The Ré Family had been quiet for days. The employees of Bad Weather had each visited Hernandez and Hall at least once, though Hall's usually forceful character was more subdued after his recent attack. Instead of seeing Hall, Desmond spent most of his hours in Bad Weather, waiting for consequences to catch up to him. At the end of the week, however, Desmond decided that he'd push aside his guilt and finally visit the old man.
The boss was sleeping when Desmond arrived at the hospital, and, in the unguarded state that unconsciousness offered, years beyond Desmond's own were obviously pressed into the wrinkles of Hall's skin and the white of his hair. Desmond stared at the wax statue that was his superior bartender for a minute or two, feeling like he had to pay respect somehow. His first kills were criminals — Desmond didn't want the next life he'd take to be an old, widowed man.
Desmond touched the back of his own neck delicately. It was the reason that Bad Weather was in trouble with the strongest Family of the American Mafia. Now Desmond felt the responsibility for nineteen jobless people, one old man, and a bar because of it. His ears picked up the faint footsteps of Hall's nurse among the footsteps and movements of other hospital staff, and he glanced at the room's clock. About time. Desmond was gone before the nurse entered Hall's room.
The day couldn't have been more perfect for reading outside; the drifting clouds were thin enough to allow sunlight to pleasantly bathe the street below and allow Patrick to read his book easily, and a faint breeze playfully teased the pages every now and then, but not strong enough to turn them.
Richard stood by like the faithful bodyguard he was as Patrick sat on a lawn chair outside a Ré Family-owned bar. Ré mafiosi were bustling in and out of the building, examining the scenes of a crime done against four of their own. They largely ignored Patrick and Richard in favour of investigating the murders and assault as thoroughly as possible before contacting the Family boss.
"According to Benny, he goes by the nickname 'Dove,'" Richard shared, not having to explain which conversation he was picking up from. He and Patrick often left many conversations hanging, as their work was unsympathetic to their hours awake and unoccupied.
"The bird of peace?" Patrick noted first. Thin fingers turned thin paper. "Not very fitting. But then, the dove is also a bird of family, and one of his own was attacked. I imagine how peaceful he was then." Patrick had not seen the inside of the Ré's bar, but the blood at the doorway was telling.
"Are you interested?" This could be good or bad for the subject of their conversation.
"Hm…." Patrick's lips stretched into a small smile that could be taken as gentle or sly. "He took out three armed but irresponsible men and had the fourth one effectively frightened. These results are not interesting." Richard understood that Patrick had been disgusted to learn of the recent actions of Benny and Benny's friends to a neutral figure, as Bad Weather was unofficially considered neutral grounds by the five Families. "…If they were not done by a single man originally more than ten feet away and armed only with a knife," Patrick abruptly added, and Richard started.
"More than ten feet? You have seen the crime scene, then?"
"Boss."
Richard and Patrick turned as one to look at the Ré mafioso who had interrupted their conversation. Patrick stood up from his chair. "It is my turn, then?" he asked rhetorically, and he handed his book to Richard as he passed the bodyguard. The mafiosi around Patrick parted to allow a path into the building, and Richard followed at a proximity to keep his boss within his sphere of defence.
Patrick Ré, boss of the Ré Family and possessor of a peculiar intuition, regarded the scene before him as details subconsciously came together in his brain and gave an idea of what had happened in the vague, gradual way only the subconscious could. The hypothesised spot of the attacker and the spot where Benny was stabbed in the hand were separated by a distance of approximately twelve feet. Richard couldn't find it in himself to be surprised anymore.
"As I suspected," Patrick hummed. "Otherwise, Benny wouldn't be as scared and angry as he is now. It is quite hard to throw a paring knife accurately." Hazel eyes scanned the scene once more. "Much less in one try."
A mafioso added Patrick's observation to facts of the investigation as the Ré don turned to leave, and the mafiosi around him understood the action and continued their bustling, this time to clean up the room and pay any potentially coming policemen to ignore an obvious murder scene. Outside the building, Richard silently handed Patrick the book back.
"Ironic," Patrick commented upon receiving it, "that I was reading about a dove when I had heard about this incident."
In his hands lied a Bible.
