Chapter Text
The night is dark and cold in the city as the car drives around away from Manhattan and down to the other side of the bridge. New York is big and vast and it has all kinds of small cities within. It would take from 6 to 8 hours to cross it top to bottom but people mainly talk about New York City, the place where everything happens.
The car comes to a stop at an old building outside of New Jersey and Allen comes out of the car, doing a quick scout of the street. The restaurant across the street has at least two armed men, plus the one by the door and he guesses there might be at least three more men on standby inside. He nods to himself and adjusts his suit jacket before he opens the back door and looks inside.
“Two more men at Saul’s,” He nods with his head across the street. He had a recount of the people working inside the building earlier, didn’t count the added two men and informs Joe. “I think you should bring me in on this one boss,”
“It’ll be too much fuss, Leech,” Joe tells him, buttoning his jacket before he steps out of the car, “If I go in with you, they’ll come in after us,” Joe nods towards the restaurant as well and pats Allen’s shoulder, “this way, he might think I’ll have some mercy and if he wants to bargain with me, he knows he has to have no more than two men with him,”
“Copy that, I’ll just stand by,”
The two men nod to each other and Joe turns, gives the building a quick look up and down and climbs up the few steps to the door.
“Mazzello,” One of the guards greets him, “You have an appointment?”
“Oh, I’m sure Lou is expecting me,” Joe says walking in forward but a strong hand holds him in place.
“We don’t want any trouble in here tonight Joe,”
Joe looks down at the hand on his shoulder and smiles, then looks back up at the goon. “I’ll just be a minute. In and out, you won’t even remember I was here,” he winks at the man and they nod to each other before he’s let go. Joe knows now that the two men outside will be called in soon so he needs to be quick.
He knocks on the door and waits patiently before another goon opens it impatiently.
“What are you doing here Mazzello?” The man stands on his way and doesn’t let him in immediately.
“I came to see Lou, of course,” Joe peeks inside over the shoulder of the man in front of him. He’s quite larger than him but Joe is relaxed as if this is just some casual social call. “Come on- you wanna start anything with me?”
“Let him in,”
An old man’s voice comes from inside the place. Joe can see a long hallway with doors to the sides and one opened at the end. Lou’s study. He’s been here before. The man steps aside and Joe looks up at him with a sarcastic smile and walks in and down the hallway. Everyone knows what’s happening here, even if Joe isn’t saying anything. They’ve heard it’s happened before in the last few weeks. Joe also knows that they know.
“Hey Joey-”
Lou is sitting in the middle of his big study, away from his desk and there’s an empty chair in front of him that he points at for Joe to occupy. He’s an old man, Lou. He’s wearing a grey suit that matches his grey hair and makes him look like a million bucks despite being a little on the heavier side. He’s not too tall or too big but he has a presence and even if you’ve never met him or know who Lou Russo is, you’d feel intimidated by him by just a look.
Not Joe. He unbuttons his jacket and sits down at his designated chair, a leg crossed over the other and he rests his elbow on his thigh, looking calmly at Don Russo in front of him as if he was just a family friend and he’s come to check up on him. And part of that is true.
“How’s Joe?” Lou asks him.
“Hanging in there, Lou, how’s you? How’s the family? How’s Carla?”
“Ah, you know. I’m old, the family is busting my balls constantly and Carla, she still chasing men that are useless, my poor daughter. She never knew how to choose ‘em” Don Russos’ Italian accent is heavy even if he was born in America. His father insisted they speak Italian as well as English so the accent never washed off. “How come you and Carla never made it happen?”
“Oh, you know Carla, she was always a bit of a trouble maker and that just isn’t me,”
“That’s not what I’m hearing nowadays, Joey,”
Joe chuckles dryly and nods slowly, looking down at his fingers, “I wish I didn’t have to Lou, make trouble. But- I don’t have much choice,”
“What do you want, Joey, eh? I can give it to you, we can join forces,” Lou gestures with his arms open, “Fucking up the Brunos, I understand. They messed up with your boy. But me? I’m just an old man now,”
“You know that’s not true Lou,” Joe’s still smiling and shakes his head but finally looks up at the man, “I know you were on it too, with the Brunos. You’re ganging up on us. And my father doesn’t like that,” he stands up from his chair and puts his hands in his pockets, the chair dragging backwards and he looks down on the man in front of him. He can see from the corner of his eye that there’s movement behind him but he remains calm.
“You’re tying loose ends for your old man, eh. I get that. I respect it,” Don Russo grabs a cigar from the inside pocket of his jacket and lits it with a long drag, “But I hope you don’t mind me putting up a bit of a fight,” he finishes the sentence in a deep exhale of dark and heavy smoke and stands up too, buttoning his jacket and steps away through the back door of the studio.
Joe looks down and nods before que looks up again, flashing Don Russo a smirk. “I thought you might,” Not a moment later, he disarms one of the two goons quickly with a hit to his hand while grabbing the other one’s arm with the gun and shooting the first goon.He disarms this man as well, this time, taking the gun for himself and shoots him.
