Page 2 of The Mastermind (Mafia Rivals #1)

Rafaelle’s easy charm vanished. Death slid into his eyes, easing my black mood to have his full attention. ‘You know this for a fact?’

‘Fist has been looking into it. He caught this one with a burner. Connected a few dots, found some fresh cash in his account and shook him up a little before he brought him here.’ I kicked the piece of shit, then glared at my brother.

‘Before a month ago, when was the last time we lost three races in a row? Or finished outside the top five?’

Rafa’s brows bunched, then he shook his head. ‘Never.’ He looked down at the whimpering asshole, then sighed. ‘Fine. But let someone else have a go with him.’

Relinquishing control didn’t come easy to me. Never had. Which was why I was determined to make Furia Racing work. It was my ticket out of a mobster’s shortened destiny at the end of a fired gun or a slit throat.

And it had been working like a dream.

We were a relatively young team on the Formula One racing circuit. But we’d entered with a proverbial bang and quickly made our mark by securing our place at the top of the pile, aided by not so clean money funnelled from our various Salvatore concerns.

Everything had been going swimmingly. Or as smoothly as a Sicilian mafia operation could go these days. Until the Mancinelli fucking Family decided to muscle in where they weren’t wanted.

But that was the story of our lives, wasn’t it?

The Salvatores and the Mancinellis. The real-life unoriginal Romeo and Juliet tragedy, locked in war and hatred over a long-dead woman.

We’d been the bane of each other’s lives for almost three quarters of a century. Our violent friction was well-documented and even celebrated since the Salvatores held the record for coming out on top. That tally tickled Orazio no end, hence his feral need to keep controlling everything.

When it came to sustaining vendettas, he was firmly in the win-at-all-costs-or-die-trying camp. He’d made damned sure that unwavering principle was drilled into every one of us before we turned five.

‘Go on. It’s my turn.’ Rafaelle shooed me away, moving in without permission.

I gritted my teeth and let go of the weasel’s lapel. Snatching a spotless handkerchief from my pocket, I cleaned the blood off my knuckles and paced away as my brother crouched next to my soon-to-be-dead ex-employee.

Rafa didn’t use his fists to shut the man up. Hell, he looked weirdly entertained, watching the fucker cry and snot all over himself. I didn’t hear what he whispered in the idiot’s ear, but the already pale man went as white as a sheet. Then he started blubbering even faster.

Arms folded, I suppressed that flash of unease I experienced when I watched my brother at work.

Every male Salvatore had done a stint in the US military.

Some bullshit character-building plan Orazio Salvatore had read somewhere and decided to instil in his family.

I was a marine for exactly one tour before my father yanked me out.

Rafaelle did two tours with a special ops team he still never spoke about.

We all suspected whatever skills he’d been trained to utilise contributed to his deadliness.

Even I was occasionally afraid to turn my back on him, and he was the one person I trusted above any other in the world.

I watched him hook the tips of his fingers into the weasel’s cricoid cartilage and squeeze, that same placid expression on his face. The pain would be excruciating. The lack of oxygen terrifying.

‘You’re about thirty seconds away from dying,’ Rafa informed him casually. ‘Besides the two names you’ve given us, is there anyone else involved in your little operation?’

The man mouthed no, no, no , attempting to shake his head while wrestling free from Rafa’s chokehold. Realising he couldn’t, naked fear surged in his eyes, right before the stench of ammonia filled the garage.

Rafa hissed and sidestepped the spread of piss before it touched his polished Prada wingtips. ‘Crap. He’s telling the truth. He knows fuck all.’

At age thirty-one to my thirty-two, Rafaelle had been my shadow since before we hit puberty. We’d sliced and diced, pummelled and buried enough assholes to know when an interrogation was a lost cause.

I returned to the traitor’s side and leaned over to look into his florid face. ‘Do you have life insurance?’

‘W-what?’ His eyes were bloodshot from Rafa’s treatment and my punches, but they blinked rapidly to meet mine.

‘You have a wife and two kids under five. A man should make thoughtful contingencies for his family before he passes, especially when his job description includes other dangerous side gigs besides just ‘hospitality,’ don’t you think?’

‘I… I… Please, Boss. I didn’t mean to. I just…

The money was…’ He quit talking while he was ahead in favour of staring imploringly up at me.

If only I had an ounce of the mercy he sought.

But nobody toyed with my dream and lived.

Especially a dream the Mancinellis were horning in on like the fucking parasites they were.

‘You didn’t answer my question. I suggest you do it quickly. I’m not in the mood to stand here inhaling the fumes of your piss. Are you a snivelling, lying little piece of shit who doesn’t take care of his family and betrays his employer for a few thousand dollars or not?’

The misery that drenched his face gave me my answer.

I straightened and stepped back.

Umberto ‘Fist’ Lazlo, my head soldier and second cousin, so nicknamed for his thick fists and his absolute obsession and macabre glee with pounding everything to death, met my gaze. I gave a single nod as I walked past him.

‘Please, Don Cesare! Please, have mercy! I’ll never betray you a—’ The sound of bone shattering cut off his pleas.

Rafaelle and half my soldiers fell in behind me, the other half staying to help permanently silence the man.

As a rule, we didn’t kill indiscriminately but neither did we hesitate when the occasion called for it.

He was a rat who’d secured a job in my team’s hospitality department for the sole purpose of feeding information to our arch enemies in Mancinelli Racing.

We found out two races ago but played a waiting game, hoping he’d lead us to bigger fish, because the more damaging problem we had was in the sabotaging of our car’s performance, which led me to believe the true culprits were in my aerodynamics and data analysis team.

Two crucial areas within any racing team because without accurate data, we were fucked.

Short of firing them all mid-season – a fucking nonstarter – I was stuck with my ass hanging out until the traitors were found.

My phone buzzed for the hundredth time as we reached the parking lot. I ignored it.

‘You know you have to talk to him sooner rather than later, right?’

‘You think, Captain Obvious?’ I snarled.

Rafa’s amusement only increased. Years of taking out whatever range of moods we happened to be in on one another had hardened him to my volatile temperament. I slid behind the wheel of my Furia Falco and punched the ignition.

The roar of the supercar immediately eased a layer of my foul mood.

Technically, the car wasn’t licensed for road use yet, but it didn’t hurt to be the Underboss of a Sicilian-American crime family with several police chiefs’ phone numbers on speed dial.

Especially when you contributed millions of euros to their election campaigns.

As I eased out of my parking spot, Rafa’s own phone buzzed. I started to smirk at his grimace, but it stalled when he smiled again. It wasn’t our grandfather trying to reach me through him. Not yet anyway.

‘It’s the twins. They say the fuckers are at the club, crowing about their win.’

‘The whole team?’ I asked casually, but in my chest, something primal stirred. A different feeling to the bloodlust I’d just left behind. The kind of thrill derived from flirting with danger when you should know better.

It was just as strong, equally lethal. And it was reserved for one person.

‘Yeah,’ Rafa confirmed. ‘The keys players at least. Led by Narc-Fuck.’

I felt his stare drilling into the side of my face but kept my gaze on the road.

Narciso Mancinelli, or Narc-Fuck as Rafa and my twin younger brothers liked to call him, was a cocky little shit, but in the grand scheme of things, he barely made a blip on my radar, not unless he was standing, undeservedly, on the top podium that belonged to me.

No.

When it came to the Mancinelli clan, my energy and focus were reserved for the top players. And at the top of that pile, with a very special place on my shit list, was one person.

The eldest of Bonafacio’s grandchildren.

Maddelena Mancinelli.