The Cosa Nostra - Chapter One

The American sun was hot, but to Vincenzo it offered relief from the blistering heat of Afghanistan. It was like a gentle breeze, welcoming him home and saying, ‘Well done, you can rest now.’

Of course, rest had become his world while he’d been in hospital. A bullet in the leg and he was out, shipped back home for medical leave. They’d run some tests, taken some information while he was in hospital and soon the military would determine whether he was fit to return to service or not.

Now, however, Enzo was in the middle of New York City, sat in the back of one of the famous yellow cabs that would ferry him home of his family.

Enzo hadn’t seen his father, mother or brothers since before he’d been sent to Afghanistan. It had to be said that most of his family had been shocked by the decision, convinced that he’d much prefer the Ivy League colleges and the silk suits of his American life than being shot at in a dangerous kiln of a country.

However, if anyone had disagreed with Enzo’s action most it had been his father. The instant Enzo had spoken to his father about his decision, the man had been utterly horrified and shunned his sons hopeful career choice. His father, one of the most well known and powerful men in Manhattan, had welcomed his son’s decision with a mixture of fury, shock and non-belief.

At only twenty one years old, Enzo’s brothers had told him that he’d “made a mistake” and that “he didn’t know what he wanted yet.” One had even gone as far as suggesting his father intervene, to get the military to “change their minds” and reject Enzo.

But the young man had been set, he shunned his brothers foul suggestions, pushed on and shipped out to - at the time - one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

But that had been in 2005 and Enzo had been nine years younger. Now, on the lip of his thirtieth birthday, Enzo had returned to his home. To America.

His family home was on the outskirts of New York City; the mansion was well out of the way of the hustle and bustle of city life. And, more importantly, to his father and to the family, it was well protected.

As the yellow taxi drew up towards the gates of the vast grounds of the building, Enzo told the driver to stop. He climbed out of the car, went to the trunk and pulled out his large, combat bags before paying the driver and walking up to the gate.

As the taxi turned and drove off again, Vincenzo stepped towards the intercom. He set one of his bags down on the dusty ground, pressed the button and waited for the answer on the other end.

“Who’s this?” came the deep, gruff voice from the other end of the phone.

“Well, it ain’t the damn milkman, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Enzo replied with a chuckle. There were several moments of silence on the other end of the intercom and then the deeper, older, gruffer voice came again.

“Enzo?” came the voice, “My kid brother? Shit, you better getcha ass up here, you haven’t heard what’s happened.”

Enzo’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed a fraction in correlation.

“What d’you mean?”

Silence again.

“Just get up here, alright?”
The intercom went dead and the electric gates began to swing open, revealing the vast grounds behind…

The house was a vast house. The grounds were vast grounds. And the wall that encircled it all was formidable; betrayed a sense of foreboding which turned the deeply green grass sickly.

The house in the centre of the grounds had been built in the 1920’s, a four story tall, vastly rectangular home off dark bricks, wooden window frames and slates on the pointed roof. Old, but now unused, chimneys cascaded from the corner of the roof, jutting out of the triangular structure rudely and reaching towards the bright, blue sky.

Under every window was a small flower box and each flower box was filled with brightly coloured flora. The long, stretching driveway from the gate to the main house was somewhat dusty, but of an expertly poured tar that was as smooth as drive as one would find across all of America.

Near the large, oak double doors under the porch that made up the front of the house were parked three cars. An Audi and two BMW’s. Expensive cars.

One of the oak doors was open and leaning against it was a man. Tall, well built and strong looking. His jaw was so well cut that it could have been chiselled. His brow was thick, his hair was short, rusty brown and mostly slicked back, apart from the odd stray hair.

His eyes were a deep jade and his skin was slightly darkly tinged. As Salvatore stood there, wearing a pair of dark jeans, expensive shoes and a blue shirt with rolled up sleeves, he saw the other, younger gentleman approaching.

