Page 8 of Dirty Mafia Torment

She opens her mouth, the fight still in her. As much as I admire it, I’m shutting this conversation down for good.

“My father earns money. Yours pisses it away. If there’s such a thing as embarrassment by association, that’s how we Beneventis feel about the Lombardis. Do you really expect him to give his blessing to our marriage?”

She stares at the floor, like she’d like it to swallow her up, disappointment carved into every inch of her.

No reason for it to sting the way it does. I barely know this girl.

“Like I said, a lot can change.” I open the bedroom door, signaling an end to this discussion. “Give me a few minutes before you follow me downstairs.”

I walk out before she can respond, putting distance between us and the ridiculous idea I’m her salvation.

Wrong bastard to approach for help.

I’m famished by the time I reach my seat. “Where’s the clinger?” is the first thing Sandro asks me, nodding toward the empty chair beside the one I’m settling into. A chair awkwardly squeezed between mine and the mafioso to my right, when it should be at the far end of the table with the other children’s.

“Guess she got tied up elsewhere.”

He shoots me a look.

I smirk, giving nothing away. “What did I miss?”

“Roberto Ferrara has an FBI agent in his pocket.”

“No shit?” I stab an asparagus with a fork and stuff the tip into my mouth. “Don Lucchese loves strong government connections,” I say while chewing.

“Yeah,” Sandro replies. “Know what else he loves? Good table manners.”

“Not what he told me when I approached him earlier to wish him a happy birthday. He asked about you.”

“Damn it.” He places his wine on the table, buying the bullshit. “You covered for me, right?”

So fucking gullible.

Finally recognizing the lie, he elbows me hard in the side.

Point made, I shove another asparagus spear into my mouth.

The luncheon is interrupted by spoons tapping against glasses, signaling the birthday toasts will begin.

Fina appears in a blur of pink.

I wait, ready to lock eyes—and yeah, offer her encouragement. Without so much as a glance my way, she takes a seat with the children.

“Can’t believe that bloodhound gave up,” Sandro declares. Not a huge Fina fan. She gets beneath his skin like nobody else.

I fill our wineglasses with an expensive Chianti Reserve I pinched earlier from the Beneventi wine cellar and raise mine high. “Let the games begin.”

And they do, amateur hour first. Toast after toast. Boast after boast. Male egos locking horns like rams battling for dominance.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Midway through, Don Lucchese interrupts to acknowledge my father for his financial prowess. Everyone applauds, and then, timing it perfectly, my father does what he does best, and drops another bomb. He’s entering the casino business.

The room hums with excitement, the air practically vibrates. Everyone murmurs with curiosity. Except for Bible Belt Benny Manocchio. His face hardens, lips pressed into a razor-thin line, his knuckles whitening around his glass. Benny controls the South with claws buried deep in the gaming business.

Two types of men rise in rank among the mafiosi, the earners and the enforcers. My father’s both, and can kill men twice; once financially, sabotaging a rival’s financial assets with the click of a finger, and secondly, the traditional smoking-gun way. Today, the opposite happened. Overnight, he made every criminal in the Twelve wealthy. Not equally, of course, though no one’s complaining.

And no one’s dead yet.