Page 122 of Dirty Mafia King

BASTIAN

I’m not a nice man. I take what I want. Empires. Lives. Everything between.

Excepther.

Because family always comes first. I gave her to Sandro, and that’s that—I won’t touch her again.

I drum my pencil on my desk and watch her and Zoey’s antics on my security camera. Zoey plays golf like a lost stripper who believes the magic way back to the men’s club is by swinging the golf club one hundred times without it connecting with the ball. Theirs is an odd friendship, but if she keeps Alessia entertained, what the fuck do I care?

Phone in hand, I check on business. Stock market’s up. The famiglia’s having a good day. Everything’s quiet. No bullshit to handle except for a request from Don Lucchese—who expects to FaceTime Alessia in less than an hour.

The old bastard wants to grill her about the fucking wedding. He’s got a hard-on for Alessia, and probably imagines himself as the lucky groom.

I toss my phone onto my desk.

It’s been days since my cock was buried in her throat. Days of eating takeout and disengaging from all contact with her.Deciding my next move? Or avoiding making one?

I grind my teeth.

Indecisiveness will ruin a man in my position. And Freido’s right, I’m overthinking things. He can bring her back to the house. He’s also smitten with her and has become her little pet.

Except I don’t text him or toss him that bone. My fist crashing into his ever-so-smug face sounds like a better idea. A reminder to back the hell up.

Alessia’s not to be played with. Not touched. Not flirted with or charmed or anything that could ruin years of hard work.

Still, she’s my little burden.

She can cook and serve me dinner. Polish the silverware and wait on me. Jump when I say so. Obey.

If Zoey stops monopolizing all her time…

Decision made, I stand.

My pretty little burden will understand exactly who’s the boss by the time we return from the golf course.

* * *

My cart is a few yards away when they scatter like ducks.

I watch in disbelief as Zoey ushers Alessia into their cart and they race off in the opposite direction. Alessia’s expensive designer clubs lie forgotten at the last hole.

I’m a predator. Run, and I’ll hunt you down. I hit the gas, thinking the next time Sandro offers advice, I’ll listen. Zoey’s a bad influence, and drives like a four-year-old. Up ahead, she swerves around a bird and nearly ends a groundhog family, who scramble for safety, alive another day to chew up my fucking golf course. Twice, the cart gets air, then lands hard, tossing them both around like rag dolls.

She’s going to kill them.

“Stop the motherfucking cart,” I bellow.

Alessia swings her head around.

If anything, they pick up speed.

This is what I’ve been reduced to? A twenty-five-mile-per-hour cart race? That fucking golf pro sold me on the latest and fastest carts. I’m adding that to the list of Mr. Happy-Hands’ crimes, which one day he’ll pay dearly for.

On the southern end of my estate is a hill, and on the opposite side a pond fed by a natural spring. It’s been years since I stocked it. When the twins were preteens, we’d spend hours out here. Sandro was dead serious and focused on catching the most fish, with Renzo, the thorn in his side, gleefully mixing gummy worms into his brother’s bait bucket whenever Sandro wasn’t looking. Fish didn’t care. I told the boys one night, as we baked our catch over a campfire, that gummy worms made the fish taste sweeter. Sandro was skeptical, but Renzo bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

There’ve been moments when no one but we Beneventis existed. Do the little shits remember the good times? It’s been a long time since we spent time together outside of business.

My doing. Ask them, I’m a shit father.