This man, in his military uniform and carrying two bags on his shoulders, had a weaker build of muscularity, his strength having begun to mellow away during his stay in he military hospital. His tan line was obvious, around the neck and wrists. The tan line of a soldier. However, were one to look at his body as a whole, they would realise that this man’s true skin tone was that of an olive hue. His black hair, which had been in a crew cut for the military, had grown slightly longer and had a touch of wave to it. His eyes were the palest of blues and his nose was perfectly moulded. His jaw line wasn’t as sculpted as his elder brothers, but it was still noticeable. His unlined, unmarked face portrayed no devil but his eyes gave the hint of a young man who’d seen dark things. Nonetheless, Enzo smiled as he saw his older brother.

“Sal!” Vincenzo said as he waved a hand at his brother from behind one of his bags. However, Sal did not reciprocate the smile and that instantly told Enzo that something was up. It was the look in Sal’s eyes, too, and the bags beneath them.

“Hey, Vinny, lemme help you with those,” Sal met Enzo half way, striding over to him and taking one of the bags that had been slung onto his younger brothers shoulder.

As Sal took Vincenzo’s bags, Enzo stopped and looked at his elder brother. Sal had inherited their father’s height and then some, standing at about six foot four. Enzo himself was only five foot twelve.

“Sal, what the hell is going on?” Enzo asked. He and his brother both carried an Italian-American accent, but Enzo’s was much more measured, much more silk like. Meanwhile, Sal’s was somewhat akin to sandpaper in the sense that it was somewhat scratchy, somewhat gruff.

“It’s dad, Enzo…” Sal said in a voice that was unusually nervous for the strong man, “He’s sick…”
Enzo frowned and his brow narrowed, as opposed to raising in surprise.

“Sick? What kinda sick?”

“He had a heart attack, Enzo. He had a heart attack.”
“Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me?” asked Enzo, a note of annoyance rising in his voice.

“We sent a message to the barracks you said you were stationed at. They told us you’d been moved to a military hospital after you’d got shot in the leg. We had the message redirected there, but by then you’d already been sent back home. Why the hell was this the first place you’d come to anyway? Why wouldn’t you go home to your apartment?”
Enzo frowned, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. He waited a moment and then answered, making sure his voice was much more confident and cool this time. “I wanted to come see my family. And it’s a damn good thing I did, too.”

“You shoulda got in contact before you came back, Enzo,” Sal insisted.

“We don’t have time for this, I wanna see papa.”

With that, Enzo charged ahead, walking in the direction of the front door. He stepped through the one Sal had left opened and set his back down just next to it.

The house had not changed.

The floor was of a varnished oak, the walls were an olive green and the bottom halves were enamoured with oak panelling, to match the floor. The immediate hallway to the front door had been ordained with a beautiful, expensive rug of crimson colour and golden embroidery.

There were a set of stairs not far from the front door, oak and with an identical crimson carpet running down their centre. The oak banister glistened, as ever. Enzo’s mother had always made a point of keeping it gleaming herself, despite the fact that they had two or three cleaners in the house. Was it two or three? Vincenzo had been gone so long that he couldn’t even remember properly.

However, as Enzo set his two bags down by the small shoe rack by the front doors, Sal put his hand on Enzo’s shoulder and frowned at him, his thin, colourful lips bowing into a frown.

“Enzo, he’s not here.” Sal said in a soft voice. For a moment, the front of the strong man fell and his eyes were fixed on those of his younger brother. “Papa’s not here.”

Enzo frowned, questioning why Sal hadn’t told him this beforehand.

“Then where is he?”

Sal continued to frown and it was beginning to get worse, “He’s up at the hospital.”

Enzo made the move for the door, being unusually quick and dumb-thinking for someone who was usual so mentally tactical and often receded to plan. Salvatore’s hand was on Enzo’s shoulder in a few moments and their eyes were locked in a brotherly gaze again.

“Hey, calm down, alright?” Sal said in a soft voice, his lips twisting from the frown to the familiar, reassuring smile that Enzo remembered from the times before he’d left for Afghanistan, “Johnny’s picking him up. Mama went up there with him.”

At last, Enzo felt somewhat at rest and in a calm state. Johnny was their brother, elder to Enzo and younger to Sal. He wasn’t timid, but he wasn’t outgoing either, was Johnny. Johnny was calm, cool but often spent too much time thinking when in the face of danger and not enough time acting. Enzo shook his hide and tried to stop picking out his own brothers character flaws. Of course, there was one more member of the family that Vincenzo still hadn’t seen.

