Chapter 16
Leo
It still feels strange to step into this house and not feel my father’s presence. I can’t believe it’s been over a month since he’s left us. My hand clenches into a fist as I recall the last time he walked out of this dwelling.
He held all four of us boys in his arms, but what was strange was how he held me longer than he held Tristan. Eyebrows were raised, then eventually, it dawned on all of us why this happened. I was his heir—he was passing the reins of the family’s hold to me in that long hug and the subsequent handshake, where he placed his free hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye.
We didn’t exchange a word during that moment, yet my soul heard all he was confiding in me. Gratitude for keeping his secret safe and letting him die a warrior’s death. Comfort in knowing his legacy lives in me and my brothers. Love that kept us all together all these years, especially after my mother left us.
I stop in the foyer and clench my fists tight, my jaw hardening with the surge of loss, the emptiness of not having him here anymore. A part of me had believed my father would never die, that he was immortal. He was my hero, so he should have got to live forever.
He died to bring peace, though. And this, he did achieve. Those fucking Albanians have been put on a leash by their own council. There are talks between some of their families and ours, as to how they can use our ports system instead of just taking over. A peace treaty has even been signed.
They are responsible for his death. Never mind that I killed Ardian Abrashi because he came after what was mine. I will never forget they’re the ones who caused Pellegrini blood to flow on our very own territory.
If I had my way—and I know the day will come—I’d end all those bastards for good.
Right now, however, I have another boatload of fuckers to deal with.
Cursing under my breath, I stalk to my father’s study—I still can’t call it mine—and make it straight to the decanters on the sideboard. I down two fingers of Scotch in a single gulp, and I’m pouring myself a second one when there’s a soft knock on the door.
“Come in.”
My grandmother steps into the study. “Pour me one, will you?”
I asked her to move in when I came back here, too. This is the family home—it should have our family in it. Tristan’s also here, though the twins have refused to leave their lair near Port Newark.
I smile. “ Nonna , you know you don’t have to knock.”
“And run the risk of finding you balls deep inside a woman? There’s not enough bleach in the world to clean my eyes from that.”
I chuckle. “Not gonna happen. I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
She takes the snifter I extend and sits on the leather couch. “There doesn’t seem to be any pleasure in your life to begin with. Unless those torn knuckles come from tossing a woman around with your fists?”
“You know I don’t roll like that.”
She tips her glass my way. “Exactly. No pleasure. No woman.”
I take a sip. “Not all men are driven by their cocks.”
“No.” She sighs. “Like your father, you’re driven by your heart. Though he did learn how to switch that wiring later on.”
After my mother left him. And I’m supposing the eyeful she got in this very room involved her own son and another woman. I cringe inside.
I take another sip of Scotch and come to sit beside her. Something she said gives me pause. Will I one day also be able to bypass my heart to get to my dick? I only have to think of Bianca Bonucci to feel this isn’t gonna be possible.
“How did the meeting go?” she asks.
A sigh escapes me, and I down the rest of the whiskey in a single gulp.
“As you can imagine,” I tell her.
I’ve been meeting with the other Dons who are all members of the syndicate. As a Don myself now, I have a seat at their table. However, instead of being seen as their ally, they see me as the one they need to gang up on.
It’s a sort of tradition against Pellegrini men—my father, when he sat with them, didn’t kowtow to anyone and walked to the beat of his own drum. It’s expected I’ll be the same…unless they can browbeat the rebellious streak in my bloodline. I’m young and not set in my ways, according to them. Or so they think. No man is ever going to walk all over me. My father taught me well, especially in the past few months since he told me I’d be stepping into his shoes soon.
Recalling his illness and the death sentence it laid on him makes me want to rage at the world. It’s not fair he’s been taken from us so early.
I ease my grip on the glass, recalling a similar one breaking and slashing my palm over four years ago in Mattia’s kitchen. All because I was seeing Bianca in a tiny bikini…
I blink out of those thoughts before they can consume me. And also before I have to hide my hard-on from my grandmother.
“What did they ask for this time?” she continues.
Thankful for the distraction, I focus on the meeting I just left in a dark back room of an upscale gentleman’s club on the Upper East Side.
“Same as always. That I need to beget an heir—”
“Yes, you do. I would like a great-grandson, you know.”
I don’t let her interruption affect me. “—but they don’t seem to be ready to wait for a child to even happen. It’s like I should’ve pulled one out in front of them already. Like I’m a magician with a hat and instead of a rabbit, I pull a baby boy from it.”
