Wolfe
I was at my villa in Palermo, sitting on the patio looking at the Mediterranean with a cigar in my mouth, when Salvatore called. It was morning, so I’d just finished the mulberry granita and the brioche my housemaid prepared for me.
It’d been three days since my meeting with Don Mancini. I picked up the phone and blurted, “What’d the don say?”
“Sounds like he didn’t care for you.”
“Tough crowd.”
“But the others said you should be considered.”
Was Frankie one of them? I smirked when I thought of her.
That woman was even more beautiful up close.
Her emerald eyes weren’t full of shyness and trepidation.
She looked like a woman who knew her own mind.
She wouldn’t have been there if her opinion didn’t matter, and I was pleased to know I’d made an impression on her. “Now what?”
“Don Mancini wants to meet with you again.”
“To offer me the job?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not at that tier.”
I took a puff before I put down the cigar. “When?”
“This afternoon.”
“Alright, I’ll be there.”
In the afternoon, I pulled up to the gate of Mancini Vineyards in my blacked-out Range Rover, dust kicking up from the tires. It was early spring, but summer decided to come early and overshadow the first months of the year.
They seemed to know I was coming because the gate opened at my approach.
As I had with Salvatore, I parked my vehicle in the parking lot away from the buildings.
My Range Rover was a special edition Autobiography, so it set me back two hundred thousand euros, so Don Mancini would quickly realize I spoke the truth when I said I didn’t need money.
I walked back to the main pathway between the buildings and approached the large villa with flowers growing in pots everywhere. The grounds were beautiful, like they were maintained every day by a crew dedicated to the property.
Salvatore came down one of the outdoor stairs that connected to another patio. “The don is waiting for you in the garden.”
“Just the don?” I asked in slight disappointment.
He gave a slight shake of his head. “Still have a death wish, huh?”
I smirked then patted him on the shoulder. “I have a very different kind of wish.”
He started to walk with me toward the gardens, the tall cypress trees visible along with all the greenery. “Frankie is a lot like her father. She’s not someone you want to cross either.”
So she was as sassy as she looked. “Ooh…you’re killing me.”
He rolled his eyes but said nothing more as he walked me into the garden.
In the distance, among the terra-cotta pots and flowers, was a round table made of lava rock from Mount Etna with a beautifully tiled top containing splashes of blue and yellow.
Those were the same tables I saw throughout Palermo and Taormina, made on our very island and weighing as much as a baby elephant.
Don Mancini sat there with a cigar between his fingertips. His right-hand man Elio stood near one of the palm trees with a gun on his hip. A few other men were around as well, but no sign of Frankie.
Damn.
Salvatore stopped several feet away, like he wasn’t allowed to get any closer to the meeting. “Good luck.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need it.” I approached the patio made of pavers and saw the hot coffee in front of the don, along with a plate of biscotti. I nodded to Elio before I approached the table and took a seat in the iron chair that faced Don Mancini.
He was in a dark brown blazer with a white t-shirt underneath, a man who was maybe ten years older than me.
He seemed too young to have an adult daughter, so that was a tale I was interested to hear.
He had a cigar between his fingertips, but he put it out.
“I don’t like outsiders. We’re a tightly knit group.
Everyone in my circle has earned their place over a great number of years. ”
My eyes shifted to a man who seemed close to Frankie’s age and looked similar to the don, so I assumed it was his son. Frankie didn’t look like her brother or her father, her features far more feminine. I looked back at the don.
“If you want to work for me, you start at the bottom. Work your way up and earn the trust of your comrades before you make it to the big leagues. If that’s suitable to you, then I’m willing to give you a shot.”
He was trying to test my ego. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to put me on the most dangerous missions? That way, I die instead of one of the guys you actually like.” I cocked my head slightly.
“It sounds like you have a death wish.”
“Just like the adrenaline.”
“Then go jump out of a plane.”
“Done that too many times. Doesn’t work anymore.”
His eyebrow cocked slightly like he thought it was a joke.
Nope, not a joke.
The silent standoff continued for a while.
“What constitutes the bottom?”
“Moving crates and heavy cargo. Loading wine barrels onto trucks. Making sure shipments get to their destinations in a timely manner.”
“So basically, be a vineyard worker.”
“My wine is as important to me as my drugs and arms,” he said seriously.
“When you said the bottom, you weren’t kidding.”
