11. Dino
11
DINO
Inside the house, I do not eat anything.
Neither do the five other men around me.
There are plates in front of us, sure. But none of us are stupid enough to consume the food that Benicio Souza has in front of us.
Not tonight.
Besides, my eyes haven’t left Marisol. Not fucking once.
I can’t, for one thing. She’s fucking stunning.
It feels like some kind of cheap charade that he made her dress up in a long, sparkling dress. She looks like she’s going to the fuckin’ Oscars, not in the middle of a jungle in the home of a drug dealer and thug known the world over.
Her long, dark hair cascades over her shoulder in a wave of warmth. Her eyes are huge, the makeup around them accentuating their softness. Between that and her delicate features, she looks like some kind of fairy princess .
She looks like someone who inspires a man to beat his chest and go to war.
That’s what you’re fuckin’ doin, asshole.
I grit my teeth, my fingers clenching around the napkin in my lap.
I recognize some of the men around me. The Russian is one of the horde of bastards that stand to inherit some of the Russian organization, now that there’s been a power gap. I’ll have to tell Marco to get in touch with Stassi, who probably knows more about this white-haired douchebag than I do. There’s a Serbian, Pavlovic, and some guy I don’t know. Some guy who looks distinctly French, which sets my nerves on edge.
The French have a tendency to fight fuckin’ dirty.
I recognize the last man. Johnny Spinoli, a Long Island boy. His whole family was arrested in the big RICO purges of the 80’s and 90’s, and he and his cousin Vito have done some contract work for us before.
He gives me a wink.
Idly, I wonder what he’s doing here. He really doesn’t bring anything to the table, in terms of financials, so unless he has something up his sleeve…
He’s faking it.
Same as I am, I guess.
“Drakos,” the word booms out of Benicio Souza, who is sitting on a dais somewhat above us like a king holding court.
My eyes snap up to his.
He’s studying me. Benicio Souza looks weathered, but I’m not buying that he’s old or feeble, by any stretch of the imagination. He reminds me of a gorilla, one of the ones that’s covered in silver hair. He might sit up there away from us, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the second he needs to, he’ll be able to jump into action.
Hardened. He might be thick, but it hasn’t made him any less slow.
Or any less dangerous.
“It’s been a long time since I heard the name Drakos,” he continues.
I don’t say anything. I just stare.
“Who was your father?” he asks.
This is where I have to play it close to the chest. While Marco suspected that it is the Drakos family whose blood runs through my veins, he doesn’t have confirmation.
And we don’t have a name, either.
“Do you care about my father that fuckin’ much?” I respond.
Marisol’s eyes widen slightly, and Benicio’s gaze gets hard. “You speak like an American.”
“Grew up in New York.”
“Hmm,” Benicio says, his head tilting as he looks at me like I’m fuckin’ steak on a plate. “That is interesting, isn’t it?”
“Didn’t come here to be entertainment,” I snarl.
The other contestants are watching with interest now. Volkov, the Russian, is frowning at me.
Johnny turns to the guy next to him. “You Luca Costa?”
“Si,” Luca says in Italian .
“I think I fucked your sister once. When she was here on her study abroad,” Johnny says with a wink.
In a heartbeat, Costa’s face goes beet red.
He stands and curses in Italian. He takes a swing at Johnny, who ducks it neatly. The chairs screech on the tile in the dining hall as all of us rise, and I go to Johnny’s back.
“Enough!” Benicio’s voice thunders in the hall.
We all freeze.
From wherever he’s been hiding, I see Andrei Moretti slink forward. He’s dressed like fucking James Bond, all black, with a gun belt and multiple holsters banding across his body.
I have no doubt that each one of them holds a knife, or something even more sinister.
“No speaking. No fighting. You are not here to settle old feuds or discuss sisters,” Benicio glares at Johnny.
Johnny grins.
What the fuck is he doing here?
“You are here because of one thing and one thing only. You are to compete for my daughter’s hand in marriage,” he says, sinking back into his chair.
Slowly, we all follow suit. Costa and Spinoli switch so they’re no longer sitting next to each other, and Johnny joins my right hand side.
“Stupid move,” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth.
“Marco says hi,” he murmurs back.
Oh for the love of the fucking baby Jesus. “I don’t need a babysitter,” I hiss .
“I’m not a babysitter. I’m backup,” he sighs.
Fucking Marco.
“Shut up,” Benicio snaps.
Johnny goes still.
Stewing, Benicio glares at us. “I have been blessed with many things in life. But I have never been blessed with a son and heir,” he finally says.
That is a load of shit. Benicio has plenty of bastard sons.
For reasons that none of us can fathom, he won’t pick one of them to inherit his crumbling empire.
Well.
