Dirty Mafia Torment (Dirty Mafia Kingdom #3)

Prologue

RENZO

Sweet oblivion beckons.

My body slackens as soft leather cuffs tighten around my wrists, holding me aloft. A lullaby called pain wreaks havoc on my mind, and I cling to it, reveling in the twisted comfort accompanying it.

Fina. Fina. Fina.

I stop struggling … stop breathing …

“Aiuto!” a panicked man screams in Italian. So close yet so far away. “Qualcuno venga subito.”

She appears out of nowhere, a furious angel, the most infuriating creature I’ve ever met. Her full red lips are moving, angrily, desperately, yet it takes so much fucking effort to hear her.

Don’t you dare die and abandon me forever.

She should despise me, fuck knows I’ve earned it. I’ve done a lot of twisted things, and sunk to the lowest lows while chasing fleeting highs. My world is destruction; shattering expectations and breaking hearts. It’s who I am, the man I was always meant to be.

Still, she’s always there, isn’t she? Lurking in the corners of my mind.

I told myself it meant nothing. We’re tangled together, whether we want it or not, both dragged into a mafiosi world that devours the weak and rewards only the most cunningly ruthless.

But Fina was never the type to be forgotten.

All I see is her now—daring, relentless, waiting on a promise I never should have made.

Fina …

Far away, people are shouting.

Far away, my mind drifts into a memory, of us and how we came to be.

Eight years ago

“You’re dead, motherfucker.”

My brother straightens beside me, panting between curses, his face contorted with rage.

I flex my fingers. I’m the wild Beneventi, yet Sandro’s boldly eye-fucking Maria DeLuca like he’s a made man and not some sixteen-year-old sexual deviant, like our living room isn’t lined wall-to-wall with mafiosi—men draped in dark suits, their shoes polished to a mirror shine, their eyes full of secrets and silent threats.

My father’s hosting this luncheon in celebration of our capo di tutti capi’s birthday, and all twelve famiglie are present.

Members of a rival mafia famiglia, the Cosa Nostra, are even in attendance, traveling from Italy to pay their respects to Don Lucchese.

Everyone has been on relatively good behavior—except Maria.

Still, you don’t gather lifelong rivals with violent tendencies together, toss a big-breasted, blue-heeled grenade into the room, and expect a positive outcome. Disaster can strike quicker than you can say, “On your knees, Maria.”

Because her husband, Don DeLuca, is Cosa Nostra.

The woman in question is presently bending over to retrieve a hair clip she’s dropped. Her blue dress rides up her thighs and over the curve of her tight ass, and every man in the room—aside from her oblivious husband—gawks.

Easy conquests like the lovely Maria don’t interest me. I prefer a challenge, the chase. Once she’s mine, I’m down for a good fucking flavored with some pretty twisted shit, the kinkier the better.

I swore to my father I’d be on good behavior and won’t turn his luncheon into a bloodbath. He didn’t even demand my twin do the same.

Sandro shifts on his feet. “My dick aches so bad it might fall off.”

“Stop looking at her. No one wants to see your dick rolling around on the floor or shoved down your throat.”

“Speaking of dicks …” Sandro goes stiff beside me. “Here comes one.”

Massimo Grassi approaches, his stride equal parts confidence and arrogance.

His father, Tito Grassi, is the most powerful capo in the Cosa Nostra, and Massimo wears that truth like an invisible fucking crown.

Like Sandro, he craves control. Unlike Sandro, he has no twin to humble his ego.

I sometimes imagine them locked in a room together, curious who’d be the last man standing.

The thought makes me smirk, though the truth is I could outplay them both without breaking a sweat.

I’m the Clark Kent of alphas, with my kryptonite being the simple truth that I couldn’t care less about flexing it or chasing the Twelve’s approval, especially when I can run circles around them.

Massimo’s different. Wicked smart, and at sixteen already accepted into Harvard. Men twice his age respect him, even fear him. Cunning and brutal, he’s a dual threat and built to rule. One day, he’ll be the capo no one dares cross.

Me? I’d rather watch paint peel off walls than be part of the Life.

I offer my hand, but Massimo tugs me into a bro-hug. “Hungover as hell, brother,” he informs me.

Last night’s a blur of good whiskey, cigars, and women. We first painted Providence red, white, and green, and then red, white, and blue. One drink at a time, we burned the city down.

I smirk at him. “Pussy.”

“Massimo,” Sandro says flatly, greeting my friend like he’s naming an object he’d rather ignore.

My friend smirks. “Sandro.” Then he turns his back on my twin, giving me all his attention. “DJI Mavic 3. Worth every dollar.”

