“Where are you going?” Bianca’s brown eyes double in size. They dip to the hair under my navel when I stand.
“Some of us have to work the full day,” I say with a wink.
“Don’t leave me here,” she whispers louder.
“Now you’re scared? Spend some time getting to know her. You might pick up Sicilian.”
My phone buzzes.
Ziu
My office. Got an update.
“Benny. Benny!”
“No English or Italian,” I tell Nonna in Sicilian.
“Benny, don’t you—“
My grandmother firing off rapid Sicilian follows me down the corridor to my room.
“We found Diana Peretti.”
Andrea and I exchange a look.
“Where is she?” I ask Ziu.
“Dead. They found her in bed with Peppe, strangled to death.”
“How do they know it’s her?” Andrea asks from my left. No way he’d come from our distribution facility dressed in tropical shorts and sandals.
“The police used her dental work to confirm her identity,” Ziu says. “Her fingers and tongue were cut off.”
Andrea whistles.
“They cut Peppe’s throat and shoved his dick down it.”
We all cross our legs.
Dying with your own dick down your throat is dark, even for me.
Gamblers shuffling between tables and slot machines pulse below my uncle’s office. Tourism is at its peak as travelers swarm Catania through the cruise port for overpriced meals and the chance to bet their mortgages in my uncle’s casino.
Ziu rests his elbows on the roulette desk Andrea and I gave him as a retirement gift, the joke being his inability to walk away from his legitimate or underground businesses. He steeples his hands, joining the metallic rings decorating his fingers.
“It’s time we protect ourselves with a proper alliance with the Romanos. Joining families will strengthen our clans and give us numbers should we go to war.”
“Peppe’s death has nothing to do with us,” I point out. “Strangulation and a dick down the throat aren’t our signature.” Dismemberment is a different story.
“You’re missing the bigger picture, niputi. We’d be untouchable. No worrying about threats or the Preda. It’s time you found someone to love, a purpose outside of the business. It’s what your mother would’ve wanted.”
“For me to marry a child?” I scoff.
Ziu sighs. “Elena is twenty-two. Fuck around in private if you wish, but raise your family with her. Someone loyal and submissive from one of the largest mafia families in Italy.”
If I wanted obedience, I’d get another fucking dog. I might need another one with Hades chasing behind Bianca like she’s in charge.
Staff trip over themselves to wait on her. If she sneezes, there’s a tissue ready. Not that I’m any better. One look, and I’ll cook for her, rub her feet, or eat her ass if she wants. That’s her power. It deserves protection, not forced submission.
