Wolfe
I walked into the office and found Don Mancini seated behind the desk.
“You wanted to see me, Don?” The final funeral came and went, and the carpenters were now working on Francesca’s fire-damaged office.
Repairs were in motion, and life was starting to move forward once more.
Francesca had turned another room in the villa into her office in the meantime.
I helped myself to a seat on one of the couches, arm propped on the armrest as I relaxed into the cushions.
He’d been absorbed in his phone when I walked inside, and without verbally acknowledging what I said, he put it aside with the screen down.
Then he left the chair and came around the desk before he leaned against the edge, crossing his arms over his chest just the way Don Russo did.
He regarded me for several seconds in heavy silence.
I met his stare with a world-class poker face, knowing exactly what was coming down the pike.
“Why did you growl at Alessandro?”
I almost fucking smiled. Almost. “He was bothering Frankie.” Ugh, I hated calling her that. The nickname wasn’t the least bit endearing to me. It made her seem like a tomboy, when she was very much a woman.
“How so?”
“He made a pass at her, she said no, and then he made a pass again,” I said simply. “No means no—at least in my book.”
Don Mancini stared me down with a poker face almost as good as mine.
Perhaps he noticed something was amiss between his daughter and me.
Started to grow suspicious of what was right under his nose.
Hopefully he was suspicious enough to outright ask me, and I could finally come clean. “I thought they would be a good match.”
Had he set that up? With that fucking pretty boy?
I could feel the bluff in my face start to slip away because the rage was too much.
He thought that boy was a better match for her than the fucking man right in front of him?
I forced a breath and said something far more diplomatic than what I really wanted to say.
“A good match for her is someone she chooses.”
His eyes finally shifted away as he absent-mindedly rubbed his arm.
“Leo is honest and loyal, but he’s easily distracted by bullshit.
Doesn’t think before he opens his big mouth.
Doesn’t pick up on the unspoken words in a conversation.
But Frankie is smart, keeps her eye on the prize, thinks, plots, and schemes far before she makes a move.
She works hard and always does everything right. Never makes a mistake.”
I had no idea where this was going.
“She’s the one who should run this place when I’m gone.”
Did he mean just the winery? Or did he mean both businesses?
“But she needs the right man to run it with her.”
And he thought that could be that little fucking boy? It took all my strength not to throw my hat in the ring. It took all my strength not to tell him she’d already found that man. “Leo won’t take that well.”
“Oh, I know.” He pushed off the desk then dropped onto the couch across from me. “But that’s a problem for another day. I brought you here to discuss something else.”
It wasn’t to talk about the inappropriate way I growled at a potential suitor? “What do you need, Don?”
He stared at me, leaning slightly forward, arms resting on his knees.
He was a decade older than me but still had definition all over his body.
He could easily pull in a woman his daughter’s age.
But I’d never heard him talk about women.
Never seen him with a woman. Leo never mentioned anything either. “Why did you meet with Cosa Nostra?”
It was the last thing I expected him to ask, and an uncontrollable grin stretched across my face as I met his stare. A warm flush of pride moved through my chest. I felt like a father who had been outsmarted by his son for the first time. “I’m impressed, Don.”
The only person who knew about that meeting was Francesca, but I trusted her implicitly.
She would never betray my trust. If she’d decided to tell her father my plans, she would have said it straight to my face like a man.
Nah, it wasn’t her. Don Russo had a further reach than I gave him credit for.
“If you’re impressed, then you underestimated me.”
“Guess so,” I said with the same smile on my face. “So, you want the tea?”
He stared at me.
“I was going to share this with you.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Waiting for the right time.”
“No such thing as the right time.”
“Well, you just buried a bunch of your friends, and there are bullet holes all over the place… Wanted to give you a chance to take a breath before I dumped this on you.”
He rubbed one of his knuckles, but his stare never wavered.
“Russo asked me to return. Said they’d changed their…
business ethics.” I still wasn’t a rat. I still wouldn’t roll on the men who were once my allies, even if they were now enemies.
