Chapter 2
Chapter two
Dominic
“Congratulations on your wedding, Dominic.”
Elias Grimaldi’s smooth voice reaches my ear from over the phone. “A wife will do wonders for your reputation. Investors believe that a man who builds a home can be trusted, especially in a billion-dollar project like ours.”
I exhale a puff of smoke. Indeed… A complete redevelopment of the Eastern docks, projected to funnel trades through Europe like veins of gold.
Grimaldi is the head of a powerful investment consortium and my business partner. He has land rights, permits, and the trust of foreign investors, but is also a traditional man who wants the security of a marriage before signing the contract.
“Thank you, Mr. Grimaldi,” I say as more of a formality than sincerity.
After all, I already have the construction empire, muscle, political strengths…and now a wife. Isabella.
Grimaldi ends the call as her name burns my mind in ways I hate to remember.
I adjust myself behind the large mahogany desk in my office, watching the smoke curl from my cigar. I’d seen her sister, Elena, before at some charity gala, but I’d never set my eyes on Isabella…not until that night, and even then I didn’t know who she was.
Fuck. Now I’m suddenly reminded of that night…
How her body danced in tune to my thrusts. The feeling of her soft thighs around me as I ravaged her delicious, wet pussy. Fuck!
She felt so delicate. So tight. I could have fucked her until dawn. And maybe even fucked her knowing she was Elena’s sister. Her pussy was that good.
The lights had played their tricks, and what I saw wasn’t enough to make out her face, but it was enough to make me see that she was…different. Unorthodox.
She didn’t look like every other girl out there who plasters their face and dyes their hair a certain shade to be socially acceptable. She didn’t look like she was begging for attention. No fake smiles. No desperate giggles.
And that’s what stuck out to me.
I wanted something different. And fuck, was she the perfect kind of different.
Her scent, her beautiful ginger hair…not to mention her luscious curves. Those hips, those perfect tits, and that voluptuous ass of hers were enough to wreck a man. Goddamn!
I feel my cock strain at the images that rushed into my head. Releasing a strained breath, I pinch the cigar tighter between my fingers and take a greedy drag, letting the burn steady me.
Since that night, even on the morning of the wedding, I found myself thinking about the ginger from the club. And that’s not supposed to happen.
Women throw themselves at my feet, left and right. I’ve had models, whores, the ones that pretend to be saints but turn out to be sluts.
And not once have the memories from the sex, no matter how great, lingered. That alone makes me hate it. Because it means something’s changed. And I don’t fucking like change.
My intention that night was to let off steam, fuck the living daylights out of any woman who concedes, and pretend like the night didn’t happen.
Now that’s all thrown to shit. She’s ended up being my wife.
I froze for a split second when I saw her at the altar. Somehow, I thought Dean was trying to pull a fast one on me. But I slipped the ring on her finger anyway because there were greater things at stake.
I care more about the alliance than which sister I marry. Pre-wedding sex changes nothing, because that’s all it was. All she was. A fling. And even now that she bears the title of my wife, I don’t see her as such.
That would require me to give her my trust, love, and loyalty. And one thing became clear for me the day I watched my father being murdered by the ones he trusted the most: Loyalty was a myth. Love was a weapon. And I would never be caught unarmed.
Dean would have to answer for this shenanigan. I hate being tricked.
I stub the cigar into an ashtray and pick up the telephone, dialing a line. “I need updates,” I grit out once my second-in-command picks up.
“On it, Boss.”
A few seconds later, Matteo’s short figure strides through the door with a pile of papers in his hands. Today, his long hair is packed into a bun rather than slicked back. It makes his square-shaped face obvious without the distraction of loose hair.
Not that it matters. He has loyalty, not allure.
“Capo (Boss).” He bows slightly and starts to speak even before I can nod. Good. I hate time wasters. “The Russians.”
“Che ne è di loro (What about them)?”
Those bastards have been proving stubborn since I seized pieces of neutral property which they claimed to be theirs. They aren’t.
“Sono rimasti in silenzio (They’ve been quiet).”
To suddenly go quiet after losing said valuable pieces of property is strange. No one just relinquishes power without a fight. They’re definitely plotting something.
My jaw locks tight, wheels spinning in my head.
After claiming my position as the Don of the Moretti empire from my treacherous uncle, I built my name so high that even principles and systems bow to me. I restored power and legacy to the Moretti Mafia.
