Free La Bocca (the mouth) (The Spitfire) by Jordan Silver

Prologue
     
     
     
    “Patrick I need a solid old friend.”
    “Roberto is that you, how the hell are you my friend it's been
ages; I hear you're having a little headache out your way is that what this is
about? You need I should get some of my people on it?”
    “Nah paisan, I've got it covered it’s my baby girl; you remember
Arianna yes?”
    “Little Arianna is she still such a spitfire?”
    “Mama mia if the enemy's bullet doesn't cut me down that child
will do it I swear.”
    “A handful huh.”
    “And then some, that's why I'm calling; I need to send her to you
for safe keeping until I send my enemies to hell where they belong. This
fucking gumbah Vasili is a pain in the ass, now he's not only greedy but
stupid. Word is him and his brother has concocted some scheme to force my
little angel into marriage with one of their sons.”
    “Unethical, who would do such a thing to a young girl, what is she
seventeen, eighteen?”
    “She just turned eighteen but that's not the problem so much; the
thing is she somehow got wind of it and is out for blood.”
    “Come again.”
    “The girl fancies herself to be some sort of gangster, my fucking
idiot brother's always filling her head with shit. Instead of baby dolls and
tiaras he had her playing with epees and shuriken. By the time I figured out
what the fuck it was too late. While I was busy building an empire that fuck
was turning my kid into his nephew.
    “You know Alphonso was always
set in his own ways and since he never planned on marriage and kids I guess he
figured yours were gonna be his.
    Patrick
laughed at his old friend's plight; though the two men hadn't seen each other
in quite some time; years in fact, he remembered well their younger days
together. Days spent on the streets of Chicago as young toughs trying to make
names for themselves. The old regime had been on its way out then and they were
determined to make their mark. There'd been a war back then too, the old war
horses hadn't wanted to let go but the young blood proved to be too much and
youth and brains prevailed. The mob took on new connotations then; yes they
still strong armed those who would oppose them but they were no longer in the
market for unprecedented killings. Blood on your hands was seen as a last
resort whereas before it had been par for the course. Back then in the back alleys
of a festering city two young toughs had made a pledge in blood.
    “Do you remember our oath?”Patrick now asked Roberto.
    “I thought you'd forgotten it's been so long.”
    “Nah circumstances calls for a little change in plans but it's
still the same; besides it works out better this way since my Paddy is more
into the saving of lives. He has no stomach for the life; now his firstborn
Shane, perfecto.”
    “Yeah? We'll have to sit down; I think that might be just what the
doctor ordered.”
    “That much trouble is she?”
    “If she wasn't my kid I would've capped her a long time ago does
that answer?”
    “Send her to me, I'll straighten her out.”
    Little did he know while he made that pledge to his old friend
that things would change almost overnight.
     

 
    Chapter 1
    My name is Shane Flanagan those who know me and even some who
don't fear me. In my line of work this is a good thing, a very good thing.
    You see I'm a very bad man, bad to the motherfucking bone. I make
no excuses for myself. I would stomp a mother fucker just for fun, well maybe
not so much these days, but when I was younger, yeah.
    Now I would shoot a motherfucker for stepping on my kicks and it
didn't matter if they were Chucks or Gucci. It all depended on what kind of
mood I was in, and who's doing the mother fucking stepping.
    But I digress, as I was saying
people feared me all over this fucking place, so tell me then why this little
slip of a girl thought she could mouth off at me and get away with it?
    Now this Arianna Rossi is a real pain in the ass, know what I
mean?
    She lived upstairs of this pub that I'd just