Marcello
"Get out," I say flatly.
Mina freezes mid-step, standing too close to my hospital bed like she belongs there.
"No," I admit. "I don't." I don't want to wait. I don't want to marry her, period.
I shake my head. "You've gone too far, Mina. Cancel the reservation. Pack your shit. You're done."
The crocodile tears spill, perfectly timed, rolling down her chemically perfected face like she thinks I'll cave.
I don't.
"Look, I'll make it easy. I'll put you in an apartment downtown, keep the allowance running for a few more months. Long enough for you to land on your feet—or your back. Your call."
She stiffens. "Do you think you can just buy me off?"
I don't even blink. "Do you want me to stop the payments now?"
"No, no, no—that's very generous of you," she rushes out, scrambling to recover. "It's just…"
She's looking for the hook. Something to reel me back in. What she doesn't get is that the only reason she had me once is because I let it happen. This time? She's not getting that chance.
She'd barely made it through the door before declaring our wedding date was locked in. Like we were some happy couple just ticking boxes. I didn't say anything at the time, but that was her last move.
"I love you so much," she whines, hand fluttering over her chest like she's about to collapse from heartbreak.
I drag a hand down my face instead of wrapping it around her throat.
"You love me?" My voice drops to lethal quiet. "Like you loved me when you fucked your bodyguard in the hotel bed I paid for? While I was laid up in a coma, fighting to survive?"
She flinches. Good.
It takes effort not to lose my temper—but she's not worth the mess. Piero's already been dealt with. I don't tolerate betrayal. Not from anyone. Not ever.
I've put up with this whore longer than I should have. Now? We're done.
"Is that what you think of me? Oh, Marcello, no. Don't be jealous. Piero and I, we never—"
"You made a mistake, Mina." I don't raise my voice. I don't need to. My tone is enough to freeze a room. "Now leave before I forget how patient I'm trying to be." I point my finger at the door, giving Luciano a nod.
"With pleasure. Come on, Mina." He takes her arm.
"Marcello?" She cries one more time from the door, but I turn my back. I put up with a lot of her shit, but nobody cheats on me. Or decides when I get married.
"Make sure she's gone by the time we get home," I instruct Luciano when he returns.
"Already done, boss. You ready?"
I grab the crutches he brought just as a nurse rolls in a wheelchair. "Are you ready to go home, Mr. Orsi?" she croons.
On a rational level, I understand that she is only irritating me because she's not Chirps, but a wheelchair? Really?
"I hope that chair is for you," I state, adjusting the crutch underneath my armpit.
"Oh no," she giggles nervously. "It's hospital policy."
"We won't be needing this," Luciano pushes her out the door, allowing her a glimpse of his gun, which stops any further protests.
"You ready, boss?"
My head pounds, my leg aches, and my shoulder screams at me, but I'll be damned if I waste another minute in this room.
Kurt and Giacomo, two of my new bodyguards, are already positioned by the waiting elevator, glaring at a crying woman who wants to use it.
"Let the lady use it," Luciano instructs before I can.
The woman turns toward Luciano, then her eyes catch on my sorry ass. "No, that's okay. I'll wait."
"Please, ladies first," I insist.
"There's enough room for all of us," she offers, but looks even more nervous.
"Please," I let go of the handle, pushing my weight into the armpit pad and barely repressing a groan from the pain. But I wave her on, forcing a smile to my lips.
As soon as the doors close behind her, Luciano pushes the button to summon the next.
"Always be courteous to women," Luciano instructs Kurt and Giacomo. "Sorry, boss. These two idiots have no clue how to behave yet."
"They'd better learn quick," I remark, rooting them to their spots with a glare.
"You've had a bad run with bodyguards lately," Luciano excuses his choice of men.
He's not wrong. Three were killed in the parking garage, four if you count Casimo the traitor, and four more just two nights ago in this hospital.
The cab arrives and takes us up to the roof, where a helicopter is waiting. The hospital wasn't happy about me using their landing pad, but I didn't give them much of a choice.
Luciano positions himself to help me in, but an icy glare from me has him backing up, raising his hands in the air. It would have been easier to accept his help, but I'll be damned if I'll let anybody see a weakness.
