Page 5 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

SHAMROCK ATHLETIC CLUB

T he Shamrock stank of cigar smoke and bloodstained canvas—the perfume of violence that clung to every corner of the low-ceilinged gym.

Carmelo rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of the entire city pressing down on him like humid Louisiana air.

New Orleans wasn't just another fight—it was the battlefield the mob had chosen to prove Sicilian dominance over the Klan's stranglehold on the South.

And for Carmelo, it was his only shot at getting back to Kathy.

"You good?" Caesar's voice was gravel, his calloused hands worked the tension from Carmelo's neck with practiced precision.

Carmelo nodded, though his mind was elsewhere. "Yeah. Just wish Matteo was here."

Caesar's grip tightened—just once—before he stepped back. "Debbie's due any day. You know he ain't leavin' her."

The unspoken truth hung between them like smoke: Matteo wasn't just staying for the baby.

After their mother's suicide, Matteo had spiraled into a darkness that seemed bottomless—drunk, reckless, dangerous, his fists and knives always seeking someone to destroy.

It had taken Carmelo swallowing his own grief, facing the mob about shooting his own father, and then overcoming retribution with Mama Stewart's help, and humbling himself before Debbie to pull her in to rescue his brother.

Debbie and the baby she carried had become Matteo's only lifeline.

Together, he and Debbie, with Mama Stewart's guidance, found him, sobered him, and helped restore his sanity.

Matteo had switched his obsession—from saving their mother and making her happy to protecting the mother of his child.

Every breath Debbie took, every need she had, Matteo was hypersensitive to it all.

Luckily for them all, José didn’t mind. Matteo had full access to their home.

Carmelo understood that kind of obsession.

He'd started the same way with Kathy. Except he didn't have her warm embrace to cry into after losing madre—just stolen phone calls and carefully hidden letters to sustain him through eight torturous months.

And always, the solemn death wish of his mother that he had to honor.

Now, with Debbie about to give birth, Matteo refused to repeat history. He'd stay. He'd be a father. Even if it meant Carmelo faced this fight alone. More frightening still—Carmelo knew his father suspected the truth but said nothing. What was Cosimo Ricci waiting for?

Caesar stood at Carmelo's back like a second shadow.

Most people mistook him for Matteo—same dark glare, same coiled violence beneath olive skin.

In a way, they were family. When promoters got greedy or rival camps got bold, Caesar stepped in.

Six of Cosimo's men had come as insurance, but Caesar was the one Carmelo trusted with his life.

The announcer's bell rang, sharp and commanding.

Time for the weigh-in.

Carmelo shrugged off his silk robe, the expensive fabric pooling at his feet like liquid silver. Across the cramped room, a murmur rippled through the crowd.

The Cotton King, renamed for the fight as the Mississippi Mauler, had arrived.

The Klan's champion stood barefoot in dirt-streaked overalls, his massive frame built more for hard labor than refined fighting. No robe. No shirt. Just a sneer curling his lips as his handlers—thick-red-necked men in cheap suits—prodded him forward like a prized bull.

"Look at that," one of the Marcello men muttered. "They dug him straight out of a damn field."

Carmelo said nothing. He'd seen this before—men turned into weapons by people who didn't care if they broke in the process.

The Mauler's small, beetle-like eyes locked onto his. "Heard you Sicilians fight like girls."

Carmelo kept his face blank as marble. Let him talk.

The weigh-in passed in a blur of shouted numbers and aggressive posturing. Then—inevitably—the tension snapped like a taut wire.

"This ain't your city no more, Meatball!" A Klansman named Sheffield jabbed a thick finger at one of Marcello's top men.

"Fuck you and your bedsheet putanas ," the mobster shot back, his hand moving toward his jacket.

Caesar grabbed Carmelo's arm, steering him away before fists and bullets could fly. "We're done here. Let's get you to the room."

The backroom was a sanctuary, guarded by two stone-faced Marcello triggermen with Thompson submachine guns slung casually over their shoulders. Caesar clapped Carmelo on the shoulder with genuine affection. “Giorgio’s handling the politics. You just focus on staying alive."

Then he was gone, leaving Carmelo alone with his thoughts.

Until—

Carmelo entered the room. A man in an expensive fedora sat quietly by the exam table, a silver-topped cane resting between his knees. The shadow from his brim hid his eyes, but Carmelo felt the weight of his stare like a physical presence.

