Page 2 of Mafia Darling

Except Paulo would never wait while I knocked my wife up enough times to fill out the family tree—and I didn’t expect him to.

Cristo, was Paulo fucking someone else already?

The thought turned my blood to ice, even with the herb in my system. Had he forgotten me and moved on in the last three weeks? I bet he had. He seemed sad enough when I broke things off, but maybe those tears had been fake. Has he started posting on the hookup apps and meeting other men?

I had to find out.

I pulled into the drive of the beach house, and carried a box full of Zia’s cornetti and sfogliatelle with me to the front door. Frankie still wasn’t eating enough, but maybe I could coax her into a few bites. At least we were miserable together. Though I hated to see her sad, being with her every day has kept me sane after my breakup. That, and the weed.

I texted Sal, her guard, to let him know I was here then used my key in case she was asleep. I headed for the kitchen first. The rooms were empty and quiet, sounds from the beach faint in the background. An old cup of coffee sat on the kitchen island, Frankie’s tablet resting there. Had she gone back to bed?

“Sal,” I called quietly. Normally the big man sat at the back door, not quite inside but nearby in case of trouble. Except his chair stood empty. I checked my watch. Two o’clock. Sal should be here.

Were they on the beach? I scanned the sand stretching out along the edge of the water. Frankie hasn’t felt up to long walks or swims in a while. There were lots of people on the beach but none of them were Frankie or Sal.

This was strange.

I dialed Sal’s cell phone and retrieved my gun from the inside of my jacket. Keeping absolutely quiet, I went upstairs to see if she was in bed.

The master bed was rumpled but empty. She wasn’t in the bathroom, either. Ma che cazzo?

Sweat broke out on the back of my neck, every part of me now on high alert. I quickly checked the rest of the upstairs then returned downstairs. I called Sal’s replacement, Luca. He picked up on the second ring. “Where are you?” I barked.

“Just about to leave the house, why?”

“Did you hear from Sal today?”

“Yes, this morning. He wanted to know if we could swap shifts tomorrow.”

“He’s not here.” I began opening closet doors and checking behind furniture. “Both Sal and Frankie are missing.”

“That is impossible,” he said, and I could hear him moving in the background. “I’m coming right now, but you should call Marco. They can review the security footage at the castello.”

As I hung up on Luca, I returned to the kitchen to look in the pantry. As soon as I pulled open the door, my heart sank. Sal was there, unmoving. Minchia! Was he dead?

Worse, where the fuck was Frankie?

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

I had to call my father.

* * *

Fausto

I rubbed my eyes behind my glasses. The words on the screen were fuzzy, my body too tired to focus.

Sighing, I picked up my Campari and tonic. I’d taken to drinking early in the afternoons, a habit Marco disliked immensely but one I found necessary to dull the ache inside my chest. The past two nights I had fallen into bed in a drunken stupor and passed out for a few hours.

It was an improvement over weeks of sleepless nights.

Marco sat in the corner on his phone, pretending to ignore me while really watching me closely. He wasn’t fooling me.

I read the numbers on my screen again, wanting to prove I was still on top of my empire. “Toni just made us over two million Euros by shorting a tech stock.”

Marco grunted.

“Maybe we don’t need D’Agostino for this computer idea.”

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