The Mafia's Good Girl
The Mafia’s Good Girl – Chapter 47

~ Damon ~

“How many men were in the warehouse?” Hugo asked as he puffed out his cigar.

Hugo DeSantis, his men, Damon, and Damon’s guys were all sitting in a private room. The men sat around the couches and there were expensive cigars, booze, guns, and every kind of drug they could ever want displayed on the table.

“Close to twenty,” Damon said as he sipped his whiskey. “And we got Giulio,”

“You killed Victor Maranzano’s favorite son?” Hugo let out a chuckle, a sinister one too.

“Yeah, he and his men were the ones who led the heist,” Damon nodded. “They went straight for the slaughterhouse,”

Hugo smiled triumphantly. He lifted his glass and toasted Damon. This was a great victory for the DeSantis and Van Zandt alliance. The Maranzano family was a big mafia organization holding the biggest territory on the East Coast, which was New York City. Victor Maranzano, the family’s current leader, was the man who orchestrated the attack at Damon’s wedding.

Damon had personal motives as to why he wanted to eradicate Maranzano and his empire, however, Hugo’s motives were closely related to his business. Maranzano and DeSantis had an agreement to import and distribute illegal substances into Europe, but Maranzano cut DeSantis off and did the deal by themselves. Hugo did not take this lightly. Victor Maranzano was stepping into his territory. If he didn’t fight back, people would think that they could just walk all over him. But Hugo also knew that he wasn’t strong enough to take on a big family like Maranzano on his own. And just like the old saying said, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Hugo reached out to Damon about two years ago, and they had been planning their revenge ever since.

The recent art heist and the warehouse burning were only the start of their year-long plan to take down Maranzano. Victor Maranzano’s power was mostly concentrated at the top. He had three sons helping him manage his empire, and he didn’t trust anyone else. If they could take down the top, everything else on the bottom would crumble. And as it happened, Giulio Maranzano was Victor’s golden boy. He was supposed to be the one to continue the empire. But Giulio was only twenty-one years old. He was just a boy, inexperienced and dumb. When he heard about the Van Zandt’s getting a shipment from Italy, he recklessly led a heist that got himself and his men killed.

“Congratulations, you hit the jackpot,” Hugo said. “But Victor mustn’t take this lightly,”

“I’d expect him not to,” Damon replied.

“Has he retaliated in any way?”

“Not that we know of,”

“That doesn’t seem good,”

“Why?”

“If he’s out there doing things, that means we can see him,” Hugo said as he puffed out his cigar. The white smoke escaped his lips and evaporated in the air. “It’s much more difficult to deal with things that you can’t see,”

“Don’t worry, Hugo. We’re always careful,” Damon said reassuringly. “We’re always two steps ahead of the—”

But before Damon could finish his sentence, they heard noises coming from the door, interrupting him. There was a familiar female’s voice shouting at the guards. It took Damon a moment to realize that it was Talia.

“Miss, you’re not authorized to be here!” the guard yelled.

“I just need to talk to him for a second. It’s an emergency!” she replied.

Damon shot a look over at Adrian and Adrian stood up instinctively. Hugo lifted his hand and gestured for his men to open the door. One of them got up and opened the door, revealing Talia standing behind two big guards.

“Hi, I’m very sorry to interrupt, but Damon you should go outside,” she said. Her voice was laced with worry.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Talia was reluctant to speak, but her face said that this was serious. Damon got up and walked over to her. As the two of them stood at a distance from everyone else, Talia leaned into his ear and whispered.

“I just found out that Violet’s dad had a past with Hugo. She said Hugo is responsible for his death. She wants to leave right now—“

~ Damon ~

“How many men were in the warehouse?” Hugo asked as he puffed out his cigar.

What?!

Damon jerked away instantly. He turned to the men and said, “Gentlemen, please excuse me for a moment,”

What?!

Damon jerked away instantly. He turned to the men and said, “Gentlemen, please excuse me for a moment,”

He didn’t offer them any other explanation and dashed out of the room in a flash. Adrian was looking at Talia in confusion and Talia only shook her head and went to follow Damon.

“Well, well, looks like there’s trouble in paradise,” Hugo chuckled. He didn’t seem bothered by the tension. “Let’s wait for him,”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Damon ran frantically into the large room where he left Violet last. He didn’t see her there, but then he noticed some of his men standing outside in the garden. He quickened his steps to approach them, and he could hear Violet and the men arguing.

“Get out of my way!” she said, trying to push one of the men back, but he didn’t budge an inch.

“Miss Violet, we can’t let you leave without Mr. Van Zandt’s permission,” the man replied.

“I am not his property! I can leave whenever I want!”

“Violet!” Damon roared, catching everyone’s attention. She turned to him and he could see tears and fire burning in her eyes. “What the hell is going on?”

“You’re one to ask,” she scoffed. All the other men backed away and it was just her and him now. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew all along and you didn’t tell me!”

Violet was raising her voice and pointing her finger at him. Damon didn’t like that they were causing a scene, not here. He pulled her hand briskly and led her to a quieter corner where people couldn’t see them.

“Let me go!” she squirmed and protested. Damon kept walking and he didn’t let her go until they got far away enough.

“Damon!” she shouted again. This time he let her go.

