Page 291 of Niccolo

“I want to call off the wedding,”Valentino announced.

“Uh – what?”

“Everybody’s alive. We got what we needed from Hong Kong. There’s no need to go through with the wedding anymore.”

OH SHIT –

“Don Vicari – may I speak to my brother in private?” I asked, unconsciously forcing a smile as though he was there in the room watching me.

“No,”the bastard growled.

Valentino started in on him.“I don’t want to marry your daughter. You know that. And she doesn’t want to marry me.”

OH SHIT, OH SHIT –

“Don Vicari – ”

“Shut up, consigliere,”Vicari snarled.

Okay –

FUCK this guy.

Somehow, though, I managed to bite my tongue and not say anything that would start a war with the Sicilians.

Vicari and Valentino went at each other, with the mafia don being just as big an asshole to Val as Vicari had been to me a moment before.

The difference was that Valentino was too stupid to know when to quit. He kept antagonizing Vicari more and more until the don said mockingly to me,“If you want out of the deal, consigliere, fine – but you’re going to be down one brother after I put a bullet in this one’s head.”

If I had been the don of the family, I would have told Vicari exactly how hard he should fuck himself right then and there.

Except… then he would’ve killed Valentino.

And as much as my little brother enraged me sometimes, I still loved him.

I had to keep reminding myself of that.

Plus, we still had Fausto to content with.

I didn’t need this bullshit right now.

So I played the diplomat, even though I would’ve loved nothing more than to shoot Vicari between the eyes.

“The wedding will proceed as planned,” I said coldly.

Val immediately started to whine.“Nic – ”

“Valentino, when I left you in Catania, I told you to do your duty to your family. THIS IS NOT DOING YOUR DUTY TO YOUR FAMILY.”

“But – ”

“You WILL marry Don Vicari’s daughter, and there will be NO more discussion about it. Am I understood?”

“Fuck you, Nic.”

OH.

NO.

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