Accidental Alliance (Mafia Lords of Sin #17)

1. Elio

ELIO

I stand in the shadowed alcove of the old banquet hall unseen, my eyes roaming the space in front of me leisurely.

Expensive cologne drifts through the room in thick, cloying waves every time another suited man brushes past my hidden spot, each one muskier than the last and pungent enough to sting the back of my throat.

Beneath it comes the sweeter, powdery weight of perfume from the women draped over their arms like jeweled ornaments, all silk skin and rehearsed laughter, their smiles polished to a shine that never quite reaches their eyes.

Lurking beneath their glamour, like a body rotting under freshly poured concrete, is the smell of the food—butter, garlic, seared meat, the salty fragrance of warm hors d’oeuvres balanced on silver trays by waiters who move with their chins tucked low, careful not to meet the eyes of the wolves circling the room.

It is always the same at gatherings like this. Gold on the surface, blood hidden underneath.

The chandeliers hanging overhead cast everything in a honeyed glow, softening the age of the cracked ornate crown molding running along the ceiling and the water stains hidden high in the corners.

From a distance, the hall still looks grand and prestigious, but standing where I am, half swallowed by the dark, I can see the truth.

Time has been chewing away at this place for years now.

The floor beneath their polished shoes warps in places, causing guests to stumble without warning, convincing them that they’ve consumed one too many glasses of champagne before moving on to the next circle of oligarchs to schmooze.

The velvet drapes pulled over the far windows have begun to fray at the hem. Even the marble pillars that line the walls bear hairline cracks if you know where to look.

Beautiful things always tend to break, I’ve found.

Much like the men gathered here who build empires around the illusion of permanence, still believing themselves to be different from their predecessors.

They wrap themselves in their tailored suits, family crests, old names, and expensive women, believing any of it can keep the end from finding them as it does us all.

They laugh too loudly, drink too freely, speak in veiled threats, all the while pretending violence is just another form of diplomacy.

Half this room has ordered killings with those same manicured hands now wrapped around crystal glasses.

I know because I have done worse with mine.

Tonight, I keep them tucked behind my back.

My expression remains unreadable, my shoulders relaxed in a way that if anyone were to glance in my direction, they would find my posture casual.

My father always says calmness frightens people more than rage ever can.

Rage is sloppy and typically predictable, but remaining outwardly unbothered never fails to make most wonder what you are willing to do and how much it might cost them by challenging it.

From my place in the alcove, I have a clean view of nearly the entire hall.

The older families cluster where they always do, near the center of the room where they can be seen.

The ambitious ones hover at the edges, hungry and smiling, desperate for a nod from somebody whose last name carries weight.

The guards are easier to spot than they believe.

Their thick necks, cheap suits stretched over broader frames, eyes that move too often, and hands that stay too close to their jackets are what give them away every time.

A few of them scan the room with veiled discipline, but most are already growing lazy under the haze of music, alcohol, and the false sense of security this place pretends to offer.

Amateurs.

A string quartet plays somewhere off to the left, their music floating through the hall in smooth, elegant notes that barely soften the ugliness of the guests attending this event.

In my opinion, it only makes it feel more obscene.

Violence always has a tendency to wear its nicest face at events like this.

Men toast one another beneath candlelight, then send someone to a basement before sunrise to have their teeth pulled out one by one for speaking to the wrong contact and fumbling a deal.

I let out a short breath before rolling my shoulders back.

I know if I were to step out into the light, all eyes would fall on me immediately.

At thirty-three, this city already knows my name like a prayer it fears whispering too loudly, superstitiously believing invoking it would lead to an automatic death sentence.

Elio Conti—my family’s underboss, my father’s right hand.

The man sent when negotiations fail and examples need to be made. In the streets, in the clubs, in back rooms where men swear loyalty with one hand and hide knives behind their backs with the other.

My name travels ahead of me like the smell of smoke before the sight of fire.

People hear it and lower their voices, they straighten in their seats and think twice before pulling the trigger.

I am the blade that never misses.