“Violet, I didn’t know your father was involved with Hugo,” he said. “I swear,”

“Liar!” she spat. “You’ve got a file on me. You’re best friends with him. Of course you knew!”

Damon let out a long sigh. He should’ve known about this, but he didn’t. When he read that Violet’s father died under mysterious circumstances and left a mounting debt on the family, he should’ve seen it as a red flag and dug deeper. But he didn’t care about her like he did now. He brushed off that information and focused his energies elsewhere.

“My file only said that your dad died with a huge debt to some Italians. He got into a car crash—“

“Because they made him, Hugo made him!” she cut him off sharply. “My dad would’ve never got himself into an accident if it wasn’t for him. His men came to threaten us. They threatened my dad they would end our family if he didn’t pay up. They said if my dad didn’t get himself into an ‘accident’ and pay them with the insurance money, they will make that accident happen themselves,”

Damon fell silent instantly. This was an old tactic used by the mafia often. If someone owed them money and they couldn’t pay up, they’d do anything to get their money back. Getting insurance benefits from accidents or deaths was the easiest way to get the job done.

“I was thirteen then and I overheard them talking myself,” Violet continued. Tears trickled down her face but she still kept a sharp gaze on Damon. “Right after they left, my dad got into his car and said he was going to the store. But he never came back…”

Damon started to imagine what might’ve happened five years ago. Violet was only a kid then, she wouldn’t know how to help. And maybe her father got himself into a car crash because he wanted to claim the insurance money from the accident. But unfortunately, the accident turned fatal and it ended up costing his life.

“You don’t look surprised. It must sound familiar, huh?” Violet said again, catching him off guard. “Do you do these kinds of things too? Blackmailing and taking advantage of the weak people?”

Damon didn’t know what to say. The right answer would be yes, he was responsible for many murders and crimes in his lifetime. And though he was not directly involved with Violet’s dad, he couldn’t help but feel responsible. Damon couldn’t do anything but shut up and look away.

Wiping her tears away, Violet then told him, “Do you what I had to do? I had to sell my virginity to a strange man so I can pay my family’s debt, hoping that these people wouldn’t harass us anymore,”

Her words hit him like a knife to the heart. Damon looked up at her in silence and watched as she drove the knife further.

“But what I don’t realize is that I’ve been sleeping with the enemy all along,” she said.

Damon could taste the bitterness in the air. She was glaring at him, angry and full of hurt. He reached for her hand in an effort to calm her down, but she quickly pulled away.

“Don’t touch me!” she hissed.

Damon let out another sigh of frustration. He stepped closer to her and pleaded, “Baby girl, please listen—“

“Don’t call me that!” she cut him off sternly. “I’m not your girl!”

What?

“Damon, I can’t do this anymore… This was a huge mistake,” she continued, shaking her head at him. She wasn’t shouting at him anymore, her voice was weak and laced with dejection. “I’m going home…”

Violet turned to her heels, but Damon was quick to respond. He caught her arm and spun her body around.

“Wait, hold on—“

But before Damon could say anything, Adrian appeared in his periphery, calling after him.

“Damon!” he yelled. “Hugo’s waiting!”

Damon turned to Adrian and the look on his consigliore’s face was dead serious. He realized that he had left an important meeting with an even more important person. The mafias won’t take lightly to improper manners. Making Hugo wait too long could mean an end to their alliance.

“You should finish your business. Your partner’s waiting for you,” Violet said as if she knew what he was thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ll find my own way back,”

Violet twisted her arm and pulled away from Damon’s grip. Damon let her go for a second, but when he came to his senses, he went back and grabbed her again.

“No!” he said. “I’m not letting you go like this,”

Violet was staring at him with a deadly glare as she said, “It’s not your choice to make,”

Damon knew he couldn’t make her stay by force. She had every right to walk out that door. Perhaps letting her go and giving her some time to cool off would be a wise decision, but it was hard for him to do. He never wanted to let her go.

“Let me go or I’ll call the cops,” she threatened. “I’m sure the Italian police would love to hear about what’s going down here,”

“You wouldn’t,” he hissed.

Damon narrowed his eyes and the two of them were holding a staring contest. None of them were flinching or backing out. The tension in the air was so thick, one could cut through it with a knife.

“Damon!” Adrian yelled again.

“I’m coming!” Damon yelled back, but he kept his eyes on Violet.

“I’ll never tell a soul about you or anything I’ve seen. But in exchange, I want you to leave me alone starting from now on,” Violet said finally. Her tone was firm and composed like she had made this decision final.

“But if I ever see you or any of your guys again, I promise I’ll fight back and I’ll make it hurt,”

Damon could see from her eyes that she wasn’t kidding. She was full of anger, rage, and hurt. He knew he had done her bad. Now he could insist on keeping her here by force, but that wouldn’t make things better. If anything, she’d hate him even more.

Violet hating him was the last thing he wanted. So against every fiber in his body, Damon loosened his grip and let her go. Violet pulled her hand back and gave Damon one last glare.

“Goodbye, Damon,”

With that, Violet turned and walked away. Damon’s men tried to move, but he held his hand up, signaling for them to stop. Damon could only stare at her figure as she became smaller and smaller in the distance. And before long, she went and disappeared completely out of his sight.