Chapter 2
Dante sat at the table on his screened patio and enjoyed a cup of coffee as he thought about his earlier encounter with Marti Goshay. She’d been cute as an eight-year-old girl. She was devastating as a thirty-seven-year-old woman.
And she was definitely a beautiful woman. A stunner if ever there was one, and a woman who preferred to be called Marti rather than Martina. Personally, he preferred Martina, but it was her name and her choice.
In a way, he understood. He recalled how it would often bother him when he returned to Italy as a kid, and his family there would call him Little Mario, as if he didn’t have his own name.
It had been cute when he’d been a young boy because he had admired his dad so much.
But when he got older, he felt it was time to be called by his own name.
Dante figured they would still be calling him by his father’s name if he hadn’t begun correcting them. Whenever they said, “Little Mario”, he would reply, “Who’s that? I’m Dante.” They eventually got the message.
Taking another sip of coffee, he picked up a business magazine that he had purchased at the bookstore earlier that week.
Although he had sworn to avoid anything that had to do with business while he was on vacation, he hadn’t been able to resist. Business management was in his blood, but that wasn’t the only thing.
There was something embedded even deeper in his DNA.
The Avera family was well known in Sicily for more than just their coffee plantation.
For generations, his great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather had been bodyguards, hitmen, and even henchmen for the Romano Mafia Family.
Chances were good that Dante would have been in that same family business if Savino Romano had not put an end to the feud between his family and that of the Brunos and Lombardis.
Savino’s father, Sergio Romano, and his two older sons and their families were killed by assassins’ bullets, along with the Romano’s trusted bodyguard, Aldo Avera, who was Dante’s great-grandfather.
That was when Savino, who’d been barely twenty, and knowing the next planned hit would be on him since he was the last living member of the Romano family, made a bold and unprecedented move.
Savino called a meeting with the heads of the Bruno and Lombardi families.
He stated that in retaliation for the senseless killings of his family, he had made a contract with a ruthless cartel.
If anything were to ever happen to him or his offspring and their families, the cartel would implement a total extermination of the Brunos and Lombardis, sparing no one.
It would be a complete purge of the two families, ending present and future generations.
To show he meant business, he presented proof that the building where they were meeting was surrounded by members of the cartel.
Men who would follow his orders and blow up the place, killing everyone present, including him.
At that point in his life, with his entire family dead, he had nothing to lose.
Also, while the meeting was taking place, he’d had the cartel gather up members of the two families.
They were being held in an undisclosed location, and would be executed if the outcome of their meeting was not to his satisfaction.
He gave his word that no harm would come to them if his terms were accepted.
If they weren’t, that would be the end of the two families, starting with those he had in his custody.
He felt enough blood had been shed, and it was time to end the hatred, division, and quest for dominance among the families.
Savino Romano wanted to begin a new life elsewhere without having to look over his shoulder.
Such a thing was unheard of since, as a rule, no one could ever leave a Mafia family.
However, as he was the last member of the Romanos, and the heads of the two families knew Sergio never intended for his youngest son to be involved in the family business, they considered his demand.
They were also very aware that the Romanos were distant cousins of the Capone family, who had moved from Italy to New York years earlier.
For Savino to outsmart them by quickly forming a cartel that had captured members of their family without their knowledge proved that he could be as ruthless as Al Capone was rumored to be.
No one wanted to risk leaving their families’ well-being in the hands of a potential monster, so they made an exception to the Mafia lifetime commitment rule for Savino, and accepted the armistice he offered.
That peace treaty initiated by Savino was established nearly ninety years ago.
The Mafia Brunos and Lombardis still existed in Sicily, but nobody dared to break the treaty and harm a hair on any of Savino’s offspring’s heads.
Over the years, marriages had taken place among the Brunos and Lombardis, creating a unified alliance between the two Mafia families.
They grew to appreciate Savino Romano’s strategic move to end the violent conflicts.
To make sure some ‘hothead’ within one of the families wouldn’t try to incite needless wars among other Mafia families, or renege on the peace treaty forged with Savino, the Sicilian Mafia Commission was established to prevent such things from happening.
Savino moved to the United States, changed his name from Savino Romano to Savino Kingston.
Kingston had been his mother’s maiden name.
His faithful bodyguard and best friend, Carlis Avera, along with another childhood best friend, Leonardo De Luca, left Italy and moved to the States with him.
Savino met a woman named Ursala while attending Harvard Law School, and the two married.
They had one son, whom they named Silas.
Carlis and Leonardo married as well, and both had sons born around the same time.
Leonardo’s son was Ricco De Luca, and Carlis’s son had been Dante’s father, Mario.
Mario Avera was to Silas what Carlis Avera had been to Savino, and what Aldo Avera had been to Sergio.
Namely, a trusted bodyguard, a close confidante, and if needed, a henchman, who functioned as a modern-day fixer or enforcer.
But more than that, the three men─Silas Kingston, Mario Avera, and Ricco De Luca─were the very best of friends and godfathers to each other’s sons. Just like their fathers before them.
Although Dante had been thirty when Mario died, he had taken his father’s unexpected death extremely hard.
And he’d very much appreciated Silas and Ricco being there for him as his godfathers.
Upon his father’s death, Dante inherited the role of protector for Silas Kingston and his son Skylar.
Even though the Brunos and Lombardis had kept their agreement with Savino for all those years, and the Sicilian Mafia Commission had been established, safeguards could never be lowered.
For that reason, Mario had trained Dante well.
In Italian, the name Dante meant enduring or steadfast. Protecting those he cared about was in his blood, and he took the role seriously.
He’d done just that with his godbrother Skylar, Silas Kingston’s only son.
Two years ago, he had promised Silas on his deathbed that he would protect Skylar with his own life if it came to that.
Skylar got married last month and had connected with his siblings on his biological mother’s side, the Montgomerys.
Dante knew Skylar’s new family were good people.
And now that Skylar was in a good place in his life, Dante felt he could step away and concentrate on taking care of himself.
That was the reason he was here, in Wild Rose Point.
And he intended to use that time to rejuvenate both his body and mind.
As Dante flipped through the magazine, he thought back to his conversation with Marti.
He’d told her that he was the general manager of the Ursala Hotels and Resorts, but he hadn’t gone into detail about what that job entailed.
Being general manager was just a small part of it.
He was also Director of Security for all of Skylar’s corporations, and there were plenty of them.
His security team consisted of ten men and women who were experts in their field.
After he’d graduated from Harvard Law School with a concentration in criminology, criminal justice, and criminal law, he worked for a few years with the FBI before joining his father’s security firm.
He would have to say that his most intense training came from working with his father, who had taught him the fundamentals of being street smart.
Dante had an uncanny ability to extract what he needed to know from someone, simply through natural conversation.
In other words, he could get people to start spilling their guts before they realized it.
They would talk freely, not knowing he was taking in their every word.
Of course, there were times when a more ruthless, merciless approach had to be taken. Then, he allowed the spirits of his mafia-connected ancestors to dictate his every move. He was glad that it was something that did not happen often.
Still, because of his security background, he could always detect when something seemed off. And something had definitely been wrong with Marti’s initial reaction when she saw him that morning. There had been fear in her eyes, no doubt about it. And he couldn’t help wondering why.
Of course, maybe he’d just startled her.
And though he had recognized her, she hadn’t recognized him.
In fact, she hadn’t seemed to notice him at all, until he spoke.
So, it would be understandable that he might have frightened her.
Given the current climate, any smart woman would be on her guard if approached by a stranger.