Don Mancini stared me down with a poker face almost as good as mine. Perhaps he noticed something was amiss between his daughter and me. Started to grow suspicious of what was right under his nose. Hopefully he was suspicious enough to outright ask me, and I could finally come clean. “I thought they would be a good match.”
Had he set that up? With that fucking pretty boy? I could feel the bluff in my face start to slip away because the rage was too much. He thought that boy was a better match for her than the fucking man right in front of him? I forced a breath and said something far more diplomatic than what I really wanted to say. “A good match for her is someone she chooses.”
His eyes finally shifted away as he absent-mindedly rubbed his arm. “Leo is honest and loyal, but he’s easily distracted by bullshit. Doesn’t think before he opens his big mouth. Doesn’t pick up on the unspoken words in a conversation. But Frankie is smart, keeps her eye on the prize, thinks, plots, and schemes far before she makes a move. She works hard and always does everything right. Never makes a mistake.”
I had no idea where this was going.
“She’s the one who should run this place when I’m gone.”
Did he mean just the winery? Or did he mean both businesses?
“But she needs the right man to run it with her.”
And he thought that could be that little fucking boy?It took all my strength not to throw my hat in the ring. It took all my strength not to tell him she’d already found that man. “Leo won’t take that well.”
“Oh, I know.” He pushed off the desk then dropped onto the couch across from me. “But that’s a problem for another day. I brought you here to discuss something else.”
It wasn’t to talk about the inappropriate way I growled at a potential suitor? “What do you need, Don?”
He stared at me, leaning slightly forward, arms resting on his knees. He was a decade older than me but still had definition all over his body. He could easily pull in a woman his daughter’s age. But I’d never heard him talk about women. Never seen him with a woman. Leo never mentioned anything either. “Why did you meet with Cosa Nostra?”
It was the last thing I expected him to ask, and an uncontrollable grin stretched across my face as I met his stare. A warm flush of pride moved through my chest. I felt like a father who had been outsmarted by his son for the first time. “I’m impressed, Don.”
The only person who knew about that meeting was Francesca, but I trusted her implicitly. She would never betray my trust. If she’d decided to tell her father my plans, she would have said it straight to my face like a man. Nah, it wasn’t her. Don Russo had a further reach than I gave him credit for.
“If you’re impressed, then you underestimated me.”
“Guess so,” I said with the same smile on my face. “So, you want the tea?”
He stared at me.
“I was going to share this with you.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Waiting for the right time.”
“No such thing as the right time.”
“Well, you just buried a bunch of your friends, and there are bullet holes all over the place… Wanted to give you a chance to take a breath before I dumped this on you.”
He rubbed one of his knuckles, but his stare never wavered.
“Russo asked me to return. Said they’d changed their…business ethics.” I still wasn’t a rat. I still wouldn’t roll on the men who were once my allies, even if they were now enemies. “I rejected the offer but stuck around to watch him grovel a bit. It was like watching an ex beg for you to take them back, and you know there’s no way in hell that’s going to happen, but it’s still fun to watch.” I smirked. “Not that I’ve ever been in that situation before…”
“What else? Because that information doesn’t seem time-sensitive.”
“Well, I knew distance didn’t make the heart grow fonder, so they wanted me for something. That was the real reason I was there—to figure out the source of the issue.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. And this is where the bad news comes in.”
His eyes quickly shifted back and forth between mine.
I told him about the Skull King and his lieutenant Icarus. Told him about the rumors of the violence headed to Sicily. “Anyone in the powder business is on the chopping block right now, and I think it’s best if we focus our efforts on the arms side of things. Not just to avoid the wrath of Icarus, but also to make sure the grip on our guns is tight. There’s about to be a major shake-up in the game, and everyone’s going to scramble as they change their business agendas. You’re sitting on a gold mine, and assholes are going to do whatever they can to take it from you. Mark my words—shit’s about to get real.”
He took in that information without a reaction, absorbing it in silence for a while before he found a response. “I’m surprised this is your attitude. Based on what I’ve observed from you, you seem like someone who would hunt down Icarus before he had the opportunity to affect business.”
