The Children of the Wolf (3)
The newspaper company was only the beginning. This time, the union leader and an academy professor had turned against us. It seemed my father’s death had planted some very dangerous ideas in their heads. They must have decided the Fellini Family without its Godfather was no longer something to fear.
With Elena’s permission, I decided to deal with the union leader first.
What the union bastards had done to us was simple enough. Near the port stood a restaurant called Smash & Fish. It looked like any ordinary eatery, but the owner was a Made Man of the Fellini Family. I’d visited a few times myself. Most of the dishes they served were… familiar. The kind of Italian food that immediately comes to mind when someone says “mafia.”
In this world, most mafia were other races. Cases like Ricardo Banella weren’t unheard of, but they were rare. Because they were other races, they didn’t receive fair treatment compared to humans in this country or this city, and naturally ended up living in the underworld. I wondered if the mafia from the world I came from had started the same way. Of course, I’d never been particularly interested in history back then, so I couldn’t say for sure.
Anyway, getting back on track—the owner of Smash & Fish had called someone in to fix the restaurant’s signboard. Unfortunately, that someone happened to be a carpenter who wasn’t part of the union. When the union executives found out, they were furious.
“What the hell is this?!”
“What do you mean?”
They stormed into the restaurant and immediately started complaining. “You should have called a carpenter from our union!”
With that, they and the union members they’d brought tore down the perfectly repaired sign and smashed it to pieces again.
After suffering that, the restaurant owner had immediately contacted me and Elena.
The truly hilarious part was that the Hevilly Carpenters Union was under our Family’s control. In other words, the dog we held by the leash had bitten its owner’s hand.
“Luke, are you going alone?”
“No. I’m taking some guys to back me up.”
As I left the top floor, Elena told me to be careful.
“......”
“......”
It wasn’t a situation either of us were used to. We could have done something more, but instead we simply parted ways like that.
Before leaving the Rufus Carlton Hotel, I had Carso confirm the necessary information.
“Boss, I’ve confirmed it.”
“Name.”
“Wileys Conner. He’s the president of the Carpenters Union, District 608.”
“...Isn’t that the guy we put in that position?”
Just to be sure my memory wasn’t wrong, I asked Carso again.
“Yes, that’s him.”
Carso had verified the executive’s identity through the restaurant owner and learned the location of his office through city hall officials.
“It’s right near the academy.”
For a moment I considered dealing with the academy professor at the same time. But I quickly gave up on the idea. Focusing on one target would let me handle it more cleanly.
“Boss, are you planning to go alone?”
“No. Two wolves will be enough.”
The driver waiting in the car and one other guy. With two wolves and me inside, the automobile left the port district and headed for its destination.
During the ride, the chaotic sounds of the city filtered clearly through the car windows. Ever since my father met that end, gunfire had become a constant in this city.
“It’s a mess even though we’re near the academy.”
“The police are focused on Sanchez, so that’s no surprise.”
It was good that the police were distracted elsewhere right now. It meant even if we did something a little reckless, there wouldn’t be much backlash.
Before long the car began racing smoothly down the road, chasing the sunset in the sky.
“Slow down. We’re close.”
The wolf in the passenger seat spoke to the one driving.
“Close?”
The two wolves exchanged words back and forth about having arrived near the destination. I, meanwhile, was simply enjoying the comfortable stability inside the vehicle.
“What’s the problem?”
“Ah, nothing, Boss. We’ve reached the area near the office.”
The wolf in the passenger seat hurriedly explained, and the one in the driver’s seat shut his mouth. Then it was probably correct.
The car stopped on the side of the road near the union office. I checked the current time. I didn’t know exactly when Conner left work, but it wasn’t quitting time yet.
“......”
Just as I’d told Elena, I would handle Conner myself. The two wolves’ roles were to be ready to move the car the moment I returned, and to jump out and support me if any unexpected emergency occurred. Those two things.
We waited calmly. Many people entered the union office, and many left. But there was no sign of Conner anywhere.
