Luciano
This meeting was going to take a while, I thought as I slipped out of the car, staring up at the hotel we were to use. It was one of the many hotels under the Moretti industries but of course, no one knew that.
I had built the hotel under another company’s name to avoid giving the police exactly what they wanted. Something to throw me in their filthy prisons for. I wasn’t going to deal with any of that shit. Not for now anyways.
I was walking down the patio, climbing the stairs when the sky rumbled above me. It looked like it would rain. Fucking lovely. As long as it would stop when we were done with the meeting, I was good.
“Boss!” Emilio yelled when I stepped into the reception. He was there with two more men all dressed in suits. I tipped my head in a nod, satisfied.
I didn’t believe it. Yes, it did get the job done and was needed sometimes but it certainly wasn’t the best skill to rely on for a successful organization. When I took over the mafia, everyone was shocked out of their fucking minds. They hadn’t seen it coming. They hadn’t expected it.
And I loved it!
Who the hell could have expected a scrawny eighteen-year-old, planning a coup, replacing the top men in the famiglia, and predicting all possible obstacles that he would face, making adjustments for them? No one did.
Everyone had the shitty mentality, that you had to be in the mafia for a long time, garner experience and stuff, and then you could consider being the boss. Not me.
Definitely not me.
I would be the boss no matter what. The sooner I gained power, the sooner I could protect those close to me. And I was going to do it in fucking style. The mafia was going to be so fucking well coordinated, not even the FBI in their vast knowledge could find loopholes. They could try shit, but that was all they would get in return. Shit.
“Is it all ready?” I asked Emilio as he led me down the hallway.
“Yes boss, All the men are here and three Consiglieres.”
I nodded in satisfaction. That was good enough. It was time to plan how to hit the Castello in a place where they would never expect. And a place where it was impossible to get back up.
The room designated for the meeting was a seminar room. It was small and had only twenty chairs lining a huge table. Everyone was seated and when my eyes fell on Giorgia and Luca, sitting on both sides of my table, I felt a bit at ease.
I wasn’t afraid but I wasn’t foolish to believe that the heart of every Consigliere was in this with me. Most of them were men who had lived more than half their lives in the mafia and had served the precious boss completely.
I had proved beyond doubt that I was the best option for a mafia lord in the past five years. I had corrected everything the old boss had overlooked. I had righted the wrongs of the mafia. I fucking established order.
But when you’re hated. You’re hated. There are no two ways to do it I suppose. I scanned the faces of the Consiglieres as I took my seat. Everyone rose to their feet and I waved them off. I didn’t need all of that reverence shit. What I needed was action. Work. Proof that they truly supported me.
“Giuseppe isn’t here?” I asked, arching a brow at the Consiglieres.
“Si,” Martino answered. He was an older man with beady eyes and a beard that could rival Santa. I had no idea why he kept them and they looked rather unsightly. “He believes it is folly for an old man to travel around. It brings the time of death closer.”
I stared at Martino and threw my head back in laughter. Ah damn Giuseppe. It sounded exactly like something he would say. I had missed that crazy old man. He was rather peculiar but his foresight had saved the mafia plenty of good times while Luigi sat at the top taking credit for all of it.
“That crafty old man is pulling his way out of a long boring ass meeting,” I chuckled while Giorgia snorted and Luca laughed.
“I swear he’s the trickiest,” Giorgia said, her lips curled in distaste. “You never know what he’s thinking.”
“The best thing to do is never take him literally. Or you’re doomed.” Luca added and everyone laughed in agreement.
Giuseppe was the mafia’s old crafty tortoise. A lot of people thought that the major reason why I was able to pull off a coup was because I had Giuseppe behind me. And they weren’t far off from the truth. I would rather have that old man as an ally than an enemy and things had better remained that way.
“It is good to see the Consiglieres again,” I announced when the laughter quietened. “It must have been stressful leaving Sicily,”
“Si, it was,” Alejandro, a younger member of the Consiglieres replied. A wolfish grin played on the corner of his lips. “The Carabinieri were certain I wasn’t coming on a vacation with Uncle Martino, but they couldn’t find proof so they were quite fussy.”
“Eh, they always are,” Giorgia huffed, folding her arms. “We had to pretend to be married before they would let me and Luca through.”
“There’s no need to say it like it’s a bad thing,” Luca sneered, glaring at her.
“What? I didn’t say it was. It’s just rather uncomfortable.”
“The idea of getting married to me is uncomfortable? Wow Giorgia, could you be any more cruel?”
“Okay, that’s enough. If I let this go on, this meeting is going to be as long as hell.” I grumbled. And I didn’t want that. I had a woman waiting at home and judging from her reactions the past few days I hadn’t been around much, Raven was not happy.
We began the meeting, discussing what we knew about the Castello which was virtually nothing. The information we had about them was completely useless. We didn’t know the bastard heading them. We didn’t know their base. We didn’t know shit.
My phone vibrated with a video message during the meeting. It was from an unknown number. I frowned, wondering who the hell had the guts to send me a message. I clicked the message open and my eyes widened. No way in hell!
Why the hell was Marcus holding Raven? The bastard wrapped his arms around her waist as if… As if he owned her! And what the hell was she doing looking up at him, batting eyelashes and shit? Growling, I turned off the phone, and slipped it into my pocket, trying to mask the anger I felt with a blank face.
I’ll kill him.
I’ll fucking kill him!
I heard a snicker and when I glanced at Giorgia, she had a tiny smile dancing around the corner of her lips.
Ah, I saw it now. She had planned this. She must have been responsible for sending the video. I would deal with her later. What the hell was she thinking sending me a video like that during an important meeting?!
After what seemed like forever, the meeting finally came to an end. I grabbed Giorgia’s hand, holding her behind while everyone else filed out.
“Care to explain?”
She blinked, feigning ignorance in the most obvious way. “Explain what?”
“Don’t play games with me Giorgia,” I snapped. “I can see through all that bull!”
She sighed and looked away. “I thought perhaps you’d see the kind of bitch you’re living with.”
“This should not repeat itself. We’re in a serious battle and I would rather that your head was in the fucking game and not with the woman I keep.” I gritted through my teeth. “Do you understand!”
“Yes,”
“Good,”
Now that that was out of the way, I had one more person to pound a warning into. I stormed out of the room, rushed past everyone to my car, and slipped into the backseat.
“The penthouse,” I ordered the driver. “Now!”
He must have taken note of the urgency in my voice because without a word, he stepped on it and we went flying down the road. I let the rage I felt slip out. Raven was mine. What the hell was she doing letting another man touch her? What the hell was she doing with fucking Marcus?!
The drive to the penthouse took a solid thirty minutes, but it felt shorter. I stormed my way out of the car, into the building, my body trembling with anger.
“Raven!” I bellowed as soon as I stepped in. “RAVEN!!”
“What the hell is your problem?” She yelled, shuffling out of her room, a frown on that fucking pretty face.
“How could you?!”