Page 1 of Mafia Men Need Love Too
Chapter 1
If anyone had told him that being a mafia boss was so boring, Nico Fortunado might’ve made some different choices in his life.
But here he was, bored out of his fucking mind.
The worst part? It was his own damn fault. He’d fought, clawed, and schemed his way into this position. The former head of the Italian mafia—and the bastard’s entire corrupt, brutal family—were in jail thanks to Nico, and he’d fought off all the other contenders for the throne to get exactly where he was right now.
And he didn’t give a shit about any of it. Not anymore. Not since he realized what a monotonous job he’d taken on. Cheat, steal, evade the authorities (which was laughably simple), rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.
Boooorrrriiiinnnngggg.
He was very quickly learning that all the power and money in the world didn’t mean shit if none of it even interested him.
And he should be interested. He was at a strip club he owned, after all, with a beautiful topless woman smiling at him from the stage and dancing to Seven Nation Army. He should be slipping a fifty into that dancer’s G-string and arranging for a private dance.
But nooooooo. He was stuck here in the VIP section, meeting with an annoying wannabe mob boss who’d shank his own mother for a shot at Nico’s job.
If he was willing to let Ricky “the schnoz” LaRusso have the damn job, Nico might be able to pursue something more interesting with his life. More meaningful.
He couldn’t do it, though. Ricky was an idiot who would either fall in with the cartels and turn his city into a shithole or pick a fight with the Russians or Irish and drag the entire Italian mafia down with him.
As it stood now, Nico had been able to negotiate a truce with the Russians and Irish. They each owned their piece of territory, and he owned his. If he wanted to do anything in their territories, he discussed it with them and negotiated resolutions, and vice versa. Like fucking gentlemen.
There was nothing gentlemanly about Ricky.
Ricky was a mafia cosplayer at best, a dangerous imbecile at worst. He dressed the part—in a knockoff version of the black Tom Ford suit Nico was wearing—but wasn’t business minded enough to ever be anything but hired muscle. The dangerous part was that he thought he was the smartest guy in any room, while in truth, his IQ was merely lukewarm.
And was it his imagination, or was Ricky growing his hair out to look more like Nico’s?
But if Ricky wanted to Single White Female him, he’d have to try harder, Nico thought. As it stood, he was nothing but the Temu version of a mafia boss. Annoying, but not a threat to Nico and his position.
The problem was that the fucknut was currently trying to talk him into trafficking drugs. Drugs. Nico scoffed. How boring. How predictable. How…uncivilized.
White collar crime was much more profitable. Bankruptcy schemes, tax scams, tax evasion, bid rigging, procurement and insurance fraud, counterfeiting…those were Nico’s kinds of crimes. Neat and tidy.
Even in the good old days when he was a freelance assassin, his kills were clean. Orderly. His research skills were impeccable, he’d never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, and he’d never left so much as a whisper of evidence in his wake.
So, the idea that he’d stoop to peddling drugs was laughable. If Ricky were anyone else, he’d shut him down brutally and make him crawl out on busted kneecaps for daring to think he had a great idea Nico hadn’t considered. But because Ricky was a decent soldier and generally followed the orders he was given, Nico let it slide.
But he wasn’t going to entertain his fuckery, either.
Which is why, when Ricky finished his spiel, Nico looked him dead in the eye and said, in no uncertain terms, “I appreciate your hustle, Ricky. Truly, I do.” A blatant lie. Frankly, the kid’s hustle was a consistent pain in the ass. “But no drugs. Not ever again. Yes?”
Ricky looked dangerously close to disagreeing for a second. Nico gave him a hard look that seemed to change his mind, though. He nodded after a long pause. Way too long a pause, in Nico’s opinion. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Whatever you say.”
Nico clapped him on the shoulder. “Wonderful. Glad we had this talk.”
Another blatant lie. He’d be much happier not talking at all. Especially not here.
He glanced over at his underboss, Van. They exchanged an eye roll. Van had no tolerance for bullshit either, and that’s all Ricky seemed to be offering these days.
Van was the closest thing to a friend Nico had. He was loyal to a fault, would follow any order Nico gave without question, and wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet if it meant protecting his boss. If being an underboss was a sport, Van would place respectably in his weight class.
And his weight class would be extra, extra heavy. The man was built like the love child of a redwood and an army tank. Nico was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but standing next to Van made him feel downright dainty.
“Time for a trip to the quarry?” Van asked, sounding as hopeful as a kid on Christmas morning.
Considering that the quarry was where all the skeletons of the organization were buried (literally), the idea made Nico chuckle. “No, my friend. Not yet.”
