Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

by Seth Eden

  Despite us continuing to spend all this time together in a professional capacity, it felt as if he was pulling away. He’d be talking to me, then for no apparent reason, he’d say he had to do something else. Things were beginning to feel awkward.

  I wondered if I’d been mistaken about those longing looks. If they’d been a figment of my imagination.

  Which felt depressing. Everything we discussed had to do with either business or occasionally Anna if I brought her up, but nothing else. He didn’t broach the topic of having sex again, so I didn’t either. I didn’t feel like I could complain. I had more than I ever had before. Really, I had everything I could wish for.

  Except for him.

  I’d even begun to send some monetary gifts to Tara. I’d told her that I couldn’t come see her due to being so busy with a new business opportunity.

  It wasn’t a lie.

  She’d gotten pushier and pushier about where I was and what I was doing. Why I couldn’t come see her and she couldn’t come see me. It made me anxious. I couldn’t involve her in any of this. It would be bad for everyone, especially her.

  But as much as remaining separate from my sister bugged me, the thing that nagged at me the most was that something was wrong between me and Luca. As time went on, it became more and more obvious.

  I just wished I knew what that something was.

  16

  Luca

  Alessandro had stationed himself at his laptop, checking the inventory from each drug corridor. I’d poured myself a tumbler of single malt whiskey, feeling stressed and needing something stronger than wine.

  I’d been tied up due to the additional growth the business was experiencing, especially since a boost in drug sales also equaled more need to launder money. Large amounts of cash drew raised eyebrows and red flags from the authorities, and even though several officers and detectives were on our payroll, we had to be ever vigilant that we covered our tracks.

  Our organization had to be a snake eating its own tail. Insular. An unending and contained circle.

  Between the requirements of this extra attention and my number one priority—making time for Anna—I hadn’t had the energy for anything else over the past two weeks. Well, with one exception.

  Molly.

  I thought about her nearly every moment of every day.

  We’d had one earthshattering night together. One I’d never forget.

  But then the intimacy that I thought had been burgeoning between us had come to a screeching halt. After having a dream so upsetting she’d been weeping in her sleep, saying “Daddy, no. Please no,” she chose not to open up to me. Not at all.

  In fact, the second I left her alone that morning, she’d scurried from my room as if she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  It made me comprehend something for the first time.

  I was tempting fate.

  Her leaving, her not sharing her dream or why she’d been upset, it bothered me. A lot. It meant she didn’t trust me like I’d trusted her. Which meant I cared about her more than I should.

  What we’d done had been more than a booty call, more even than a friends-with-benefits romp. What I felt for her was more than carnal desire, more than friendship and more than an appreciation of her becoming an integral part of our business. No, I’d started to fall for her.

  And I couldn’t allow that to continue.

  The women the Varasso men were in love with were destined for tragedy. We all knew it. Had been exposed to it. I personally had lived through the sheer hell of it. So I did my best to turn off those feelings.

  Which had proven to be tremendously difficult. Nearly impossible.

  She’d kissed me, so I’d given in to her, thinking it would only be sex. But it wasn’t. I’d made love to her that night. There was no other word for it.

  Which meant I’d put her in danger.

  She’d seemed to accept it when I stopped pursuing her physically, then when I limited our time together, which was a huge relief. As long as we didn’t pursue this, and as long as she didn’t feel for me what I felt for her, maybe it would be okay. Maybe the curse would continue to pass us by. Pass her by.

  I hoped.

  Now I just needed to keep my subconscious from dreaming about her every time my head hit the pillow.

  “So Queen Molly is out there kicking ass and taking names,” my brother said, pushing his new pair of glasses up his nose and dragging me back to the current moment.

  I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

  “You don’t sound overly thrilled at the prospect.”

  “No, it’s great. She’s doing great. Everything’s going great.”

  Alessandro changed position from hovering over his keyboard to slowly sitting back. He leaned in his chair until the front two legs left the floor, then tipped his head down and looked over the frames of his glasses. “So, is it great or is it great?”

  “What?”

  “You just said the word ‘great’ three specific times. Which means you don’t think it’s great at all.”

  Well, fuck my life. Sandro had always been a nosy bastard. “Mind your own business.”

  “But see, that’s what I’m doing. This is our family’s business. A business that has never done better. Not under Dad. Not under Grandfather. Not before that. I know because I have access to the records, both in the computer and on paper. These profits are explosively good. And it’s all down to you saving the woman our father wanted to kill. So why do you look so…”

  “So what?”

  “Honestly? You look like you need to get laid,” he said, wearing a smirk.

  The joke was on him, though, because getting laid had been what had swung all this lunacy into motion. “Go back to your inventory,” I ordered pointedly, staring him down. But that ended up being an error on my part.

  Alessandro’s expression altered. Became far too knowing. “Oh… I get it. Well, shit.”

  “There’s nothing to get.” But my brother wasn’t our tech expert for no reason. He’d always been sharp as a tack, both book smart and streetwise. It amounted to an almost unbeatable combination. Then he spoke again with purposeful intent.

  “Jesus, Luca, what are you going to do?”