"You Boanno?" Carmelo asked. Kathy and Debbie had worked with Matteo to flesh out the details. She'd told him with breathless excitement about the plan: It's all covered. My auntie's husband is with the mob. He will bring you to me, Melo.

The man exhaled slowly, like a man carrying secrets. "Call me Carmine." He stood with deliberate care, his cane thudding against the wooden floor.

Their handshake was firm, but Carmelo's chest tightened with sudden anxiety. This was Kathy's lifeline? He looked more like one of the men who would service his father than someone devoted to a Negro woman's desires. Could this be a setup? Had Matteo vetted this thoroughly enough?

"Don Marcello says you're under my care," Carmine said, his voice smooth as aged bourbon. "You'll stay with me and my wife in Tremé."

"Wife?" Carmelo frowned. Kathy had been so excited about the visit and her aunt's help that she'd left out this crucial detail. Her aunt was married to a Sicilian? Legitimately? In the segregated South?

Carmine's smile was sharp as a blade. "Yes, wife. Though sometimes I have to remind her of the fact."

Carmelo's pulse jumped. "And Kathy?—?"

"Already there." Carmine's eyes glittered with something unreadable. "Get dressed. She's waited long enough."

Carmine Boanno drove with deceptive ease, one hand on the wheel, the other arm resting on the edge of the open window with his elbow poking out.

Carmelo kept stealing glances at him, wondering about the walking stick and the careful way he moved, which contrasted with his otherwise calm and erect physical demeanor.

He didn't bother asking. Men in their world didn't appreciate being questioned about weaknesses.

Carmine's pale blue gaze slipped over to him as they navigated the crowded streets. "So you love an Elliot woman?"

"Elliot?" Carmelo frowned, confusion coloring his voice.

"Your girlfriend. Kathy is an Elliot," Carmine said as they slowed to a stop for horse-drawn traffic. He lit a thin cigarillo with practiced movements. All the windows in the Cadillac were rolled down to combat the oppressive heat of New Orleans.

"My girlfriend is a Freeman. I don't know what you?—"

Carmine exhaled smoke through slightly parted lips. "Your girlfriend is an Elliot woman, and that is something you must understand right away." His tone carried a warning wrapped in silk.

Carmelo's frown deepened. "How so?"

"Her mother and my wife are sisters. To the best of my understanding, there are eight of them scattered to the wind.

I don't know all of them—only met four since Janey and I got married.

But they exist, born to torment men like you and me.

" There was dark humor in his voice, but something else too.

Something that sounded like hard-earned wisdom.

"Watch your fucking mouth. Don't speak of Kathy that way!" Carmelo said coolly.

Carmine's smile was knowing, almost pitying.

"It's not an insult, boy. Her grandfather was a mean son-of-a-bitch named Elliot Wynn.

And her grandmother was a black servant who killed him.

She birthed nothing but girls. All Elliot women birth girls.

When you love an Elliot woman and she loves you back, it's like touching heaven.

But when she doesn't love you..." His grip tightened on the steering wheel.

"It's the worst pain you can ever imagine. Worse than bullets, worse than broken bones. They'll tear your heart out and hand it back to you still beating. Kiss you on the lips while you’re dying.”

The car surged forward through the humid afternoon.

Carmelo wanted to ask more questions, but Carmine drove as if he'd said all he intended to say.

Carmelo understood that Sicilians in New Orleans were different from those up North.

He'd heard stories from his father's men before making this trip—how they ruled the criminal underworld here, even held positions of legitimate authority in the city.

They bowed to no one. They married Black women and lived with them openly, defiantly.

It had sounded like paradise to him and Matteo.

But there was something troubling about Carmine. He wasn't broken, exactly, but he seemed perpetually wary, as if he carried a weight that could never be fully offloaded.

Elliot women? What did that mean for Kathy, exactly?

The neighborhood was a revelation—homes painted in jewel tones, people of every shade of brown dressed with sharp elegance and an air of quiet prosperity.

It was like Harlem infused with a culture he'd never experienced, more refined and alluring all at once.

Once again, he was reminded of how shortsighted he'd been when he first met Kathy.

They could have gone anywhere, built anything, if they'd truly understood the scope of the world beyond their narrow experience and so much time wasted on lessons they'd had to learn the hard way.