Page 2 of The Don's Prisoner

I waited for him to speak, but when he didn’t, I decided I would. Otherwise, we would have been staring at each other all day, and I had shit to do.

“So, I see you’re alive then,” I said and moved behind my desk. Vito shifted forward on the couch and put his elbows on his knees, resting his hat on the glass coffee table before him. I sat down at my desk and watched him.

“Yeah, um… I lost my phone. Sorry,” he said, and I closed my eyes. I wanted to throttle him, shake him, explain to him how worried I had been and how much it had scared me to think he might have been lying dead in a ditch somewhere. How I might have only found out what happened to him years later when they dug up a body from a mass grave or something. He didn’t seem to understand my worry, or he just didn’t care. Either way, the whole thing hurt.

“Be more careful next time,” I advised with a glare. “And maybe tell me when you are going to disappear for three months without a trace. Or at least tell someone. Leave a note in your apartment. Fuck, tell your landlord where you are going, so he doesn’t have to call me looking for rent money.”

“Shit. He called you?”

“Yeah, when he couldn’t get ahold of you. Which was what tipped me off that you were gone to begin with. I paid him, by the way. You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks sis, really. You… you really are the best, you know that?” His face looked pained when he said it. I scoffed at him.

“Oh, that sounds believable,” I laughed humorlessly.

“No, I mean it. I really do. And you didn’t have to pay George. He would have waited,” he said, then seemed to think about it. “Well… maybe he wouldn’t…”

“Exactly. And then you'd be living with me again, and I really don’t want that to happen. Ever. Again. I love you, V, more than anyone in this world, but if I ever stumble into another one of your orgies in my living room again, I might kill you,” I threatened and he gave me an impish grin.

“It was fun though.”

“Ugg… you are so disgusting. I will never live with you again, so pay your damn rent and stop disappearing!” I lectured, running a hand through my long blonde hair. “Where did you go anyway?”

“Well, I…” he started, then looked over his shoulder, beyond the glass wall. I looked in the same direction and saw two very large men standing near the showroom entrance in black suits. They weren't part of my security team.

I turned to Vito who looked more than a little ashamed. This couldn’t be good.

“What’s going on Vito? Who are those men?”

“Well… they are kind of with me. I have to go somewhere. And you have to come with me, Vic. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t go anywhere right now,” I insisted and crossed my arms over my chest. “I have way too much to do today. I’ve got dresses to send out, supply outages to deal with, and I have a show that needs to be finalized…”

Vito stood up, his hat in his hand.

“Victoria…” he said and I shut up. He never called me by my full name. Ever since we were kids, he had called me Vic or Vicky. I had always called him V. The only time we ever called each other by our full names was if something was terribly wrong.

I swallowed hard.

“What’s wrong, V? What is going on? Who are they and what are they doing on my showroom floor? Because they certainly aren't here to try on wedding dresses.” I tried to bring some humor into the situation because the look on his face was making me scared.

V stared at me blankly.

“I’m sorry, sis, but I did something bad… and you are not going to like it.”

Chapter two

Giovanni

Having dinner with my family was not what I had planned for this evening.

What I had originally planned was to go to the strip club, get a little tipsy, and then go play cards with the guys in one of the back rooms. I was going to pay for a few dances then, at the end of the night, I would bring a girl home, if any of them piqued my interest. I had hoped to enjoy the evening before heading off to take care of the work my father wanted taken care of in the very early hours of the morning. After all, the car dealership wasn’t going to burn itself down so our client could cash out and pay us half. Life was never that convenient.

But instead, I found myself pulling up to the front entrance of my grandmother’s house. When the matriarch of my family summons you to dinner, you go. That’s it, no arguments—unless you want to end up excommunicated.

My father may be the Italian Mafia’s top boss, but everyone knew it was my Nonna who ran the show. I usually referred to her using the Italian word for grandmother, especially when she started to intimidate me. She had fought long and hard her entire life to become the head of the De Carlos. She married our grandfather knowing he was part of the mob and worked closely with him to learn everything she could. When he died, she killed five men with her bare hands after they disagreed with her taking over the business. After that, no one argued with her again—even though no other women had ever been accepted into the fold.

I stood in front of her old, castle-like mansion and glanced up at the tiny windows at the top of the two front towers. The towers had to be about six stories high and, as far as I knew, only served as lookout stations for when the place was under attack. Nonna had seen a lot of battles in her day and was very fond of war tactics, including maintaining a fortress where the entire organization could come and shelter if necessary. Well, those from the important inner circles at least. The whole organization was quite widespread, and it would probably take more like a football stadium to fit everyone in one place.

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