“Boss, maybe he’s not in the office?”
“Just wait. If he’s not here, we can go to his house.”
I didn’t particularly want to shoot him in front of his wife and children. …I’d had that experience a few times before, and it wasn’t something easily forgotten.
Though I now lived as the child of a legendary mafia boss, I had originally been an ordinary human.
“...Boss.”
“It’s five minutes before six o’clock.”
The two wolves spoke faster. Because Conner had just come out of the office.
I opened the car door myself and approached him. Even after getting close enough, Conner still hadn’t noticed me. Then, just as he was about to open his own car door—
“......”
The muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head. He whipped his head around in a hurry, but the muzzle stayed right where it was. Conner’s face turned deathly pale in an instant. The corpse-like pallor was quite striking.
“Mr. Fellini.”
“You look nervous.”
The guy who usually called me Mr. Luke or Little Wolf. Now that I had actually appeared, it seemed he couldn’t even remember what he’d done. Had he really not expected things to turn out this way? No, that couldn’t be it.
The union he led had sent countless people to their deaths alongside our Family. The answer was clear. He had turned a blind eye to the fact that his so-called great power didn’t come from the unity and fighting spirit of the union members, but from the end of our pistols. Whether he had ever possessed the discernment to face that truth was another question.
“Mr. Fellini. Wait! Just a moment! I’ll reverse all of this!”
“...How?”
“I’ll take all the responsibility! So… so please, just spare my family!”
“No, there’s no need for that. I wasn’t going to touch your family anyway.”
“......”
Conner seemed slightly relieved after hearing my words.
BANG—!
My business was only with Conner. And now, only his corpse remained in front of me.
I stared for a moment at the result of pulling the trigger, taking it in with both eyes. Brain matter and blood flowed out, beginning to stain the dull gray and black of the road red. That was what happened when a bullet dug into a person’s head. Not to mention, quite a bit of the guy’s blood had splattered onto my mouth and nose. Only natural, having fired at such close range.
“......”
I quickly left the scene. Any further reflection could be done inside the car.
But the moment the gunshot rang out, union members from inside the office came pouring out.
“Mr. Conner!”
They were focused on Conner’s cold corpse, but not all of them.
Thud!
“Step on it!”
I shouted as I swiftly jumped into the car. By the time the vehicle started moving, bullets finally began to fly. The sound of the side and rear windows shattering followed, and I felt something hot graze my face.
“Boss! Get down!”
The wolf in the passenger seat hurriedly returned fire, but neither the union members nor we managed to kill anyone. In that state, the car fled the scene and returned to where we had set out from.
*
One hour later.
I returned to the top floor of the Rufus Carlton Hotel, and Elena made a fuss the moment she saw me.
“...What happened? Why is your ear like that?”
“It’s nothing.”
A bullet had just grazed my long ear, causing a little bleeding. There hadn’t been anything suitable to treat it with inside the car.
“......”
Elena quickly called a hotel employee and ordered them to bring a first-aid kit.
“Sit down for a moment.”
I had been planning to report on the incident, but she acted as if that wasn’t important right now. Bandages and disinfectant taken from the first-aid kit the employee hurriedly brought. With surprisingly skilled hands, Elena finished disinfecting the wound and wrapped my ear neatly with a bandage.
“Elena.”
“What? Were you hit somewhere besides your ear?”
“No, that’s not it. I took care of Wileys Conner.”
“......”
Only then did Elena seem to realize she had completely forgotten about that part.
“Of course you did. Something like that would be easy for you.”
While Elena set the first-aid kit down on a nearby table, I turned on the radio on the other table. I flipped through the channels, and sure enough, they were already talking about what I had done.
“A senior official of the Hevilly Carpenters Union was shot and killed this afternoon in the lobby of the union office.”
“That was fast.”
Elena approached me beside the radio and spoke.
“The victim is 52-year-old Wileys Conner.”
As I listened to the radio, Elena pulled out a cigarette. I took out my lighter.
Click—!
