“Come at me, bro! Fucking come at me!” said the drunk meathead standing in front of me.

Club Elation was jam-packed with beautiful people and the DJ was playing an amazing set list of house music & 90s hip-hop, yet for some reason, this asshole chose to spend the night trying to pick a fight with Harry Xtreme. What a loser. Was this his idea of a good time? Getting wasted and making a complete ass of himself? He’d been shouting random taunts at The Xtremers all night long, and it was getting old. I was sick of his shit.

“Leave,” I said, activating Mean Mug.

“Make me,” he sneered. “It’s a free country.”

I sighed. It sucked that Mean Mug didn’t work every time. I didn’t want to have to fight this guy. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t scared. With the Brawler skill on my side, there was no way this clown could hurt me. I just didn’t want to get myself or The Xtremers kicked out of the club. If Mean Mug had failed and violence wasn’t the answer, I wasn’t left with a lot of options.

I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to the inebriated man. “Why don’t you go have another drink? It’s on me.”

He looked at me in surprise and then a wobbly smile spread across his face. “Thanks, buddy. You’re alright.”

I let out a sigh of relief when he stumbled toward the bar. That would buy me a little time but I wouldn’t be surprised if my new “buddy” forgot about my act of generosity and started messing with the group again. The Xtremers nodded at me in approval and kept dancing.

My first month of working as Harry’s bodyguard had been fairly uneventful. Most of the time I just stood around while he and his friends filmed their videos and made sure that the fans didn’t get too close to them. This night was the first time that I came close to actually needing to do something. I wasn’t complaining though. It was easy money and Harry paid very well. Somehow I’d talked him into paying $2,000 per week for my services. He even gave me some stuff that he didn’t want from sponsorship deals that he did. I guess it was his way of showing me how grateful he was for me “saving his life”.

When I told my mother that I’d started working in security she was confused but still tried to be supportive. Seeing my security guard license seemed to put her at ease. I think she was just glad that I’d found a job that wasn’t connected to our family. My sister was glad that I’d found something too. Thank god they hadn’t found out the truth.

I did look into going back to school after my first date with Mia. Finishing my education did seem promising, but I decided to hold off on it for the time being. Starting the security company with the guys had been my idea so I felt like I owed it to them to get it off the ground. Once everything was running smoothly, it would be way easier for me to let everyone know that I wanted out. Besides, I doubted that I was going to find a better job than this any time soon and I’d need to save money to pay for tuition.

Mia was a little disappointed that I wasn’t following her advice but she respected my loyalty to my family. We’d seen each other a few more times since our first date and I was seriously beginning to fall for her. We talked all the time and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She seemed to get me in a way that nobody else did. It felt like everything was starting to go my way.

The most surprising thing about working for Harry Xtreme was seeing just how much work went into being a content creator behind the scenes. The Xtremers spent a lot of time planning out their videos, no matter how stupid the concept might seem, to maximize their views and appeal to the widest possible audience. Harry was a bit of a perfectionist. If he felt like something that they filmed didn’t look dynamic enough, he would make everyone do it over and over again until they finally got it right. And it seemed like these guys were always taking calls to set up new sponsorship and business deals. I even heard them talk about a commercial they were going to do for Nike. It was hard to believe that I was somehow connected to all of this.

There wasn’t much going on at the moment so I absentmindedly flipped through the different tabs of the system.

User

Domenico Moretti

Age

21

Current Class

Mafia Associate

Current XP

50

Charisma

4

Intelligence

6

Wisdom

4

Strength

4

Constitution

5

Skills

Mean Mug I: intimidate someone into bending to your will. 1 minute time limit. 25% chance of success, 24-hour cooldown

Brawler I: grants basic fighting skills. Passive ability

Safe House I: Become invisible to police officers for 1 minute. 48-hour cooldown.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I wasn’t sure how to spend the 200 XP I’d gotten from the robbery at first, but I eventually settled on a new skill that the system had shown me called Safe House I. I hoped that I’d never find myself in a situation where I needed to evade the cops, but I figured it would be better to have something like this in my back pocket just in case I ever needed it. One minute of “invisibility” didn’t seem like much though, so I hoped the system would let me increase that time limit. Buying the skill had cost me all the XP I earned from the robbery, so all I had at the moment was the 50 XP from the secret quest at the casino.

The only quest that the system had offered me since then was one where I stole Harry’s car but I ignored it because it would’ve been stupid to steal from my employer. Again. I had a good thing going and I didn’t want to mess it up.

I saw Kev Xtreme walk up to me with the rest of the group not far behind him. “This place is dead,” He said. “Let's get out of here.”

I cleared a path to the entrance of the club and led The Xtremers out. One thing that I’d learned in my short time as a bodyguard was that there were so many potential threats to watch out for. You had to look at everyone with scrutiny and assume that they might hurt your client. We got out of there without any further incidents and I drove the Xtremers back to their mansion. After saying my goodbyes, I left the mansion to head home myself. It was late and I couldn't wait to get some sleep. I noticed an expensive-looking black car with tinted windows parked right outside Xtremer's Mansion. As soon as I stepped off of their property, the passenger side window of the car rolled down and I saw Angelo sitting there. His father was sitting in the driver’s seat, frowning in my direction.

“Get in,” Uncle Luca said.

I obeyed and the car sped off. The color drained from my face. It was hard to make eye contact with Angelo or my uncle. If Uncle Luca was showing up outside this house, then it meant that he knew everything we’d been getting up to. He was probably pissed that we were doing this behind his back. I scrambled to figure out how I’d talk my way out of this. The most important thing would be to find out exactly how much he already knew so that I wouldn’t dig myself into even more trouble.

