Double Trouble

Chapter 53

Alessandro

"What do you mean Gabriel Albon is dead?!" Ernesto shouts at the Spanish Mafia - Don Álvaro Fernández trough camera.

"Since he didn't answer my request, I send a few men to speak to him personally. But instead of meet him, they found the whole base burned down and more than the half of his men dead. Murdered. He self was in the building. We value that he was tied up to a chair since he has shackle marks on wrists and ankles. Otherwise, everything else is burned away. Including himself." He responds as calm as possible.

As our family members have gone to the beach, we met in one of our conference rooms, actually for going trough our last deals but only a second later the call from Fernández came in. A video call. So it had to be something important. If it was anything personal, he would call per voice. So Ernesto and I left the room and went into my office immediately to answer the call. It came out that the French Mafia Don Gabriel Albon is dead. Murdered. By who, I have no idea. But we will know soon. They were companions from us equal to Álvaro Fernández, Santos - the Portuguese Mafia don, and Dimitriadis - the greek mafia don. So it's clear that we're all alarmed when one mafia was attacked or how in this case, was taken down.

"Fuck." Ernesto swears. It's always a big deal when a mafia is destroyed. Not because we feel anything like sympathy for them. We're not friends, we're business partner. But all our deals break when the leader died.

What happened with our alliance?

Who is the new leader?

Questions which has to be answers to get a healthy balance between us mafias.

"Do we already know who the responsible is?" I ask in the meeting, me and Ernesto on one side of the video call and Álvaro Fernández with his father Pablo Fernández on the other side. The Italian, American and Spanish Mafia come along very well since nearly already a century. Our grandparents are friends. Our parents are friends. And we are also friends. My other brothers and cousins get along with them very good too, so it's clear that we inform each other at first when something's wrong. Like now.

"Mh." Álvaro shrugs. "There wasn't anything noticeable. No blood, no fingerprints. Nothing.-"

"Not so unlikely when everything was burned down." Ernesto states from the other side of the room.

"Of course. But nevertheless the whole scene was ... clean. N-Nothing so unusual."

I notice that Álvaro avoids every possible eye contact. Looking from one side of their room, to another one, but not in the camera. He hides something. Something which makes him really nervous. Normally he's not like that. Nobody is able to shut him up, making him small.

I exchange a knowing look with Ernesto who clenched his jar and nods.

"Álvaro." I say coldly. "What's wrong."

He still makes no signs in speaking up. His father comes from the back and gives him a neck slap. "C'mon. Show them. Everybody has the right to know."

It's like between Ernesto and me, and our fathers. Maybe we're the Mafia dons now, but our fathers still have  the last word. After all, we stay their children.

Álvaro sighs and takes something out from his desk.

It's a ... knife. Black handle with a muster on it and at the end a golden wolf head. The blade has a special curvature, perfectly for cutting things in half. Beautiful, of course. Legendary even. Something everyone recognize because of the specialty and rareness. Nobody can fake it. The material and design are unique.