Page 3 of Dirty Mafia King

“Permission granted.”

“When he bleeds,” I lock eyes with Renzo, “make sure it soaks through your and your brother’s squeaky-clean shoes.”

His jaw tics.

It’ll be my son who brings about our downfall.

Sandro snatches the gun from his grasp. “I’ll do the honors.” He steps forward and aims, his thumb on the trigger. “Don’t know this man, eh?”

“Wait, I—” Conti sputters.

The man’s head explodes, blood splattering everywhere.

“Meeting concluded,” Don Lucchese comments, like this is another day at the office. “Bury the body.”

Renzo and Sandro look at each other as they wipe the blood from their faces.

Benny exposed a weakness—these little shits are soft. I killed my first man, someone twice my size and using a Swiss Army Knife, when I was eight years old. I’ve coddled them.

Both will pay for Renzo’s hesitation. But not in a way either will anticipate.

CHAPTER2

ALESSIA

Sienna and I curl up on a window cushion in an alcove a floor above Villa di Cesare’s foyer and watch our father’s guests file into a limousine below.

“What was the point in dressing up if his associates leave before dinner?” My sister sounds disappointed, although nothing she says or does anymore should surprise me.

I touch an ice cube to my throat, savoring the cold respite. Central air-conditioning and ice cubes are the two things I miss most while attending school in Rome. Even here, on the Amalfi Coast, where our father’s hosting a campaign fundraiser, the ocean breeze feels like a warm huff. The quaint old villa does have an ice machine on my floor, a surprise I eagerly took advantage of, filling a bucket and appeasing my sister’s worries about contracting heatstroke. I’m highly sensitive to touch and gliding the ice cube across certain trigger points—throat, back of the neck, behind the ear—has an immediate soothing effect.

Sienna mimics my movements as we stare out the window, the nearly empty bucket perched on the seat between us as the last of the half-melted cubes offer us relief.

Not nearly the monumental relief I feel after having avoided playing hostess for Father’s mafiosi friends. I’d take heatstroke over rubbing elbows with cold-blooded criminals any day.

“Don’t tell me you hoped to meet those men?” I know how Sienna will answer yet ask anyway.

“Frankie says Don Lucchese is a big deal.”

I struggle not to cringe. My sister’s new boyfriend is also fond of saying, “Tutti colpevoli, nessuno colpevole.”If everyone is guilty, no one is guilty.If he drinks too much, so must my sister. If he’s doing Lord-knows-what at ungodly hours of the morning, so must Sienna. Con, thieve, murder—who knows what a low-level mafioso who brags about his “big Glock and big cock” does. Like my father, Frankie has no moral compass, so naturally my wild, carefree sister is drawn to him.

She rolled in six weeks ago like a thunderstorm and took up residence on my sofa, sleeping all day, partying all night, and having loud sex with Frankie. I warned her he’s trouble. She laughed it off, then called me sheltered. As if I don’t recognize how dangerous Frankie is. As if I’m naive to Father’s duplicities and how our family’s falling apart. My sister’s as foreign to me as the country I’m studying in.

“Don Lucchese’s headed the Twelve Famiglie for years,” she says with awe. “Wonder how Father managed a meeting?”

I swallow hard. How can she accept the fact our father is horribly, unspeakably corrupt? Winning the election and becoming New York’s next governor, by any means possible includingmafiosoinvolvement, is exactly what today was about. A secret meeting Father hosted at an exquisite Italian villa on the Amalfi Coast, under the guise of visiting his youngest daughter. Far away from suspicious eyes looking for a scandal to exploit. I don’t want to know what Father’s offered these men in exchange for their financing his election. If Don Lucchese’s such a big deal, what favors must the head of a criminal network be demanding in return?

The limousine taillights fade as the car pulls away, and I turn to look at Sienna. She reminds me so much of our mother, who often dressed for Father’s events in a similar fashion, in a sleek black off-the-shoulder dinner dress that complemented her shapely figure. My stomach knots, and I squeeze the ice cube a bit harder.

“You should pop a few buttons. Live a little.” She rakes eyes over me. “You look stifled.”

My dress is preppy pink, with little pearl buttons leading from collarbone to waist. The hem skims my knees, and the material flows freely. It’s classic and conservative, perfect for a hot day, and not something my sister would wear.

What’s hiddenbeneaththis dress would shock her.

“You look beautiful.” I draw the cube across the back of my neck. “The ice helps, right?”

“I suppose.”