Chapter 14 #2
I guide Camille to the dining room where the staff has prepared a feast fit for kings. Camille swings our hands in rhythm to the melody she only ever hums loudly enough for herself to hear.
When we enter the dining room, the slew of nannies I hired but can’t stomach leaving unattended with Camille gesture for her to join them near the main buffet. They fill her plate high with pancakes, blueberries, and a wedge of lemon before guiding her to the dining table.
I smile when she climbs onto the chair at the king’s end of the table, unfazed that the only person to sit in that chair before her was my father. She’s the queen in a castle of kings, and strong enough not to wilt under pressure.
As memories of a stubborn blonde stabbing her finger into my chest weeks ago surface, I serve myself a mug of coffee before filling a plastic cup with apple juice for Camille.
By the time I join her at the table, she’s already eaten two pancakes and colored in half of a Disney princess coloring sheet a nanny gave her.
Of course, the princess in this story has glowing blonde locks and is wearing a sequined minidress.
Camille peers up at me with big bright eyes when I ask, “Which Disney princess is that?”
Her disgruntled huff is silent, but it makes me smile.
“It’s not a princess, is it?” When she pulls a duh face, I continue acting daft. “Then who is she?” I know who it is, but even nonverbal conversations are important.
Camille’s lips twitch, dying to speak, but instead, she pulls a gray crayon from a carefully ordered line sorted by color before she commences drawing a stripper pole next to the blonde goddess.
“Oh…” My dramatic murmur returns her eyes to me. “It’s the dancer from the story last night.”
A curl falls over her forehead when she nods. Then she gets back to work perfecting her drawing. When I notice her yellow crayon is half the size of the others, golden blonde her preferred color for the last couple of weeks, I tell her I’ll be back with new crayons in a minute.
She waves me off without looking up from the image she’s manipulating so she can add a much shorter princess to the mix.
“Bring her to me if she finishes before I’m back,” I tell the chief nanny.
She nods, then folds her hands meekly in her lap.
Camille doesn’t need more crayons. She has enough to supply a small army of toddlers. But it’s the only excuse I could come up with on short notice.
Elio looks up from a bank of computers when I enter his man cave in the dungeon of our family compound, his brows quirking when he sees the box of crayons I grabbed ten seconds after leaving the dining room.
“Make this quick.” I slot into the seat opposite him. “This dragon has trolls to destroy.”
His expression doesn’t alter at the playfulness in my tone. His lips don’t even twitch.
Things must be bad.
“Tell me what you found.”
He exhales slowly before ripping off the Band-Aid in one quick motion. “Lucia was witnessed depositing money into a rival’s offshore account.”
My jaw clenches, but I try to stay calm. I can’t ask Lucia to trust me, then not give her the same level of respect. “How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
I scoff. That’s barely a drop in the ocean.
My stance changes when Elio adds, “Every month for two years.”
“Two years?”
A cold pulse thuds through me when he jerks up his chin. I slump back, the chair creaking under my sudden shift. Two years isn’t a mistake or a one-time favor. That’s commitment.
“Who?” My voice is low and controlled, but I feel my patience fraying. The only rivals we face are those who have tried to kill us or who go against everything we are. They’re the murky sludge at the bottom of the mafia realm, the shitkickers no one wants to deal with.
Lucia also isn’t paying them chump change. She’s deposited over seven hundred thousand dollars into the account of someone who could disrupt my campaign for Camille to achieve equality in the Cosa Nostra.
Elio hesitates. That alone churns my stomach.
“Elio.” My tone leaves no room for delay. I need a name, and I need it now.
“Edoardo Cordoza.”
The name pummels me as effectively as a stern fist to the sternum, and I bare teeth.
Edoardo Cordoza stalks high-level functions like a saint whose corpse isn’t rotting underneath his cloak. He launders money through charities, buys loyalty with blood, and has a reputation for making problems disappear—permanently.
He’s a man I’d never let within a mile of my daughter, so the thought of him having ongoing contact with Lucia boils my blood.
My fingers curl around the crayon box until the cardboard turns to dust.
“Why?” I only speak one word, but it tastes like garbage.
Elio shakes his head. “I don’t know. But for the amount and the consistency, it has to be something big.”
I stare at the faint scratches in the wood of his desk, striving to make sense of the impossible. Lucia, the woman fighting come hell or high water to keep me out of her life, is funneling money to a low-ranking gangster.
Why?
My pulse hammers in my ears when Elio judges Lucia on her job title. “Could Edoardo be her pimp?”
“No,” I shoot back quickly, my jaw clenched.
My knuckles itch to become acquainted with his nose when he says, “You saw how she was living, Dante. The Cordoza prostitutes live well below—”
I’m out of my seat and pinning him to the wall of his man cave before he can finalize his summary. With my forearm crushing his windpipe, I bring my face extremely close to his. He doesn’t flinch. Idiot.
“Lucia isn’t a prostitute.”
Before Elio can issue a defense, Matteo joins a fight they’ll never win.
“You can’t always authenticate a woman’s purity on the tightness of her cunt, Dante.
The Carusos are always the biggest cocks they’ve ever had.
” He wanders into Elio’s man cave, swagger in full force, before he butts his backside on the edge of his desk.
“And Elio only asked what we’re all wondering.