“It would spare a lot of couples a lot of trouble if that were possible. IVF and all that,” she says. “Though it’s also fun to make a baby.”
I raise my eyebrows, though I’ve stopped being surprised at how bawdy my grandmother and her friends can be when they’ve set their minds on babies. I haven’t been spared a sex and baby talk any time I’ve met her and her cronies since I turned thirty.
“Don Salvatore’s offering his daughter for marriage,” I say.
Nonna mumbles something too vulgar for me to really want to dwell on.
“That girl.” She all but spits saying ‘girl.’ “Half the men in Ibiza have been inside her hoochie.”
“ Nonna !”
She huffs. “Have you seen her Instagram? I wouldn’t be surprised she has an OnlyFans profile up, too.”
I’m spared having to pursue this topic when my phone beeps with a message. It’s from my father’s enforcer, Bruno. Technically, he’s my enforcer now, but I haven’t dwelled on this too much. I had — still have — more important matters to deal with, like the syndicate, than the fact Bruno and the other capos haven’t yet sworn their Omertà — their vow of silence and service —to me.
Bruno wants me to meet him at his house.
I don’t know why, but I feel something fishy in this request. I’m tempted to brush it off, but paranoia has kept me in good stead lately—my gut is on high alert, and this is how I haven’t yet been roped into becoming the syndicate’s bitch.
Right now, it’s telling me to be wary of Bruno.
As a precaution, I message Mattia and ask him to meet me there.
Things were strained between me and Mattia for a long time after Bianca’s memorial. We didn’t see each other for the two weeks Hana was in Japan with her brother. When she came back, it’s like she brought peace back with her. She arranged dinner, had me over, and after eating, she excused herself and let us deal with our falling out as grown men over espressos and not glasses of liquor.
It was a tenuous truce, at first, then as we reconciled ourselves with Bianca’s loss, it brought us closer, in a newer bond that had lost the carefree tint of childhood friendship and had instead united us in the dark weight of grief.
Then the war started, making us stick together even more. When the shit with my father happened, Mattia’s the one I turned to. He doesn’t know about the dementia diagnosis—no one else does except my grandmother—but his death, his loss, I shared it with my best friend.
Today, we’re thicker than ever.
Mattia agrees to meet me on the Upper West Side. He’s already there leaning against his car when my chauffeur—formerly my father’s—drops me in front of the brownstone Bruno lives in.
“What’s the matter?” he asks quietly as he reaches me near the stairs leading to the front door.
I shake my head softly. “Something feels off.”
He nods. “I got you, brother.”
I place a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks.”
More and more these past few weeks, I’m finding unfailing support in this man who doesn’t share my blood yet has given me his utmost loyalty. If a consigliere —the one who provides wise counsel to a Don or a boss—didn’t have to be an older person or someone with more life mileage under his belt, I’d make Mattia mine. As such, he’s just my right-hand man at the moment.
I go up and knock on the door. Bruno opens, and the shuttered look on his face bides nothing good. A sliver of unease slithers up my spine as my mind clears and the rational side of me pops to the forefront. I step into the living room, Mattia behind me. It’s summer, so we don’t need to remove coats and hats in the foyer. I frown when I see the handful of men already seated on the sofas. They all stand up when I come in. With a wave, I bid them to sit down.
Mattia and I exchange a glance. Something’s afoot.
“Drink, Don Pellegrini?” Bruno asks.
I’m still powering on the two Scotches from home, though it’s not affecting my judgement. I shake my head, then peer at the men.
“Please, go ahead if you wish to,” I tell them as I sit in the armchair left empty for me.
It’s always a good idea to lubricate minds and occupy hands in tense situations.
I notice Bruno wince as a few hands raise for a drink. I’ve accompanied my father on meetings with his crews before. He always encouraged the men to have a glass. So why is Bruno so uptight today?
“Speak,” I tell my enforcer. My tone is low, soft, though I’m sure he can hear the lethal undercurrent in it.
He nods solemnly. “Don Pellegrini… Leo,” he starts.
It’s never a good thing when a subordinate resorts to using their boss’s first name, especially when the boss hasn’t asked them to in the current situation.
“We, the men and I, are worried,” he says.
I narrow my eyes slightly on him. I need not say more—he takes it as his cue.
“The portside operations, they’re getting on our case, Leo. It’s becoming harder for the men.”
