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They all knew her now. Killing Paolo Salvatore, albeit by accident, had put her in the ‘known and dangerous’ list among the other Families as well as her own. Her whole destiny within her father’s organization had changed in that one split second. She could hold her own, she could keep herself alive, and she could kill if she had to. In an ironic moment of self-defense, she took down the most hated man in the city and made herself in one go. Traditionally, it was against the rules for a soldier like her to take out a Family boss like Salvatore. But, unknown at the time, he was leading an operation within his own Family to bring down everyone else in the city and leave them for dead. In an instant, his plans had stopped with Sophia. And life had changed for her.
Although she could never be capo, she wasn’t silent anymore. She was Benny’s right hand, moving up over Paul and Frank. A few months ago they had held her hand, now they took orders from her. They never protested, their fear of her kept them quiet. And they knew how it worked—she had proven herself, and had gotten rewarded. Can’t argue with the day to day rules.
As far as her mother or anyone else knew, she had gotten a promotion at the trade office and was making tracks as an analyst. She had the new car and the nice paycheck to prove it. She stepped out into the sunshine from her brief daily appearance at the trade office and smiled at how easy it had all been.
As she slipped on her sunglasses and unlocked the door to her MRX, she breathed a sigh of relief to be out of the office. They were all so damn boring. Not like the guys in the Organization were completely fascinating, but at least they had character. She shook off the irritation of the trade office nobodies as she started her car and took off town the road towards the next pick up.
Her phone rang as she stopped at the traffic lights. She couldn’t be bothered looking for her hands free earpiece so just put the phone to her ear.
“It’s Paul. The next delivery is a no go.”
“What are you talking about? They said they’d have the goods this time. I’m sick of giving them more time,” Sophia’s voice sharpened with frustration, “they do realize we’ll have to deal with them in other ways if they don’t pay up?”
“I’m sure they do,” Paul said slowly. Sophia wasn’t so sure. She was still having to deal with some of the contacts not taking her seriously. As much as she shouldn’t have to worry about proving herself anymore, she still felt she should make an effort every now and then so that everyone understood she wasn’t to be taken lightly.
“We go, now,” the traffic light turned green and the anger in Sophia was taken out on the accelerator pedal, the car taking off faster than it should, “we’re going to collect one way or another. I’ve had enough of them stalling. Make sure Frank comes, I’ll need him too.”
“Okay, sure,” Paul replied, knowing full well what she meant, though his words were drowned out by the sound of a police siren coming from behind Sophia’s car.
“Oh shit,” she swore, looking in the rear vision mirror, “there might be a slight delay. Go to Palmero’s office and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.” She threw the phone onto the passenger seat and took the car to the side of the road, cursing under her breath. She exhaled hard as she slipped her shades off and looked in the rear vision mirror at the cop getting out of his car and approaching her car. He seemed to be a fairly young guy, so she decided just to play it cool and see if she could get out of being held back too long. She had things to do.
“Excuse me, Miss, I’m very sorry to stop you but you were traveling at an unsafe speed back there.”
Sophia turned towards the soft voice coming through her window and was struck by his face. Her jaw dropped when she saw how handsome he was. His dark hair was cut short but was somewhat awry as if he had run his fingers through it only seconds ago. His eyes were green and they smiled at her in a way that no-one had smiled at her for a long time. Although the blue police uniform instinctively put dread into her, it looked damn good hugging his muscular frame. She had something of a heart palpitation and wondered how the hell she was going to play this one cool.
Sophia picked her jaw up off the floor, flicked her hair back and smiled.
“I’m really sorry, I was … a bit distracted,” she said, feeling distracted in a different way right now.
“Yes, I noticed you were talking on your phone. Legally, that’s not a good idea either,” he tried to say firmly but couldn’t quite help smiling back at her.
“Oh yeah,” Sophia’s smile dropped for a second when she realized that she was actually in trouble here. She noticed her hands shaking and wondered whether that was because she’d been pulled over, or just because she’d been pulled over by him. She smiled again, “I guess you want my license?”
“Yes please.”
She leaned over to her bag on the passenger side floor and got out her purse. As she opened it, she managed to remember to pull out her alternative license, a well made card identical to her real license but with fake details. Any cop, traffic or otherwise, would more than likely know the Tremarchi name so it wasn’t a good idea to give them a head start. She handed it to him, not worried at all that he would suspect it was counterfeit. Her real problem was getting out of this mess in a timely fashion to get on with her work. But as she looked him up and down, she realized she wasn’t in that much of a hurry.
“Miss Calzadi, may I call you Anna?”
“You can call me anything you like,” Sophia smiled back. Her heart beat a little faster as she saw him blush.
“Anna, I will have to give you a fine. You were doing well over the speed limit. I can probably let you off with a warning for using the phone while driving. Just be a little more conscientious in the future.”
“Yes of course, I understand.”
As he wrote out the ticket, he commented, “Nice car.”
“Thank you. I did want to get it in black, but they don’t make this model in that color unfortunately.”
“Looks great in red, don’t worry,” he looked up at her, and she felt her heart jump once more. “Here you are. Just watch yourself in the future. Payment details are on the back and, uh,” he pulled his badge out, opened it up and pulled out a card, “and if you want to contact me,” he quickly corrected himself when he saw one of her highbrows raise, “uh,
need to contact me, if you have any queries about the ticket, this is my number.”
She took the card and looked at the name. “So Constable Connell, may I call you Jonathon?” He smiled as she raised her eyebrow again. “If I have any queries about anything other than the fine, call I call you then too?”
“Absolutely. You can call me about,” he paused a second when he realized what she meant, “anything at all.”
“I might do that then.”
As Sophia took off down the road towards her father’s office, at a more reasonable speed of course, she wondered how long it would be before she could hold off calling him. She also wondered how she was going to manage smacking some non-paying lug over the back of the head with an iron bar while she had the image of Jonathon’s face in her head.
© Cynthia M. Piromalli
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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