Cohost writing prompt: @spy-thief-assassin-who — Mob Boss who doesn't cross the line — they take it with them
"Padrone," Vito says humbly.
It's hours after the restaurant's closing time, but of course it's a family business. Just Martingale and Vito, who wanted to speak with her; and out back in the kitchen, just the owner, minding his own business like a loyal man who knows what's good for him.
Marty casually spears a ravioli on her fork. "Vito," she says, with a measured warmth. "What's on your mind?" He's been at her right hand for years; was at the Old Man's, before Marty filled Il Padrone's shoes.
"Padrone, you know I'm your man," he says. "You know we've never had it better than under your guidance. You know I'm loyal, like a hound, Padrone."
She slides the pasta off the fork's tines, lightly caged behind her teeth. Chews. Sets down her fork and reaches for her wineglass, gestures with it for him to keep going.
"I've been talking to some of the men, Padrone," he says, sweating.
"And what are they whispering?" She fixes him with the featureless spheres of her eyes.
"It's not like that, Padrone. It's — some of them a little worried by the sorceror."
"Sorcerors," Marty says, "ought to be worrying."
"Padrone, she — some of the men think she's a little too free with your name. That she's on a longer leash than you'd keep any other wizard."
They say she's had her head turned. Gone soft. And that Dandelion goes too far. Is sinister, bloodthirsty. Suspect.
"Padrone, the sorceror, she's — there's a code, Padrone, there are lines you don't cross. The Old Man—"
"It's true that I don't always do things the way the Old Man did," Martingale says, casual, genial. "For example, when I tell you I'm sending you to take care of business out of town because I trust you, it's not actually to fuck your wife."
Vito fumbles his own fork, suddenly pale. "Padrone," he says hoarsely, "don't — my wife — that's not called for."
"She didn't enjoy it," Martingale says mercilessly. "He preferred they didn't, as a rule. So many ambitious young men with guns standing at your back, taking their orders from the Old Man, if she ever breathed a word that set you against him."
He looks ill. She spears another ravioli, chews it, swallows.
"You," she says, low and even, "are every man in his twenties, trying to make ends meet between a scummy job and scummy landlord, wailing that the world was just a better place when you were ten. Every man in his thirties, with a hangover that feels like death, swearing that wine didn't do that to people when you were twenty. Every man in his forties who finds the blood on his hands harder and harder to scrub off, swearing that the stains on him were honourable in his thirties." She puts the fork down on the side of her plate with a decisive clink. "You're an old soldier whose gut weakened, drunk on nostalgia. Fuck me sideways, Vito, it was in the Old Man's day he had the Hamiltons, down to the fifteen-year-old son, hung on meathooks. You want to lie to my face that I'm a coarser grade of criminal?"
"Padrone—"
"You want to talk to me about lines I can't cross?"
"Padrone," Vito pleads, hands shaking. "The sorceror, she—"
Martingale dabs her pursed mouth with a napkin. "Dandy," she says, and without a movement or a pause, there are three people there; one standing very close behind Vito's chair.
"Padrone," Dandelion purrs.
Marty looks up at her, thirsting to do something terrible. "Some of the men have been talking to Vito, here," Marty says. "Take him out back. Make him scream every one of their names. Then every one of them, before sunup, and deliver the news to their new replacements."
She picks her fork back up.
"Padrone!—" Vito says.
"Make sure they all know," Martingale says, stabbing another piece of pasta and rolling it in sauce, "that Il Padrone doesn't cross lines. Lines are for them. And Il Padrone will tell them where the lines are."
"Examples made?" Dandelion says over Vito's shoulder, eyes alight with anticipation, licking her lips.
"Examples made," Marty says, and then, chewing, puts down her fork and takes a tiny memo pad and slim silver mechanical pencil from her pocket; makes a note about pension for Vito's widow as his feet scrabble desperately for purchase on the floor, only strangled choking noises escaping his throat as unseen forces drag him off.
She doesn't need to look to know that Dandy's smiling, bright and hungry as she follows; in the way that burns inside Martingale's chest.