Page 20 of Savage Don

“You’re a don now,” Maksim reminds me. “In fact, you’re the Great Don, boss of the remaining three Italian mafia families. There isn’t anything you’re not supposed to do. There isn’t anything you can’t do. Except fail.”

“I don’t plan on failing.”

“I’ve heard about the plan you have for the girl. You won’t have to fail with her for everything else to crumble around you.”

Wiping my bottom lip, I slowly begin to walk along the roof, following Francesca as she makes her way down a crowded hallway. Every once in a while, she stops to talk to someone new.

“You worry about your eggs, and I’ll worry about mine,” I grumble.

“All of our eggs are in the same basket now,” Maksim points out.

“… And I’ve been tasked with protecting that basket from hungry snakes.”

“And you think impregnating some college girl will help you do that?”

“She’s not just any college girl.”

“You’re right. She’s Francesca Galli, daughter of Domenico Galli, don of the Galli crime family. You think he’s behind the leaks that threaten our empire. You think knocking up his daughter will punish him and cement your power. You think he’s going to tell the feds how we were involved in the bombings that terrorized the city last year...”

“He’s already tried to tell them,” I growl.

Across the street, Francesca has stopped to talk to some douche in a backwards baseball cap.

“Someone has tried to tell them. We’re not sure it was him. Not even our crooked contacts could tell us who the communications were coming from.”

“It’s him. I know it’s him.”

My fists tighten, both at the sight of who Francesca is talking to, and at the memory of what brought me here.

Last year, we were at war with the Greek Mafia. One of my boss’s, Leonid Barinov, kidnapped their queen and held her hostage.

In response, the Greeks lit the east coast on fire, setting off bombs all over our territory. Their ploy was to force us to give back their queen.

If we didn’t, then they would tell the feds about how we were involved in their senseless violence. That would have made us both direct targets of the US government, and it would have meant the end of our brutal reign.

It was mutually assured destruction.

Fortunately, we were able to figure shit out before it hit the fan. Now, Leo is married to that Greek mafia queen, and we’re allied with her loyal subjects.

To this day, the feds are none the wiser about who set off those bombs and why, and we mean to keep it that way.

But not everyone is happy with the new status quo.

Specifically, the Italians—at least, some of them.

Shit. In a way, I understand. They once ruled the American underworld with an iron fist. But my boss, Aiden Kilpatrick, along with his brothers and his father, took power from them.

Then, us Irishmen allied with the Russians. Eventually, we allied with the Greeks, too. Suddenly, the Italians weren’t just not in charge anymore, they were crushed beneath three stronger allies.

Some of them seem to be just fine with that. There’s less pressure this way, and they still get paid handsomely. Others, though, can’t help but voice their unhappiness with the new arrangement.

Domenica Galli is one of those assholes who can’t shut his big fucking mouth.

He complains endlessly, and it’s made him suspect number one in my quest to track down the fuckers who tried to sell us out to the feds.

Ever since my promotion, I’ve been using my newfound power to desperately search for our rat… and for a way to tighten my stranglehold over the three remaining families.

With Francesca, I could kill two birds with one stone.