The bird of peace was sitting at the bar of Bad Weather when Patrick, Richard, and five more mafiosi came. So far as Patrick could see, Benny's attacker was unarmed, but the Ré don didn't put it past the bartender before him to have a knife hidden up his sleeves. Mafiosi patted down men when they wanted to know if a guest was armed; the mafia wasn't like the disciplined CIA whose members could see weapons through clothing.
"Devon Miceli," Patrick identified, and said no more. The party of mafiosi gathered in the bar was enough to tell Miceli that they hadn't come to chat. Patrick had even brought along men who were very comfortable with knives and armed with several. Richard was more inclined to use a gun, and, at Patrick's nod, the bodyguard raised it at Miceli.
The man was like lightning.
Patrick would only later remember the grunts and shouts of his men attacking and being attacked, the cracks of gunfire, and the knocking over of furniture and bodies — the memories came to him like thunder compared to the speed the events had occurred at — and Patrick found himself blinking, bruised, and staring down the barrel of Richard's gun. Patrick was the only one on his feet instead of unconscious or thrown aside. Miceli's eyes were a dim amber.
Those, Patrick's mind whirled, were reflexes like I've never seen, not even like my own. Patrick's intuition was part of the reason why the other four Families and their bosses respected Patrick even though he had inherited the Ré Family at the premature age of nineteen; his intuition-guided reflexes allowed no doubt in his brawling abilities.
The gun strayed left and fired. The room was plunged into darkness.
"Get the lights back!" Patrick and the conscious ones of his men barked. "Get the lights back!"
After scrambling in the dark and giving up on the bullet-holed switch, the door was flung open, and the perfect reading day's sunlight fell in at an angle. Regardless of the lighting, it was obvious that Miceli was gone. Patrick's men sighed, relieved but irritated. They set about getting the unconscious of their number up and out of the bar. Richard had a hand on his temple; Patrick knew his bodyguard would be sporting a bruise he following morning.
"He could have shot me," Patrick said, eyes still staring at the patch of air that had been occupied by Miceli and Richard's gun. "We did our best taking him down," Richard consoled with a note of apology. Patrick shook his head. "I mean to say he could have shot me, but he didn't." Richard shifted; because of a bruised knee or bruised pride from being robbed of his own gun, Patrick had yet to decide. "Are we going to whack him?"
"Whack" was mob slang for arranged murder — the messy kind that strayed too far from elegant and stealthy to be called assassination. It always brought mental trauma to witnesses, if there were any allowed; sometimes it was so twisted that the mafiosi sent to kill never returned the same, but an order was an order.
"No," Patrick denied. "We're going to recruit him."
Richard visibly reacted. "This guy is great in combat, but with the way he's going about beating guys up, he's a loose cannon!" "He's not wild," Patrick corrected, and added, "something makes him tick, and from what I've seen, it's family. That's the ideal mafioso." Patrick glanced at the light switch, his intuition still sparking from encountering one superior to its own.
"Get me everything on him," he ordered.
Now I've done it.
To add to killing three Ré associates, Desmond had now beaten up made men and pointed a gun at the don of only the strongest Family in the country. Desmond should have felt distressed, but his mind instead felt wide and clear; he could still recall every movement he had made back at the bar as if the events had occurred in slow motion, and while he felt mentally fried, he could still grasp the trails of the clear-minded feeling he had had in those brief moments. He had felt above the situation with the power to stick a hand in and slide pieces around to arrange a desired end result, and he got it. Desmond had felt so aware — so focused.
Or maybe he was just high. Desmond didn't abuse drugs, but he supposed that his fading, clear-minded buzz was what it would feel like to take one of Hernandez's needles and take a vein to it. How did Desmond experience such clarity, though, if he didn't do drugs? Did he honestly get high from fighting? The thought made Desmond uncomfortable; it meant that he was more like an Assassin than even his batch mates from the Farm.
Desmond stumbled from an alley into a street littered with newspapers and cigarette butts. Desmond's rapidly-working mind was absorbing every detail his eyes could see and was pulling the data every which way by the millions of ways the details could be labelled and connected with old and incoming information; moving from a shadowed alley to a sunlit street had overwhelmed his senses and kicked his brain into overdrive, causing him to stumble in surprise.
