Our main problem was that we didn’t know who in our own organization we could trust. Gino was for sure out. Even Bianca, who was mostly blind to the underworld, didn't trust the man. For three months, Romeo and I hired outside security to discreetly follow the girls and keep an eye on them, while he and I followed a few of the lower members of our organization. Mossimo Costa, Carmine Leone, and Salvatore Rossi were our age or a little younger. They were newer to the organization, second and third generation. Their dads had all been capos or higher. The only one whose dad was still around was Rossi, and he was in jail for life without parole for murder.
Rossi had two little brothers he was raising, and he didn’t want to be a part of this world, but it was the only way that he could earn enough money to keep his brothers out of the system. They lived on the east side of Brooklyn in a rundown apartment.Rossi poured everything he had into making sure the boys had a good education and stayed away from the Morelli family. He was more of a father to them than his own ever was to him.
He was the first of the Morelli men we approached about keeping the girls safe while we tried to remove Luca Morelli from his position as head of the family. Rossi had his doubts, and he was worried about his brothers if this didn’t work out. We assured him that we wanted a different life than the one of our fathers. We weren’t hungry for endless power or interested in never-ending family feuds. We wanted peace and mostly clean money.
Before he would agree to work with us, we had to make him a promise that if things went badly and something happened to him, his brothers would be taken far away from here and taken care of. They would get a new life, together. It was a promise we were happy to make because we felt the same way about Giana, Bianca, and Nicoletta.
And then there were three. Together, we dug up everything we could on Costa and Leone. We followed them for weeks to see what they were up to outside of the errands they ran for the boss. They were both raised by single moms. Costa’s mom was a crack head and whore, with several failed stints in rehab. He took care of her as best he could. Rumors said, his dad had taken off, but nobody knows where or when. The man could be dead at the bottom of the East River for all we knew.
Leone was the lucky one out of all of us. His old man died in a car wreck late in his teens, and his mom was like a Suzie Homemaker. He was the only one of us without a truly fucked up childhood, and he seemed like a decent guy. It was a wonder he was part of the Morelli crime family when he was sickeningly normal. The most he did in his off time was underground fighting. He was a beast in the ring. Romeo and I had even gone to a few of his fights.
When Romeo and I approached Costa and Leone, we did so without Rossi in case they said no and ran back to Luca Morelli. We would protect Rossi and his brothers as we promised, but Costa and Leone fell in line immediately when we told them about the new business ventures that Luca Morelli was involved in and the future we wanted for the Morelli empire.
We were a brotherhood of our own, ready to wage war on our own family to clean it up from within. I couldn’t tell Bianca everything, not yet. The less she knew, the safer she was. Part of me felt guilty for planning to keep her as my wife after everything was said and done. She had her own plans for her life, and I was going to fuck them all up, but the other part of me knew that without her, I was nothing.
“So, the five of you? That’s it?”
I smirked, “You know the best way to keep a secret, Bianca?”
“Tell no one.”
“That, but also by keeping your circle small. Don’t trust just anybody with things that you don’t want everybody to know.”
“But I don’t understand why he never told us?” I could hear the hurt in her voice. She was thinking her brother didn’t trust her or her sisters with the secret club. I decided to put her mind at ease.
“Bea,” I gently said her nickname and reached for her hand. “It’s not that Romeo doesn’t trust you or Gia and Nic. He didn’t want to put you guys in the position of having to lie to your father. If your father can tell you’re lying to him, what would he do?”
She seemed to consider my words before nodding that she understood where I was coming from. “He’d probably beat it out of us.”
I nodded, agreeing with her assessment. “Yes. He kept it from you to protect you. It was the only way he knew how.”
She nodded “I understand.”
Chapter Eleven
Bianca
Dinner was delicious. I’d ended up having an herb-roasted rack of lamb that melted in my mouth, and left me stuffed after eating just half of it. I laughed when Lorenzo polished off his food easily while we ate and talked, then reached for my food as soon as I sat back and pushed my plate away.
“Where do you put all that food?” I joked and quickly ran my eyes over him like I was searching for a hidden compartment.
He smirked, “I don’t store it. I burn it off.” He sent me a devilish wink, and I felt it in my core. Holy shit, he was flirting with me. He popped the last bite of the lamb into his mouth and chewed slowly.
I’d never thought eating could be sensual, but the way his eyes bore into mine, and the movement of his strong jaw as he chewed, was hypnotizing. When he swallowed the bite of food, his Adam's apple bobbed, forcing the bite down his throat. I reached for the glass of ice water sitting in front of me. I switched over after I drank the one glass of champagne.
“Do you want dessert?” he asked me, and I was tempted to say yes to see if I could play with him the way he seemed to be playing with me with every move he made and word he spoke, but I knew better. There was no way I could keep up with the game of seduction he was playing. I was a beginner, novice at best. He was a freaking master.
“No,” I declined before rethinking my decision. “At least not right now. I’m too stuffed to eat another bite.”
He smiled. “We can call room service for dessert later if you want.”
“That sounds good.” I watched as he discreetly gestured to the waitress for the check. When she brought it, he barely glanced at it before throwing that black card down for her.
“It’s been taken care of, sir.” Her smile was genuine and kind. She had been very attentive as far as seeing to our needs while at the same time giving us privacy as we talked and laughed through the meal.
Lorenzo slid the card back into his wallet and reached for a stack of bills. He threw three hundred-dollar bills down, and the girl’s eyes got as big as saucers. “This will cover the bill plus a generous tip. It’s up to you whether you apply it to both or just the one.”
She nodded and stammered out a thank you as she picked up the bills and walked away from the table. I smiled at him. “You just made her night.”