“Like I said, I don’t trust you.”
“If I have nefarious intentions, it doesn’t matter whether I’m loading crates onto a truck, I’ll still cause havoc. So you may as well utilize me—”
“Those are my terms.” He raised his voice slightly, his eyes flashing with a hint of rage, like his patience had officially expired. “Take it or seek employment elsewhere.”
I knew my worth, and moving boxes from the warehouse and loading them onto trucks and whatever bullshit manual labor he had in mind for me was far beneath me.
If it were a different family or organization, I would just move on to something else.
But I knew Cosa Nostra hated Vincenzo Mancini—so there was nowhere else I’d rather be.
And if I moved on to something else…I’d never see Frankie Mancini again.
And that would be a goddamn shame.
I would show my value and prove my worth in no time, so the worker-bee jobs would be temporary. “When can I start?”
I arrived at the vineyard first thing in the morning and got to work in the warehouse. There were lots of crates with the vineyard logo on the side, but the second I picked up the first crate, I knew it wasn’t full of wine.
Definitely guns.
“The boxes with the red tag are going onto the truck,” the vineyard supervisor told me. It was clear he’d been instructed to keep me in the dark as much as possible. But crime was in my blood—and I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
But I shut my mouth and did what I was told. Moved crates onto the truck. Used the forklift to shift the pallets where they needed to go. Just shut my mouth and did my job. I was certain I hadn’t been assigned this work to determine my integrity—but to see how much I actually wanted the job.
On the third day, Salvatore stopped by. “How’s it going?”
I grabbed a crate that weighed fifty pounds and gave him a cold stare before I moved it into place for it to be packed later.
This was a large warehouse with lots of barrels of wine and a fair number of less-legal items. They had to have fifty million euro in contraband in the place.
They hadn’t received anything since I’d started there, everything being exported at the moment.
Once they got their first shipment, I’d be able to figure out their supplier based on the timing.
“At least you can skip the workout.”
“I lift a lot heavier than this.”
“But you don’t lift all day.”
“Then it looks like I’ll get bigger. That’ll definitely impress Frankie.” I waggled my eyebrows.
“You only want her because you can’t have her.”
“There’s no woman I can’t have,” I said with a chuckle. “But that’s not why.”
“Then why?”
I chose not to answer the question. “How long do you think I’ll have to do this before I can move on?”
“I dunno,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Never seen him do this before.”
“Wow, I feel special.” I grabbed another crate and moved it.
“Well, you’re Cosa Nostra…”
“I was Cosa Nostra.”
“You turned your back on your own family.”
“Only because they left me no choice.”
“What did they do?” he asked.
I set the crate down and shook my head. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually.”
Salvatore continued to watch me work and didn’t offer a helping hand. “Don Mancini is hosting a dinner on Friday night for everyone. I think you’re invited.”
“You think?”
“It’s for all the workers, so I think that applies to you. It’s good food and all the wine you can drink.”
I continued to work, to lift one crate and move it before I retrieved another. “Can’t say no to that.”
“He hosts them pretty often. Every other week or so.”
“Count me in—whether I’m invited or not.”
He smirked. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“What are you doing right now?”
“Once the shipment is ready, we’re doing a drop-off.”
“So, nothing?” I asked. “Then stop being a deadbeat and give me a hand.”
“Walked right into that, didn’t I?” He rolled up his sleeves and got to work, lifting a crate and carrying it to the back of the truck. We worked together for a while, and when we were back in the warehouse, I heard a loud crash behind me, as if glass had shattered everywhere.
I whipped back around and found the crate had smashed on the ground, wine bottles cracked and the Nero d’Avola splashed everywhere—and he had a massive shard of glass sticking out of his arm.
“What the fuck did you do?” I snapped. “Those aren’t even the right crates.”
He eyed the glass as he rotated his arm left and right. “Shit, that looks bad.”
“Yeah, you’ll definitely need stitches,” I said as I came closer. “Come on. I’ll drive you to the hospital.” I would have to haul ass to get there in a timely manner because it was clear on the other side of the island. Maybe there was an urgent care nearby.
He started to turn pale and stopped looking at the cut, which had begun to bleed profusely, even lost his balance slightly. “Get Frankie…”
“We need a doctor.” I grabbed him by the good arm and started to walk him out.
“She’s the doctor,” he said quickly. “Just get me to the main house.”