The tip of her cigarette glowed red, and smoke began to rise as it consumed itself. I had been about to smoke as well.
“......”
As if there was no need to light mine separately, Elena briefly lowered her head and touched the tip of her own cigarette to the one I was holding.
She’s seen that somewhere before.
I had seen it many times in movies and various video media from the world I came from, but this was my first time actually doing it.
“He was the president of the 608th District of the United Carpenters Federation.”
The radio continued to report. That Conner had left the office before six o’clock. That he had been killed instantly by a single bullet to the head. That eyewitnesses at the scene had seen the perpetrator. However, there were no details about the witnesses’ statements or the suspect’s description.
“Still, they’re not completely clueless.”
“Of course not.”
The union members weren’t fools. They would know what had been happening recently and whose work this was. Wileys Conner would be replaced by someone else loyal to us. They might not have acted coldly right after witnessing his death, but once their heads cooled, they would understand. That running their mouths recklessly would bring them no good.
“Now all that’s left is the academy.”
“Hold off on that for a bit. First we need to settle things with the Marinelli Family.”
My political marriage to Felicia Marinelli. The resulting changes included sweeping away all the minor forces existing between the territories of the Fellini Family and the Marinelli Family in one go. Elena said that retaking the academy and punishing the professor who had dared to rebel would come after that.
“Oh, right. What about the drugs?”
“We can distribute some at the academy and hand some over to the Marinelli side too. That should work, right?”
“No, that’s not enough. It’s far from enough.”
The amount of drugs we had bought from organizations across the sea was considerable. Originally they were supposed to be sent to organizations in other regions, not Hevilly. But given the current situation in this city, that had become difficult. Since we hadn’t even received payment yet, there was no immediate problem.
“And the other five families are probably worrying about the same issue.”
“What kind of worry?”
When my father was alive, I had distributed the drugs I brought into the port to the Fellini Family’s caporegimes. They then sold the drugs they received from me in their own territories or to others. The five families who had been our subordinate caporegimes were the same. The reason the bastards in the city outskirts were aiming for the port was none other than that.
“The Marinelli bastards are already unpleasant. You want to sell to them too?”
“Elena. For now, we can’t fight all of them at once. We have to handle them one by one, slowly.”
That was how my father had done it. Fortunately, the fact that I was known to the public as the wretch who had either killed my father or stood by and allowed his death was a great help at times like this.
When I mentioned that part, Elena looked at me with pity in her eyes.
“......”
I intended to use everything that could be used. Elena felt the same, but it seemed she didn’t like this particular method. She also didn’t forget to make a rather reasonable point.
“They won’t believe it easily. They’ll also find it strange that you made me the boss.”
“Then what do you think we should do?”
Elena said it was already too late today, so we should hold a meeting tomorrow and decide. It was an important issue after all; it wasn’t something that could be solved just by Elena and me putting our heads together.
“You haven’t eaten dinner yet, have you?”
There was no way I could have eaten after killing Conner and coming back. But before Elena and I could even change locations, the telephone suddenly rang loudly.
I was closer to the phone than she was, so I answered instead.
“Boss, Felicia has arrived.”
“...What?”
It was Carso’s voice informing us of Felicia’s arrival. Elena must have heard it too, because her expression turned fierce. For now, I told him to send her up to the top floor where we were.
The notification sound announcing the elevator’s arrival. Then a light knock. I opened the door.
The person who appeared before us was a woman with long golden hair, bright eyes, and an elegant aura. It was Felicia Marinelli, dressed in refined clothes and delicate accessories that made her stand out.
“I hope I’m not interrupting a good moment?”
Felicia came right up to me and tickled under my chin with the tip of her tail.
“...What brings you here?”
Elena asked with patience, but her expression made it clear she already considered Felicia an uninvited guest.
“I wanted to see Luke as soon as possible.”
“......”
“Felicia, we were just about to have dinner. Want to join us?”
Before Elena’s expression could grow any worse, I changed the subject. Even I had to admit it wasn’t the best topic change.