Owning the Mafia Don

Lucien

He swung the axe up in the air with his powerful arms.

He had discovered where the gun was.

It was kept hidden in the woman’s bed, beside her pillow, and stored under a pile of smelly blankets.

He swung the axe again and brought it down on the logs, splitting them with the force of his powerful blow.

A Nosler M48 TGR 2010A, he reflected absently as he paused to wipe the sweat from his face and arms. As always, he had discarded the jacket, and he was bare-chested as he worked. One of the best hunting rifles, one that he had also examined a long time ago when he had been doing business with a Texan dealer.

It was a large hunting rifle that she kept clean and ready. He had seen it the day she had killed a rabbit with it. An act of mindless cruelty, he thought as he watched the old man pick up the limp body of the dead animal. But he had seen where she kept it and had later asked the old man Gustav about it when the crone had set off on one of her sojourns into the forest.

Gustav had looked about him anxiously, obviously debating whether it was safe for him. But when Lucien casually stretched out his hand, the old man flinched and began to talk. The words tumbled out of his mouth speedily.

*

*

Proserpina

We moved from shop to shop, along the small village square, making inquiries.

Everywhere, we drew a blank. Philippe and Schwartz forced me to sit on a bench in the middle of the square and the young lad hovered there and lingered about close by as two of Toth’s men hovered around me.

Turning my face up to the wintry sun, I sighed.

Lucien, where are you, my love, I whispered.

*

Aiyana

The post office, which also served as a small grocery store at the corner of the street, was half empty when they entered. Aiyana walked up to the old man behind the counter. He looked at her warily, mildly unfriendly.

His glasses were perched on his nose, and the balding head gleamed in the light from the ceiling.

‘Yes?’ he asked, almost disinterestedly.

Toth’s man stepped up. In his guttural growl, he asked if anyone had noticed a wounded man, had they come across a man who had been shot…?

Aiyana rolled her eyes. Somehow, to be discreet, she thought angrily and moved forward.

But the behaviour of the man immediately made her suspicions come alive. Aiyana felt her body tense up.

She had not been an interrogator at the FBI for nothing. The signs were there; he knew.

The man’s eyes flickered, and moved away and immediately, shook his head silently.

The man knew something.

But he shook his head dismissively, muttering something about Americans, and at once, Aiyana moved forward.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

*

Lucien

‘It belonged to the third man. The young man with spectacles, who had lost his way.’

Lucien sat still, his eyes boring holes into Gustav.

‘She offered him water to drink. When the fellow came closer, she sprang and grabbed him. But he struggled and tried to push her off and run away. She knocked his head on the wood.’

He jabbed at the air, pointing at the spot where the wood was kept stacked. A large stump stood there, beside the spot where he used to chop wood every day. Lucien felt a coldness in his spine.

Gustav went on, his voice low.

‘Fellow bled to death. She took his gun.”

Gustav looked down, his eyes filling as he whispered,

‘We dragged him into the forest. Buried him. She made me dig a grave for him, poor chap.’

The old man covered his face for a moment and then wiped at his nose.

Lucien stared.

Ivica was a psychopath.

*

How many unsuspecting hunters had this woman killed?

“And did no one come this way?’ He demanded, gripping Gustav’s hair, what little there was and forcing him to look up. ‘No enquiries? No police?’

Gustav shook his head tiredly.

‘Police, leave us. They feel sorry for her.’ His eyes gleamed with hate. ‘Poor fools. They feel sorry for Ivica.’

He shook his head. Lucien stared at him, brooding.

“Why don’t you tell them?’ he asked though he knew the answer.

‘She chains me up. Says I am a raving madman.’

Again he began to puke and Lucien kicked out in disgust and impotent anger.

So Ivica was viewed as being the crazy but good daughter-in-law, taking care of her demented father-in-law. This was her image in the eyes of the villagers and the local authorities. And meanwhile, anything could happen to the hunters who prowled the area.

So she remained her, a serial killer, hiding in plain sight under the very noses of the village folk who were either too scared or too wary of her to approach her and search the house.

Gustav, who had toppled to the ground, lay crying for a while

When he stood up, he turned to Lucien with a sneer.

