SWNOVELS Chapter His Pretty Little Burden: Prologue
SITTING IN THE FRONT PEW, under the stained-glass windows crowning the District’s oldest church, alongside the daughters of the man in the polished mahogany casket before me, I feign my attention. My eyes set ahead, but my muscles tighten as vengeance rolls through the room.
It’s not that I do not grieve this man.
I do.
I grieve alongside his family—my family—the council officials, and hundreds of members of the city who saw Jimmy Storm as a kind of philanthropist.
Grieving him was always a certainty.
My jaw clenches in a solemn smile as I feel something is amiss.
I stare respectfully forward while behind me the presence of my father, brothers, and their partners is ripe with sadness, bitterness, and betrayal. Jimmy would be proud he still affects them so.
Despite the fact my brother and I executed him ourselves, it isn’t problematic grieving with his admirers as we shared a kind of affection for this man.
He was a second father to us.
But that is the way it goes.
His time was up the moment he betrayed the Cosa Nostra. Stole one of our own. Lied to another made-man. Spent money he had no right to spend.
Greed and hubris were his biggest sins.
Still, he had loyal followers…
In the adjacent pew, the Family heads from Sicily listen like devout Catholics as the priest recites psalm after psalm, their conscious is as clear as mine, their minds without shame, but surely, they too feel the electrified air. See the side-eye glances.
Usually, I am the most powerful man in the room, but today, I’m matched by many. This is the first and last time this number of Family members will be in Australia.
Caporegimes and Bosses from Sicily and from across the country are spread throughout the room. Between these four walls is the most dangerous place in the world; a gathering like this rarely happens. The last time was probably back in ’57 at the Apalachin meeting, where my American Family was raided and arrested by the feds. It’s bad business bringing everyone to one location, but for Jimmy Storm’s funeral… they came anyway.
We stand to pray.
The fact my six-foot-five frame towers above most is not lost on me as right now a shot to the back of my head would be child’s play. Even so, I stay at my full height. They wouldn’t dare. If someone did, they better aim true because I’ll have him gutted while his heart still beats.
Aurora, Jimmy’s eldest daughter and my wife, stands quietly beside me, her whiskey-coloured eyes misted over but not a tear to be seen—for she is no fool either. She is Cosa Nostra royalty. So, her father’s death came as no surprise to her. I’ve never kept a secret from my wife, and she has never made me regret that stance.
When we sit again, Aurora holds her hands in her lap, and I tear my eyes away from the priest at the altar to watch her worry her wedding band around her long, elegant finger. A piece of jewellery equal parts a platinum shackle and a crown. We do not have a traditional relationship—nor a sexual one—our union is based on business. Being my wife is the last claim she has to this empire now that her father has been overthrown.
Still, she is my partner.
Exhaling hard, I reach for her hand and hold it, stilling her nervous fidgeting.
She squeezes my fingers.
Beside her, her younger sisters share muted sobs while wafting black silk hand fans at their flushed faces. Despite the millions we give this church, air-conditioning doesn’t seem to be a priority in the midst of a scorching Australian summer.
The ceremony runs for hours.
Each time we stand to pray, the back of my neck prickles under the eyes of Jimmy’s beloved citizens. The narcissist in him was very skilled at playing Gandhi, disturbingly so. A skill I have honed as my own, but Jimmy still sails through this procession like a phantom. Even now, the guests that idolised him breathe life back into his corpse.
Jimmy Storm was the heart and teeth of the District, enlightening and adoring his followers while gnashing and shredding those who challenged him.
He and my father built this city from the ashes of poverty. They nourished it. Fed it. They cleaned the streets and secured previously unattainable tenders for employment. They saw our residents hold gold and green in their fists. Jimmy and my father are businessmen, and they sank their claws so far into the heart of the District that if anyone was to rip the Cosa Nostra from it, the entire city would bleed to death.
Alceu and my father deliver speeches and condolences as the heads of the Family in the District.
Solemn nods.
Tight smiles.
Grief thick in the air.
The procession ends. But the eerie current coursing through the very fibres in the air does not dissipate as the bodies filter from the pews. I clasp my hands in my lap, waiting. My father and the four most formidable men in the world also linger to speak with me, alone in this house of God.
Aurora leaves my side, knowing the ritual to be had is not for her to witness. As members of the city leave alongside her, she takes her time to console them in a flawlessly elegant manner. Pride moves through me. She is just like Jimmy.
The church doors echo as they shut. The silence surrounding us is woven with superiority and expectation.
With tension.
I’d know it anywhere.
I sigh roughly, the sound breaking the quiet.
‘Rest in peace, my boy,’ Alceu states, his words projected towards the corpse of the man he raised as his own back in the old country. I stare ahead at the garlands and polished wood of his coffin, my attention not straying from the stage.
‘Now is the time, Clay,’ he says. ‘We are all here to see you take your place.’
The most dangerous man in this room by my measure—my father—waits respectfully quiet behind me. Significance moves through my bones. I’ve been bred for this moment my entire life, and now that it is here, I’m ready.
I dig into my pocket, retrieving the card I have carried with me since I was twenty-one. Spinning it in my hand, I approach the coffin.
The priest hovers nearby.
I still when he moves. Quick. Jerky. Pulling a gun from his robe, he points it between my eyes, his hand shaking violently.
I slide the card between my newly growing smile; my instincts are very rarely wrong. Darting from his line of fire, I draw my Glock before he can take a breath, unlatch the safety, and blow the priest backwards into his pulpit, the gun still braced in his rigid right hand. I don’t look behind me at the four men on the bench.
I approach the priest, my shadow creeping up his trembling form as I tower over him. So, it was you. The man whimpers, hisses, gurgles on blood and saliva; the helpless sounds of a dying man fill this sacred room.
My heart pumps hard. Steady. Strong.
The gaping wound at the priest’s stomach puddles and pools. His hand vibrates around the poorly held gun; the other clumsily holds the hole while viscous fluid, stomach contents, and toxins bubble through split flesh and infect his whole fucking nervous system.
A stomach wound means a slow death. Sepsis first. Then his organs will shut down.
At least he is in His house.
Humidity gathers in the air, causing my skin to mist, for sweat to slide down my forehead. The shift is immediate. Control seeps through me as the threat that hung in the air now dwindles with the man choking on his own fluids. I expected a final present from Jimmy.
The priest was a nice touch.
Dropping to my haunches, I stare indifferently into the wide haunted eyes of God’s representative, wondering how much Jimmy paid for his soul.
‘Please,’ he begs, his voice rattling in his throat. His eyes drop to the gun, as he tries to lift it to his temple. He wants me to show him mercy. Blow his brains out. His crooked fingers twitch around the gun, before finally weakening, dropping the metal piece to the stage.
Reaching for his mouth, I enclose it, silencing the gurgling and sobbing beneath my iron-tight grip. He flails around. My bicep twitches as I hold him still. Hold him until the life leaves his fearful grey eyes. I am merciful.
I wipe the card on his wound, smearing Saint George—my saint—with holy blood spilled—desecrated—at His altar.
Standing, I approach the coffin and casually flick the card on top before slowly making my way down the aisle, the sound of my father and the four Dons from Sicily flanking me as I do.
So, it begins.