  I’d been asking myself that ever since Molly had vanished out my bedroom door. I sighed. “I’m already doing it. Have you been going through the Bianchi’s surveillance recordings?” I asked, switching subjects.

  “Yeah.” He frowned, lowering his gaze. Never the best of signs. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Why?”

  He clicked some keys and jerked his chin toward the screen. “Just watch.”

  And I did. I watched as Roman, one of our more smalltime runners—though my father had utilized him frequently—snuck into what we knew to be the Bianchi’s territory and dropped off a package.

  Then, he collected cash for it. Next, I saw an image from the security footage taken right here in the mansion, showing Roman getting paid with a sizable wad of those same bills by our father.

  Both clips were from the same day only an hour apart. But as condemning as that might be, there was more. Alessandro had found multiple examples of Roman doing this with the same pattern. Going into the wrong part of Philadelphia, exchanging a package for money, then returning here to be rewarded by Angelo.

  “How many of these instances are there?” I asked my brother, hearing the shock in my own voice.

  “So far? I’ve found fifty-two. And that’s only from the past year.”

  “Goddammit!” I shouted, taking my tumbler and throwing it full force against the wall. It shattered, sending shards of glass everywhere. Rosa appeared a couple of minutes later, but I ordered her out. My chest heaving, I worked to calm down. I had to find everything I needed to before my loss of control drew any more attention. “When did you find these?”

  “I found the first one yesterday, but I didn’t want to believe it, you know? So I kept sifting through the data. But it kept getting
worse and worse.” Alessandro looked lost, as if torn between insurmountable evidence and the fact that he didn’t want to believe any of it.

  I knew precisely how he felt. “Okay, do me a favor. Get Roman in here. I want to speak with him. And don’t share this with anybody else. Not with Marco or Gabriel or anyone. Got me?”

  “I got you,” he said, but reached for my arm. “But what if the Bianchis dig up the same information? They already have a few of these records. Our reputations with the other families could be irreparably harmed. They could stop negotiating with us, stop coexisting so peacefully with us. They could even declare our claims to be forfeit and try to take over our operation.”

  He kept his voice low, but each word out of his mouth had more and more of an edge to it. I couldn’t let him lose it, too, so I seized his shoulders.

  “Listen, I’ll set up a meeting with Donovan Bianchi in the morning. I’ll talk to him, see if I can ferret out what he knows and doesn’t know.” I ran a hand through my hair. “He should be willing to agree. I mean, he hasn’t made a move since he busted in here, and that’s been three months ago now.”

  “Seems he might’ve been within his rights to kill Dad,” Alessandro said, and as much as I wanted to balk at my brother’s words, they were accurate. Bianchi likely saw what he’d done as justified.

  I couldn’t keep from scowling at him, though. “Just pretend like you didn’t see this.”

  He nodded, closing the laptop and putting it away. I marched from the room, feeling half nauseous. I hated that I had to deal with this mess, one my father had left behind for me to clean up. I had no way of knowing what the patriarch of our family’s motives had been, either.

  Had it been some sick joke? Had Donovan Bianchi double-crossed him, and he’d done this in retribution? Had it only been about greed like the head of Bianchi family had accused him of? Had it been some stupid bid for more power? Or had I been wrong all along, and Angelo Varasso really had started to lose his marbles?

  It was my job to find out.

  Roman Petrella stared down at his feet rather than meeting my gaze, which made him come across as more diminutive that he actually was. He stood only about three inches shorter than me, but his attitude was one of a man holding his hat in his hand, dutiful and obedient. He was also a bit of a simpleton.

  He was lean to the point of almost being skinny, with little to no meat on his bones. But this was an illusion because I’d seen him sprint across distances like an Olympic athlete. It’s why he’d always been such an effective runner. In our line of work speed, efficiency, and a low profile were worth their weight in gold.

  Like most of us with largely Italian ancestry Roman had dark, nearly black hair and eyes and an olive skin tone, but his features gave the appearance of being too small for his face. As if they’d somehow gotten squashed.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Varasso, sir. So sorry,” he said, his voice unsteady.

  Although he’d only been with our family for a few years, he’d been close to my father. Closer than most of our employees. My father had liked him from the beginning and had chosen him for many jobs because of it. Roman might not have the highest of intelligence levels, but he was excellent at what he did.

  “Thank you, Roman.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I need to clarify some things.”

  “Ask me anything, sir. Anything at all.”

  “I need to know what you were doing in the Bianchi’s part of the city.” Roman went motionless, his gaze still down, like prey trying to camouflage itself from a predator. “I know you were there, Roman. I’ve seen video footage of it. I know you were delivering something for my father. I need to know what that was and why my dad was breaching their borders.”

  “Oh, no. He’d never forgive me.”

  “Who, my father?”

  “Yes,” Roman said, finally looking up. His gaze was clear and innocent, almost like a child’s. “He took good care of me. I’d do anything for him.”

  “We appreciate your loyalty, but we have to go on without him. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So what was in the package?” I asked again.

  “Heroin.”

