Page 53 of Dirty Mafia Torment
Carlo Accardo is dead.
I carefully type back, not wanting to get blood on my phone.
How?
Food poisoning.
With a little extra help from the thallium mixed in with his Pepcid pills. You bet I did my homework.
Father is demanding you call him.
I give the text a thumbs-up emoji. Avoiding my father until this passes over tops my priority list.
What did you do?
What did I do? Now that’s a loaded question. Risk my father’s rage? Risk the Beneventi name? Risk the Eleven’s wrath if they ever learn I acted without their bullshit authorizations?
What I didn’t do was murder Accardo to showcase my true nature. The ice in my veins. My lack of empathy toward most people.The devil I’ve dulled through sex and drugs, who’s primed and ready to play as a made man. All that will come in time.
I killed him forher.
Answer me, motherfucker!
I send him a kissy-face emoji, then, glancing at the time, tuck my phone in my pocket. I’m late, but not that fucking late.
With fire in my stride, I push forward, because for the first time in a long damn while, I did something that fucking mattered.
I gave Fina a chance at a real life.
While I set off to become the monster no one sees coming.
CHAPTER EIGHT
RENZO
I meetDante at Zia Teresa, a small family-style restaurant on the same narrow street as Dante’s Club Tiberius. The place is empty except for our famiglie’s second-in-command, the waitress seated on his lap, and one of the Italian Youngbloods, Luciano Santoro.
Dante neglected to mention he’d be here.
I stick out my hand for a firm shake. “Luciano.”
“Lorenzo.”
“You look like shit,” Dante greets me, frowning as both men regard me skeptically.
I’m wearing an expensive designer suit I stole off Sandro, but the material hangs off my frame, making me look like a boy playing dress up. Looking at me, they’re probably wondering if I have what it takes to fill my father’s shoes.
Luciano makes a gagging sound. “And he smells like a French whore.”
I smirk. “Rather smell like a whore than act like a kiss-ass.”
His face turns red. Goddamn amateur. He’s ambitious, I’ll give him that. Doesn’t explain why Dante invited him to our meeting, one I’d hoped would be private so I can safely pitch my proposal.
The gorgeous waitress leaps off Dante’s lap and escapes to the kitchen.
We watch her go. Dante knows how to pick them. The asshole has a hot girlfriend in every fucking city. She’s the perfect distraction.
I fall into a vacant chair. “You speak to my father?”
