.

  Her lips pursed, her face remaining cool. “You didn’t know?”

  “No. I’ve never been party to any discussion about your business.”

  “Well, he spends a great deal of time and energy on my business. The Cuban restaurant we opened last year?”

  “Aja de Bolero?”

  “Yes.” Her brow furrowed and relaxed. Was she surprised I knew? I kept track. I went to all her restaurants.

  She cleared her throat. “He held up construction for months. The renovation on The Chophouse the year before? One inspector after the other had issues. I could go on.”

  My back went rigid. “I had no idea.”

  “This opening is very important to me, Turo.”

  “Every opening is important to you, Mother.”

  “Yes, it is,” her voice dipped. “It takes an extraordinary amount of time and energy and focus for me to deal with these issues. With him. This time, I’m asking you for your assistance.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Her eyes narrowed at me.

  “Why this time?”

  She took in a deep breath. “This time he threatened me.”

  A chill razored up my spine. “What do you mean he threatened you?”

  “He said he’d stop me. He’s annoyed that I’m a member of the Mayor’s task force on cleaning up West Loop. I suppose it’s one of his…commercial centers? His territory?” Her eyebrows peaked.

  I gave her my best blank face chiseled in titanium. The one I’d learned from her. She lobbed hers back at me.

  “That’s where this restaurant is located,” she continued. “A lot of arrests have been made lately, buildings condemned. He called me and let me know that I’d better stop, pull out, or else he was going to show me how unhappy he was with me. He’s never spoken to me like that before. Not in those terms at least. The point is, I’m truly concerned. His past actions were him pissing on fire hydrants, making messes I had to clean up, him needing to have the last word. As always. But this is different. I know it is.”