I roll my eyes. “For a Harvard-bound fuckhead, you’re clueless. Full military is the way to go. Insitu ScanEagle is built for reconnaissance. Costs more, but the battery life and range? Untouchable.”

“Not easy to fly.”

“Neither is graduating from an Ivy, but somehow some dickheads pull it off.”

He chuckles. “I’ll give you a day before you’ve mastered the controls.”

“This a geek-off?” Sandro cuts in. “You two competing to be the next Sheldon on a Big Bang Theory revival? What the hell are you even talking about?”

“Drones,” Massimo says, unbothered.

Sandro lifts a brow. “Toys?”

Massimo and I are locked in a heated battle over the best drones for covert surveillance.

I’ll argue specs and strategies all day, trading barbs and counterpoints until we’ve dissected every possible advantage.

We both know high tech could shift the balance of power in mafia organizations worldwide.

But to most old-school mafiosi, drones are overpriced toys bored rich kids fuck around with.

I’ve no interest in trying to change their pea-brain mindset.

Let Massimo be the one to drag them into the future.

“I’m headed back to the hotel,” he says. “We good for tonight?”

I nod. “Meet you in the lobby at eleven.”

The Cosa Nostra heir stalks off, leaving me alone with Sandro’s bullshit.

“Quite the bromance,” he says.

“You can come out with us if you want.”

“He’s the enemy.”

I smirk. “He’s an ally now.”

“Don’t kid yourself. He doesn’t take you seriously. You’re a distraction. A good time, nothing more.”

“I’m the highlight of your goddamn day.” Sarcasm rolls off my lips. “Must be a sad little life if I’m your best entertainment.” The problem with Sandro, lately, is he buys into my give-two-fucks persona, missing the razor-sharp monster underneath.

One day, when I finally unleash on these condescending assholes, I’ll carve my mark so deep it leaves the whole room bleeding.

Maria glances our way, and Sandro groans. “Fuuuck.”

“Tap that, and you’ll regret it.”

He groans deep in his throat, and I study him more closely. His expression … a smug confidence … that been-there-done-that vibe …

My mind races over the past few hours. We separated for a short time once, when I stopped in the hallway to listen to Don Lombardi—The sly bastard. “You didn’t?”

“Of course he did,” a voice behind us interrupts.

“What the fucking hell?” Sandro exclaims, as we both spin toward our unwelcome visitor. “If it isn’t the first-rate clinger. Go get a life and stop stalking us.”

“Me,” I add. Because every time I turn around, Elia Seraphina Lombardi is there, hot on my tail.

She’s relentless.

A teenage hellhound with her nose in our business. A girl with dark black hair, emerald witch eyes, long legs, and a flat, prepubescent chest. She’s wearing a frilly pink dress fit for a princess, over what I bet are virgin white cotton underwear. The devilish cock to her head gives nothing away.

One pity wink, and now she’s clingier than Saran Wrap.

It galls me knowing, while Sandro slunk off with the lovely Maria, I was preoccupied and feeling sorry for this hellhound.

Her father, Don Lombardi, a West Coast capo, was ripping her a new asshole in the kitchen, giving her a stern lecture about decorum, behavior, and the consequences of embarrassing him. He’d caught her alone with Massimo, “the enemy,” and now “men are talking.”

Like Massimo or any red-blooded mafioso gives a rat’s ass about Lombardi’s thirteen-year-old pot-stirrer.

We locked eyes from where I lurked in the doorway, and in a moment of weakness, I offered her a wink. Encouragement, recognizing her father’s a notoriously temperamental prick.

One wink, and the hellhound thinks she owns me.

“The Beneventi library’s impressive but lacking poetry,” she prattles on in a husky, sexy voice that contradicts the little-girl-plays-princess ensemble she’s wearing. All that’s missing are a fucking sparkly tiara and magic wand.

“Did you hear something?” Sandro asks me.

Her sigh is overexaggerated. “You’ve already acknowledged me, dimwit.”

What I heard was a girl with a death wish.

Prowling around our home and sneaking into my father’s library.

She’s lucky her ass hasn’t yet been tossed into the Beneventi dungeon.

She could spend her time reading the words written in blood on the cell walls.

“Just some incessant buzzing,” I smoothly reply, playing along with Sandro. “Nothing worth paying attention to.”

“Robert Frost’s poems should be added to the collection,” she continues, unperturbed. “You boys would benefit from reading his work, especially one poem in particular.”

The evil glint in her eyes captivates me.

Sandro, hating being on the losing end of a power play, ignores the warning signs and like a baited fish demands, “What fucking bullshit are you spouting now? Like I give a rat’s ass about poetry.”

My eyes narrow. She’s positively glowing with anticipation.

“You can learn a lot from it.”