Without a Witness (The Mafia Arrangement #2)

Chapter 1 Royal

ROYAL

BOY GENIUS

Leticia D’Medici:

You’re NEVER going to guess what Nona Isabella told me about Cousin Violetta and the De Bonna boy Nicolas.

No, really, you’ll NEVER guess.

I can’t help but open the messages on the cloned phone I’m working on. What aren’t we guessing?

Leticia D’Medici:

Violetta and Nicolas are getting MARRIED.

Well, that was less thrilling than I hoped for. I sigh and set down my newest assignment, the cloned phone of my brother’s new wife, and scrub my hands down my face.

I always thought I’d be at my brother’s wedding — second wedding — and do the whole best man thing again.

And this time I’d give a much better speech about how his new wife is a great addition to our family.

This time, though, through an arranged marriage, I’m not exactly sure that’s true. I haven’t even met her.

Not that it entirely matters. Instead of at the church, I’m safe and sound deep in our territory, at home in my parents’ house.

Today, I’m the designated sole survivor in the event of a tragedy at the wedding.

The biggest truce in the history of our family is culminating in the most archaic rites of two funerals and a wedding.

After today, the Irish Mob and Italian Mafia will officially be partners.

That didn’t stop our family from preparing for the likely event of a double cross.

Death and total annihilation are what the arbiters promise for breaking the truce after the deal has been struck.

While personally, our family would never risk the penalty, we don’t know the D’Medicis’ morals well enough to place a bet on their desire to stay alive.

The phone vibrates again. I shouldn’t be so damned interested, but the heads of the family literally made it my entire job to snoop through all the information I gathered from the D’Medicis’ operation.

I’m not saying our Italian enemies are bad at crime.

I’m saying if it was so easy for me, a Cavanagh and, until recently, sworn enemy, to simply stroll over to one of their SUVs, climb into the back seat, and clone Antonella’s phone they left right out in the fuckin’ open, the Feds could do the same thing.

It’s a wonder they were winning the war between our feuding families. Maybe it doesn’t take brains to smuggle drugs, broker in information, and launder money . . . only large numbers of ‘made men’ willing to do the labor on the cheap.

Antonella D’Medici, my older brother’s new wife, was an only child, but every one of her aunts and uncles has at least three children.

It’s probably why she has over three hundred contacts in her phone, all with very similar last names.

D’Medici, D’Angelo, Bonetti, De Bonna . .

. I think I recognize a handful of the people with last names that aren’t outright Italian and aren’t also labeled with qualifiers such as ‘professor’ and ‘Eastwick Elementary’ or ‘grad school’ following the names.

This texter, though, the only one sending her any messages today, is her younger cousin. Leticia is the real principessa mafiosa and apparently has nothing better to do than text Antonella at least ten times an hour.

I open the phone up and look at the new messages.

Leticia D’Medici:

They’re getting married because Father Domingo caught them in the rectory together. Like, TOGETHER together! AT CHURCH!

Nicolas, I can understand he’s . . . De Bonna . . . but VIOLETTA?!

I almost text her back. I want more details. What does that mean, ‘he’s De Bonna’? Why do we not believe this of Violetta?

The drama is always so much better when it isn’t your family’s to deal with. I can imagine, though, that for Antonella and Leticia, this is probably pretty run of the mill, given all the cousins.

My fingers twitch.

I look up the family tree I’ve pieced together from the contacts and some genealogy websites that I may or may not have hacked into.

Violetta is Antonella’s third cousin, and Nicolas must be . . . Stop. I close out of the tab on my monitor. If it were a Mafia-related marriage, I’d probably let myself dig more, but kids getting married because of puritanical reasons isn’t what I’m meant to be looking into.

“Leticia.” I speak to the phone, knowing she’ll never hear me. “Couldn’t you tell me something about what’s going on at the funerals?”

Leticia D’Medici:

Also, Berto is MAJOR UPSET.

I love the way she keeps using caps lock for emphasis. Most girls have a favorite emoji, but Leticia seems to use caps in their place.

“Tell me about Berto?” I’m talking to the phone. I’ve clearly lost my mind.

My wolf has locked in on my interest with a lazy yawn, trying to determine whether it’s worth waking up for or if he’ll go back to sleeping inside me.

Leticia D’Medici:

I think Berto is mad you got married before him. Not that he’ll ever admit to that, but he’s really upset that you went through with this and are now a Cavanagh.