“H..Hey, Uncle. Angelo. Good to see you,” I said, breaking the ice.

“Hi, Nico,” Angelo said. He didn’t turn around to look at me.

“What brings you guys here?” I said with a pasted-on smile.

“Cut the crap, kid. You know exactly what this is about,” said Uncle Luca.

“I have a pretty good idea, but I’d like to hear from you just to be sure,” I said. My deflection wasn’t subtle but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to offer up information first and incriminate myself.

Uncle Luca steered the car with one hand and pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket with the other hand. He flung the paper back at me and I caught it. It was one of the business cards for Divine Protection. I could see his eyes looking back at me in the rearview mirror.

I cleared my throat. “Let me start by just saying how much I respect you and appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me by letting me join the organization. I’m grateful for everything that you’ve done for me.”

“Really? You respect me, huh? Then why am I hearing that you’ve been pulling jobs behind my back? You rob some kid and pull a scam without consulting me first? Who do you think you are?”

Shit. He already knew everything. Time to start groveling.

“It sounds bad when you put it that way, but we always planned on letting you know what we were up to. Honest.”

“What were you thinking? That robbery could’ve gone wrong in so many different ways. I don’t need you bringing heat on me. I thought you were smarter than that, Nico!”

Uncle Luca whacked Angelo on the back of the head. “And you! I can’t believe you let your little cousin talk you into this. He’s new to this, but you should’ve known better! You don’t do anything without asking me first. Don’t you ever forget who’s in charge.”

This conversation reminded me a lot of my first day in the gang with Angelo. He did tell me back then how important this hierarchy stuff was. Angelo didn’t try to make any excuses for what happened or shift the blame. I was grateful for that. He just sat there while his dad kept going on about how much of a screw-up he was and how he needed to work harder to earn respect. I felt bad about getting him in hot water with his dad. That was undoubtedly the tensest car ride of my life.

“How much money have you made off this YouTuber so far?” Uncle Luca asked.

“Um, we got $3,000 for his gold chain that we stole, plus another $100 that was in his wallet. And Harry’s been paying me $2,000 a week, so that’s another $8,000. That brings the total up to $12,000 so far,” I said.

Uncle Luca raised his eyebrows. “You made $12,000 in one month?”

“Yeah. Not bad, right?” I chuckled nervously. “And we always intended on giving you a cut. Because we did this for the family. This was all about finding a new source of income for the family. You’ve got to know that we weren’t trying to keep this from you forever. We just didn’t want to bring it to your attention until we were sure that this was solid. This is going to open up all kinds of new opportunities for us.”

Everything that I said was true, but I was babbling so much that it sounded phony even to me. Getting on Uncle Luca’s bad side was terrifying me so much that I was just saying whatever it took to keep him calm. I’d heard rumors over the years about what happened to people who crossed him. We were blood but I wasn’t 100% sure if that would keep me safe if I fucked up too badly.

“In fact, let’s call Harry right now and try to land a job for another one of our guys,” I heard myself say. Ugh. Why did I say that? I dug my phone out of my pocket, dialed Harry’s number, and put it on speakerphone. The phone rang a couple of times before he picked up.

“Hello?” said a garbled voice from the phone.

“Hey, Harry. It’s Nico.”

“What’s up? Why are you calling so late?”

“Something came up that I thought you’d be interested in,” I said. “A couple of the bodyguards at Divine Protection just got some availability. We’re in very high demand and slots don’t stay open for long, so I just wanted to give you a heads-up in case you knew anyone who was looking for security.”

“Oh, good looking out,” Harry said. “Hmm, do you know ZeldaFiend69 from Twitch? She told me that she’s been freaked out lately about a guy who’s been stalking her. I’ll give her your number.”

“Great. We’d be more than happy to help her out,” I said.

“Alright, catch you later, bro.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

I hung up and looked over at my uncle. “See? What’d I tell you? It’s pretty much a done deal. We can keep this going, get more referrals, and line up tons of new jobs for our guys.”

“Things might’ve worked out this time, but I don’t wanna hear about you doing anything without my say-so going forward. Capisce?”

“Yeah, got it. Won’t happen again.”

“Honestly, this thing that you got going ain’t half bad,” Uncle Luca said with a smile. “You should’ve talked to me about it.”

“We wanted to surprise you. You know, show that we were taking initiative,” I said.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t like surprises. Keep that in mind going forward,” Uncle Luca said. “Are you sure these internet people aren’t fuckheads? I don’t want my people getting involved in anything that’ll put more eyes on us.”

“Harry’s been reliable so far. He and his friends might act like idiots on camera, but they seem pretty smart in real life,” Angelo chimed in. “I don’t think they’d do anything to jeopardize their careers. And we can vet all these people before we decide to work for them and make sure they can be trusted.”

“Good. The two of you better stay on top of everything. We’re gonna try this out for a while and get more security jobs for our guys. If this goes wrong, it’s on you.”

“We understand. How did you find out about what we were doing anyway?” I asked

Uncle Luca smirked. “You don’t think I hear things? I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere. Never forget that.”

It was bothering me that he wouldn’t give me a straight answer but I tried not to let it show. The only people who knew about Divine Protection before this sit down were me, Angelo, Joey, and Mello. I knew it wasn’t me or Angelo and Joey had always been. That just left Mello. It was no secret that the guy didn’t like me, so it didn’t surprise me that he’d try to throw me under the bus. Maybe he thought it would help him get in Uncle Luca’s good graces. I clenched my fist. He and I needed to talk very soon.