Chapter 34 MICELI

Allessio's text tone chirps from somewhere to my left.

Rubbing my eyes, I look away from my laptop screen and fish my phone from the suitcoat hanging on the back of my office chair.

I have different alert noises assigned to certain people and groups.

It's efficient.

Yes, I changed Allessio's from the one designating my crew to something unique when he started guarding Róise. It's not so I don't miss a text.

It's information. I can choose to look, or not, depending on what I'm doing.

I wouldn't mind an in-person interruption from my fiancée though. Memories of her slamming into my office, breathing fire make my balls tighten.

Seeing a picture of her dressed for the day will have to suffice.

Even for me, sifting through data is tedious.

I'm not learning anything interesting right now, just a bunch of shit I already know about the Carusos and the Lucchese Family they lead.

Near dawn this morning, one of the cocktail waitresses from our club, Amuni, was attacked on her way to the train station.

This would be unfortunate, but not my problem if the attackers had not been connected.

Salvatore, capo over all our clubs and their money laundering, killed two of her attackers. He sent another to holding to interrogate later.

But we already know the attackers were part of another capo's crew. Not a Genovese capo, but Lucchese. The godfather's nephew's crew to be exact .

What the hell is Henry Caruso doing that his people are running amok in our territory? If this was a capo sanctioned hit and he didn't bother to clear it with Sev first, it could mean war between the Five Families.

Managgia la miseria! Relations between the Families is strained enough with the godfather's health the way it is.

And that fucking cowardly son-of-a-bitch in holding bit off his own tongue and choked to death on the blood. Either he was loyal as hell or too fucking afraid to face our method of questioning. I'm going with the latter.

Regardless, we're getting no answers there.

I swipe to open the text, expecting my morning update on my fiancée's wardrobe for the day.

Which I get.

But it's not the image I'm used to.

There's plenty of midriff showing and she looks as young as she always does. But there's no pink. Her camo cargo pants are drab green. Her high necked, long-sleeved top is tan and scrunched up so there's at least two inches between the hem and the waistband of the pants.

She's not posing and there are unhappy shadows in her green eyes.

What the hell is going on?

I text her directly.

Ares : Where's the pink?

I put myself in her phone as Ares and she's listed as Aphrodite in mine. As long as she knows Ares is me and I am him, I don't mind reminding her about Portland.

That I'm the only man she's ever had sex with. The only one she ever will.

Aphrodite : Since you kissed the cotton candy lip gloss right off my lips at my birthday, I don't think it's having the effect I thought it would.

I knew she was wearing pink to irritate me.

Ares : I don't hate pink .

Aphrodite : Oh, really?

Ares : The women who wear pink are too innocent. They have stars in their eyes .

So I don't fuck them. If a woman is wearing cotton candy lip gloss, she's too young and probably too innocent for me. It's simple math.

Math that got shot to hell with the woman on the other end of this text conversation.

Aphrodite : You are ridiculous .

Ares : What's wrong?

Aphrodite : Nothing .

Ares : What happened ?

Aphrodite : Seriously? You think I left the pink off because I'm suddenly jaded? The stars went out of my eyes a long time ago .

Considering how much she and her cousins text, Róise uses almost no acronyms and her texts are long. Because she thinks I'm too old to know what the textspeak means?

Cazzo . I am not worrying that my arranged marriage fiancée thinks I'm too old. If anything, she's too young.

Ares : I don't recognize you like this .

She doesn't text back.

Ares : Tell me what is wrong and I'll fix it .

I delete the last four words. What the fuck is wrong with me ? I am not her knight in shining armor.

Still no answer.

I figure I pissed her off, but five minutes later, the alert tone I assigned to her number chimes.

I grab my phone and check the text.

It's a picture. She's wearing a baby pink top now and glaring at the camera like she wants to smack someone. Probably me.

I smile.

~ ~ ~

I'm not smiling several hours later as Salvatore and I dump the last of three dead bodies onto the drive behind our godfather's home.

They're wrapped neatly in industrial plastic cling wrap. Angelo insisted on installing a wrapping machine in the secret subbasement of the Oscuro Building. I'd seen a machine like it wrapping luggage at the airport, but never a human body.

I've got to admit it's efficient for those times we transport bodies instead of disappearing them in the chemical bath under The Box.

Wrapped up tight like they are, not a single molecule of their DNA is transferring to us or the trunk we transported them in.

We have two men with us, but it's me and Salvatore doing the heavy lifting. This is our responsibility. Our men stand at alert by the car.

I slam the trunk. "The woman something special to you?"

Not that she can be permanent. Like me, Salvatore will marry for the good of la famiglia . But he sounded plenty pissed at Pietro in the car on the way here because he drugged her.

"I want her."

"You want women. You have women. You don't kidnap and lock them up in your penthouse. "

"I didn't kidnap her."

"Pietro was acting on your orders." I understand skirting the fine line, but facts are facts. "Aunt Ilaria will put salt in your coffee if she finds out."

Or worse. My aunt's every bit as intelligent as my mother. And devious. You do not want to get on the bad side of the women in my family.

Róise is going to fit right in.

"You amused at the idea of mamma salting my coffee?" Salvatore asks.

I shrug, not about to admit it was thinking about my too young fiancée that put the look on my face. "She's more likely to bring burned lasagna by for your dinner and sit there watching while you choke it down anyway."

My cousin grimaces. "Sounds about right."

One side of the double backdoor opens, cutting off our conversation.