Chapter III: Mafia Errands

"What do you mean it's not done?" Arcangelo chuckled darkly as he took a drag from his cigarette. "I was told I could count on your timely delivery. But apparently, that doesn't seem to be that case, now does it?"

He silently listened to the futile attempt at the supplier making an excuse and asking for more time, but he wasn't having any of it.

"I will have someone pick up the delivery in half an hour. I don't care if you have it or not, my men will be there. If the shipment is there, all well and good. But if you are empty-handed, I will have an empty mag at the end of the day."

With that message delivered, he tore the Bluetooth device off his ear before tossing it onto the table beside him.

"You know you should stop threatening them." A voice spoke from behind him as he simply scoffed.

"Don't act like a wife with me, Vincent. You know how this world works."

The man, Vincent, groaned in irritation as he gripped his dirty blonde tresses messing up his neat hairdo.

"Fucking talk to me!" He exclaimed as Arcangelo ignored his outburst settling down behind his desk as the other stalked forward. "Are you still mad about me choking that girl? I couldn't be sure that she wasn't one of them! You know that!"

Rather than a response, the second in command was greeted by the sound of pen on parchment.

"I'm your best friend! Say something!" Vincent bellowed in rage and frustration as he grabbed him by the front of his shirt, wanting to shake him, but instead he froze when he felt the cold gun barrel press against the middle of his forehead.

"You're my sister's husband, the father of my niece, and my second-in-command." He stated calmly as he clicked off the safety. "It's high time you started acting like it."

Hurt flashed in Vincent's apple green eyes as he released his boss, pulling away and standing to attention. With his back straight and shoulders squared, he folded his hands in front of him as he stared with an impassive expression.

"Is there something you need of me, boss?" He asked monotonously as Arcangelo went back to typing on his laptop.

"No," Arcangelo responded in eerie calmness. "We'll leave in 10 minutes."

With a curt nod and a bow of his head, he spun on his heels and stalked out of the office, purposely slamming the door behind him.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Arcangelo curled and unfurled his fingers as he tried to reign in his temper. He needed a cold head to deal with the idiots he was going to meet.

Grabbing the gun from his desk surface, he opened the mag and loaded it before closing it in place. Stuffing the gun into his holster, he stood from his seat and grabbed everything he needed before fitting the Bluetooth device into his ear once again.

"Ricardo." He spoke into the device as his office doors were swung open for him. "Tell me you have something."

"Working on it boss," Ricardo spoke. "We have narrowed the area to a 10-mile radius, now we are trying to pinpoint their location."

"How long will it take?"

"Two hours? Maybe three?"

"Do it quick. It's been three months and I've been itching to kill."

"Yes, boss."

With that said, Arcangelo pressed the button on the device as he made his way to the porch. Putting on his black aviators, he settled into his Porsche before driving off with two Range Rovers following behind him. It took him 10 minutes to arrive at the shipping dock where he could notice men run around frantically.

Parking his car, he took out a cigarette and lit it before blowing out a puff and stepping out.

Behind him were four armed men, all of them standing three steps behind him and allowing him to deal with this himself.

Arcangelo never dealt with shipments himself, because he wasn't meant to be seen or recognized, he was only a rumor. But when mishaps happen again and again, then he has no choice but to intervene, like now.

He always enjoyed acting like one of his subjects and act as if he had sent himself. No one was going to recognize him, so he could be anyone he wanted to be.

He stood before the numerous crates as there were men patrolling the grounds with shotguns. Arcangelo had to hold back a chortle at how out-dated their weaponry was.

Shotguns, really?

He waited silently with his hand in his slack's pocket, leisurely smoking the cigarette, expecting to see the man in charge. And within a few seconds, a man in ripped denim jeans and a black t-shirt under a leather jacket hurried towards him. His brown eyes were wide and dilated, his breathing labored as if though he ran a marathon, sweat beaded his forehead and seemed jittery.

"Good day!" He exclaimed too loudly as Arcangelo stared down at him from behind his opaque glasses. "I'm the man in charge here! And you are?"

"It doesn't matter who I am." He responded professionally, blowing out a puff of smoke. "All that matters is the fact that we are here for the boss's shipment."

"Yes, yes. Cannabis and opium."

Arcangelo raised an eyebrow at him as he took another drag from the cigarette, seeing the man fidget nervously beneath his gaze.

"No. Heroin and cocaine."

"What? Oh! Right! Right!" The man ranted. "I'm sorry there are just so many shipments passing through here that I get the contents mixed up every now and again. The opium is for some hotshot business executive who-"

"-Shut up."

"Of course."

"The shipment?"

"Right this way sir." He led the way through the warehouse, nervously glancing at the four men walking behind Arcangelo. "Are these men really necessary?'

"Are your men necessary?"

"Well...sort of."

"Well, these are. End of story."

"Right, okay." He swallowed thickly as he led the way to the shipment.

They arrived at the opening to the docks where there were four large wooden crates standing in the doorway. Two of them had the name 'Peru' printed on them while the other two had 'Afghanistan', written in black.

"Open them," Arcangelo instructed as the man tensed.

"What?"

"I said open them."

"B-but.."

"Do my men need to do it?"

