I straightened and stepped back.
Umberto ‘Fist’ Lazlo, my head soldier and second cousin, so nicknamed for his thick fists and his absolute obsession and macabre glee with pounding everything to death, met my gaze. I gave a single nod as I walked past him.
‘Please, Don Cesare! Please, have mercy! I’ll never betray you a—’ The sound of bone shattering cut off his pleas.
Rafaelle and half my soldiers fell in behind me, the other half staying to help permanently silence the man. As a rule, we didn’t kill indiscriminately but neither did we hesitate when the occasion called for it. He was a rat who’d secured a job in my team’s hospitality department for the sole purpose of feeding information to our arch enemies in Mancinelli Racing.
We found out two races ago but played a waiting game, hoping he’d lead us to bigger fish, because the more damaging problem we had was in the sabotaging of our car’s performance, which led me to believe the true culprits were in myaerodynamics and data analysis team. Two crucial areas within any racing team because without accurate data, we were fucked.
Short of firing them all mid-season – a fucking nonstarter – I was stuck with my ass hanging out until the traitors were found.
My phone buzzed for the hundredth time as we reached the parking lot. I ignored it.
‘You know you have to talk to him sooner rather than later, right?’
‘You think, Captain Obvious?’ I snarled.
Rafa’s amusement only increased. Years of taking out whatever range of moods we happened to be in on one another had hardened him to my volatile temperament. I slid behind the wheel of my Furia Falco and punched the ignition.
The roar of the supercar immediately eased a layer of my foul mood. Technically, the car wasn’t licensed for road use yet, but it didn’t hurt to be the Underboss of a Sicilian-American crime family with several police chiefs’ phone numbers on speed dial. Especially when you contributed millions of euros to their election campaigns.
As I eased out of my parking spot, Rafa’s own phone buzzed. I started to smirk at his grimace, but it stalled when he smiled again. It wasn’t our grandfather trying to reach me through him. Not yet anyway.
‘It’s the twins. They say the fuckers are at the club, crowing about their win.’
‘The whole team?’ I asked casually, but in my chest, something primal stirred. A different feeling to the bloodlust I’d just left behind. The kind of thrill derived from flirting with danger when you should know better.
It was just as strong, equally lethal. And it was reserved for one person.
‘Yeah,’ Rafa confirmed. ‘The keys players at least. Led by Narc-Fuck.’
I felt his stare drilling into the side of my face but kept my gaze on the road.
Narciso Mancinelli, or Narc-Fuck as Rafa and my twin younger brothers liked to call him, was a cocky little shit, but in the grand scheme of things, he barely made a blip on my radar, not unless he was standing, undeservedly, on the top podium that belonged to me.
No.
When it came to the Mancinelli clan, my energy and focus were reserved for the top players. And at the top of that pile, with a very special place on my shit list, was one person.
The eldest of Bonafacio’s grandchildren.
Maddelena Mancinelli.
2
CESARE
Half an hour later, and my mood had plunged further south.
Frustration bit deep, pounding in time to the music blaring from the speakers in La Miraggio nightclub. My gaze swept back and forth on high alert for anything and anyone out of the ordinary as I awaited Rafa’s return.
So far he’d cornered three key Mancinelli Racing crew members and discreetly taken them out back for a ‘quiet word’.
Nothing.
I was already riled up from the stupid shenanigans of the Mancinellis crowing about their race win like it was the second fucking coming.
But that wasn’t what was eating at my insides like battery acid.