I suppose that’s the answer. He’s flat broke, so instead of offering his cartel to one of them, he needs money. A cash infusion that he’s going to get by auctioning Marisol off to the highest bidder. A man that’s sitting in this room. A man that, he assumes, will come with the financials of their own organization.
That makes me fuckin’ nervous.
If Benicio digs too deep, he’ll not only realize that my connection to the Drakos family is tenuous at best, but that there’s no financial reward there. Any resources that they might have had are not going to go to me.
I’m a bastard, in their eyes.
And I’m no one for the De Lucas either.
I swallow the bitterness on my throat. None of that matters now.
Right now, the only thing that matters is Marisol .
If I can get her out of here, then nothing else will fucking matter.
There’s two ways that this ends. First, I steal her from under their noses. Given the rather impressive security along the way, which has increased by about a hundred percent since the last time I was here, I’m not so sure I can do that anymore.
The second option?
Win.
And she’s fucking mine, fair and square. There won’t be shit that Souza can do about it.
But, it also means that I have to win.
Benicio looks around the room. “You are all here because you represent organizations that need my connections. I am here because my precious daughter, who is my only heir, means more to me than life itself. I will not allow her to just go with anyone. The man who marries my daughter must be worthy. He must prove himself to me and her, and there will be a series of trials. Each one is designed to show off how well you will do as my son, and how effectively you can assume my business.”
Great.
This is so fucking weird. Benicio must really be off his fucking rocker, because to think that he thinks himself so important that he needs someone to like… audition to be his son-in-law?
Utterly ridiculous.
Not to mention that, as near as I can tell, running this shit is essentially just a crapshoot. Either you try to make the business somewhat legitimate, like Elio has, or you go to fucking jail before you’ re fifty.
There are very few old men in this game.
Most of them are dead.
I guess that I have to give Benicio that, though. He lived long enough to run his cartel into the ground and come up with absolutely fucking nothing to show for his life.
Love that.
“The next few weeks will be challenging. I expect some of you may die. If you wish to spend tonight making amends with your families, you should do so. The competition begins tomorrow,” Benicio says.
His chair screeches as he stands.
Noiselessly, he and his closest bodyguards leave the room. Marisol and Andrei Moretti remain, sitting at a table up to the far right corner of the room. The six of us stare at each other.
The Russian and the Serbian start muttering to each other. Luca Costa and the French guy bow their heads together.
Leaving Johnny and me alone.
I turn. “Seriously? Marco sent you to watch me?”
“Marco sent me as a scion of my family,” Johnny winks at me. “But I’m always down for a fuckin’ adventure, so I thought to myself, Hey. Why the fuck not ?”
“You could die, you fucking idiot.”
Johnny shrugs. “It will be pretty fuckin’ noble to die helpin’ a friend get the love of his life back though, right?”
My jaw drops. “Friend?”
“Yeah man. We’re friends. Remember when you helped me get out of that thing with the Nostras? ”
I blink. “We were like… eleven.”
“And I ain’t fuckin’ forgot about it once.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that. Johnny Spinoli isn’t someone that I would have counted as a friend. Hell, I wouldn’t have even said he was an acquaintance.
“You don’t owe me shit for somethin’ I did when I was a kid, man.”
“Never said I owed ya, Dino. I said I was willing to help out a friend. That’s all,” he puts his hands up.
Jesus H. Christ. This fuckin’ guy.
“So that’s the gal, huh?”
I turn to look at Marisol, who is staring at me from her spot in the corner. “Yeah. That’s my Marisol.”
“I can see it,” Johnny says.
I snap my face back to his. “You see fuckin’ nothin’, Spinoli.”
He laughs. “Listen, you think I’d try to swipe you? Not in a fuckin’ lifetime, man. I’d have to be one crazy motherfucker to get between you and her.”
My eyes glide over Marisol, to where Moretti is standing behind her.
He’s glaring at me. Pacing, slightly, from side to side.
“Yeah. Crazy motherfucker,” I murmur.
Moretti leans forward and whispers in Marisol’s ear. She nods, and rises from her seat, following him into the house.
I don’t like that. Why did she follow him so quickly? Why…
“You want me to go after them?” Johnny asks .
“Andrei Moretti will wipe the fucking floor with you, man.”
“Fair enough. So what’s the plan?”
I watch them go.
I have to talk to her. I know that. She’s… shocked. Probably confused. If I were her, I’d have a ton of questions.
But right now?
I have to wait. There’s too much at risk, and I have no doubt that the second I get close, Moretti’s going to push me the fuck away.
I sigh and look back. “The plan, motherfucker, is to win.”
Spinoli grins. “Hell of a plan, Dino.”
It’s not a plan.
It’s the only option.
Marisol is mine.
Anyone who stands between us is going to get laid the fuck out.
Crazy motherfucker, indeed.