"N-no." He shook his head as he swallowed thickly. "Bring the crowbar." He said to one of the men standing there.

After a minute the guy returned with two crowbars as one of them opened a box each. Removing the wooden lid they stepped back and gestured to the boxes as Arcangelo stepped forward, looking down at the contents. Seeing both of them holding clear packets containing white powder, heroin, and cocaine written in red.

He was almost satisfied by the right delivery and was just about to order the men to load the crates into the car when he noticed something odd about them. Leaning back, he looked down at the name written as he crouched down, running his hand over the name which felt smooth.

Too smooth for a crate's surface.

Scratching at the edge of the name, he realized it was a page pasted onto the wood. Tearing it off, he saw where the delivery actually came from. The heroin--which was meant to be delivered from Afghanistan--came from Burma, and the cocaine, which was meant to be from Peru, was from Colombia. They came from second-rate places, meaning the drugs were second-rate as well.

There is a reason the people are charged 90 euros per gram, and that's because his drugs are always the first-rate. Never second-rate.

The underworld deals with blood, drugs, and money. All of the superior quality, nothing of inferior origin.

A dark chuckle escaped Arcangelo as he stood up with the pages crumpled in his fist.

"You expected to get away with this, didn't you?" Arcangelo cackled at the man. "Did you really think you could double-cross the most ruthless Mafia household?"

"I-I-I" The man shrieked as he yelled something in a foreign language, his sentries standing with their guns aimed at Arcangelo's men who instantly took aim as well. However, they were outnumbered, 2 to 1.

Another sardonic laugh bubbled through him as he removed his sunglasses, reaching into his jacket's pocket as he retrieved his gun and aimed it at the man before him.

"Tell your men to stand down and they can walk out of here alive."

The man had the audacity to laugh in Arcangelo's face. "How are you going to walk out of here alive? You are the one outnumbered; you are going to di-"

He didn't even get a chance to finish that sentence as the gunshot pierced his skull, the sound reverberating through the warehouse as all the men stared in bewilderment at the suddenness of the shot.

"You talk too much," Arcangelo stated before ducking behind a crate as shots rang off, his men against the men of the corpse. He shot whenever he had a clear aim and within minutes, all the noise quieted down. The only sound that reverberated through the interior was that of the men's hard breathing.

Peeking out from around the corner he saw bodies littering the floor, the stench of blood everywhere as his men stood, either winded or injured, but all four of them alive.

"The coast is clear." One of his men spoke through a pained grunt as he pushed himself up. "No more threat."

Nodding, Arcangelo stood from his cover, dusting off his suit, and putting his gun back into his holster as he saw that everyone was mostly unharmed. A sudden beep in his ear had him acknowledge the Bluetooth in his ear.

"Call back up and have them load up everything and taken away." He instructed as he attended the calls

"Yes, boss." They responded as he made his way towards his car, his two guards following behind him as one of them seemed rather dazed with the other holding his bleeding arm.

"Where?" He spoke into the device and an address was rattled off into his ear.

A smirk made its way across Arcangelo's lips as he settled into his car, driving off with a Range Rover close behind.

***

"On the count of three," Major spoke in a hushed whisper to the men huddled around the door. "One...two...three." And with that he shot the handle as another one kicked open the door, men pooling into the apartment with guns outstretched and spread out.

"Clear." Rung out, one after another, discovering the apartment to be empty.

Ricardo stepped over the threshold, followed by Arcangelo as they looked around at the various pages pasted onto the wall with numerous resources littering the floor and a blueprint placed on the table.

"Your estate?" Ricardo enquired as they both peered at the blueprint with confusion.

"No..." Arcangelo trailed as he pulled it closer to him. "It's...the blueprint of an apartment complex."

"An apartment complex? Why?"

"I have no fucking idea." He murmured quietly as he looked around, looking for any clues posted on the walls.

They were all of various materials. Security systems, timings, and a schedule. There were various names and a multitude of pictures of different people unknown to the Mafia Boss. They all seemed to be in their early to mid-'20s, and the question arose: why are they targeting kids?

"Uh...boss," Major called out from a room. "You might want to look at this."

Turning away, Arcangelo walked into the room seeing Major standing in the center, his gun lowered as his eyes darted around in panic.

"What is it?" He asked as he noted the room to be like the rest of the apartment: devoid of life and full of pictures.

Silently, Major gestured around the room as Arcangelo stepped closer to the wall, realization hitting him as he saw the pictures. Taking a look at all around him, he was greeted by the same face everywhere. The same name repeated over and over again. The pictures of the other people finally coming into context as to who they were.

"Fuck." He hissed through gritted teeth. "No."

Running out of the room, he pushed Ricardo away from the desk where the blueprint lay as he looked at it from a different angle, noticing one square to be encircled.

"Fuck!" Arcangelo bellowed as he threw the contents off the desk. Glaring at all the material on the walls, his head pounding as the pictures and names swam before his eyes. 

"They are going to kill her." He gasped under his breath, everything fitting together.

Instantly he ran out of the apartment and down the stairs, settling into his car as the men called after him, telling him not to go alone. But he didn't care about the dangers because he couldn't risk the chance of being late.

Not again.