Page 11 of Isabella

And if seeing the man who’s responsible for the death of my parents wasn’t bad enough, I had to seehimtoo.

Niccolò Silvestri.

The man who tore my heart out of my chest without a care in the world.

The man I thought I would marry.

The man I wish I had never met my freshman year at CU.

He stood there silently while his dad threatened Teo if he didn’t give him access to our family’s ports. The entire time, I felt his sharp gaze on mine. I tried to avoid meeting it, but my body betrayed me, sneaking a glance at him. Then to top it all off, he had the audacity to tell me to enjoy the rest of my birthday.

His eyes were dark as he took me in, but I know Nicco. The way he looked at me was like there was longing there, which I don’t understand.

I nearly gave us both away when I opened my mouth to call out to him, but I remembered I couldn’t. My brothers don’t know about Nicco and me, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

Still, the anger from how he treated me when we broke up rushed to the surface of my skin, causing a reemergence of frustration to travel along the fine hairs. I don’t know what I was going to say to him when he was walking away, but I wanted to yell at him. To tell him to forget my birthday and forget me. Like he told me to forget about him.

But I kept quiet because, in the end, he doesn’t matter. Not anymore.

10

NICCOLÒ

“Matteo DiMaggio better get his act together and give me back access to Angelo Mancini’s port,” my dad grumbles from the back seat of his Bentley.

“You mean Matteo’s port?” I mumble. My gaze remains fixed on the road ahead while Mauricio—my dad’s little minion—weaves in and out of the New York City traffic.

“Excuse me?” he snaps, knowing what I said but baiting me to see if I’ll have the balls to say it to him again. Mauricio glances at me before turning his attention back to the road.

“Just noting that they’re Matteo DiMaggio’s ports now that Angelo Mancini is dead,” I state from over my shoulder, not wanting this to be the reason my dad is set off. I’ve worked too hard on my plan to let it be foiled by my quick tongue.

Letting my comment slip by, he continues, “That boy has another thing coming if he thinks he pulled one over on me when he inherited Angelo’s territory by marrying that bastard daughter of his and then killing him. How the hell did my plan get so far off track?”

A lot has happened since I got home from Sicily, where my dad sent me to live for the past few years with an old family friend to learn the ins and outs of running an Italian crime family. I learned nothing there that I hadn’t already known, growing up as the sole heir to Giuseppe Silvestri, don of the Silvestri family, but that’s not the real reason he sent me away.

My cousin Giuliana, the daughter of the late Angelo Mancini and my Aunt Elena, was supposed to marry Matteo DiMaggio, the don of the DiMaggio family. That all changed when Angelo discovered he had an estranged daughter with a woman he supposedly loved over twenty years ago.

After kidnapping this ex-lover of his, Angelo changed the terms of the contract and decided to marry off his newfound daughter, Luxtyn, to Matteo. He tried to pin kidnapping Luxtyn’s mom on my dad in hopes that it would start a war between my dad and Matteo, resulting in them taking each other out so Angelo could have full access to both ports in the city. Then to add to it, his plan was to have a second life with them in some cabin in the woods. It seems there was a lot more truth to the rumors about Angelo Mancini starting to “lose it” than anyone realized.

When Matteo found out Angelo kidnapped Luxtyn, he went after him and killed him for putting his wife and her mom in harm’s way.

Fucking insane.

It all worked out perfectly for the DiMaggio family. They now have control over both of the city’s ports, which gives them an extraordinary amount of power.

Power my dad has always wanted.

Until Matteo killed Angelo, my family worked with the Mancini family. My Aunt Elena’s marriage to Angelo Mancini forced their partnership, allowing us access to their port, which my dad used to funnel drugs, weapons, and most recently, people in and out of the city.

Sex trafficking.

It’s something my dad got into when he sent me off to Sicily, and it’s just another reason I fucking hate him.

Now that Matteo has control of the ports, he’s denied my dad access to them. I can’t say I blame him, as he’s responsible for the death of his parents after they didn’t give him what he wanted.

Those fucking ports. That’s all anyone cares about here.

“Are you listening, Niccolò? We need to figure out a plan, or else the cartel will not be happy and we’ll lose our largest source of income.” My dad’s voice snaps my attention back to his. “I’ve worked too damn hard for our family to let our reputation go down like this.”

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