Page 11 of The Mastermind (Mafia Rivals #1)

CESARE

I watched the streetlights of Baku grow sparser as we headed northwest out of the city.

‘How far is this place?’ I asked Rafa, who sat beside me in the armoured SUV driven by Fist. Behind us, three similar vehicles filled with our soldiers followed.

This meeting was the reason I’d cut my encounter with Maddelena short. That and the sense that I was wasting my time since she intended to stick to her bullshit narrative.

‘We’ll be there in about a half hour,’ he replied.

I nodded, relieved I had a little time before I needed to slip into my underboss skin. While the blood of the Cosa Nostra ran through my veins, it was a fucking pain in the ass balancing two lifelong destinies on a full-time basis.

But since this was how I’d sold my shiny deal of walking two paths instead of one to my grandfather, I had no choice but to stay on that tightrope. One slip and Orazio would yank away his goodwill without a second thought. He was still spitting nails over my coming third two weeks ago.

I winced as I replayed our conversation when I’d finally answered his call after leaving La Miraggio.

‘You’re fifty-four points behind that little pezzi . At twenty-five points for first place, you know that means more than two full races where he doesn’t place in the top ten for you to get back on top, sì ?’ he’d ranted, as if I couldn’t count.

Orazio had a way of pointing out the obvious as a riling technique. As a way of emphasising your failures or stupidity. I knew that. We all knew it, and yet it was a sharp arrow that didn’t fail to land a bull’s eye every single time.

You know you totalled your mother’s car with that stupid stunt, sì?

Yeah, Nonno, I was right fucking there, behind the wheel when the bumper 69’d the oak tree.

My fingers had curled around my phone as I fought to remain calm. ‘I know that, Nonno . I’m fixing it.’

‘Oh yeah? How? By standing two steps down on the podium and glaring your way through our sacred national anthem?’ He laughed then, a full-belly laugh as if he was being entertained at the Comedy Club.

Then he’d sobered with chilling swiftness.

‘This wasn’t what you promised me, Cesare.

Winning was what you promised. Yet here I am, like a piece of shit being dragged through the mud by your failure.

Salvatores do not get dragged through the mud, capisci ? ’

‘ Capisci ,’ I’d echoed, bypassing the fact that I’d delivered on my promise for two years in a row and made us a shit load of money in the process.

His exhale was loud with a distinct rattle, the effects of years of sucking on cohibas and guzzling bourbon showing more frequently as he approached his eightieth birthday. ‘You need me to make some calls? I know the Minister for Transport over there. He owes me several favours.’

Fuck no . The last thing I wanted was for Orazio to catch a whiff of any suspicious activity or gain a foothold into my dream. He would bulldoze his way into what was still a manageable situation and blow it out of proportion. ‘No, I don’t, grazii . I have things under control.’

He’d grunted. ‘See that you do, niputi . Because I want that one-forty million.’

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t personally claim the prize money that came with winning the Formula One Constructors’ Championship. That it was strictly for the development of next year’s race car. Orazio acted like losing it would be tantamount to having it stolen from his personal bank account.

‘…a man’s word is his life’s blood. You swore an oath.’

My jaw gritted at the third reminder. My promise may as well have been written in blood.

Two point five billion in five years in lucrative deals had seemed like an achievable goal when I’d presented my plan to my grandfather, knowing that the lure of it would sway him into allowing me to achieve my dream of becoming a race driver.

And it’d worked. Especially when I’d sworn heaven and earth to fulfil my underboss duties alongside this new venture.

I hadn’t told them that this was my ultimate aim – to pull the famigghia out of organised crime and into something fully legitimate.

Yeah, that would’ve earned me several broken bones and another spell scrubbing toilets. Or worse.

‘And I will deliver, Nonno . You have my word,’ I’d said.

He’d read me the riot act for another five minutes, then ended the call.

But not before summoning me back home after the next race.

I’d already used the excuse of chasing Salvatore Organisation business in Sicily to not return home to New York after the Monza race, so I knew better than to even try it again.

I could delay my return by a day or two but no longer than that. And to make that inevitable confrontation a little more bearable, I needed answers.

Especially when my meeting with Maddelena hadn’t yielded anything more than the inkling that she wasn’t being entirely truthful.

Predictably, my mind sprinted back to when she’d walked through the door tonight.

