Chapter 3 #2
Benito cracks a knuckle. “Not yet, but it won’t be long before our men come up against his. No, right now, his focus is on the Shore. He’s got serious influence in Atlantic City—the casinos are swarming with Russians—and he’s targeting everywhere below Franklin.”
“That’s Bellucci territory,” Andreas states. “Alessio will retaliate.”
“That’s what I’m expecting,” Benito says, arching a brow. “The Russians have already taken too much. I can only assume the reason Alessio hasn’t retaliated yet is because he has something up his sleeve.”
Cristiano clasps his hands together. “Should we make contact?”
“With the Bellucci’s?” Benito shakes his head.
“No. The asshole is still bitter about your father pushing them south. He’s getting on though—must be in his seventies.
When his eldest takes over, it might be a different story, but for now I say we let that sleeping dog lie, or at the very least let it fight its own battle. ”
I shift a little on my seat, curbing my impatience. “So, what’s our plan?”
Benito coasts his gaze across each of us in turn.
“We lay low, keep our ear to the ground. We do not appear rattled or overly concerned. If Morozov gets wind that he’s making a dent in our operation, he’ll get giddy, and we can’t afford to have him advance quickly, not until we’ve formulated an appropriate defense. ”
“I agree,” Cristiano says, smoothly. “We need capos on the ground in every neighborhood. We have solid cash generators and laundering set-ups, but the unions are vulnerable, as are the thousands of small businesses we’re paid to protect.
With any luck, this will be a temporary threat, but where the Russians are concerned, we need to be ready for anything. ”
“Echo that,” Andreas adds. “I dealt with them in my black market days. Those guys don’t fight fair. They don’t care about family or roots or neighborhoods. I’ve seen them burn down entire blocks just to make a point.”
The word ‘family’ gives me pause. How can any soldier not care about family?
The Di Santo family is my life, my raison d’etre.
I would kill for my brothers, and do, whenever a situation calls for it.
Loyalty is everything to Italians—to us.
We each swore oaths in blood but even without that, I would still be loyal to these men until my dying breath.
Until recently, Cristiano was my boss and my cousin. Now, in a turn of events I’m still trying to get my head around, he’s a brother-in-law too. He’s married my stepsister. Or rather, one of my many stepsisters.
Thankfully, since Mom married Tony, I haven’t had much cause to socialize with my new stepsiblings.
Cristiano’s wife is running her art gallery; Andreas’ wife is tucked away in Massachusetts; and Contessa is often traveling with her dance company.
The only one I’m forced to see on the regular is the youngest.
The reflection makes me need to stand for a moment, to not be confined to a chair at the table. I walk to the bar and pour a double measure.
God knows what prior generations of Castellanos looked like, but every one of Tony’s daughters is annoyingly beautiful.
They’re strong-willed too, giving each of my brothers a run for their money in one way or another. Hence why we just lost almost ten minutes to the culinary skills of Andreas’ wife. These men have worked for their women. I suppose they deserve to enjoy a bit of cake.
I guess, as far as sisters go, the three eldest are pretty cool. The youngest, though, she’s a different situation entirely.
Bambalina Castellano has made no secret of the fact she hasn’t warmed to the idea of having a new brother.
If I’d been in any doubt about that, watching her gleefully declare me to be the subject of her target practice, then fire a bullet straight through my heart on the first attempt, would have left no question in my mind.
The bullet doesn’t bother me. As I’d informed her at the diner after target practice, hers wasn’t the first to hit me in that part of my anatomy.
That would have shut her up I think, had she been bold enough to say a great deal in the first place.
But, this is the weird thing. She clams up whenever I’m close.
She scurries into another room. She can hardly even look at me.
She’s like a little mouse, never making a sound.
Which is why I was so stunned when I returned to the house last night.
I could have sworn I heard her. At first I thought she was crying, so I hovered outside her door, half-ready to knock and check she was okay, but she didn’t seem in the least bit upset.
The noises she was making sounded curiously close to those I hear when I suck on a woman’s clit.
But then I heard the sound of a radio and the rational part of my brain has concluded that must have been the source of the noises.
I pause and stare at the amber drink in my hand, then something makes me tip it all down my throat. It’s like a thought was there in my head, about to shove itself to the front of mind, and instinctively my body knew it needed to be burned with the hot, bitter taste of whisky.
Because, I neglected to mention, only about forty percent of my brain is rational. The other sixty percent is substantially un-fucking-rational, and so of course, my thoughts have strayed to places they really shouldn’t.
I close my eyes against the flame gliding down my throat and an image crosses my lids.
A curled fountain of dark hair. Enormous brown eyes.
Satin shorts. Bare legs. Layer over that image noises that sound suspiciously like a woman falling apart on a man’s tongue, and you have a mental video playing on a loop that keeps the cock at half-mast.
Not helpful when I need to sit back down.
My lids flash open and I pour another measure.
Man, that’s sick. I can’t be picturing her leg or replaying those noises in my head. She’s my little stepsister. Not one I asked for, but it is what it is.
I roll back my shoulders and return to the table.
Sitting firmly on my chair I force my focus back to my brothers.
“Leave the unions to me,” I state with conviction.
“And I’ll make sure every one of my men is fully briefed with boots on the ground.
If I find any of them holed up in the back room of a club or casino instead of defending our streets and business, they’ll be disposed of. ”
Andreas’ gaze flicks from me to Cristiano.
Cristiano nods briefly, his eyes lingering on me long enough to let me know my aggressive proposal has gotten his attention.
“Harsh but, I suppose in light of the potential severity of the threat, fair,” he says with a slight shrug.
“Now,” I say, clasping my hands together. I feel strangely irritable—a feeling that only crept beneath my skin at the recollection of Bambalina’s leg, for crying out loud—and I need to keep the discussion moving. “Can we talk about Corioni Technologies?”
Andreas gives me a curious look, then thankfully clears his throat and starts his update. I force myself to focus a hundred and ten percent on his words until the image of bare skin and an untethered whimper disappear from my mind.