Page 5 of Bitter Prince

“Did I hit too hard today, Master?” I replied in the same language. My Japanese lessons were yet another requirement by my grandfather. Mamma was required to speak Italian in Father’s house, but when we were alone, she’d speak Japanese to me. It came in handy.

He shook his head. “Don’t ever hold your punches. For anyone.”

We bowed, signaling the end of the session.

I made my way to my mother and lightly tapped Dante on the shoulder. “Your turn.”

His eyes lit up. Father forbade him from taking lessons, calling them “mumbo jumbo,” but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

He got to his feet and kicked off his shoes, almost running to the middle of the mat.

“I’m ready, Master Azato.”

I lowered myself on the seat next to my mother and turned my head. My chest twisted. She was getting good at hiding the bruises, but I had gotten better at spotting the shades of her concealer.

“Mamma, why don’t we run?” I asked, my voice coming out hoarse as I switched to Japanese. It was safer this way because Father had never learned a word. Neither had Dante, but I knew he’d never tell him even if he could hear us. He loved our mother and wanted her to be safe. She was the only mother he knew. The only one who ever showed us love and affection.

Father never talked about Dante’s birth mother. Mamma usually paled whenever the late Mrs. Leone was brought up—the wife who died during birth under mysterious circumstances. I didn’t know whether it was Mamma’s shame in knowing that she was the mistress while Father’s wife fought to survive.

Anger rolled through me at the messed-up triangle. Love was a hassle I didn’t need in life.

Mamma shook her head and touched my shoulder with sad eyes. “And go where, my little prince?”

“Back home. To Japan. To the Philippines,” I rasped, trying and failing to ball my emotions up inside of me. “Anywhere but here.”

Mamma was looking smaller by the day, wasting away to nothing. “I can’t,” she whispered.

I swallowed. “Why?”

She smiled in a way no one else ever smiled at me and took my hand in hers. Her brown eyes were kind but broken. “Because I was abandoned.”

My brows furrowed. “By Father?”

She shook her head, weary and sad. “No, by another man. Your father saved me.”

I still didn’t understand. Father was destroying us all. His cruelty knew no bounds. “He’s hurting us,” I whispered. “Can’t you see that?”

She touched my cheek. “But going home will hurt us more. My brother will want to secure the Yakuza for his son. To do that, he’d need to eliminate you.” My eyes widened. She’d been calling me her crownless prince for as long as I could remember, but she’d never told me why. “Trust me, Amon. I’m doing this for you. When you’re older, we’ll take it all.”

4

AMON, 20 YEARS OLD

“Inever thought we’d be in California without Father,” Dante muttered.

I agreed, but it worked to our benefit. Enrico Marchetti had had enough of the Leone-Romero feud disrupting the Omertà. So, he found middle ground. Dante and I would oversee all business dealings between the Leone and Romero families.

Win-win.

It was unusual, but this trip was also an opportunity to scout new locations for the expansion of my properties and businesses. Little by little, I had been acquiring docks, hotels, and casinos all over the world, while at the same time managing Father’s shit for the Omertà. Dante did the same. We didn’t want to have to depend on that cruel bastard while we waited for him to kick the bucket.

We pulled onto the Pacific Coast Highway and headed toward Malibu to meet with Tomaso Romero. For some reason, Romero’s daughters lived with their grandmother while he remained in Italy. We didn’t care about the specifics, we just knew Romero was in California, which made things very convenient for us.

I still remembered the day we met them. Two girls with electric blue eyes that reminded you of summertime and warm, sun-lit currents. It was the younger girl who’d caught my attention, and even though I hadn’t seen her since, those eyes stuck with me.

The April sun beat down on the hood of my black Mustang. There must have been a drought because most of the landscape leading up to the ritzy estates looked dry and desolate.

“This must be the place. Not too shabby,” I said to Dante twenty minutes later as we pulled up to the mansion that screamed wealth and Hollywood glamor. It was surrounded by a lavish iron fence lined with well-established greenery…I guess drought rules don’t apply to the filthy rich. You couldn’t see much of the pristine white mansion from here, but the view over the Pacific Ocean was unmistakable. It was a prime location.