The noise of the rotors isn't doing my headache any favors, but the pain in my shoulder distracts me when I pull myself into the chopper. I can't help the sweat running up and down my body, or how out of wind I am, but I'm out of the damn hospital, and I count that as a win.
Luciano is grinning, sitting opposite me, typing on his phone.
"Who are you texting?"
"Violet. Alejandro is about to pick her up."
"How close did you two get, exactly?" I want to know, irritated at how comfortable they seem to be with each other.
"She's a very nice lady. Brave, a fighter." Luciano looks up from the screen, meeting my eyes. I arch an eyebrow.
"Do I hear wedding bells ringing?" I press out; I'll be damned if I let him see how much that thought bothers me.
He laughs. "Nah, she only has eyes for you."
"What do you mean?"
"I hate saying that Mina was right, but Violet's entire focus is on you."
"I'm her patient," I point out.
"Nah, I'm pretty sure she doesn't spend half of her free time in the hospital with her other patients."
"Half of her free time, eh?" I like the idea of that.
"Trust me," Luciano goes back to typing. He chuckles, absolutely clueless about how much I want to put a bullet through him right now.
The helicopter lands on the skyscraper I own at the same time as another one lands on the one next to mine: DeLuna's.
"One of these days, I'll get me one of those," I say, staring at Toni's sleek helicopter.
He's in charge of the money laundering of our organization.
Designing and selling ten-million-dollar-a-piece choppers was a stroke of genius.
It's the perfect disguise to have the Russians pay for our weapons.
As long as we all pay our taxes on the transactions, the IRS is not going to check the Russians' inventory to make sure they actually are now in possession of their helicopters.
Neither does anybody wonder why they need twenty a year.
My father's not a fan of paying taxes, and that's one of the reasons why he's on trial right now.
I'd rather pay up and have clean money than worry about going to jail for something stupid like tax evasion or loan sharking.
The other roof is too far away to see who is getting into the helicopter, but I'm willing to bet it's Toni.
It makes me wonder what he did with the information I gave him just before I got shot.
Good old dad must not have figured out it's missing yet, otherwise he'd probably put a bullet in my head himself.
I'd love to see the look on his face when he does.
Toni is working on getting my father's ass in jail, so he can exact his revenge.
I neither know nor care to find out how he intends to pull it off since Edoardo has explicitly forbidden him to touch my father, but I have faith in the man.
Toni is a few years older than I am. Other than seeing each other during family events, I haven't had much contact with him until recently.
Turns out, we share the same goals. Putting my father in jail is one of them; the other is getting rid of our current joke of a Don and bringing our family back to what it used to be, before Edoardo took over and started playing us against each other.
Luciano told me that Toni visited me twice while I was out, so I suppose I owe him a visit soon as well. I'm not the visiting type, but even I realize that certain etiquette is expected. And since I'm going to be the capo of the Orsi family soon, I might as well start now.
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind riding in that," Luciano joins my musings. "That thing is like flying in a fucking plane."
It is. Not that my helicopter is anything to turn your nose up at, but compared to the ones Toni is producing, it's the difference between first class and economy.
And I know the difference. When my father sent me to Sicily at eighteen, I didn't have a dime to my name. He bought me a one-way ticket on a commercial liner, economy, and that was that.
The money I made there was due to my own wits and men like Luciano, who joined my small gang without hesitation or questions.
Ten years in, after making a name for myself in Sicily, I was recalled.
That was a year ago. Had it not been for the weight of family honor carved into my bones, I would've stayed in Sicily and let my father's empire rot after my brother's death.
Watching it fall apart would've been the right kind of justice—for both of them.
Be that as it may, our family made certain promises to the men and women who work for us, and those promises are binding.
So, I'm here. Ready to bring the Orsi family back to what it was supposed to be and carry it into the twenty-first century.
"Maybe Toni'll give you one too—if you play nice," Luciano says, jabbing me in the ribs.
I grunt and swat his arm. "Asshole."
He grins, unbothered. "Forgot to mention—Enrico got hitched a few days ago. Toni gave him a chopper as a wedding gift."
I blink. "Just like that?"
I know Enrico and Toni go way back, but a fucking helicopter? Nobody hands those out without a reason.
Luciano sees the look on my face and smirks. "Yeah… let's just say you missed one hell of a wedding." He pauses. "And an even bigger explosion. Literally."