CHAPTER III
“ S he was kidnapped last night,” Dante said in a grave tone. “We don’t know where she is, only that she might be nearby.”
Alphonse rubbed the back of his neck aggressively. “Tell me everything from the beginning,” he ordered.
And so Dante did.
“I need a fucking drink,” Alphonse snarled, striding toward the bar like a man possessed. “Anyone else?”
We all responded with a yes, and he poured four glasses of whiskey, the amber liquid swirling in the glasses. Luca and I perched on the barstools while Dante sank into the couch, his gaze fixed out the window.
Alphonse took a seat in a chair near the window, his back to the view. “And what role do you play in this, Nico?” Alphonse looked at me with narrowed eyes.
“We’ve been dealing with someone who calls himself the Puppet Master. He has been stealing my shipments and taking out my men.” I clenched my hands into fists, the memories of those losses fresh and painful.
“The Puppet Master?” Alphonse echoed.
I nodded, launching into the details of the nightmare I’d been navigating.
“I’m surprised this news hasn’t reached you, Al,” Dante remarked.
Alphonse took a swig of his drink, swallowing it hard, then rested the glass on the armrest, tapping his covered ankle.
“Why would it?” he asked. “I don’t want to know shit about what the other dons are doing as long as it doesn’t threaten me or my country.” He firmly rubbed his chin. “And what the hell does this have to do with my daughter?”
Dante sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and clasping his hands between his legs. “The Puppet Master has a lot to do with Gigi’s disappearance. Mayor Walsh of Chicago was running a sex trafficking ring when?—”
“What?” Alphonse cut him off. “Are you telling me that bastard sold my daughter?” Before Dante could respond, Alphonse's furious gaze locked onto me. “What is your involvement with my daughter, Moretti?”
“I fell in love with her,” I said simply, watching for his reaction. I was expecting him to go into beast mode, ready to put a bullet in my skull for assuming a man like me, a cold-hearted killer, could be with his daughter. But to my surprise, his face remained an unreadable mask of indifference.
“You fell in love with my daughter?”
I nodded.
“Then where the hell were you when she was taken?”
“Shit,” Luca muttered, lifting his glass to his lips.
I braced myself for Alphonse’s wrath, knowing I deserved every bit of it. “The Puppet Master told me she was sent to spy on me.”
“Did you believe him?” Alphonse asked.
I clenched my jaw, pulling my shoulders back. “You know better than anyone that someone’s word doesn’t mean shit in our world.”
His eyes narrowed into slits. “And you think I’m blind to that? I’ve built an empire! I know the dangers. But I also knew my Angelica. She was fucking pure, loyal, and put others before herself. I have no reason to question that my daughter is any different.”
“Love doesn’t shield you from betrayal, Alphonse!” I snapped, regret creeping into my voice like a motherfucker. “I’m not defending my actions. I was raised to believe that just because she’s blood or how much I would fucking bleed for her, it doesn’t earn her a free pass.”
Alphonse’s anger flared, and I could almost see the flames in his eyes.
“But I was wrong,” I quickly added.
The instant I had let doubt creep in about Gigi, I understood I had made a huge fucking mistake. My father’s past continued to haunt me and had flashed before my eyes when I believed Gigi had betrayed me.
“What did you do?” Each word dripped with menace. It was the same tone I had wielded like a sword against my own traitors, and now it was aimed at me.
I let out a breath. “I questioned her.” I closed my eyes, revisiting the haunting look on her beautiful face, sadness mingled with betrayal that had pierced through my heart.
I opened my eyes to see Alphonse leaning forward, his jaw clenched as he scrutinized me.
“ How did you question her?”
“How do you think we deal with betrayal?” I shot back.
I knew it was a fucked-up thing to say, but my emotions were a raging storm, and I was losing control.
Alphonse leaped from his chair, hurling the glass at me.
I ducked just in time as the crystal shattered against the wall, inches from my head, sending a spray of sharp shards flying.
“You motherfucker!” he bellowed, storming toward me. Dante sprang from the couch, positioning himself between us.
“Move. Now ,” Alphonse growled, his eyes burning with rage as they remained locked on me.
The atmosphere shifted when the door swung open, and Alphonse’s men flooded the room as they leveled their weapons at us. The click of guns being cocked echoed in the air.
Luca tensed beside me, slowly rising to his feet. I gripped his arm, signaling him to stay put. He looked at me, but I shook my head, determined to face this alone.
“I’m not proud of what I did, but trust doesn’t come easily to me,” I admitted to Alphonse, trying to maintain my composure.
“Let me guess,” Alphonse snarled. “You were fucked over in the past and now you thought it happened again. You let your past cloud your judgment!” he roared.
I know.
“Did you put your fucking hands on her?” Alphonse’s tone was lethal.
“Fuck no,” I snapped. “I would never touch her. Ever. ”
“That still doesn’t explain how she was taken,” he pressed.
I ran my hands down my scruff in frustration, trying to steady myself before I gave him all the details of what happened the night my Angel was taken.
I’d put a bullet in my heart to end this suffering that came from betraying the one woman who loved me, flaws and all.
The memory of that night haunted me, her tied to that chair, helpless and begging me to trust her—to believe that our love was enough to withstand the fires of hell.
I’d do anything to take back that moment, to erase the horror I inflicted on her.
“Jesus, fuck.” Alphonse breathed sharply after I finished. He turned away from me, his back rigid, and stood before the window, gazing at the mountains. The clouds rolled in, swallowing the bright blue sky and casting a shadow over the landscape.
