Seamless Ties

“If it goes to hell, grab everything. Kill them all to the very last and get out.”

Chris and Michael exchanged a look—brief, sharp. Michael’s jaw ticked once. Chris shifted his weight almost imperceptibly, shoulders pulling straighter as if bracing for impact. Their boss and pseudo-father snuffed out his cigarette beneath the heel of his polished shoe and picked up his club. In the nearly empty room, the two younger men stood tall and stiff, hands clasped behind their backs, feet only slightly apart, as if the marble floor itself demanded discipline.

“I don’t understand.” Chris frowned, brows knitting together. “If you know they’re going to attack us, why do the deal in the first place?”

Tony Grasso rolled his tongue slowly along the inside of his cheek, eyes fixed on his boys. The golf club drifted back as he turned toward the ball. A small, almost reluctant smile tugged at his mouth—an expression so rare it looked foreign on him.

His leather shoes slid apart with quiet precision. Shoulders loosened. The white ball waited on its makeshift tee.

He swung.

In the vast space of the mansion’s enormous study, the sound of the ball striking the wall nearly shattered the quiet.

At their posts, Chris and Michael watched as the ball rolled toward a large Chinese vase, standing like an edifice beside an intricate column. Its round bottom halted the ball’s progress—a faint ding barely audible.

Straightening his tie, Tony turned back to his boys, walking over to each of them and gently patting their stiff shoulders. He stared at them almost tenderly, taking in the bags beneath Chris’s wide eyes and the faded scar stretching toward Michael’s temple.

These were his boys.

His family.

His mind whimsically drifted to the first time he brought them into this life. They were barely twelve—skinny, ragged, small. Their school uniforms sagged on their malnourished frames, yet the fire of survival burned in their eyes, an inextinguishable flame.

It was that spark—the stubbornness, the resilience—that had driven him to take them under his wing in the first place.

Those defiant faces as they stared back into the eyes of the police, the storekeeper’s temper only fueling their ire.

He had watched from the comfort of his car, intrigued as the officers pushed the boys to their knees, demanding they apologize to the owner for stealing. Yet neither Michael nor Chris lowered their gaze. Their eyes remained fixed on the officer, the urge to fight barely held back.

His curiosity had kept him from simply continuing his schedule. Instead, he signaled his driver to follow the two when the officer dismissed them. As the car rolled down the streets, deeper into the slums, Tony’s interest intensified. When he saw the boys enter a building, he leaned back in his seat and stared at the faded sign hanging above the faded doors.

Saint John’s Orphanage for Boys

He stepped out of his car and entered the establishment before the thought had even fully formed in his mind. What he saw the moment he entered made his anger surge outward in an acrid cloud of disgust that he could still recall with alarming clarity.

Standing tall over the two boys was a rotund man, his beefy hand slamming into their faces as they kneeled on the floor. A crowd of boys of varying ages surrounded them, while the caretaker continued to hit them with unrestrained fury. The smaller of the two buckled beneath a vicious slap across his face. The weight of his backpack dragged him down, forcing him to crumple into a heap.

“Get up, Chris!” the caretaker yelled, teeth bared as he bent down, grabbed the scrawny boy by the shoulders, and hauled him to his feet. “Where the hell is it?”

Chris breathed heavily through his nose, his lips trembling as blood seeped from his nose. His eyes, shadowed by ebony lashes, stared through the curtain of darkness as his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

Gnashing his teeth, the caretaker growled, “BASTARD! WHERE THE HELL IS IT?” He struck Chris across the face once more. “CAN’T YOU DO ANYTHING RIGHT? DO I HAVE TO SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN’T FUCKING DO A SIMPLE THING?”

“Get off him!” Michael suddenly leaped to his feet, throwing himself at the caretaker’s back. His scrawny arms wrapped around the man’s thick neck, squeezing desperately. But he was no match for the furious man, who outweighed him in strength and size.

With a ferocious grip, the caretaker flipped Michael over his shoulder. His head slammed against the wall with an alarming thud, causing blood to darken Michael’s hair.

Scared, Chris cried out, witnessing the blood begin to seep into Michael’s hair. “MICHAEL! MICHAEL!”

Scrambling on the floor in terror, Chris hurriedly crawled toward his friend but was yanked up by the hair, blood staining his trembling hands. Michael’s eyes fluttered open and closed slowly.

“WHERE IS IT?” the caretaker snarled, his focus singular. “Where the fuck did you lose it?”

Before he could do any more damage, Tony stepped forward swiftly. His fist shot out and connected with the man’s jaw, delivering a sickening crack.

Chris, now released, fell to the floor. Frightened and frantic, he hurriedly crawled back to Michael, desperation in his voice as he called out for his friend.

“What kind of caretaker are you?” Tony seethed.

“Who the fuck are you?” the man barked, cradling his aching jaw, eyes flashing with pain.