‘You think you are a strong man, you can fool her with your body?’

He laughed with an ugly sound.

‘She will kill you too, my friend. She will kill you and bury you in the forests, along with the others.’

His voice was hollow, and a note of fear and defeat coloured his tone as he stood up and walked slowly to the back of the house, where he set about preparing the soup for dinner.

Lucien stared at him, frustrated.

Suddenly, he had a vision of his children, Ria, his favourite, and her twin brother, Piers, Claude, the dark one and the three littlest children his wife had brought into the world so recently, after such a traumatic experience.

And his thoughts moved to his woman, Proserpina.

He gave a wretched sigh. When would he see them again?

And close on the heels of that thought came another.

Would he ever see them again?

*

Aiyana

‘We never said anything about Americans.’ She smiled, her black eyes keen like a hawk as they studied him.

The man’s face blanched.

But just then, the curtains at the back of the shop moved, and a tall man stepped out. He was dressed in the robes of a monk, brown and heavy, with a thick belt slung around his sagging middle.

But it was the eyes that arrested her attention.

Bright blue, set in the long, sallow face.

Aiyana frowned. The face was vaguely familiar.

‘I happened to hear your conversation,’ said the monk gently, and immediately, the little man behind the counter seemed to shrink in size.

As Aiyana and the Toth’s man turned to meet his gaze, the priest moved around the counter, hand outstretched.

‘ I am Brother Pavel.’ he intoned in his deep tones.

‘Who are you looking for?’

Aiyana moved to stand in front of Toth’s man.

‘Thanks, but it was a foolish lead’ she said smoothly, dismissively, and wanted to drag Toth’s man outside. The monk’s eyes narrowed disapprovingly.

But he said nothing as they turned and left the shop. Aiyana had the eerie feeling that his eyes were boring into her back all the way to the centre of the square, where Proserpina sat forlornly.

*

Lucien

Today, the crone had bustled away to town. Before she left, she had sidled up to him.

Fastening the chain securely around his ankle she had murmured, bringing her face close to his,

‘I shall join you in bed soon, Stefan. Only, it is my womanly…’ and she blushed, or at least, he guessed that was what she was trying to do.

He grunted.

He had to get out of there before such a disastrous event took place.

He watched as she hurried away to catch the weekly bus, draped in her customary skirts and thick blouse. An awkward-looking peasant woman, one that people looked at with pity and perhaps revulsion.

But never with suspicion.

*

Aiyana

‘One more store; that one.’ said Aiyana, pointing as she pulled out her phone and checked for connectivity.

Schwartz rose to his feet with Proserpina before him.

Looking at their wan faces, Aiyana debated on whether to warn them of the monk. Something about him did not sit right. Both the name and the face seemed familiar.

Something tugged at her memory , but what?

Scowling, she shoved her phone into her pocket as she registered the fact that connectivity was very poor. She made up her mind to contact Ben Church at night.

Turning, she looked back at the way they had come.

But the little wooden door of the shop was shut.

*

The Monk

The Monk watched them from inside the room. If they had turned to look at his face, they would have seen the look of intense hatred that flashed across his hard features before they were hidden once again beneath the bland expression of concern he wore customarily.

Father Pavel Rudenko was an angry man, furious and itching to kill. He had watched his half-brother being lowered to the ground, and he would not rest till his brother was avenged. He stiffened his shoulders.

He was already training young Dusak to inherit the empire that his half-brother had built, one that he had been managing ever since his younger brother had been killed at the hands of Lucien Delano a few years ago.

Under the guise of a pious priest, he had surreptitiously managed his half-brother’s empire ever since Dmitri Rudenko had returned to the US to hunt down Delano.

His lips tightened grimly. But Dmitri had been killed, his body was mangled beyond recognition when they had retrieved it. And there had been no sign of the man who had taken his life.

*

But the ways of the Lord were mysterious, he thought, fingering his beads.

These fools, led by his stupid wife, would lead him to the man he wanted to kill, Lucien Delano.

Blood demanded blood, he thought, rubbing his large hands together. And he would have blood.

*