Chapter Eight

~ Vittorio ~

I glanced at the man sleeping slouched against my side. If someone had told me two months ago I'd be flying my new boss home on the plane belonging to a millionaire, I probably would have shot them.

And yet, here I was.

I reached over and brushed some of the hair that had fallen off Tony's face. He looked so young when he was sleeping, and innocent, which I knew was false. He had way too much attitude to be innocent.

That was good for him. Being innocent in the mafia could get you killed rather quickly. I just don't think he was as jaded as I was. He might have lived a bit of a rough life, but he hadn't lived a mafia life. I was kind of sorry that he was being dragged into it now. Whatever innocence he might have had would be gone before long.

"We're getting ready to land, sir," Mateo said as he took his eat and put on his seatbelt. "You might want to wake him up."

I nodded and then turned my attention back to Tony. I hated waking him up, but Mateo was right. Waking up in the middle of landing would suck.

"Tony," I murmured. "Time to wake up. We're landing."

"Huh?" Tony's eyelids flickered for a moment and then lifted. "What?"

He blinked sleepily up at me.

God, he was so cute like this.

"We're landing."

His brow furrowed. "Landing?"

"We're in Italy."

Tony snapped up as if just realizing now that he was sleeping on me. He frowned as he glanced around and then huffed, rubbing his eyes. "How long have I been asleep?"

"About four hours." I was pretty sure he needed the sleep, which is why I hadn't woke him up when he started leaning on me. "We'll get you some coffee once we land."

Tony groaned. "Coffee."

I couldn't stop the small smile that crossed my lips. He really was adorable. That could be a problem in so many ways. The first problem I could see was that I didn't think he had the hard streak needed to be a mafia boss. It took a certain hardness and lack of emotion. Tony seemed too sweet for that.

The second more pressing problem was personal. His cuteness was getting to me. I really liked looking at him. I liked listening to him and touching him. I even liked his sarcastic nature.

That did not bode well for me.

Hiding who I was had kept me alive. If word got out that I was gay, I'd be dead for sure. If word got out that I was interested in my boss, I'd be tortured before I was killed.

At this point, I still didn't know if he was gay or straight, although I was leaning toward gay simply because of the appreciative looks I'd seen him give me a couple of times.

Didn't mean anything could ever happen between us.

There needed to be a clear line between the boss and everyone else. He was the top of pile, so to speak. The king of the hill. He made the rules and ensured that they were enforced.

We were his enforcers. We were dispensable. We followed the rules he laid down. We did not covet the boss or think of what he must look like naked and spread out all over a bed. We certainly did not think about what it would be like if we climbed into that bed with him.

God, I was so screwed.

"Put your seatbelt on," I reminded him as I did the same.

As soon as the plane started to go down, Tony grabbed my hand and squeezed the hell out of it. If he squeezed any harder, bones were going to crack.

"Is it always like this?" Tony asked in a very high tone.

"Pretty much."

"Why do people do this?" His wide eyes framed his face until he snapped them shut and his grip tightened on my hand.

I chuckled at his question. "Millions of people fly every single day. It's perfectly safe."

It was actually safer than driving a car. It was just that a plane crashing made the news, where most car accidents did not, so everyone freaked out about flying.

Tony let out a small whimper when the wheels touched down. He was shaking so hard, I could feel it through the hand he had wrapped around mine.

As soon as all the wheels were on the tarmac, I wrapped an arm around Tony's shoulders and hugged him. "It's over now. We're down."

"Some mafia boss I am."

"Your grandfather was afraid of spiders."

Tony lifted his head and blinked at me. "Spiders?"

"Yep, didn't matter how big or how small. If he saw a spider, he screamed like a little girl. We had to spray for spiders around the villa about once a week."

Tony let out a little snort. "I can handle spiders."

"I'll let the groundskeeper know. He'll be thrilled." I patted his back once and then let him go. "There's nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone is afraid of something."

"What are you afraid of?"

"Water," I answered honestly.

Tony's eyebrows lifted up to his hairline. "Water?"

"Not like water from a faucet or in a pool, but water where you can't see the bottom? You'll never find me in a lake or the ocean unless I'm on a boat, and maybe not even then."

"Why are you afraid of water?"

I sighed. "When I was a kid, I was at the lake with my family and some friends. I was swimming in the designated swimming area, which was surrounded by a big cable attached to buoys."

