Page 1 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

1

GIANNA

The road curves beneath my tires like a ribbon of black silk, unspooling into the hills beyond the city, as night presses down softly and thickly.

My engine is a quiet creature, droning gently, folding into the fabric of my thoughts without effort.

I’ve let my window down just enough for the salt-heavy breeze from the sea to drift in.

With it comes the faint, niggling trace of cigar smoke and blooming jasmine, two scents that never quite leave Nuova Speranza no matter how the winds shift.

The bar is long behind, and yet, Dante Salvatore’s voice still echoes in my ears.

I have danced around men like him all my life, beautiful and bored, spoiled and reckless, born into power they neither earned nor respected.

There is something lazy in the way he looks at me, with the stillness of a man who has never needed to chase because the hunt always finds him.

It is almost salacious, almost insulting, the easy arrogance of someone who clearly believes he could have me if he so much as lifts a finger.

A small smile plays at my lips as I tap my fingers against the leather wheel of the Mustang.

The car is sleek, low to the ground, painted a graphite color that catches the streetlights just enough to look expensive without trying.

She’s not a toy, and certainly not the kind of car bought for show or sentiment.

She’s meant to run—fast, far, and without apology.

The engine purrs as I guide her along the dark stretch of road that hugs the coast.

I feel the vibration in my hands, the tension in the frame.

It matches the restlessness sitting low in my stomach, the curiosity

I didn’t ask for about the man I walked away from in that bar.

“Old Money”by Lana Del Rey plays low through the speakers, her voice filling the car like perfume.

Whatever Dante is—or isn’t—he belongs to a world I’ve learned to survive, not fantasize about.

Pretty faces and powerful names only matter to a point.

What lasts is leverage.

The road bends sharply, and beyond the next rise, the lights of the Rossi house come into view, softened by distance and the mist that clings low to the hills.

It is not what it once was.

Gone are the endless processions of foreign cars, the glittering banquets, the late nights when the laughter of men who thought themselves invincible curled like smoke into the high-vaulted ceilings.

What remains is quieter, pared down, but not broken.

We learned to adapt, survive, and bow our heads just enough to keep them attached to our shoulders.

The Salvatores did not burn us to the ground like they did the Lombardis.

They are not fools.

They understood that it is better to keep a name like Rossi alive and tethered to their throne to remind the rest of Nuova Speranza of what happens to those who challenge the new kings.