Page 10 of Dirty Mafia Torment

She wouldn’t let me go. Even after I failed her … lost track of time … skipped out on her … broke promise after promise…

Blackness descends as the weight of it gnaws at my soul.

Promise me you’ll save me.

But it’s too late.

I’m too far gone.

CHAPTER ONE

FINA

It’s a miserable day.

A relentless, bone-chilling wind accompanies my father and me from the airport to downtown Chicago and cuts straight through me. Equally numbing is the dark, menacing skyscraper now a few feet away, my soon-to-be new home if my marriage to Carlo Accardo goes through.

I tuck my bright pink cashmere scarf tighter around my neck, shielding myself from the wind’s bite, the Sunshine State’s golden shores becoming more distant with every gust.

“Only speak when you’re spoken to,” my father warns. As if meeting my fiancé two weeks before my twenty-first birthday—our wedding day—is perfectly normal.

I nod, silent. Nothing I say will change his mind.

We reach the revolving glass door, and my stomach knots tight.

My father stops short, cursing beneath his breath, his attention on the street. “Goddamn it. Settemo Accardo is here.”

A yellow Ferrari polished to a fine shine sits at the curb. It’s expensive and pretentious, especially with the careless way it’s parked, like the prancing horse on the trunk is daring other drivers to hit it. Meeting Carlo’s nephew feels like another nail in my coffin, and my father’s anxious expression does nothing to ease my apprehension.

“What’s wrong?”

He faces me. “Just be careful around Settemo. He’s not right in the head.”

I blink, stunned. Is that concern in his voice? Real, genuine concern?

I’m five years old again, and he’s holding my hand at the Santa Monica Pier, laughing as we eat ice cream. He kneels beside me and whispers promises about a life beyond the horizon and away from the famiglie, his kiss tender on my forehead. For a fleeting moment, I feel loved. Treasured.

Memories can be cruel like that.

A few days afterward, my mother disappeared. When I cried for her, he warned me with a hard slap and equally brutal words. “Never speak of her again.”

Rumors circulate, though I never allow myself to go there. I can’t survive if I do. So I bury the painful questions and save them for a future day.

My father stalks toward the glass door. “Don’t forget to compliment Accardo. He eats that shit up.”

I choke back the bile in my throat.

We clear security and take a private elevator to the luxury penthouse in Chicago’s newest high-rise.

The Eleven—formerly known as the Twelve but minus one capo now—need Carlo’s money and influence to push their casino expansion into the Midwest. That’s the only reason the Accardos—unaffiliated and barely more than second-rate associates—were spared years ago, after Carlo’s brother ran his mouth to the wrong people and nearly got the whole family wiped out. He died for revealing famigliesecrets, and the Accardos were left disgraced and shunned because of his actions.

Still, Carlo survived and built an empire while he waited to buy his way back into their good graces.

His money is why my father agreed to this marriage.

My father nudges my side. “For fuck’s sake, smile.”

I grin stupidly at the elevator camera that has him so concerned. Complacent, like I’ve accepted my fate.