"How old were you?"

"I must have been about ten years old at the time," I replied. "Anyway, I was swimming with my friends and standing on the cable when I slipped and slid into the water. When I hit bottom, I dislodged a body someone had tossed into the lake and it floated to the surface right in front of me. Haven't been able to swim in deep water since."

Tony shuddered. "Yeah, I'm with you. No deep water."

"You'll get used to flying," I told him. "We travel a lot to visit different business sights and such. It'll be really hard to do business if you don't fly."

Tony groaned. "I'll get used to it, but it may take awhile."

"Well, you have a lot of catching up to do at home, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem." Before he could go out into the business world and wheel and deal, he needed to understand the business.

"God, I might have slept for four hours, but I'm still tired."

"We'll be home soon," I said. "You can rest there."

"How far is home?"

"We're based in Genoa so about two hours by car."

"Genoa doesn't have an airport?" Tony asked.

"It does, but Fred thought it would be better for us to land at a different airport in case anyone was watching the airport in Genoa."

"You know they are going to figure it out eventually, right?"

"Yes," I replied, "but hopefully not until we're behind the walls of your estate." I knew that place was safe. I'd set up the security myself and improved it over the years.

"How sure are you that we'll be safe there?" Tony asked. "I mean, someone did just take out my entire family."

"They did, but they placed the bomb at the wedding venue, not the villa." Nothing was ever perfectly safe, but the villa and its grounds were as safe as I could make them. "Whoever did this had to wait until the family left the villa to kill them."

"Wait." Tony frowned. "Everyone lived at the villa?"

"No, no, the family was spread out all over the place. We even had people fly in from Japan for the wedding. But no one could get a bomb onto villa grounds so they waited until everyone left for the wedding."

Tony's sigh was long and heavy. "I say we nix any large gatherings for the foreseeable future."

"Probably not a bad idea." I didn't point out the fact that there was no one left to have a large gathering with. There was just him, and I'd do anything to make sure he didn't die like the others.

Yeah, there was a lot of guilt there. I should have seen it coming. Granted, I had warned Don D'Angelo that such a large gathering outside the grounds of the villa was a bad idea, but he had dismissed my concerns.

The ego on that man had been huge. He fully believed that he was so powerful, no one would ever go against him. Unfortunately, he and a lot of innocent people had paid for that mistake with their lives.

I wasn't going to let that happen to Tony.

When the airplane came to a stop inside the hangar, I unbuckled my seatbelt and stood, waiting For Tony.

"Don't we need to check in with immigration or something?"

I shook my head. "No." We probably should, but we were skipping that scene this time. "I'll have that dealt with after we get home."

Getting him back to the safety of the villa was my only concern at the moment. Everything else could wait.

"Ready?" I asked.

"I guess."

We have Mateo and Boris with us so we didn't need a huge vehicle. If we'd had the rest of the guards, we'd have taken one of our SUVs. With just the four of us, the Mercedes sedan Jake had rented for us would do just fine.

As soon as we climbed off the jet, I escorted Tony to the backseat of the car and then climbed in behind him. Boris got the car started while Mateo placed our bags in the trunk and then climbed into the front passenger seat.

"Boris," I started, "Head straight for the villa. Do not stop for anything or anyone."

"Yes, sir."

I had disabled my cell phone just as the others had so I'd have to wait until we got home to call Vinnie and have him send the guards back on a commercial flight. I'd also need to arrange to have the SUVs standing by for them. Luckily, we had more security currently guarding the villa.

We really needed to step up our plans to hire more men.

Once we pulled out of the executive hangar and got on the highway, I kept a close eye on our surroundings. So far, we'd been lucky and no one seemed to know our movements. While I hoped it stayed that way, I wasn't going to hold my breath.

This whole trip had been fucked up from the very beginning and it didn't look like it was ending anytime soon. I was starting to wonder if they were after me or Tony, or maybe both of us.

I racked my brain and tried to connect the dots of the limited evidence we had so far, but I really couldn't connect it to anything or anyone.

Worse of all, because of the magnitude of deaths, the Polizia di Stato were involved. If Don D'Angelo had been alive, the matter would have been left to us. Since he was one of the dead, the Polizia di Stato would most likely be all up in our faces.

That was going to be a barrel of laughs.