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“What is it?” She fixed her shirt that had come untied.

“You return home with me to Sorrento. Let me show who I am. It’s near Napoli.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I have Fabiana.”

“She and Lorenzo will come as well. My villa has been in our family for close to two hundred years. It’s three times as large as this one. There’s plenty of room. My business calls me back. I can’t stay here more than a day. And I’m… I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

Mira put her fingertips to her temples. Her head literally swam, and breathing was a chore with him bearing down on her. “I need to talk to her first. We’re vacationing. She wanted to go sailing today, and I put her off,” she lied.

“Mira, it’s too late to put the brakes on when we’ve already taken the victory lap. You let me in, Bella.” He lifted her chin. “I’m not going anywhere. You said you wanted to know me. The only way to know me is to let me show you my world. A small part of it.”

“When?”

“I have a business meeting tomorrow, and then we can leave on my jet.”

“What’s in Sorrento that we can’t find here?”

“The opportunity to show you how beneficial being my friend can be if you give me a chance.”

The world was filled with him now. He consumed her thoughts when they were apart, and she desperately wanted to hold on to that feeling a bit more. He touched her again. His hand cupped the side of her face, and his irises were a softer shade of blue. Her mind relived the velvet warmth of his kiss. “Okay. I’ll talk to Fabiana.” Her friend would be game if it included Lorenzo.

Giovanni smiled and lowered his hand to capture hers. “Is holding hands allowed?” he kidded.

She laughed. “As if you need my permission.”

Chapter Seven

Lorenzo craved the sharp burn of whisky to torch his throat. He decided on a bottle of wine from their family’s private stock. He needed to have a cool head. Giovanni didn’t suspect. No one did. And, dammit, he made sure no one ever would. When he returned yesterday, the men didn’t question him. It would be stupid to believe his arrival on a vespa wasn’t shared with his cousin. Lorenzo drank down half the bottle. He exhaled. “Fuck. What the fuck have I done?”

Yesterday -

Lorenzo slowed his car and circled the long front drive of a dilapidated, ugly little cottage deep in the east hamlet of Bellagio. Its forlorn, vacant appearance was a striking contrast to the candy-apple red convertible Jaguar parked in the tall grass to the side of it. Giuseppe Calderone travelled in and out of the hamlets in flashy cars with loud music. The motherfucker wouldn’t know discretion if she sat on his face and gave him a blowjob.

He let go a devilish chuckle. But soon the humor died on his lips, and anxiety cooled his thoughts.

What if Giovanni suspected something and had Lorenzo tailed? How could he explain this meeting? His vision switched to the rearview mirror. Thanks to the overgrown cypress and hundreds of wind whipped trees flanking both sides of the single lane road he travelled in on, a car tailing him could remain unseen. Therefore, he waited.

Nothing stirred. He didn’t expect this meeting to go well. Giovanni was making moves. Battaglia’s would soon surpass all families in the Cammora. How could he anticipate he’d try to expand their operation up through the triangle? The dealings between he and Calderone would have to come to an end.

“Fuck this shit.” Lorenzo threw open his car door and got out. He tossed it shut with a loud slam. Birds took flight from the belly of tangled tree branches. The evening sun blared in the sky making everything around him bright and feverish. Perspiration spread over his brow and trickled down his sideburns. Tucking his gun into the front of his pants, he did another silent sweep of the forests. It would have been wise to clue his best friend Carlo in. To do so would reveal his mistakes, unforgivable mistakes. He had to deal with Giuseppe alone.

As he strolled around the outskirts of the property, he felt the hairs on his nape rise. Uneasy and alert, he kept his vision keen to anything out of order. The front of the cottage was boarded up but the back had been opened for their meetings over the years. And now Lorenzo tired of the side hustles and back door deals behind his family’s back. He stepped through the open doorway with his hand to his gun, still tucked in his waist. Giuseppe waited alone.

“What the hell? I’ve been here for damn near an hour!” Giuseppe Calderone was a plump, five-foot three, well-dressed thug. Spoiled, sheltered, and tolerated by the men of their world only because of his father’s notoriety. The runt had the good fortune to be the only son of Don Calderone. Lorenzo dropped his hand from his gun. Calderone wiped the sweat from his brow with his silk handkerchief tucked in his back pocket. “Well? Why the fuck did you keep me waiting?”

“You’re alone?”

“Aren’t I always?” Calderone sneered. “Ah, I understand now. Your half-breed cousin is in town, and now you don’t trust me?”

Hackles rose to the back of his neck. Nothing made him more furious than lack of respect shown to his family. He took a measured step toward Giuseppe, and the turd actually grinned, too stupid to know how close to the edge Lorenzo actually was. “Disrespect my family again, and I’ll put a bullet in your gut.”

“Whoa, check out the balls on this guy. Bastardo! Baggiano! Since when do you threaten me?” Calderone took a step toward him. Lorenzo didn’t flinch. “I tell you how this works. Or have you forgotten your sins and what it cost your family.”

The pressure in Lorenzo’s temples pounded thickly; his throat grew tight under Calderone’s mockery. The fucker would be wise not to push further. But the young spoiled jackass was just a loudmouth hothead with Lorenzo’s balls in his grip. For years he did the unthinkable to bury his shame. And all of it was unraveling. The raid had opened Giovanni’s eyes. It wouldn’t be long before the dirty secrets of the past surfaced and destroyed his family from within.