Page 6 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

The shipping broker is due at ten.

The customs liaison at noon.

A string of accounts need reconciling before the end of day, and a report must be finalized and forwarded.

Just then, Rafa walks in without knocking.

He’s always assumed my time is his to interrupt, as if the title of eldest son still grants him seniority over everything, including the hours I steal from my own sleep to keep our half-buried empire from slipping under entirely.

He says nothing at first, choosing to just stand at the threshold instead.

"The Salvatores sent word," he finally says, voice casual. "Tomorrow’s meeting…Dante will be there."

That gets my attention.

I look up slowly, pen still over the column of figures.

"Not Marco?"

Rafa shrugs.

"Luca’s letting the youngest cut his teeth. They’re moving pieces. Testing waters. Call it whatever you want."

I lean back in my chair, my fingers still curled around the pen.

"And we’re part of the waters, I take it?"

He doesn’t answer that.

Just gives me the look—the one he’s used since we were children, whenever he thought I was getting too clever for my own good.

"Don’t make this difficult," he says instead, walking further in. "He’s not there to slit throats. Just to listen. Maybe weigh options. And maybe," his voice drops a notch, "you make yourself…memorable."

My mouth goes dry.

Rafa, oblivious or pretending to be, continues, "You know how this works, Gianna. Half of what we have now, we only have because they didn’t gut us like the Lombardis. You want to keep your seat at the table, remind them you’re not just paperwork and profit margins."

He doesn’t say it outright, but the implication hangs between us like old smoke.

Be charming.

Be agreeable.

Be the kind of woman a Salvatore man might want to keep around.

It doesn’t matter that I rebuilt our books from the ground up, that I negotiated the Viennese arms deal when he was too drunk to read the manifest.

All of that folds under one unspoken truth: in this world, a woman’s usefulness is never just about what she brings to the room.

It’s about how the men in it look at her.

Still, I don’t bite.

I push the ledger aside and close it with a clean snap, keeping my tone easy. "Of course."

He studies me a moment longer, waiting for resistance.

When he doesn’t find any, he nods once, already moving toward the door.