I want to smile, having figured out what game he is playing already, but I want to see how far this will go, how far he is ready to take this, how deep his head is up someone else’s ass.
“You have my blessing to deal with this as you deem fit, Bruno,” I tell him, then nod at the capos —the captains of every crew under my command.
“There’ll be blood, Leo.”
“Yes. Theirs.”
He gulps. It’s hardly noticeable, but I was focused on him so intently, I saw it.
“I don’t want blood to be split,” he continues.
I smile a little this time. “Is Don Pellegrini’s enforcer getting soft in his old age?”
He’s hardly older than fifty-five. Still, the fact he’s lived this long in his position is a testament of how wily and resourceful he is. He’s the one who directs orders and operations for a Don, and kills for him, too.
“Hardly, Leo,” he says, tone clipped. “But there is an easier solution.”
I nod. “I’m listening.”
“Don Salvatore controls the portside we deal in,” he says. “Marry his daughter, and he’ll protect our men because you’ll be family, then.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, silence eerie in the room. “That’s what you’d advise?”
I raised the pitch of my voice saying this, sounding like I’m really a green boss, insecure and not very aware of how the world works out there.
Jubilant energy takes hold inside me when Bruno falls for my ruse and starts to explain how Don Salvatore will help us out, how much this alliance will weigh in the scheme of things, how the syndicate will approve of this move and welcome me in their ranks as a consequence.
That off feeling I’d had back home when I saw his text? It just got confirmed. The monster in my blood is raring to be let loose.
“You’ve really thought this through,” I say, slowly standing up.
I notice the other men tensing, some exchanging glances. Bruno’s on a roll, though, totally oblivious to the tension in the room.
I start toward the decanters, making it look as if I’m going to get a drink. But as soon as I’ve stepped behind Bruno, I stop, turn around, and slam a forceful kick into the back of his knees.
His words sound garbled as he falls to the floor. I quickly reach under his jacket and get the gun in a shoulder holster under his arm. I then reach for his feet, grabbing the small knives he stashes there against his ankle bones.
I can feel shadows falling over me—the other men have gotten up and are watching us. Good. They need to know who gives the orders here.
“No need to bother getting up,” I tell Bruno, using a knife to slash the backs of his legs, cutting the Achilles tendon. Blood spurts, but it’s minimal, which is perfect—it did its job of crippling him yet he won’t bleed out in the next few minutes like if I’d ripped through an artery.
I step back up and hand Mattia the gun, barrel in hand, handle extended to him. What this does is show the men how much I’m unaffected by this scene happening right in front of us. I’m cool and composed, with no need for a gun.
I smother a smile when I’m able to smell fear in the room, and not just coming off of Bruno.
I lean down and peer into his face. “I don’t care how much Don Salvatore’s paid you, or what he has on you. You might like being on your knees as his little bitch. I don’t.”
He sputters on his words. “Leo—”
I shake my head. “It’s Don Pellegrini. You shouldn’t have done this.”
I reach out, cradle his face in my palms. For a second there, I’m sure it looks like I’ll be compassionate, reprimand him, even though he won’t walk properly ever again.
But that’s not what’s going to happen. He chose the wrong side. And I don’t tolerate people who pose a threat to what’s mine.
It takes just a twist of my upper body to snap his neck. I let his lifeless body drop to the floor. Damn, a small pool of blood has formed at his feet. Thankfully, it’s contained on the rug, which will have to be discarded.
“Don Pellegrini,” someone says.
I glance up, eyes narrowed. Whoever was talking shuts up.
“Anyone want to be next?” I’m met by silence. “Good. Someone please get rid of this,” I say, waving at the dead body of my former enforcer as if it were a pile of dog poop.
Mattia hands me the gun back. I stare at it. It’s a beautiful piece, with unique engravings on the barrel. I start toward the door, then turn back on the threshold.
“Oh, by the way,” I say, looking at the capos , my crew captains. “There’s an opening, for my enforcer. Who wants the job?”
It sounds as if I’m asking who wants to come to dinner tonight, all unaffected and blasé about it. Stunned silence greets me, until one hand raises.
“Luigi,” I say, nodding at him to come forward. I hand him the gun, handle out, when he approaches. When he takes it, I wave at the house. “Congratulations. Please tell Rosella and the girls they can go all out with redecorating. I’ll settle the bill.”
His eyes go wide. Guess he didn’t know the post of enforcer comes with this house my great-grandfather bought in the early 1920s.
He nods and lowers his head. “ Grazie , Don Pellegrini.”
