AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Faced with setting the example for his firstborn or breaking his word,Papa had allowed me to go to college, deciding to groom Fia for whatever future business he might need her for. With Fia being four years younger than me, it’d been easy to spoil her and treat her as if she were an only child. I’d already been headed to college by the time that she had entered high school, so I hadn’t been around much to help her through those formidable years. While I still considered us close, we could have been closer without the four-year gap between us.
There was also the fact that we looked nothing alike. Fia had taken after Mom with her blonde hair, blue eyes, slim build, and doll-like face. My sister really was a beautiful girl, and it was something that she was very aware of. Fia knew how to bat her eyelashes like nobody’s business, and my mother had made sure to teach her the art of manipulation. Though I loved my sister dearly, there was no denying that Fia was spoiled, flighty, and a bit self-absorbed. My parents were always rescuing her from one problem or another, so it was hard to treat her like an adult, even though she was already twenty-eight-years old.
As for me, I had taken after my father, though I did have some of my mother’s facial features. I had black hair, hazel eyes, and where Fia was slim, I was what nice people called curvy, considering that I was only five-foot-three. Granted, I wasn’t anywhere near overweight, but everyone knew that thin was always going to be in, no matter how many body-positive crusaders were out there.
However, my looks had never been an issue for me.From an early age, I’d been all about my brain and how I could use it to become successful without embedding myself fully into the Mafia. Now, while it might sound like I had something against the life that my family led, I didn’t. I didn’t live on moral high ground or anything like that. After all, it could be argued that I made my living off the subject of crime. Though I did my best to defend the innocent, I’d made countless deals with the prosecution for the guilty.
So, no, I didn’t think that I was better than anyone else, or anything like that. My decision to distance myself from what my family did was because I’d wanted more out of life than what the Mafia could offer me. Since I’d been born a female, my choices would have been limited, and I’d wanted to be more than just a man’s accessory. I was smart, and I wanted that to count for something.
As for my love life, admittedly, I didn’t have much of one. Though Iwas far from a virgin at my age, I also didn’t have some steamy past of discarded lovers. I’d had a few flings, but not much more than that. I’d been so focused on my career that men and relationships had taken a backseat to hard work. While I’d had my fun in college, law school had been a different story. Determined not to end up a bargaining chip for the Mafia, I’d been all about graduating at the top of my class and becoming more valuable than what I’d seen of my mother. Now, while that might sound like an insult, it wasn’t. If being a Mafia wife was what made my mother happy, then I was happy for her. I felt the same way about my sister. If she was happy marrying Nero Sartori, then good for her.
When I thought of the five Mafia families in Port Townsend, I thought about how my sister could do worse than Nero Sartori. While I wasn’t into all that pure bloodlines nonsense, marrying Nero would ensure that my father could still be involved in Fia’s life. If he had married her to the Irish, Germans, or Russians, there would have been no guarantee of that. Emil Schulz was the head of the Germans, and it was reputed that he was a bit of a sadist. Avgust Kotov was the head of the Russians, and it was said that he wasn’t above hitting a woman to keep her in line. Declan O’Brien was the head of the Irishmen, and while it was said that he was the most decent out of the three, he’d still owe my father nothing if he’d been the one to marry Fia.
So, with our numbers decent enough to put the Italians in full control ofthe city and state, a marriage had been arranged between our two families, and I couldn’t see the Sartoris keeping Fia from my mother and father, or me for that matter. Italians were big on family, and that was something hopeful.
Granted, that was if Fiadidn’t go and screw it all up. While my sister was under the impression that no one knew her secret, she was wrong. Fia wasn’t as cunning as she liked to believe that she was, and though I’d found out by complete accident, anyone that cared to pay attention could see the signs.
Two weeks ago, I had stopped by my parents just to visit. It wasn’t often that I had free time to just hang out and do nothing, so when I did, I did my best to spend it with my family. It was nice because I didn’t talk about work, and they didn’t talk about family business, and it reminded me of a time before adulthood had sucked all the fun out of life.