Of course these weren’t the only two men that Don Russo would send after him. As soon as he shot the goon, two others came in through the door already shooting at him. - Joe swore under his breath at the sound of splintering wood from behind him, the panelling breaking with the force of the bullets and Joe ducked and rolled under the desk, seeing one, two, three bullets follow after him.
He’d packed well, he knew that, but still it’s better to save his own bullets, so it’s the first idiot goon’s gun which appear above the old mahogany, blindly shooting at the two new guys, and Joe can’t really believe his luck when he hears a pained grunt. He laughs, twisting around but still using the desk as a block as he kneels on the floor, putting the poor fucker out of his misery and getting the kill shot, the pain in the guys chest no longer a worry.
He was shocked back to the present, his own gloating quietened by a bullet flying by his ear, making him stumble backwards, deafened and vision blurry from the sheer adrenaline in the moment. He uses the desk to push himself backwards, sliding on the ground with the gun raised when the fourth idiot of the night decides to jump over the desk with a war cry Joe was sure would’ve been magnificent if he could hear it, but still, Joe shot him, and ended up with a guy triple his size on top of him, bleeding over the suit he’d had dry cleaned three days ago. It was an odd thing suddenly not able to hear, but even odder as the ringing started and Joe winced, shoving the muscle man off of him and scrambling up to stand, throwing the now empty gun down. No point in bringing a souvenir with him, and it’s not like it’s gonna be evidence. The cleaning team is right behind him. So, Mazzello begins his stalk, staggering a little due to his bleeding ear, but he uses the walls to support himself as he palms another gun from its holster and heads for the back door where Don Russo exited only a few minutes ago.
The only place that door leads is to a staircase and at the top there’s only one door, to Don Russo’s bedroom. Joe knows it’s like his secret exit so he drags himself up, sure that Allen took care of the other two men outside. There will probably be more men coming in shortly but he only needs one more minute because Don Russo is alone in his bedroom, Joe knows this.
“Ah,” The old man scoffs, laying on his bed. He’s changed out of his suit into a dark red silky robe and he has now a whiskey bottle on his night stand and a glass in his hand, even has some ice in it too. He’d obviously thought he’d have time to savour it. “I always knew they were useless, Joey, none like you,”
Joe walks slowly towards the bed, pointing his gun at Don Russo with a sure grip, but he hears his voice all muffled because of the ringing in his ear, and he can at least let the man have his final words.
“Tell Carla I love her,” The old man speaks clearly, no tremor of fear or regret, and Joe respects that. He’s heard a few pleas in his quest, but it was always the big guys who accepted this.Joe shots him in the chest and the head after giving him a firm nod of affirmation.
____________
“Where to, boss?” Allen yells at Joe, watching him through the rare view mirror as he, himself, cleans some blood off of his face from the goons he had to take down while Joe was inside the apartment. “Doctor?”
“Take me home first Leech, then we’ll see,”
Joe holds his hand to his ear the whole ride back to his apartment, the buzzing getting insistent but it’s starting to wear out slowly. Joe is covered in blood but most of it isn’t even his. He probably has a bruise or too and his hands burn but he’s mostly alright and the ringing in his ear seems to be something momentary.
“If I don’t come back out in an hour, go home, get some rest,” Joe tells Allen before he steps out of the car and walks up the front door of his building, doorman quickly opening the door for him.
“Need any help, sir?”
Joe just shakes his head and waves him away as he drags himself to the elevator that’s already waiting for him to take him up to his floor. The few seconds he’s in there, he closes his eyes and rests against the wall, trying to settle his hearing, a massive headache coming along too. The elevator dings at his floor but he can’t hear it, instead, he sees behind his eyes the change in light when the doors open and he opens his eyes, walking out of the elevator and takes the next few steps to his door.
When he goes in, the living room is dark and he doesn’t bother to turn the lights on. He knows this place easily. He drops his keys in the bowl next to the door and toes off his shoes quickly to make his way blindly towards his bathroom. Once there, he sighs deeply, one hand supporting up on the cold marble and he looks at his tired face in the mirror before he lets the water run and ducks down to splash some on his face.
Joe can sense some paddle on the tiled floor and sighs again before he straightens back up, feeling soft lips on his shoulder and an arm wrapped around his waist.
“Do you have any idea how much bleach is needed to remove blood from clothes?”
Ben says softly near his ear, the one that has some hearing still and Joe manages to catch what Ben says, even if it’s a little muffled still. He nods and turns in Ben’s arms but doesn’t press against him, not wanting to stain his sleep t-shirt.
“I told you, vinegar and baking powder. Then cold water,”
The blond softly chuckles at the teasing tone, and just takes a moment to hold Joe infront of him, eyes wondering over the disheveled look. “Any of it yours?” Ben looks Joe up and down and back to his face. Joe points to his ear.
“I think I hurt my eardrum.”
“Well, let me get you cleaned up and then we’ll see about the doctor, okay?” Ben smiles softly at Joe and lifts a hand to brush his sticky hair back with care. Joe nods.
“It’ll be over soon,” He whispers and Ben brings him closer to press his lips to Joe’s forehead.
“I know,” Ben whispers back.