  “My father had assigned you a heroin delivery in Bianchi territory?”

  “Yes, sir. He told me it was okay because there were actuating circumstances.”

  “You mean extenuating circumstances?”

  “Oh. Yes, sir.”

  I frowned. That was strange. “What circumstances were those?”

  Roman puffed out his lips. “He never said. He just told me where to bring the package and make the drop. He told me it’d be worth it because it would be for triple the normal take.”

  “Was Donovan Bianchi ever aware of your presence?

  “No, sir.” He smiled, gaining a bit of pride in his stance. “I know how not to be seen.”

  “Yet you were on the surveillance we took.”

  “Mr. Angelo told me which routes to go, which ones wouldn’t be… Ah, what did he call them? Um… restricted. That’s the word he said. Restricted.”

  I deepened my frown. “Was he messing with the feed? Putting it in a loop to hide your presence or something?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I just did as Mr. Angelo told me.”

  I nodded, but I was baffled. According to what this runner was telling me, my father had indeed risked starting a major altercation with Bianchi’s for money. Unless…

  “Roman, did you ever receive something other than cash in payment for the heroin?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So they never gave you anything like weapons? Or maybe information?”

  “No, sir. Just the Ben Franklins.”

  I rubbed the scruff on my cheek, turning the facts over in my mind again. They just didn’t add up.

  “All right, Roman. Thanks.”

  “Anything for the Varassos, sir.”

  17

  Molly

  I’d been in my room getting ready for bed between texts. I stayed in constant contact with my four main middlemen: Matteo, Samuel, Eduardo, and Christian. Even though it was after midnight Eastern Daylight Time, in other parts of the country, it wasn’t that late. Therefore, I stayed up, waiting to receive the coded words that declared all was well.

  I’d put out any fires, if necessary.

  It was what Luca expected.

  As always, thoughts of him made me feel many emotions at once. He’d given me so much, a fresh start, yet as winter soldiered on, the cold didn’t just stay outside. Though the house staff kept the temperature toasty inside, they couldn’t warm the coolness of Luca’s attitude toward me.

  Our relationship had eroded, from close to professional to him only speaking in person with me for a few minutes daily. I wondered if that would eventually go away, too. Maybe he’d start to deal with me like I dealt with my middlemen, primarily by text.

  I’d barely seen Anna, who was growing like a little weed. Every time I did see her, she seemed taller. She seemed to sense that something was amiss, as well, as I often heard her being fussier than usual a few doors down.

  Not that her father appeared daunted by this. Unlike my own father, he kept his voice down, never yelling. Never losing his temper no matter how long she cried. It was like he had a superpower; he might shout at someone else or throw down with his brothers, but he had the patience of Job when it came to his daughter.

  I’d been in my bathtub when I heard a crash downstairs, and fearful something like what had happened the night of Angelo’s murder might be happening again, I’d hurried down to check as soon as I could. But what I’d found had been Rosa cleaning up some broken glass, the pungent smell of whiskey giving away what had been inside it.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked her, but she merely shushed me and waved her hands.

  “No, no, Queen Molly. Don’t you worry yourself over this. I have everything under control.”

  Since I’d never once seen Rosa or any other me
mbers of the staff drinking alcohol, I severely doubted she’d been the one to create that mess. In fact, the only person I’d seen drink the occasional shot of whiskey was Luca.

  Had he dropped his glass?

  No. If it’d been an accident, the glass would’ve ended up on the carpeted floor. But that’s not what it looked like. It looked like he’d hurled it at the wall.

  As if he’d been so enraged, he couldn’t contain himself.

  Not that I would know.

  I padded down the hallway in my bare feet, listening at his door. I heard nothing. I couldn’t tell whether he was in there or not. Maybe it hadn’t been him tossing his whiskey around, after all. Maybe he was in bed asleep. Or maybe he was lounging on the sofa we’d spent our very memorable night on.

  Well, it’d been memorable to me.

  Feeling like an idiot, I turned to go back to my room. It’d been a long day, and I felt drained, but it was more emotional than physical. I’d just made it to my threshold when I heard a noise coming from somewhere down the hall. I considered ignoring it. Maybe it was Marco with another one of his floozies—I’d heard giggles coming from his room more than once.

  But something made me want to be certain.

  Moving as stealthily as possible, I promptly made my way toward the sound. It was coming from a doorway at the opposite end of the hall from my room, the gym I knew was there but had never entered. There was another sound, a grunt, issuing through a door not quite closed.

  I went in, looking around. Like many parts in the Varasso mansion, the gym was enormous.

  Weight sets of various sizes as well as a rowing machine and a treadmill had been lined up in the center of the room. Around the circumference was a racing track, complete with designated lanes. One whole wall seemed to be a window, but blinds had been pulled over it, offering whoever might be within privacy.

  In one corner, cordoned off, was what appeared to be a boxing area, with a full-size punching bag. There next to the bag was Luca. Pouring sweat and wearing nothing but laced up shoes and athletic shorts, he reminded me of something out of Rocky. Then, he turned in my direction, looking pissed off, frustrated and sexy as hell.