Mafia Men Need Love Too (Adorable Psychos #3)

Chapter 1

If anyone had told him that being a mafia boss was so boring, Nico Fortunado might’ve made some different choices in his life.

But here he was, bored out of his fucking mind.

The worst part? It was his own damn fault.

He’d fought, clawed, and schemed his way into this position.

The former head of the Italian mafia—and the bastard’s entire corrupt, brutal family—were in jail thanks to Nico, and he’d fought off all the other contenders for the throne to get exactly where he was right now.

And he didn’t give a shit about any of it. Not anymore. Not since he realized what a monotonous job he’d taken on. Cheat, steal, evade the authorities (which was laughably simple), rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

Boooorrrriiiinnnngggg.

He was very quickly learning that all the power and money in the world didn’t mean shit if none of it even interested him.

And he should be interested. He was at a strip club he owned, after all, with a beautiful topless woman smiling at him from the stage and dancing to Seven Nation Army. He should be slipping a fifty into that dancer’s G-string and arranging for a private dance.

But nooooooo. He was stuck here in the VIP section, meeting with an annoying wannabe mob boss who’d shank his own mother for a shot at Nico’s job.

If he was willing to let Ricky “the schnoz” LaRusso have the damn job, Nico might be able to pursue something more interesting with his life. More meaningful.

He couldn’t do it, though. Ricky was an idiot who would either fall in with the cartels and turn his city into a shithole or pick a fight with the Russians or Irish and drag the entire Italian mafia down with him.

As it stood now, Nico had been able to negotiate a truce with the Russians and Irish. They each owned their piece of territory, and he owned his. If he wanted to do anything in their territories, he discussed it with them and negotiated resolutions, and vice versa. Like fucking gentlemen.

There was nothing gentlemanly about Ricky.

Ricky was a mafia cosplayer at best, a dangerous imbecile at worst. He dressed the part—in a knockoff version of the black Tom Ford suit Nico was wearing—but wasn’t business minded enough to ever be anything but hired muscle.

The dangerous part was that he thought he was the smartest guy in any room, while in truth, his IQ was merely lukewarm.

And was it his imagination, or was Ricky growing his hair out to look more like Nico’s?

But if Ricky wanted to Single White Female him, he’d have to try harder, Nico thought. As it stood, he was nothing but the Temu version of a mafia boss. Annoying, but not a threat to Nico and his position.

The problem was that the fucknut was currently trying to talk him into trafficking drugs. Drugs. Nico scoffed. How boring. How predictable. How…uncivilized.

White collar crime was much more profitable. Bankruptcy schemes, tax scams, tax evasion, bid rigging, procurement and insurance fraud, counterfeiting…those were Nico’s kinds of crimes. Neat and tidy.

Even in the good old days when he was a freelance assassin, his kills were clean. Orderly. His research skills were impeccable, he’d never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, and he’d never left so much as a whisper of evidence in his wake.

So, the idea that he’d stoop to peddling drugs was laughable.

If Ricky were anyone else, he’d shut him down brutally and make him crawl out on busted kneecaps for daring to think he had a great idea Nico hadn’t considered.

But because Ricky was a decent soldier and generally followed the orders he was given, Nico let it slide.

But he wasn’t going to entertain his fuckery, either.

Which is why, when Ricky finished his spiel, Nico looked him dead in the eye and said, in no uncertain terms, “I appreciate your hustle, Ricky. Truly, I do.” A blatant lie. Frankly, the kid’s hustle was a consistent pain in the ass. “But no drugs. Not ever again. Yes?”

Ricky looked dangerously close to disagreeing for a second. Nico gave him a hard look that seemed to change his mind, though. He nodded after a long pause. Way too long a pause, in Nico’s opinion. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Whatever you say.”

Nico clapped him on the shoulder. “Wonderful. Glad we had this talk.”

Another blatant lie. He’d be much happier not talking at all. Especially not here.

He glanced over at his underboss, Van. They exchanged an eye roll. Van had no tolerance for bullshit either, and that’s all Ricky seemed to be offering these days.

Van was the closest thing to a friend Nico had. He was loyal to a fault, would follow any order Nico gave without question, and wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet if it meant protecting his boss. If being an underboss was a sport, Van would place respectably in his weight class.

