Page 5 of Bellini Born

Blinking a few times, my vision still swimming, I retorted, “Flattery never was your strong suit.”

“Why would it be? Everyone’s supposed to be kissing my ass, not the other way around, little brother.”

He had a good point. As Don, he was the man in charge of the entire Bellini Mafia, and you didn’t cross him—hell, you didn’t make eye contact with him—unless you had a death wish.

Gio unbuttoned his suit jacket before dropping onto the chair opposite my desk. He assessed me carefully. “Something I should be worried about?”

While I ran our real estate holdings—our legitimate business—my brother was in charge of all the illegal ones. Our largest source of income was our underground casinos and sports betting, where we offered on-site loans to the degenerates who didn’t have the cash on hand to feed their gambling addictions. Believe it or not, there were a lot of powerful people who got caught up throwing good money after bad in the belief that, at any moment, Lady Luck would turn in their favor. And having them indebted to us gave us the upper hand when it came to controlling this city.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m just fucking exhausted between Bianca’s nightmares and Serafina refusing to sleep through the night.”

My brother arched an eyebrow. “What’s the point of a live-in nanny if you’re still getting up in the middle of the night?”

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “She quit.”

Gio cringed. “How many does that make now? Six?”

“Eight.”

Eight nannies in six months, all because Bianca went from my perfect princess to a holy terror after the loss of her mother. Every woman who walked through the door to take care of her and her baby sister was viewed as an unwanted replacement for Allegra, and Bianca went out of her way to run them off.

“Who’s with the girls now?”

I sighed. “Teresa.”

My brother snorted. “Better place the ad for a new housekeeper while you’re at it.”

Throwing my arms wide, I challenged, “What other choice do I have? Normally, I’d call Gemma, but that’s not an option anymore.”

Our only female cousin took Allegra’s death even harder than Bianca had. Probably because she’d watched the women of this family get picked off one by one and, as the last one standing, figured she would be next. So, she had begged Gio for the chance to disappear, to start a new life away from Chicago, away from her abusive prick of a father, our Uncle Dario. For her protection, only our other cousin, Gemma’s brother Enzo, knew where she was located.

Blowing out a heavy breath, I confessed, “I’m barely keeping my head above water here.”

“Then you’re really not going to like what I came here to tell you.”

“Oh God,” I groaned.

“I got a lead on Rory.”

Gio had been searching for his missing wife for almost three years now. This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a “lead,” and every single one turned out to be a dead end. If she was still alive, that woman had done a bang-up job of flying under the radar. Hell, she’d gone so completely off the grid, there had been a few months where I suspected she might’ve been in witness protection. But when the feds never showed up to beat down our doors, I let that idea go.

Raising an unimpressed eyebrow, I asked, “And what’s that got to do with me?”

He stood from his seat, placing both hands atop my desk. Determination sparkled in his dark eyes. “I’m going after her.”

My eyes bulged. “What? You actually found her?”

A predatory smirk curved on his lips, and he whipped out his cell before placing it down on the desk in front of me. Sureenough, there, in vivid color, was a picture of my red-haired spitfire of a sister-in-law.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. Lifting my gaze from the screen to my brother’s face, I asked, “Where?”

Gio rolled his eyes. “Middle-of-fucking-nowhere Arizona. Some dusty, one-streetlight town.”

Honestly, I was surprised she hadn’t fled the country with how long it had taken him to locate her.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “So . . . what’s the plan? You drag her back here, kicking and screaming? And what are you going to do when she tells Daddy Dearest that she wasn’t kidnapped at all? Because that girl’s never been good at biting her tongue. She’ll rat out your lies about the Russians and their involvement in her disappearance in five seconds flat.”

Sinister laughter fell from his lips. “Mark my words, she’s going to come back willingly.”