He dismissed his guards with a curt wave. Their footsteps faded into silence, leaving us alone in muted stillness.
“Angelica was the love of my life,” he whispered, breaking the silence.
“I should’ve done more to protect her, to protect them both.
But I knew as long as we were still alive, she would never be safe.
And now…knowing she was killed, that my daughter witnessed her death—it makes me want to tear the world apart. I failed her. I failed them both.”
“You didn’t fail them, Al,” Dante interjected.
Alphonse lifted his head to meet his gaze. “This whole time, Angelica was alive. I lost years of my daughter’s life. And now her mother is dead, and my daughter’s been taken by who the fuck knows.” He shook his head, his jaw clenched tight.
“You said he calls himself the Puppet Master?” Alphonse asked, shooting a glance in my direction.
I bobbed my head.
“And you said he used suicide bombers?”
I froze, every nerve in my body on high alert. “Yes, why?”
“Fuck,” he muttered, placing his hands on his hips. “It can’t be.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked as I stood. Luca mirrored my movement.
Alphonse’s eyes locked onto mine. “There was only one man I knew who had a fascination with bombs.”
“Who was it?” Dante asked.
His gaze remained steady, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. “Giuseppe, Angelica’s father,” Alphonse stated. “My daughter’s grandfather.”
“What do you mean, her grandfather?” I asked in disbelief.
“Are you certain?” Dante inquired, his eyebrows knitting together.
“Giuseppe was known as the burattinaio because he liked to play games and manipulate others. Letting them know he was the one in control.”
Dante’s gaze fell to the ground. “Shit, that’s right,” he whispered.
“It’s what he did to my men,” Alphonse continued. “He strapped them with bombs and released them back to me, blowing up my front lawn along with my men.”
“Did you kill him?” I growled.
“I tried!” Alphonse snapped, his eyes flashing. “But someone else got to him before I could. After I found out that he killed Angelica, I intended to save his wife and Angelica’s sister. We had a plan, but by the time we moved, his house was already blown to hell.”
“Did you receive confirmation that he was dead?” Dante pressed.
“The police confirmed there were no survivors,” Alphonse explained.
I straightened. “So there’s a slight chance he could still be alive.”
“Fuck,” Dante muttered.
“It’s not possible,” Alphonse grumbled, shaking his head as if he could physically dispel the thought.
“Did you ever find out who was behind the explosion?” Dante asked, his eyes fixed on Alphonse.
Alphonse let out a humorless laugh. “No. I spent years chasing every lead, and I got nothing. Whoever did it vanished like a goddamn ghost.”
“Who else wanted him dead?” I asked.
Alphonse finally met my gaze, a smirk playing on his lips as he absently swirled the amber liquid in his glass.
“Everyone hated that man,” he said. “His greed for power overshadowed everything. He had no grasp of loyalty, no understanding of true alliances. That man was a relentless cockroach.” He paused for a moment, his expression darkening.
“I just wish I had been the one to finally end his existence.” With that, Alphonse tipped the glass back, draining the last remnants of his drink, the ice rattling against the glass as he set it down.
“None of this makes any sense,” Luca chimed in. “If he somehow survived the explosion, why would Gigi’s own grandfather want to harm her?”
Dante sighed. “I guess it’s time for a history lesson,” he jumped in as he returned to his seat.
Alphonse settled into his chair, leaning back. “The Gambinos and D’Onofrios were once allies, but Giuseppe D’Onofrio’s greed changed everything. He ordered a hit on my father,” Alphonse explained.
I had heard stories as a kid about the Gambino family and the power they had over Italy. They were indestructible. But I hadn’t heard why the two families were enemies.
“Why?” I asked.
“To have what every king seeks—power,” Alphonse answered.
“But what started the war?”
“It started when my grandfather Marcello Gambino murdered Joseppi D’Onofrio.
At the time, Marcello was the head of a small but powerful mafia family that held sway over parts of Sicily and Naples.
Joseppi, driven by greed, sought to seize control of Marcello’s lucrative money-laundering operations and his connections in the United States. ”
He paused, his expression darkening. “Joseppi ordered a hit on Marcello, but Marcello got to him first. That’s when all hell broke loose.
The D’Onofrio family retaliated, hunting down members of the Gambino family and anyone associated with them.
Hell, they even killed the fucking maid.
The violence dragged on for months until they ambushed my grandfather as he was leaving church.
The news of his assassination shattered the community as if the president had been killed.
But that was the tipping point. The head of five mafia families had to step in, otherwise the bloodshed would have continued.
My grandfather had maintained a balance through business arrangements across territories, and the other families had too much to lose to risk that. ”
“So what happened?” Luca asked.
“My father, Pietro took the reins and reorganized the mafia by initiating negotiations with the other families in the US and Italy. They came to an agreement to stay in their territories and avoid further bloodshed. But then, just as we thought we’d found a new balance, Giuseppe decided to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and put a hit on my father. ”
“Jesus. History is repeating itself,” Dante remarked, shaking his head.
Alphonse nodded. “After my father passed away, I became the don and made sure to uphold my father's agreements with the commission. For a while, things were quiet.”
“Until what?” I probed.
“Until I fell in love with Giuseppe’s daughter,” Alphonse responded.
Love.
That fucking feeling.
It was like we were bound by chains to the women we dared to fall for, and that challenged everything . Every decision we made. Every feeling we shared. It was an ongoing battle that never ended, no matter how fiercely and desperately we tried to distance ourselves from its grip.