“I rejected the offer but stuck around to watch him grovel a bit. It was like watching an ex beg for you to take them back, and you know there’s no way in hell that’s going to happen, but it’s still fun to watch.
” I smirked. “Not that I’ve ever been in that situation before… ”
“What else? Because that information doesn’t seem time-sensitive.”
“Well, I knew distance didn’t make the heart grow fonder, so they wanted me for something. That was the real reason I was there—to figure out the source of the issue.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. And this is where the bad news comes in.”
His eyes quickly shifted back and forth between mine.
I told him about the Skull King and his lieutenant Icarus.
Told him about the rumors of the violence headed to Sicily.
“Anyone in the powder business is on the chopping block right now, and I think it’s best if we focus our efforts on the arms side of things.
Not just to avoid the wrath of Icarus, but also to make sure the grip on our guns is tight.
There’s about to be a major shake-up in the game, and everyone’s going to scramble as they change their business agendas.
You’re sitting on a gold mine, and assholes are going to do whatever they can to take it from you.
Mark my words—shit’s about to get real.”
He took in that information without a reaction, absorbing it in silence for a while before he found a response. “I’m surprised this is your attitude. Based on what I’ve observed from you, you seem like someone who would hunt down Icarus before he had the opportunity to affect business.”
“Maybe if I were in the powder business, but I’m not anymore.
” Now I worked for Vincenzo Mancini and their wine and arms operation, and I cared more about protecting this business than risking the people I wanted to protect.
I started to make different moves than I had in the past, thinking about Francesca’s safety before everything else.
“But the Skull King has an enormous operation in Florence and Rome, and everything I hear about Icarus tells me he’s not someone you want to cross.
We drop the powder line and focus on our main enterprise. That’s the smart move.”
“After defeating the Lombardis, it seems like a waste.”
I slowly shook my head. “Not worth it, Don. And trust me, assholes will be coming for us. They’ll try to take this business from you just because the Skull King isn’t interested in it.
You have a unique opportunity to monopolize an industry that everyone wants a cut of.
You can still run the tomato factory the way you run the winery.
There’s still a lot of money to be made—and you have Frankie to operate that on your behalf.
” I wanted to keep Francesca in the safe zones, handling food and wine products with business partners who were upstanding citizens.
Her father wanted her to run this someday, but now was definitely not the time.
We had to get this plane through the turbulence that was about to drop us from the sky.
“We stay out of their way. We let Icarus focus on the big players, like Cosa Nostra and the others. And we watch our backs.”
His eyes had wandered elsewhere as he thought about all I said, slowly rubbing his palms together. He eventually relaxed back into the couch, arms crossed over his chest, eyes lost in consternation.
“How did you know I was there?” I needed to know if he was tailing me, because if he was, then he either knew I was seeing Frankie…or he was very close to figuring that out.
His eyes moved back to mine. “You aren’t the only one who knows people, Wolfe.”
I held his confident stare and searched for an answer to a question I couldn’t ask.
But I didn’t see the rage I expected to find—the evidence that he knew I was sleeping with his daughter.
Because if he did, he probably would have already pulled a gun on me.
“I know it’s a difficult time right now, but we need to rebuild.
We need more men. We need more security.
Be prepared to watch friends turn into enemies. Be one step ahead of everyone.”
We sat together at the dinner table. Francesca had another gourmet meal waiting for me when I got home, and we enjoyed it together over a bottle of wine.
Now I wondered if I should have rented my place instead of bought it.
Francesca’s villa was a lot smaller than my homes, but there was a coziness that my residences lacked.
Or maybe she was the coziness.
“Something on your mind?” she asked as she stabbed her fork into a sun-dried tomato. “You’re quiet.”
“There’s a lot on my mind.”
She moved her pasta around with her fork as she looked at me. “Want to talk about it?”
I didn’t want to worry her. “I spoke to your father today. He knew I met with Cosa Nostra.”