“Where’s Val?” Enzo asked, standing with his elder brother at the door for several moments.

However, before either of them could say anything more, they heard a soft, feminine Italian-American accent and when they turned to look, they saw this beautiful image of a woman stood in the doorway to the living room, “Enzo? You’re back?”

“Val…” Enzo said, smiling softly as he turned to see his mirage of a sister. Valentina wasn’t tall. At least, she wasn’t as tall as her brothers. But at five foot eight, she wasn’t exactly standing short. Her hair was as sinfully black as that of her siblings but, unlike theirs, it was shoulder length and flowed like liquid. Her features were petite, as if they’d been sculpted and one would fear shattering them if they touched them the wrong way. Mid thickness, inviting lips, bowed into a soft smile. Piercing, pale blue eyes that were as sharp as they were fixed on her brother. Her skin was the same of that as her two brothers, a light tinge of olive, impressive for a third generation Italian-American. However, the young woman’s politely moulded features were stained by the mark of sleepless nights. Bags were under her eyes. Her clothes were simple, merely a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a blouse. She hadn’t put much thought into what she wore, her mind was on other things, but that didn’t matter to Vincenzo as he looked at the elder sister he hadn’t seen since 2005.

“Enzo!” At last, the penetration of true smile through the down pressed features and within a few moments Valentina was across the hall, wrapping her arms tightly around her younger brother. Out of all of his siblings, Vincenzo was the youngest. Valentina was just above Enzo, followed swiftly by Johnny but at the top of the ladder was Salvatore. And, as such, their bond had been moulded by their age. Quiet respect for the authority of the elder and loud love to all.

Enzo reciprocated the hug, pulling his elder sister close and gently stroking the hair that was as silky as her voice. His other hand gently pressed against her upper back, holding the woman close to him.

“Where the hell have you been, you crazy bastard?” Valentina chuckled softly, the smile growing wider on her lips as her nostrils took in the familiar musk of her baby brother. He was only three years younger than her, but she’d always referred to him as her baby brother, as was the function of their relationship, “Getting shot at in some hell hole?”

“You know me, Val,” Enzo said with a soft smile curling his lips, “I can never avoid a crazy situation.”

“I hate to break up this tender, loving moment,” Sal said with a brief chuckle, a clear of his throat and a scratch of his head, “But maybe we should go into the living room? Papa’s gonna be home soon, I want us all to be waiting for him.”

Val and Enzo finally receded from the hug, smiled again and turned to face Sal.

After a few more moments they adjourned to the living room, a large, rectangular room of the same oak floors, oak panelling and olive green walls. Family photos hung on Two of the three walls had large, perfectly polished windows embedded within them, the right wall was adorned with family photos and had a wooden door smushed in near the end. However, the far wall had a large, flat screen television attached to it, and facing it was a large, leather sofa of a deep brown. A coffee table knelt in front of the sofa, like a servant to its master, and two other, smaller but otherwise identical, sofas were on the left and the right. The curtains were of the same olive green as the walls. Everything matched in a monotonous but perfect way.

Salvatore walked straight across the room and sat down on the sofa facing the television while Enzo and Val sat on the one to it’s left. Sal crossed his legs and scratched the back of his head, resting one of his arms on the leather arm of the seat.

There were several long moments of silence that was so long, loud and ear piercing that it practically begged for someone to speak and end it.

Eventually, that responsibility fell to Valentina.

“Papa should be here soon…” she said in a voice as soft as her hair. She was gentle, by nature, and so her voice was no different. “Should I go make coffee…?”

“I’ll do it,” Sal responded instantly, but Enzo was already on his feet.

“No, I’ll go.”

“Enzo…” Val said, in that same soft, almost patronisingly sympathising voice, “You just spent nine years dodging bullets. Let me make the coffee.”

Enzo stared at his sister for a moment, standing absolutely still before sitting down again, not uttering another syllable. When Sal opened his mouth to contribute, Valentina fixed him with a stare that practically pushed him back into his seat. After a few moments, Valentina had left the room and eventually they could hear the sound of coffee being made, it’s musky scent drifting into the living room.