DeLuca (Mafia Romance)

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When I got down to the pool, I tossed my book and towel onto one of the lounge chairs and dove into the deep end. About an hour later I was laying on my stomach on one of the loungers reading when I heard the French doors to the house open.

I craned my neck to see who it was, careful not to lift my upper body off the lounger too much since I had untied my top to avoid tan lines. Carlo approached me with a stony look on his face, his eyes swept over my body, careful not to rest too long on any one part of me.

“I have some business to take care of and I’ll be gone for a few days. Angelo will stay here with you, and Elena will be back tomorrow morning.” He was more abrupt than he had ever been with me before.

Must be having a bad day.

“Okay, is everything all right?” I asked, genuinely concerned. I knew his definition of business was not the norm and more than likely dangerous.

Carlo let out a breath and sat down next to my hip, when he spoke his voice was softer, “Everything will be fine, don’t worry.” He brushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear, and leaned down to kiss the top of my head. “I’ll see you in a few days,” he said getting up and leaving me without another glance.

That was weird.

I chalked it up to being another part of my new life I would have to get used to. I had known what my father did in the broad sense, but with Carlo it was different. I actually cared whether he came home or not, and while Carlo didn’t divulge many details he wasn’t as secretive as my father.

Maybe it was the fact that I had killed two men since meeting Carlo, but he seemed to think I could handle some of the more seedy aspects of his life. When I had asked him about Jackson after that night in the club he had explained that he had his cleaner come in and take care of it. Apparently a cleaner is a guy they call in to dispose of a body, get rid of the evidence and tie up any loose ends.

While I didn’t care much about what exactly they had to do to Jackson’s body to make sure his death never came back on me, I was uncomfortable with the thought of what ‘loose ends’ meant, because from what I could deduct there was only one glaring loose end, Derrick. I didn’t really want to know what happened to him. I could compartmentalize a lot but having to take care of a witness was not something I think I could handle yet so I didn’t ask.

Carlo

Was she trying to give me a fucking coronary?

Mia had been topless, laying out by the pool as if she didn’t have a care in the world. There had been a dozen of my men here for the last two weeks, any number of them could have been wandering around gawking at her. Fuck! I didn’t have time to worry about her right then, I had bigger problems.

That was the reason I had brought my closest men to my home, I needed them here so I could watch them. Gino was apparently not the only one feeding information to the Russians. We had another mole. Vitaly Kashnikov and his sons Ivan and Boris had been trying to undercut my business dealings in Portland for years but they had never succeeded, I had always been one step ahead of them. Now they had an insider spilling secrets.

I was always careful. No one man knew everything, but whoever was feeding them information knew enough to cripple part of my organization. Up to this point, I had considered the Russians a nuisance. They were based in Portland, and while I controlled most of the illegal dealings in that area they were still far enough away from my home base of Seattle for me to consider them mostly inconsequential.

That was until two weeks ago when they had robbed one of my warehouses that had held a large shipment of weapons. The initial shipment had come in a few days before the robbery and half of the weapons had already been dispersed but they still got away with half a million worth of guns and ammo. Not only did they steal from me, but they blew up my fucking warehouse causing unwanted attention from the police in the area and a huge headache for me. The warehouse was owned by one of my shell companies so no one could track it back to me, but having the police sniffing around was not something I was excited about. Kashnikov needed to be put down.

First things first, I had to make sure a breach like this never happened again.

…

“Gino wasn’t the only rat among us,” I spoke clearly, my voice raised. I looked around the board room in the hotel, staring into the faces of each of my highest ranked men sitting around the table. Antonio was standing by the door, I nodded to him. He left the room and reappeared with Enzo and Al dragging Frank and Lonzo into the room. Both men beaten bloody but still recognizable. Neither of the traitors had families so I didn’t need to bother with the messy business of cleaning up that mess. “Bring them here.”

Both men were thrown at my feet. Frank’s breaths coming in gurgled puffs, my guess is a broken rib had punctured a lung. Probably pretty painful, but that was the least of his worries now. I circled the pair, clucking my tongue at them.

Coming to a stop next to Frank I gave him a swift and vicious kick to ribs on the side he seemed to be favoring. He let out a tortured moan and fell flat on his face wheezing, blood dripping out of his mouth. The older man had been loyal to my father to the absolute end, never truly accepting my role as Boss. I was actually thankful for the excuse to be rid of him.

I paced back to Lonzo’s side, he was younger, and one of the newest men I brought into the ranks. Maybe that’s why he had turned. This new generation was a selfish one, never really loyal to anyone more than themselves. Hopefully this little show would scare some sense into the rest of the men.