Page 53 of Broken Mafia Prince
She looks impatient, and I wonder what that’s about. When I look at her face again, I find her wearing a small, mysterious smile. A sense of awareness tingles at the base of my spine, and I find myself seated at the edge of my chair, holding my breath.
My view is suddenly blocked by a waitress who appears in front of her. A low, annoyed growl rumbles in my chest, and I’m forced to glance over at her date. I already know I won’t like him,but the derisive sneer on his face already fills me with a deep, burning hatred.
He barks something at the server, and she flinches, looking like she might burst into tears any moment. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who has to resort to screaming at service workers is an asshole, and Giulia’s date isn’t just talking down at them; he seems to be enjoying it.
He strikes me as the opposite of her type: pompous, rude, and likes the sound of his own voice a little too much. What the fuck is she doing with a grade-A asshole like that?
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out and swipe without looking at the screen. I regret being so distracted a moment later.
“Raffaele,” my father’s voice comes from over the phone.
I grit my teeth, my mood darkening even further. “Is there a problem?”
“Why am I hearing from Emilio that you had the men delay transport of the products to a week from now?” he hisses. “You have no right to make decisions like that.”
My focus is still on Giulia’s asshole date, and I’m eager to end this call. “After what happened at Las Vegas, we’ve attracted some attention from the Chicago PD, we need to lay low a while or risk losing all our product and falling into shit with the law.”
He lets out a bark of laughter. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the cops.”
“I’m not, but?—”
“We’ll go ahead with the transport tomorrow, and whatever problems arise, Emilio will sort them.”
“Your right-hand man isn’t a superhero,” I tell him. “He won’t always be able to slip us out of every cage. At some point, we have to start avoiding getting trapped instead of looking forward to being released.”
My father’s recklessness is legendary, and ever since I got involved in the business, I’ve done a lot of damage control and stopped him from digging us into our own graves. After the airport shooting, I have no more faith in him ever thinking logically. I’ll have to bulldoze through his half-baked plans from now on.
Like this one, for example.
“I say we wait,” I continue.
“I say we don’t, and I have the final say.”
“You—” The abrupt silence indicates that he’s hung up already. I’m just about to call him back before he leads men and product straight into the hands of the authority, but at that moment, Giulia’s date begins to choke.
“Here’s your meal, sir.” The redhead appears again. “If there’s anything else I can get you, please don’t hesitate to call for me. My name is?—”
I tune her out, watching as the man turns a startling shade of red, and then an even more startling shade of blue. He grabs at his neck, croaking. I expect to see Giulia looking worried, shocked, scared—anything but the small smile that pulls at one corner of her mouth.
Did she… plan this?
I watch as she raises her spoon to her mouth and begins to calmly eat her food, looking completely unaffected by the man before her, who’s a hairsbreadth from passing out.
The restaurant hums with activity—servers weaving between crowded tables, the clatter of dishes, and the sharp rise of voices as a customer argues about their order at the far end of the room. But not one of them seems to have noticed what is going on yet.
I’m guessing that the fact that the place was busy was another reason Giulia chose it—so people wouldn’t pay much attention to what was happening at their table.
What the hell is going on?
What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall close to them right now. I can’t even begin to imagine what’s happening at that table, and as if it’s not confusing enough, Giulia pushes to her feet, drags her chair closer to him, drops back into it, and holds a phone out to him, pointing at it, her expression still calm.
My brows furrow as endless possibilities race through my mind. Is she blackmailing him? Has he been blackmailing her with something, and now she’s trying to get him to delete it? That would explain how he managed to get her on this date. Or maybe she’s forcing him to make a bank transfer for her.
I pause on that thought, my gaze running up and down her body again. No, it can’t be about the money. Even though she’s dressed down, I can still tell that her clothes are expensive, and so is the diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist and the studs on her ears.
And anyway, I can still clearly remember her tossing my money back at me. That’s not a girl who’s urgently in need of money. So what could possibly be going on?
I watch as the man nods desperately. A look of triumph lights her face, and she pulls out something from her purse. I narrow my eyes at the object when I realize it’s an EpiPen. A little bit of the mystery begins to unravel itself.
