Saint Valentine

11

I stare out the window as the plane soars through the sky, the cars on the ground looking no bigger than insects. We're up high, in between the clouds. There's a grin on my face so big, it's starting to hurt.

"Look at that!" I reach over to Valentino to grab his attention. He leans towards the window, eyeing the view I point out. We're right above a waterfall, in the middle of a national park. "It's beautiful."

"It's nice," he nods casually. "You seem happy."

"I love flying," I grin. "It's so exciting — like a roller coaster."

"That's one way to see it," he snickers, turning his attention back to the laptop before him.

"You don't like flying?"

"I don't particularly care for it, no, not when we have 16 hours of it."

It is a long time. And we're only a few minutes into the trip. But it hasn't damper my excitement. I'm buzzing with anticipation, knowing I get to look out the window for hours at a time. I'm sure the boredom will come, but it hasn't yet.

The plane is quite big. There's enough room for Valentino and me, along with Seth, Gino, and a few other men. We're sitting in the back row, with the kitchen behind us. There's a room further down the plane, as well. It's a fully equipped bedroom, with an ensuite and everything. It would definitely be possible to live on this plane full-time.

"Are you going to be working the whole way there?" I ask. Valentino opened his laptop the second we sat down. I was surprised he sat down next to me at all, but I shouldn't have been — not after his confession this morning. How could I refuse to go with him after that? He was so vulnerable. It was so... sweet. I still can't believe it. Six whole years.

"I hope not," he responds. "Would you like to see?"

"Yeah," I lean over. He angles the screen towards me. It shows a map of the world, colour coded by territory. I was right — the Sokolov family only operate in Russia and some of the Balkans, The rest of Europe is divided between us and the Greek Stavros family. It's the same in America. We have most of the west, but Stavros have the East. Valentino zooms in on our territory. The locations of our warehouses are highlighted.

"They've hit Portland and Reno so far, so the next location is most likely Sacramento," he explains. "The building has been evacuated, but they may have seen that coming and target somewhere else — possibly Fresno. I've ordered an evacuation there, too. I'm just concerned they'll target someone further out to catch us off guard."

"Can we evacuate all warehouses?"

"Technically, yes, but we would lose a lot of money and not everyone will be happy with that. It could also make people fearful, and those two mixed together could easily lead to riots."

"Ah," I nod. That hasn't happened in my lifetime, but it has in the past, and right now, internal conflict will make us far too vulnerable. "So what are you going to do?"

"I've informed all area managers up until Colorado, and encouraged them to shut down for the week, but they know more about how their people will react, so I've left it up to them," he says. "I've sent more security to each facility as well, including weapons specialists."

"That's a good idea."

"Now the only other thing that concerns me is us in Sicily," he moves the map to the area. "They'll likely assume we're in the area, so they might target our warehouses nearby warehouses. I've had Catanzaro evacuated and security tightened in Taranto, but they could target us anywhere. They could choose to target Milan next or even Tunisia."