Today, enemies hesitate before whispering my name. The world trembles when I speak. Kings of commerce kneel to shake my hand because they see power and respect it. They know that to defy me is to invite death itself.
“Watch them,” I grit out, hands already snaking up to the ashtray to find my cigar. I hate cowards. “Follow them. I don’t want any surprise attacks.”
“Sì, Capo (Yes, Boss).” Matteo finally drops the pile of papers. I don’t bother to look at it. He continues.
“An arms deal went south last week. But—”
My eyes burn holes into his skull. “I ordered no arms deal.”
“Non il nostro (Not ours).” He shakes his head, his brown eyes holding mine.
“Then that’s none of our business.” I fist my hand into a tight ball.
He clears his throat, muscles tensing. I slide my gaze to his, and he looks tentative, as if waiting for my command.
I slowly uncurl my fist, leaning casually against the soft leather chair. “Parlare (Speak).”
“The arms deal was between the Saudis and the U.S. weapon sector.”
“Ah, that deal.” The tension in my chest loosens as I take a drag of my cigar. I remember it. It was the second pressing thing on the list last week. The first being that pesky journalist and her fucking agenda of my shipping company violating EPA laws.
“But luckily for us, the general’s son, Khalid, wound up dead, so the deal is on hold for now.”
I cock a brow at the news. General Malik, the Saudi Minister of Defense’s most decorated general. Seems like a lot has been happening lately.
“Quando (When)?”
“Three days ago. Word is that he was assassinated.”
My breath feels hot as I pass out smoke through my nostrils. That deal would have been a knife to my throat. Profits would have dipped significantly for me if another major supplier had entered my monopolized equation.
But somehow that’s not a problem anymore.
“Good for us.” My gaze falls on the pile of papers. “Those are?”
“Mafia reports,” he gestures to the papers, “and legal.”
“The Bellandi Mafia, one of our best buyers, recently moved abroad and stopped their business dealings with us for reasons unknown. But we have others vying to fill the gap.”
Hmm. I liked that mafia. The Don had the spine and vision. I wonder what happened.
“These are quarterly reports from our three businesses.” He clears his throat, halving the pile of papers to place in front of me.
Shipping and logistics, construction, and real estate. Through these businesses, I hold the lion’s share of New York’s trade, construction, and real estate wealth.
A surge of pride spreads in my chest. I single-handedly built the legal empire, starting from rock bottom. Now half the city runs through the businesses I own.
And that journalist bitch wanted to ruin it all. Digging into the Moretti shipping business like a fucking stray dog sniffing for remains of trash. Illegal dumping. Toxic waste poisoning the ocean. Exploited labor in the docks.
That was what she wanted to write. Hell, she didn’t even need to write it. She spoke about it publicly, everywhere she went. My face was slowly becoming one of depravity.
Not to mention, if her crusade gained enough traction, it wouldn’t have taken long for someone to realize my ships didn’t just carry oil and steel. They also carried hard drugs.
She’s weaponizing a single mess one of my subcontractors made, and I already cleaned up.
The idiot cuts corners and spills oil into the sea, forcing the dockworkers into a week of extra shifts they didn't want.
Their union threw a tantrum over the whole cumbersome disaster, but I signed off on their bonus pay within three days. Problem solved.
Yet, she labeled it exploited labor. A scoff escapes my lips. She paints herself as a damn philanthropist, but all she wants is a career-making headline, not the facts.
A bullet to her head would have solved it all, but the legalities of the real world constrained the issues. She was so much in the open that any attempt on her life would rouse suspicion.
Enter Dean Rossi, the hero.
He’d waltzed into my club office a few days earlier, claiming he had something to silence the journalist. And he did, indeed. A USB drive containing a sex clip—a threesome with two of her minor interns.
The blackmail worked on the journalist, but it also forged an alliance.
Dean Rossi’s first daughter, the beautiful one he claimed wouldn’t be an eyesore, in exchange for protection and resources.
I always hold the bargaining power in any deal, but I agreed, just to fuck that journalist up and save my mafia.
Besides, a ring on my finger is the only way to get an old-school traditionalist like Grimaldi to finally stop stalling and sign the contract.
I’d wanted to tell him that no matter the resources I pooled, his mafia would forever remain small. Resources don’t build empires, vision does, and Dean doesn’t have the spine to dream, let alone lead something powerful.