Page 4 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
My oldest brother's voice echoes faintly from his study at the end of the corridor upstairs, low and animated.
He speaks with the cadence of a man conducting business he no longer pretends is legitimate.
Rafa has learned, painfully and publicly, how to bow without kneeling, being that he is, at least in name, the head of the family.
On the way to my room upstairs, I pass by the open door of the study without pausing.
I know the kind of work he is doing tonight—negotiations for a shipment moving through the eastern port, permits greased by hands we once would have broken instead of paid.
Salvatores now oversee every major operation, every lucrative artery that bleeds wealth into this city, and if we wish to partake, we do so with their blessing stamped quietly across our ledgers.
Some days it is easier to accept.
Others, it tastes like ash on my tongue.
My room is unchanged.
High ceilings, a wrought-iron balcony overlooking the gardens, heavy velvet drapes that spill onto cool stone floors.
The bed is wide and low, layered with crisp linen and faded silk.
A vanity stands near the window, cluttered with perfume bottles and worn leather notebooks.
A pistol rests beneath it, hidden in the drawer lined with velvet that once held my mother's pearls.
I kick off my heels and move to the balcony, pushing open the doors to let the night inside.
Petrichor, created by rain falling on stone, rises to meet me, mingling with the faint sweetness of night-blooming jasmine from the gardens below.
I lean against the railing, breathing in slowly, hoping the night might cool the heat still burning low in my stomach.
Is he still there, in that corner booth, with shadows wrapping around his smile like they know him?
Did he feel it too, or was I just another moment in a life full of easy wins and passing wants?
I shake the thought away, but it clings stubbornly, like a shard of something bright and reckless in the back of my mind.
The rest of my home stretches into darkness.
The gardens are well-kept but no longer manicured within an inch of their lives.
The fountains run, but the marble is cracked in places, and no one rushes to polish every flaw.
The stables stand mostly empty now; the horses sold quietly during the first hard winter after our surrender, when appearances still mattered but coffers were stretched too thin.
And yet, we are not poor.
Not by any stretch.
Our accounts are still flush enough to buy loyalty where needed, to host dinners that remind the right people that the name Rossi still carries weight, even if it is a different kind of weight now.
We invest quietly.
Construction projects on the outskirts of the city.
Import-export businesses tied to the new shipping routes controlled by the Salvatores.
Pharmaceuticals smuggled in crates labeled as medical aid.