And his weight class would be extra, extra heavy. The man was built like the love child of a redwood and an army tank. Nico was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but standing next to Van made him feel downright dainty.

“Time for a trip to the quarry?” Van asked, sounding as hopeful as a kid on Christmas morning.

Considering that the quarry was where all the skeletons of the organization were buried (literally), the idea made Nico chuckle. “No, my friend. Not yet.”

Van’s face fell, and he let out a disgusted sigh. “Fine. But you’ll let me know, right?”

“When the time comes, he’s all yours.”

Van cracked his knuckles, and his expression hardened in a way that made the stripper on stage turn on her plastic heels and scurry away.

Nico was impressed. Scurrying in those shoes without face planting took strength and skill.

Maybe if they got rid of Ricky, they could hire her to take his place.

But maybe now that his stupid conversation with Ricky was done, he could finally find a woman to distract him from the mind-numbing monotony of his life for a…

That’s when she caught his eye.

She stood out in a room full of half-naked women not because of her beauty (though, she was beautiful, to be sure), but because of how absolutely she did not belong there. She looked like a sweet little daisy amid a bouquet of black roses—lovely, but 100% misplaced.

First of all, she was tiny. If she was five-two, he’d be surprised. The biggest thing about her was the mass of ink-black, curly hair that trailed over her shoulders and down her back. Could it possibly be as soft as it looked?

Her black dress was fitted to her body (which was curvy and flawless, by the way), but modest—not too short, not too low cut. She looked like she was dressed for a funeral, not an evening at a strip club frequented by the mafia.

She had delicate features, big blue eyes, and pouty lips that were begging to be kissed. She looked…clean. Innocent. What could have gone wrong enough in her life to lead her here?

His fiorellino was looking around the room, eyes scanning for…something. He had no idea for what, or who. Oddly enough, he was a little jealous of whatever or whoever she was searching for, because he knew it wasn’t him. If he’d met this woman before, he’d remember.

Then her gaze shifted to his, caught, and stuck there for a good long while.

Being the center of her attention felt like waking up after a long, cold hibernation and feeling a sunbeam on your face. It was the first time in—hell, he didn’t even know how long—ages that he’d felt something other than apathy.

He watched as she took a few deep breaths, squared her shoulders, and smoothed her hair with trembling hands. She was obviously working up her nerve. For what he had no idea. But as she took first one, then two tentative steps in his direction, he sat up straighter.

Was she actually going to approach him? And if she was, why did she look like she might vomit?

Van followed his gaze and moved to stand. No one approached Nico without Van’s approval, and sadly, this woman didn’t have it. But Nico laid a hand on his underboss’s arm and shook his head.

Let her approach.

Van’s brow furrowed, but he settled back in his seat and turned his head in Ricky’s direction when the little weasel said…something. Nico paid them no mind. His sole focus was on the delicate beauty approaching him like she was marching to the gallows.

And in that particular metaphor, Nico was Death himself.

Some distant vestiges of the manners the nuns at one of the group homes he’d been raised in kicked in when she was within arm’s reach, making him stand up. She blinked up at him like she’d forgotten the word for “hello.”

She looked even tinier up close. Prettier, too. And she smelled like freshly cleaned linen and sunshine.

He did not care for the effect she was having on his pulse. “You look lost, fiorellino,” he said in a voice so low and raspy he barely recognized it as his own.

That seemed to snap her out of her stupor. She let out a delicate snort. “Oh, I’m definitely lost.”

Nico could relate. He was feeling a little lost himself. “What’s your name?”

She looked reluctant to tell him. And the way she was chewing on her lower lip was driving him absolutely insane. Did she have any idea how gorgeous she was? Somehow, he doubted it.

“That’s not important,” she eventually whispered. “What’s important is…”

He waited for her to finish her sentence. And waited. And waited. It looked like whatever she wanted to say was trapped behind those pretty pink lips of hers.

“What can I do for you?” he prompted.

He almost expected her to turn on her pretty little heel and run away. That’s how terrified she looked.

So, imagine his surprise when she took a step toward him, stopping close enough that she had to crane her neck back to meet his gaze, and said, “I was wondering if you wanted to have, um, sex.”

Well. His night just got way more interesting.