” He eyes the paperwork on the desk, missing the loud grind of my back molars. “That’s mighty suspicious.”
“It is.” My hold on Elio’s shirt firms instead of loosening. “But my word should be enough.”
“It is.” This reply doesn’t come from Elio or Matteo. It comes from Giovanni, who is standing in the doorway with Nico. It’s a full-fucking-blown family meeting. “And that’s why I told them to drop this.”
He glares at Matteo, knocking down his arrogance barely a smidge, before he shifts his eyes to me. He doesn’t tell me to remove my hands from Elio, but his stare sure does.
When I do as asked, not without first delivering a winding punch just below Elio’s ribs to avoid breaking them, Giovanni reminds them of what we forced him to teach us a mere six months ago.
“Not every woman in our realm is out to get us. If you don’t learn that fucking quick, kiss goodbye to your share of the Caruso legacy, because it wouldn’t fucking be here if Papa had looked at our mother with the same hazy gaze you cast over every woman you cross paths with. ”
Finally, Matteo’s eyes drop to his feet. He rarely caves, but when it comes to denying our mother’s influence in our lives and the values she instilled in us before her death, he has nothing left to keep his chin held high.
Confident he’s got control of the situation, Giovanni closes the door, assists Elio to his seat before he collapses, then helms the impromptu family meeting as the eldest always does.
“Now let’s discuss this like men, as we should have when you believed Valeria’s bullshit claims about Valentina instigating the IVF mishap.
” His eyes float over the room before they land on me. “What’s your gut telling you?”
“She’s scared…” I shoot my eyes to Matteo when he arches an accusing brow. “Not because the Cordozas spent more time feeding their prostitutes drugs instead of food. More that she’s afraid of commitment.” My next words come out a little slower. “And not earning enough money.”
Elio finally stops thinking the worst of Lucia.
“The bulk of her inquiries when she contacted the brothels was how she could earn a thousand a night without having contact with the clients. She even offered to change cum-stained sheets.” He locks his eyes with me.
“It was obvious that thirty thousand a month was her sole goal.”
My jaw quivers when Matteo can’t keep his big mouth shut. “She could charge that for one night if placed with the right pimp. Did you see her tits—”
Giovanni silences him before I can, but he aims his fist at his ribs, smirking when he hears a familiar crack.
Matteo only smiles, loving that he sparked a reaction out of him.
Psychopath.
“I’m just saying, if it’s solely about money, and she could charge 30K a night, why wouldn’t she?” Matteo smiles with blood-stained teeth. “I’m on your fucking side, dipshit.”
“Finally,” I murmur, glaring.
“He could have left his admiration of her tits out of his comment, but he isn’t wrong,” Nico says, finally speaking up. “She could charge 30K a night. The fact she doesn’t, even though that’s her goal, proves her payments to Edoardo aren’t his share of the profits. It has to be something else.”
The room goes silent for a few seconds before Giovanni asks, “Has she mentioned any family members? Sisters? Mother? An aunt?”
I move my head side to side before it tapers to a nod. “She mentioned her father. It wasn’t in a favorable light.”
The reason I’m fighting tooth and nail for equality in the Cosa Nostra slams into me when Giovanni asks, “Could her father have sold her to Edoardo?” When I glare at him, air whizzes from his nose.
“I’m not saying I agree with those archaic practices we’re endeavoring to end. I’m merely asking if it is possible.”
“It’s possible,” I murmur through a stiff jaw.
I’ve had over a dozen marriage proposals since news of Camille’s existence spread through the mafia realm.
People will do anything to attach themselves to the Caruso name.
They’ll even offer their firstborn son if it guarantees he’ll marry into the Caruso family.
“If he purchased her, and she didn’t follow the agreement as arranged between Edoardo and her father, someone like Edoardo would demand a refund.
He talks a big game, but we know he’s only one step away from bankruptcy. ”
“If Lucia’s father were in the same boat, he may not have been in a position to give him a refund.”
I hum, agreeing with Nico.
“Then I guess it’s settled.” Giovanni locks eyes with Elio. “Make some inquiries—”
“But keep them discreet,” Matteo interjects. “Men with small dicks have fragile egos. If this is a case of Lucia denying Edoardo’s marriage proposal, and he grows worried his enemies will find out about it, he could react badly.”
Giovanni nods, approving his viewpoint, before he shifts on his feet to face me. “I placed extra security on Lucia’s building last night. They’ll stay until you tell me you want them to go.”
I smile in gratitude.
It turns blinding when he slaps my shoulder before he pulls me in to whisper in my ear.
“They followed her to an all-night diner this morning. I forwarded you the address twenty minutes ago.” He ruffles my hair like he’s not three inches shorter than me.
“Go on. I’ll take it from here.” My lips don’t even get to part before he silences an objection I’m about to give.
“I hear the crepes at Caffè del Sole are the best in Carlisle. Since you kept me from my favorite dessert all night, I anticipate you enjoying the Nutella crepes with strawberries and bananas long enough to fix the injustice.”
Giovanni calls Valentina sweetness because she is the sweetest dessert he’s ever tasted.
He reaches for his gun when I hold my hands in the air nondefensively while saying, “I offer no guarantees.”
I don’t know if he draws his gun. I’m too busy bolting back to the dining room to see if my daughter is ready for a second helping of breakfast.