Tony snarled, his gaze sweeping over the scared faces of the boys surrounding them. “You are the worst kind of scum, you know that? They’re just damn kids!”

“Oh, yeah?” the caretaker growled back. “So what? No one wants them! They’re here because they’ve got nowhere else to go! Am I keeping them here? No! They can leave whenever the fuck they want! They chose to be here!”

Growling low in his throat, Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out a revolver, his arm extending as he pointed it directly at the man who was stumbling backward.

“H-Hey!” the caretaker swallowed hard, raising both hands. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t like you,” Tony said simply, his eyes locking onto Chris’s. The boy stared at him with wide, fearful eyes. “Do you like this man, Chris?”

The boy immediately shook his head, his long black hair whipping from side to side.

Even though he was small and scrawny, the potential was there. He could see it. And that bleeding kid on the floor… these two had fight in them. He could use that.

“Do you think he deserves to die?” Tony asked quietly, his voice even.

Chris licked his lips, suddenly unsure.

“I guess you really don’t mind this then?” Tony motioned with his free hand, ensuring the gun still threatened the caretaker. “You want to live like this?”

The boy’s head shook more violently this time.

“Well, then I think we’re stuck,” Tony said calmly. “I don’t think he’s going to change… He’ll probably beat you to within an inch of your life when I leave… and your friend over there might even die, unless you do something about it.”

“H-Hey!” the caretaker swallowed, eyes locking on Chris’s, who seemed to take the words to heart. “D-Don’t do anything stupid, okay? Chris, okay? This guy’s crazy!”

“Oh, I’m crazy?” Tony growled. “Frankly, I think the world would be a lot less crazy without people like you. Now shut up.”

“Chr—”

“I don’t want to live like this anymore.” Chris’s voice cut the panicking man off. His gaze centered on the stranger with the gun. He wasn’t sure what made him trust this man. He didn’t know him…but something told him that his life would be far better if he listened.

“Come here then, Chris,” Tony motioned.

“Don’t do it, Chris!”

Tony’s head snapped toward the sound. His eyes landed on a small boy, even scrawnier than Chris. Almost immediately, a hand was pressed over the child’s mouth as two scared boys pulled the protesting kid behind them, trying to shield him with their bony bodies.

“It’s okay, Nickie,” Chris’s voice came out soothing as he got to his feet with determination. He looked at Tony and stepped toward him, face set. “What do you want me to do?”

“Take your life into your hands,” Tony replied calmly. His grip on the gun loosened just a bit as Chris’s trembling fingers reached out for it.

“Grab the gun, Chris,” Tony instructed. “Hold it firm.”

Chris hesitated for a moment, then took it, his grip trembling slightly.

“Chris, wait!” the caretaker pleaded, eyes full of fear. “Stop! If you listen to him, you’ll get into worse trouble! I swear! I’m not lying! You’ll be put in prison! You’ll be locked up!”

The boy was scared. Tony could see it in the way his lip trembled; yet he remained steadfast.

“I know,” Chris whispered, voice barely audible. “But if I kill you… then my friends won’t have to do what I do.”

“So you’ll go to jail for them?” the man snapped, trembling where he stood. “You’d throw away your life just like that?”

Chris took a slow breath, his trembling subsiding as he came to terms with what needed to be done. “I’m not throwing it away… I’m giving it to them.”

He pulled the trigger.

Tony smiled at the memory, the corner of his mouth lifting as his thumb brushed absently over the head of his golf club.

After that, he called in a few of his men. Michael’s head wound was quickly treated—clean gauze wrapped tight around dark hair still sticky with drying blood. The caretaker’s body was thrown into the Hudson River; the splash swallowed any remnant of his pathetic existence.

Chris and Michael became his boys that day. They left the orphanage in the back of his car, silent, shoulders squared, neither of them looking back at the building shrinking in the rearview mirror.

He trained them, taught them, and shaped them into his right and left hands. Mornings began before sunrise. Guns grew steady in their grips and their hesitation thinned into instinct. Of course, he had taken some of the other boys too. Chris and Michael’s friends joined his family a year after they broke from the orphanage—first the youngest, Nick, who clung close to Chris’s side, then James and Daniel. The following year, Harry and Kevin joined the ranks, their thin frames filled out under suitable clothes instead of threadbare uniforms.

He’d been very careful with them, watching, rewarding, punishing—polishing the rough edges until sharpness remained. Tony knew they would prove to be his most useful subordinates as they grew older.

And just as he had envisioned all those years ago, they did. Deals closed without complications. Problems disappeared overnight. His enemies learned to lower their eyes.

The scrawny kids from the orphanage became his most loyal men.

They obeyed his words without question, moving the moment his voice shifted. They carried out his orders before the echo of them faded—better than any sons he might have had.

These were his children. The thought settled in his chest, deep and possessive.

He swelled with pride as he looked at their faces once more, at the hard lines carved where boyish softness once played, at the scars earned in his name.

They had grown.