Mafia Heir Turns Me Gay novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Wrong Garnish
The Don collapses over a Negroni, Mickey's fiancée tells the Family he made it, and the heir drags him into a dark office, then walks him out and kisses him in front of everyone.
At twenty past midnight the Don put down a Negroni, grabbed his chest and slid out of his chair.
Mickey Heffernan's fiancée pointed straight at him.
"Mickey made that drink," Kelli said. "I just carried it."
Forty-one guests turned to look at Mickey at once.
He was behind the main bar of the Forty-One with a bottle of bitters in his hand.
Fourteen Old Fashioneds stood in a row in front of him, waiting for the birthday toast.
Through the glass wall of the private lounge, two men in black suits were pumping on Primo Lazzara's chest.
The Don's face had gone grey.
His gold pinky ring kept knocking against the carpet.
Somebody was shouting into a phone for an ambulance.
Kelli stood in the lounge doorway in her black dress, her headset around her neck.
The diamond Mickey had paid for over eighteen months was on her hand.
She didn't look away from him once.
At the capos' table, Nunzio Lazzara got to his feet.
The Don's nephew. Big tipper. Big laugh.
He wasn't laughing now.
"Get the bartender," he said.
Two of his men started toward the bar.
Mickey set the bitters down.
Then he walked out from behind the bar before they reached him, and went into the lounge on his own.
The glass lay on its side next to the Don's hand.
It hadn't broken.
Mickey crouched down and looked at it without touching it.
"That's not my drink," he said.
Nobody answered him.
"There's a lemon twist in it. I flame an orange peel on every Negroni I make. Five years. Ask anyone in this building."
He pointed at the little pile of ice soaking into the carpet.
"And that's crushed ice from the service well. I use one big clear cube. Always."
He stood up and looked at Kelli.
"I didn't make a single Negroni tonight, Kel. Not one."
Her chin came up.
"He's lying. He's covering himself."
"I poured forty-one drinks for forty-one guests," Mickey said. "I can tell you every one."
That was when Nunzio's men took his arms.
They walked him through the lounge so fast his shoes skidded.
They shoved him through a door at the back and shut it behind him.
The office was dark.
The whole Loop glittered behind a wall of glass, forty-one floors down.
Someone was standing at the window.
Santino Lazzara.
The Don's only son.
For five years Mickey had served him soda water with lime, three a night, because Santino never drank.
For five years the man had said maybe twenty words to him.
Santino crossed the room without a sound.
He put Mickey against the wall beside the window.
His gloved hand closed on Mickey's jaw and tipped his face up into the city light.
Black leather, cold, smelling faintly of smoke.
The gold watch caught the light at the edge of Mickey's eye.
"My father just drank something from your bar," Santino said quietly. "Give me one reason I shouldn't hand you to my cousin."
Mickey's knees wanted to beg.
His sister was asleep in Bridgeport with a cardiac exam at eight.
Mandy had nobody else.
His mouth did something else.
"Because I'm the only person in that room who knows what everybody drank."
Santino's thumb pressed under his cheekbone.
"Go on."
"Your father had one Rittenhouse rye, neat, at 11:58. Same as every night for five years. I poured it."
"You had three soda waters with lime."
"The capo with the cane had Barolo. The young one had vodka tonics till he switched to water at midnight."
"Your cousin had two Campari sodas. Kelli doesn't drink on shift."
Mickey swallowed against the leather.
"Nobody ordered a Negroni at my bar. Nobody."
Santino was close enough that Mickey could see the gold hoop in his ear.
He watched Mickey's face.
"Then who made it?"
"Somebody at the service well. The only person who rings tickets back there is the events manager."
"Your fiancée."
"She lied about me," Mickey said. "In front of forty people. She knows I didn't make that drink."
For a long moment Santino didn't move.
Then his hand left Mickey's jaw.
Mickey hadn't realized how warm the glove had gotten until it was gone.
"Nunzio wants someone in the river by morning," Santino said. "Right now that's you."
"Then I guess I'm getting wet."
Something moved at the corner of Santino's mouth.
It was gone before Mickey could call it a smile.
"There's one rule in my family nobody breaks," Santino said. "No one touches what belongs to one of us. Not without him in the room."
"I don't belong to anybody."
Santino opened the office door.
"You will in a minute."
The lounge was full of paramedics now.
They were lifting the Don onto a stretcher, a mask over his face.
Kelli stood by the bar with Nunzio, and his hand was resting on the small of her back.
He moved it the second he saw Mickey.
Mickey walked straight to her.
The whole room went quiet again.
"Did you ring that drink in, Kel?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Look at me and say I made it."
She looked at him.
"You're a bartender, Mickey," she said. "You'll always be just a bartender. You make the drinks."
Four years.
Two of them engaged.
Mickey looked at the ring on her finger.
"Keep it," he said. "We're done."
Her mouth fell open.
Someone at the capos' table whistled low.
Nunzio snapped his fingers at his men.
"Take him downstairs."
"Nobody touches him."
Santino hadn't raised his voice.
He didn't have to.
His cousin's men stopped where they stood.
Nunzio laughed.
"Since when do you care about the help, cousin?"
Santino came up beside Mickey.
He didn't look at Nunzio.
He looked at Mickey.
"He's mine," he said to the room. "Anyone who lays a hand on him answers to me."
Then his gloved hand found Mickey's jaw again, gently this time.
And Santino Lazzara kissed him in front of his whole family.
It wasn't a show kiss.
It was slow and sure, like Santino had been deciding to do it for years.
His mouth was warm and tasted of lime.
Somebody dropped a glass.
Somewhere behind them, Kelli made a sound.
Four hours earlier Mickey had kissed her for luck at the service door.
He had never kissed a man in his life.
And he didn't pull away.
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