Also, when did the Cavanaghs get so HOT? I do not remember anyone being this attractive in the photos that Dad showed us of people to be on the lookout for.

I roll my eyes.

Leticia D’Medici:

Maybe Royal is ugly to make up for how attractive Valor is?

“Ouch.” I push the phone over on the desk. “Rude.”

I ignore the next few messages when they come in, transitioning to working on tracking software installation rather than information gathering. But it takes all of two minutes before I crack and check what the Mafia princess has to say next.

Leticia D’Medici:

Nope, he’s hot too. I looked him up. He was at a fundraising event for women in STEAM.

I smirk and then do the same thing Leticia did .

. . look myself up online. I don’t do it a lot.

But from time to time, I search for myself, Mom, Dad, my older brother Valor, and his daughter Kerrianne, and scrub any of the top search results from the internet.

Luckily, since our family is small, it doesn’t take a lot of time to expunge the unnecessary posts from the World Wide Web.

Attending and being seen at some galas and events are societally necessary for networking, but we prefer to keep our wealth less flashy.

I have to scroll through three pages of images before I find one of me tagged at the particular fundraising event she’s referencing.

She spent all that time looking us up? My wolf yawns, paying attention again. What is she like?

Why do we care? I set my phone down on the desktop and stare at it.

Call it curiosity? My wolf rolls over to the side and then starts pushing images of outside and rolling in the grass before hunting through some bushes.

Yeah, yeah. Outside, touch grass. I know, I know. I shove him down, out of my mind, but I give in and start searching for Leticia D’Medici.

She isn’t hard to find. Public social media profiles, photos at all sorts of fundraisers and events. The camera loves her.

Leticia is . . . stunning. Uncharacteristically blonde hair stands out in stark contrast to the dark browns of her family. She’s smiling in every single picture, and in ninety percent of the photos, it looks genuine.

With one click, I examine one of the photos that doesn’t have a genuine smile.

When it opens up, not centralized on her face, it’s not hard to figure out why she’s not smiling as brightly.

Leticia stands sandwiched between Gregorio D’Medici, leader of the Italian Mafia, and her older brother Berto, his heir.

Gregorio’s grip on her wrist looks damn near bruising.

I download the image and view its digital backmatter before I start doing my standard scraper to pull it off the internet.

Normally, I’m thorough and dive deep with every search.

Something tells me to leave the proof there though.

That somewhere, there needs to be public record of this likely abuse.

It’s so natural to just remove images and scrub an entire existence from the internet. Our family values privacy and operates a whole major corporation under pseudonyms. But I don’t know Leticia. She’s not my family, yet I’m deleting the image nonetheless.

“I can’t imagine what that’s like, Leticia,” I whisper, deleting all but one image from the internet.

The phone buzzes, and guilt rakes through me. I shouldn’t have meddled like that. But I can’t help but look at the text messages anyway.

Leticia D’Medici:

I’m sorry we couldn’t talk. I love you. I miss you so much. Dad is being Dad. It’s like the truce means nothing and you’re dead to him. He’s said terrible things, and I didn’t want to cause a scene. God I hope you’re getting these messages.

You’re my only fucking friend, and it’s not fair that they’re taking you away from me. I hope the Cavanaghs let us stay in contact. If it’s up to Dad and Dad only, then our goodbye was something blue in your bedroom this morning.

My wolf’s attention shifts to Leticia, and he lets out a low growl.

It feels protective in the way he interprets her words and latches on to her.

Something gnaws on my heart, my chest aching at her words. So many of those feelings I know and understand. Worrying about being disowned, what life would be like if your family didn’t love you, and not wanting to be the talk of gossip is such a heavy burden to carry.

“Let me know you’re okay, Leticia.” But I have a feeling there won’t be a response.

A text message doesn’t come.

I wait, staring at it for longer than I should before setting it aside and going back to work.

I’ve been tossing and turning all night.

Leticia never messaged me again. Never messaged Antonella again.

I keep my eyes closed and try to focus on the soft whir of the cooling fan on the smallest server I keep here at the house. It sounds perfect, running like it should, a little technological hum.

Normally, two minutes of focusing on the brownish-white noise and I’m headed off to sleep, but I can’t. Not with my brain this wired.

Defeat isn’t something I accept regularly, but after three hours and not sleeping, I get out of bed and go to my desk.