She spun a small amount of pasta on her fork then placed it in her mouth. “Was he angry?”
“Initially. But I told him what happened. I’d planned on it anyway before he confronted me. I was impressed that he knew. Respect him for having that information.” I grabbed the wineglass and took a drink.
“He’s a smart guy.”
“Yeah, I know where you get it from. You’re a lot alike.”
“I don’t know about a lot.”
“He asked me why I growled at Alessandro.” I couldn’t hold back the grin that stretched across my face.
She immediately stopped eating and actually dropped her fork on her plate. “Cristo, are you serious? What did you say?”
“The truth—he was bothering you, and I didn’t like it.”
“Shit, do you think he knows?”
“Nah,” I said. “That would have been the perfect time to shoot me, so…”
She gave a slight shake as she looked at me across the table. “You acting like a maniac could have gotten us caught.”
“Then too bad I wasn’t a bigger maniac.” I smirked, knowing that would get her worked up even more.
Her eyes flashed in a sparkle of pure pissed-off-ness.
Cristo, she was beautiful. “He made it sound like that was somewhat arranged.”
“What was somewhat arranged?”
“That meeting with Alessandro.”
Both of her eyebrows jumped high up her face. “My father would never set me up in a million years.”
“Well, he did. And that explains why Alessandro assumed you were available.” Women like Francesca were never available. Men like me spotted them a mile away and moved in hard and fast. Only my dick got anywhere near that ass.
“I don’t understand why he wouldn’t have just come to me directly.”
“Does any daughter want to be set up by her father?” I asked with a chuckle.
“Well, probably not. But…”
I decided not to tell her what else her father had confided to me, that he wanted her to take over the business someday, that Leo wasn’t good enough.
It was probably the greatest compliment she would ever receive, and I wanted her to hear it from him, not me.
And I would make sure I was the man at her side when that day came.
We continued to eat and finished the dinner that she’d made.
So I wouldn’t feel like a freeloader, I left envelopes of cash on her kitchen counter once a week, and thankfully, she didn’t try to refuse it.
I wasn’t sure how much her father paid her for all the work she did, but she’d better have a fat bank account because of how essential she was.
“So…” She lifted her glass and gently swirled it before she took a drink. “How do you feel about that meeting with your old boss?”
He didn’t feel like an old boss, more like an estranged father. “Good.”
“Yeah?”
“I enjoyed telling him off. Felt like revenge.”
“And then you just left?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” I wasn’t sure how things would unfold with Icarus, though Cosa Nostra were big players in the game.
But so was the Skull King. I wasn’t sure who I would put my money on if I were gambling my life.
Maybe I was too heartless, but I really didn’t give a damn what Icarus did to the men I’d loved like family.
Or maybe I was still too pissed off to care.
“Thank you for dinner. It was great, as always.” I’d never had a woman cook for me, not even my own mother.
She used to put me in the hallway with some kind of game while she did her job behind closed doors.
My childhood kinda sucked, but I knew she did the best she could under the circumstances.
“You’re sweet.”
“I’m only that way to you.” I grabbed the empty plates and carried them to the kitchen, where I rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. I’d started to wash the warm pans on the stove when she walked over.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I know.”
She grabbed my wrist and steadied me before she tapped the handle to the faucet and turned off the water. “I’ll do them later.”
I smirked and set the pan aside. “And what would you like to do instead?” I turned to look at her, my chin dropped because she was like a small branch to my tall trunk.
She wore one of my oversized t-shirts with her thigh-high socks underneath, and when she reached for the shirt and started to pull it over her head, I felt a flush of heat. It was so hot, like I’d just scored her for the very first time.
It caught some of her hair when she pulled it off, then her firm tits were exposed with the hard nipples pointed like diamonds. There was nothing but a thong underneath, along with her socks.
Cristo.
She grabbed me by the front of the shirt and tugged me into her, catching my lips with hers. “Fuck me, please,” she said through her breathy kiss. “God, you’re so hot I can’t stand it.”