Already detesting the sizzling impatience going off under my skin like irritating little fireworks, some part of me had hoped she would’ve lost some of her allure in two short weeks.

Fat fucking chance.

Sure, that jumpsuit had covered more than the cocktail dress revealed, but all the curves, hills and valleys had been in plain sight. Begging to be rediscovered and explored.

Even watching her eat a steak had turned me on.

Jesus , I had it bad.

I’d needed a quick detour to the bathroom to rub one out before meeting Rafaelle. And I had a feeling I would need to do it again before the night was?—

‘At any other time I’d leave you to daydream about Hot Ti—’ Rafa barely managed to stop himself from stepping on that landmine, but his unrepentant grin dared me to kick his ass for the misstep. ‘I mean Maddelena.’

A growl built in my chest anyway. And fuck me if it wasn’t absurd how territorial I was getting about the woman who I freely admitted now was embedded deep beneath my skin.

Cristu , how truly fucked was I if I couldn’t stomach hearing her name from another man’s lips, even if that man was my own brother.

‘But I need you to get your head in the game. These Azerbaijani motherfuckers are twitchy as fuck. Dying in a worthy battle is one thing. Being taken out for the simple reason of being distracted will greatly shame me, frate . So much so I might not attend your funeral. So do me a solid, sì ?’

Spoken in jest but I knew he was deadly serious about every word.

I slapped his shoulder and nodded. ‘My head’s in the game.’ Then I repeated it once more to myself.

The man we were going to meet was relatively medium fry in our operation.

But a fifteen-million-dollar deal was still nothing to be sniffed at.

It was a trickle that contributed to the steady stream that turned the wheels of the Salvatore empire, which was what Orazio had told me, with several swings of his fist, when I’d dared to question how much money was enough as a know-it-all twenty-year-old.

The lesson hadn’t ended there.

I’d been sent to the sleaziest strip club we owned somewhere in the armpit of Jersey City.

Made to work alongside the janitor three hours every night for a month, cleaning overflowing toilets and floors sticky with fluids I was too repulsed to investigate, then handing over the pittance I’d made to Orazio.

He’d gleefully hand it over to his accountant to be added to the heaving Salvatore coffers.

To this day I knew to the exact number what my contribution had added to my family’s wealth.

Two hundred and seventy-nine dollars, six cents, after taxes.

For a month’s work.

It was a lesson well-learnt that the accumulation of wealth was the number one goal of the Salvatores.

I’d been somewhat heartened to learn though that there were some lines Orazio wouldn’t cross when it came to making money – the buying and selling of children. Most everything else was up for grabs.

I blocked Maddelena from my mind as we arrived at our destination in Sumqayit.

The isolated collection of warehouses bordered the banks of the Caspian Sea. Leather-clad soldiers dotted the front of each warehouse, their numbers growing as we rolled towards the largest warehouse in the middle of the surrounding structures.

Its doors were thrown open, a line of men spread out at six-feet intervals.

Fist parked and glanced around, then nodded for us to alight.

The man we were here to meet, a short, stocky guy wearing gaudy rings named Yalcin Kamirov, stood in the middle, watching us with beady eyes as his men patted mine down and relieved them of their sidearms.

Rafaelle bared his teeth at the man who approached him, letting loose his unhinged grin until the man hesitantly stepped back.

Then my brother made a show of unholstering his gun and handing it over. Everyone present suspected – and I knew – he had another one secreted somewhere on his body, but they didn’t dare to push him further.

Kamirov had more at stake in this deal than we did, although I suspected he would attempt to strong-arm me as part of some old-school gangster shitshow he had to perform.

He started by waving imperiously at one of his minions once we were seated in a damp-smelling office inside the warehouse, him behind an obscenely large desk with his chair jacked all the way up so he was eye-level with me.

A tray of premium Russian vodka and three shot glasses were placed before him.

He poured then snapped his fingers. ‘Come, let’s drink to new partnership!’

I shook my head. ‘Not for me, thanks.’ Expecting the usual suspicion and paranoia that came naturally to people in our shady line of business, I pre-empted the encroaching bullshit with, ‘I never drink during race week.’ Clearly a lie since I’d indulged in my favourite cognac only an hour ago.

But also because I loathed the taste of vodka, even the premium label he’d clearly shelled out for to impress me.