I can feel the rest of the men are in check, so I turn and exit the house, Mattia behind me. I step out toward his car, get into the passenger seat when he unlocks the doors with the fob.
“Drive,” I tell him as he gets in.
Mattia sighs.
We’re one block away when I speak again.
“What?” I ask.
“Is violence really always the answer with you?”
I bristle, but keep myself in check. “It gets the job done, doesn’t it?”
“Leo, you can’t scare your men into submission.”
“They’re not my men, Mattia. They’re my father’s.”
“All the more reason,” he points out. “You need to find people who are loyal to you.”
I know this. But once more, I have bigger fish to fry. Don Salvatore just painted a target on his back with his machinations. The syndicate needs to know I’m not anyone’s puppet, much less theirs.
“In due time,” I tell him. “But that’s for me to decide.” And for you to follow.
I haven’t said this, but the words are there. They’ve been in the air a lot recently since I’ve taken over as Don. And Mattia, like a dutiful soldier, stays put and doesn’t answer back, every time.
A sigh escapes me. “It’s been a hard day. Drinks at the club?”
“Not tonight. Hana’s plane is landing in an hour.”
I turn away to look outside the window—I heard the joy in his voice, the anticipation of welcoming his wife back after she’s been gone for months now.
Lucky bastard. I could command him to accompany me. As his Don, it’s my prerogative. The joy inside him is almost palpable in the car. He wasn’t this eager to go to his wife on his wedding day. Granted, his was an arranged match. He was going to the marital bed to do his duty back then, to consummate their union. Today, I hear a man who’s excited to get his wife back so he can fuck her again after so long. So he can hold her in his arms and know he’ll never want to let her go from his embrace ever again.
Everything I wanted to have with Bianca.
Everything I was denied, that I never got to experience with her.
And there it is—I couldn’t stop the thought of Bianca once again. It’s now going to eat me alive, the very image of her in my mind, her laugh in my blood, scorching all my veins, burning my heart. I’m done for, because when I get like this, I stop functioning as a man. A beast takes over, one who wants to kill, who wants darkness to fall on everyone in the world like the abyss that took hold of me when the woman I love was taken from me.
“You’ll be okay?” Mattia asks as the car stops in front of the most high-end club my family owns.
“Yeah,” I lie as I get out. He’s going to his wife; he doesn’t need to know I’m going down into the bowels of Hell to have a meeting with the devil.
He’s already gone by the time I make it to the door. The bouncers bow slightly as I go in, as does the manager who nods toward the most exclusive VIP room in the place. Even if there’d been someone in there, he’d have thrown them out by the time I make it up the stairs to the soundproof room. I spot my brothers, the twins, on the floor below in a regular VIP booth. I shake my head when I notice they’ve dressed alike, entirely identical to someone who hasn’t known them all their lives.
Any other day, I would’ve gone over to tease them about being up to some mischief again. But not tonight. There’s too much on my mind.
A bottle of Macallan Scotch whiskey is already waiting for me when I get into the room. They’ve come to know the drill when I visit now. Someone rings the intercom. I press the buzzer to open the door, letting in a dark-haired beauty with long locks and dusky skin. Through these women, I remember. I recall my beautiful woman in their image, my Bianca.
I frown. This girl, she’s new. But that’s a good thing. I don’t like familiarity here. Aside from the general look of them, I keep it impersonal.
I sit back in the booth and let my eyes rove over her.
“Come here.” When she stops in front of me, I nod at the table. “Lay down. Spread your legs.”
I detect a small tremble in her lips as she takes in my request. Then she does as bid, lying down with her back on the glass surface. She opens her legs, the thong displaying a waxed pussy.
“Touch yourself,” I tell her. “Bring yourself pleasure and make sure to come. Take your time.”
She need not have worried. Those girls who come up here? I never touch them. All I ever do is watch them coming. They usually start slow, unsure, then somewhere along the way, they get into it. I like it, knowing they have a safe space here where their pleasure is a given without anything being taken from them. I reward them handsomely for it, too.
Her hand slips down to her mound, her puffy lips glistening with her juices. I can smell her arousal.
It’s not the same—it can never be the same—but as I take in the scent, drink in the sight of her fingering her clit and her pussy, I can imagine it’s Bianca I’m seeing in front of me. Bianca taking her pleasure, not from me, but for herself. She was denied this when she was alive. Maybe in this way, by giving other girls a safe space around me, I can atone for all the ways we failed her.