The cold-blooded son of a dynasty old enough to have roots in every judge’s pocket and every ballot box that matters.

Men twice my age flinch when I enter a room because they know I have buried men older, richer, and more protected than they are.

They know I do not bluff.

They know I learned young that hesitation gets you killed and mercy is never an option.

Fear is a useful language in this city.

Women, I’ve found, feel it too, though usually in a different dialect.

The smart ones avoid my eyes entirely, sensing the violence in me the way prey animals sense a predator lurking nearby.

The foolish ones are the ones who linger.

They smile too long and brush past me in dresses that cost more than most people make in a month.

They let their perfume trail behind them like an invitation, thinking danger can be flirted with, seduced, made gentle by a soft mouth and a willing body.

They look at me the way moths circle a live flame, dazzled by the heat, too stupid to understand that fire does not love what it burns.

Normally, none of it touches me.

Indifference has always clung to me like a second skin.

However, tonight, that armor has begun to wane.

Because she is here.

Even thinking her name feels dangerous. Like pressing on a bruise I know better than to keep touching.

From across the banquet hall, I track her without meaning to when she finally comes into view.

The disciplined part of myself that should know better by now refuses to cooperate.

This room is full of threats and shifting alliances that could redraw the shape of this city by morning.

Ones I should be paying attention to. Any other night, that is exactly what I would be doing. Instead, my eyes find her and refuse to turn away.

They always do.

Isabella Russo moves through the banquet hall like she is made of light while the rest of us are shadows only lucky enough to be brushed by it before once again being draped in darkness.

Eyes follow her, not because she is trying to be noticed but because no one in this room could stop themselves from doing so even if they tried.

The chandeliers above her catch her long chestnut hair, turning the loose waves down her back into ribbons of warm bronze and amber.

Every time she turns her head, the light shifts with her like it belongs to her more than the ceiling it hangs from.

Her eyes roam over the room with far more awareness than a girl her age should possess.

My hands tighten behind my back before I can stop them.

They are a problem all on their own.

They have never looked at me like everyone else does, nor do they flinch like they’re supposed to.

When those honey-gold irises land on me, it feels less like being admired and more like being known.

There are few things in this life I hate more than the possibility of someone seeing beneath the armor I have spent decades forging, yet from her I crave it.

She is wearing a soft cream dress tonight.

It clings to her slim frame in a way that is almost innocent and makes her seem graceful rather than fragile.

A vision of femininity polished to perfection, all soft curves and elegant restraint.

I know she’s wearing it because I’m here. Not because she has ever told me she wears anything for me. She hasn’t.

Isabella is far too careful for that, and I am much too dangerous to deserve a confession so honest even if she had felt inclined to tell me.

But I know.

I know she wears it only for me.

Maybe that is arrogance, some kind of self-destructive vanity men like me are born with and punished for later.

But I know it all the same with cold certainty because I remember every shade of fabric she has ever worn in my presence, every color, every hemline, every silhouette that has ever draped over her body and made something inside me grow taut and wild.

I remember the deep green silk from the winter fundraiser a year ago, the one that made her look older until she smiled and ruined the illusion completely.

I remember the pale blue dress from a summer dinner at her father’s estate, deceptively modest, that should have been forgettable on anyone else and somehow became unforgettable on her.

I remember black lace peaking out from underneath her cocktail gown once, only a hint of it beneath the tight bodice wrapped around her chest, and how that tiny glimpse of what she had been hiding underneath occupied my mind for three goddamn days like a bullet lodged too close to my brain to remove.

That is the problem with Isabella.

Every image, every single detail about her, embeds itself into my brain stem.

She enters a room and my mind turns into a treacherous minefield, cataloging her with the same ruthless precision I use for my enemies.

Only with her, the instinct is not tactical. It is worse.

It is hunger twisted into need, a private collection of moments I should have discarded and instead have hoarded like a desperate man locking contraband in a safe for his next fix.

She has always had this effect on me, taken every disciplined and carefully sharpened instinct in my body and turned it into something far more reckless.

It is a bone-deep hunger that gnaws at me day and night. My hands itch to touch her.