Anyway, I’d been making my way through the house, looking for my parents or sister, when I ended up hearing a heated conversation going on in the library. The door had been cracked open a bit, so unsure if I should close it or not, I’d been about to turn away when that heated argument had turned into something way more inappropriate.
Even though I should have walked away from something that clearly hadn’tbeen any of my business, I hadn’t. Instead, I had walked over to shut the door, and that was the worst thing that I could have done. All it’d gotten me was a peek into the affair that my sister was having with her guard, Mano Barone, and it was something that I couldn’t unknow, though I really, really, really wish that I didn’t know. Fia knew that she was betrothed to Nero Sartori, and if there was any man on the planet that a woman shouldn’t screw with, it was Nero Sartori. I’d also been wondering how long the affair had been going on. I mean, it really didn’t matter in the scheme of things, but no matter how spoiled Fia was, she had to know that crossing a man like Nero Sartori was not wise.
“Do you ever go home?”
I looked up to see Marissa Ventistanding in the doorway of my office. “Some days,” I quipped.
The Milton Legal Grouphad three senior partners, four junior partners, four paralegals, two secretaries that handled it all, and a receptionist. Though most of us were responsible for ourselves, Lilibeth and Dianna were worth their weight in gold. If this law office ran smoothly, it was because those two women knew their shit and were organized as hell.
“It’s crazy that you work this much but have no desire to makesenior partner,” she said, shaking her head.
“I like the pressure when it’s by choice,” I explained. “Becoming a senior partner would turn this into a job, instead of something that I enjoy doing, and I’m not ready for that.”
“Well, don’t stay too late,” she replied sweetly. “It’sFriday, girl. Go have some damn fun.”
“Are you going to take your own advice?” I teased, knowing that she worked just as much as I did.
“Not at all,” she joked. “I’ve got court on Monday, so no fun for me this weekend.”
“Well, while I won’t be partyingtonight, I think I will go visit my parents tomorrow,” I told her. “It’s been a while since I’ve spent time with them.”
“There you go,” she replied before giving me a final wave out the door.
Leaning back in my chair, I thought about my sister again. Tomorrow would be a good time to talk to her about what she was doing. If nothing else, she should stop the affair to spare Mano’s life. Even if Nero never found out, I knew that our father would lose his shit if he caught wind of what was going on. Everyone knew about the betrothal, so Mano couldn’t act like he wasn’t aware. Plus, even if Fia wasn’t engaged to Nero, Mano was her guard; he’d been assigned to protect her, not end up in bed with her.
Shaking my thoughts of my sister, I got back to work. While Ididn’t have court on Monday, I still had a heavy workload that wasn’t going to complete itself. That was why I had an office at my condo that rivaled the one that I had here. Seriously, I had no life.
Chapter 3
Nero~
People liked to lecture that smoking was a bad habit, but I disagreed. If I was going to become dependent on anything, I’d rather it be a vice that couldn’t ruin my life. Yeah, I could get cancer, but I could also get shot walking out of my front door. Cigarettes weren’t going to land me in prison for drunk driving vehicular manslaughter. Cigarettes weren’t going to have me sharing needles with a fellow heroin addict. Cigarettes weren’t going to have me losing everything in front of a blackjack table. So, yeah, when it came to addictive vices, I was perfectly happy with a menthol to ease my stress.
“It’s not going to be a bullet or enraged woman that ends up killing you one day,” Aurelio said. “It’s going to be those damn cigarettes.”
Aurelio Provenza wasmy best friend, though he was officially my bodyguard. He’d been assigned to me when he’d been only twenty and I’d been eighteen. There’d been and still was an understanding amongst all the families that children were off-limits, so my father hadn’t been too worried about my safety while I’d been a minor. However, on my eighteenth birthday, his gift to me had been Aurelio.
For almost fifteen years, Aurelio had stood by my side, and he was going to be my consigliere when the time came. In fact, truth be told, he acted as my consigliere now. Even though Aurelio was only two years older than I was, he’d been raised on the streets, my father taking him in when he’d been only fifteen. Aurelio had taken down five guys that had been trying to rob him, and when he had killed every last one, my father had serendipitously stumbled upon the scene, and the rest was history.