"Baby?"
From the left of Desmond's sight came Lippi, who stepped towards Desmond and reached out — to catch Desmond if the bartender fell or to more easily defend against an impulsive attack, it was yet to be decided. Desmond hadn't moved with the uncoordinated gait of a drunk or a druggy, so Lippi had most likely acted for the former out of attachment to his friend.
"Baby, what are you doing here?" Lippi asked. Desmond recovered from his stumble, and the buzz was fading, but his mind was still alert. He noted the dark-haired woman standing past Lippi and watching Desmond with a stale gaze. The woman had thick lashes, bright red lipstick, and a leather outfit. She was chawing gum. "Baby?" Lippi asked again.
"Giovanni," the woman warned, her bored gaze sliding to Lippi. Her firm voice was apparently enough to persuade Lippi to back off from Desmond, though the don was reluctant. Lippi even hesitantly turned innocent eyes to the woman. "Madonna, per favore," he pled lightly with the intent to humor. The woman's thick gaze only sharpened, and Lippi immediately sobered up. A silent message ran between the two of them, and Lippi slowly turned to Desmond.
"Dev…" Lippi began. Desmond stopped him. "Do what you must, Lippi. Family before friends, and you're a don." "He knows that too, does he?" the woman asked monotonously without removing her gaze from the back of Lippi's head. The don looked like he could physically feel it. "Per fare amicizia con quest'uomo..." the woman trailed off with a heavy frown.
The situation couldn't be remedied; only what they would do from there. Desmond feigned ignorance to the Italian speech. "I've got to go," Desmond said and started down the street. Lippi said nothing and didn't even watch Desmond leave. The woman and Lippi waited until Desmond had strolled out of their sight.
"You are lucky the other dons did not see this."
Lippi refused to sigh. "I know."
"You call yourself a don," the woman tutted.
"I treasure the responsibilities that come with the position."
"I do not see it." Awful silence. "Look at you, not even a syllable in response. You should know better than to befriend so easily; then you end up attached to a mercenary, of all things."
"He is not a mercenary."
"Oh? You've researched his background, then. …No? Then you see why I am deeply disappointed in you. Now the Ré are investigating your 'friend.'"
"The Ré plan to beat him up as a warning," Lippi corrected.
"Knowing Patricius, the Ré have already done that. Now they're investigating the bartender and preparing a table tonight for a meeting with him. All you've done for the past week is wear circles in your bedroom floor because you worry about your dangerous friend but can't act on your worry as a don of a Family."
Lippi's brows shot up in startled discomfort at the incredibly private piece of information. "I would love to know how you get your information, Oberti."
"Information? Ha! Men. I simply see the big picture; you male dons just can't seem to abandon linear thinking enough to realise that restricting your number of contacts doesn't stop me from reading your next move. Patricius is cute, though; he knows he can't stop me from being a woman and him a man, so he compromises. He is the least readable don I know." She chawed for a second. "Address me as the woman I am, Lippi, for you have lost my respect as a fellow don. No more Madonna business, you understand?"
"Don Oberti," Lippi said.
"That's right," the woman confirmed. "I call you Lippi, now. I'm off, Lippi."
"The five dons are not having a meeting soon?" Lippi called after the woman's turned back. The female mafia boss lazily waved a hand in confirmation; there would be a meeting, but she predicted an unusual kind. Don Oberti's right hand stepped from the shadows to escort the boss-woman home; Lippi's three men joined him from several yards away and awaited an indication to head home.
"Don Oberti truly is like no other," one of Lippi's men commented. Lippi and Oberti's conversation was only heard between the two bosses, but Oberti's no-nonsense character was quite well-known in the mafia world — especially with rumours of the Madonna's manliness surpassing that of her four boss counterparts. Funnier still that the Oberti Family had the only female boss of the Five Families. The Lippi mafiosi watched leather-tight jeans and jacket leave no curve or bounce missed as Oberti walked off. "Truly like no other," Lippi agreed.
A/N: I hope I didn't overwhelm anyone with the introduction of several characters. Thank you so much for reading, and please review and follow! Biggest shout out to Noisette and Anonymoose for their lengthy reviews; I love them!