Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1 Read online

  Angelina had never spoken about it before. I had never shared it with her. How the fuck did she know?

  “Achille is giving you private information now.” I took a step forward and she held her ground. “Why is that, la mia promessa?”

  She laughed, the breath coming out of her mouth in a cold fog. “That’s all you ever call me. Your promised.”

  “Would you like me to call you something different? In a month, I’ll call you my wife.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her teeth clenched and her jaw tightened. “All that matters is, I’m yours. I belong to you. You own me.”

  “Your point?”

  She laughed even harder and then sighed. “I’m pregnant, Vittorio.”

  “Good,” I said. “That pleases me.” It seemed the warnings about protection not being a hundred percent were spot on. I’d always protected myself with her. But there were a few times we were rough and things got shady.

  “If my father finds out that I had—”

  “He won’t touch you.” If her father found out that I had sex with his daughter before marriage, it could cause some tension. Angelo had a bad temper. He’d go as far as pulling down her pants and whipping her ass with a belt if he found out that she had disgraced him. She was only eighteen, but as the old saying goes, age is just a number. She was mature beyond her years. She had to be.

  Her phone rang and she turned from me, searching in her purse. A moment later, the phone was up to her ear and she was talking quietly. Whoever she was talking to, they were talking about where we were headed.

  My maternal grandfather’s first cousin, Tito Sala, was in town, and we were supposed to meet at the restaurant Angelina and I planned on going to. While she was busy changing our plans, I sent a quick text to Tito letting him know where he could meet me. Earlier, he said he had something to discuss with me, and it was important. He was married to Lola, a Fausti by blood.

  My phone was back in my pocket before she turned around.

  “Change of plans,” she said, telling me something I already knew. “Mamma ate at Rosa’s tonight, and not only was it packed, but Ray ran out of veal. I want veal parmigiana.” She touched her stomach. “We’ll go to Dolce instead.”

  I nodded but said nothing else. I refused to move. She knew why, so she went on to explain.

  “What I repeated to you, I overheard in a private conversation, Vittorio. Your father and Achille were having dinner, and as I passed the dining room, I overheard. You never told me that before.” She shrugged. “It made me curious.”

  “It’s none of your business,” I said.

  “Right.” She turned from me again. “Let’s just go to dinner. I’m hungry and cold.”

  “Angelina,” I said.

  Before she turned to face me, a cloud of breath drifted from her mouth. She was almost too eager to get to the restaurant.

  “You know the rules. You’ll be my wife, but what happens in my family is my business. Unless I tell you what’s going on, you’ll stick to your business, understood?” There was a reason why I knew her as a child, protected her even. I was molding her to be my wife. She had to have rules, or this life would slay the both of us.

  “Perfectly,” she said, more than a bite to her tone. “But my business is yours.” The words were said underneath her breath. I didn’t bother contradicting them because she spoke the truth.

  We walked next to one another in silence until I cleared my throat. “We’ll tell the family about the pregnancy when we get back from our honeymoon.”

  “Fine,” she said. “At least I’ll be out of his house and away from him by then.”

  She loved her father, but she feared him more. For her, an arranged marriage meant freedom. An arranged marriage for me meant that I’d be in even deeper, so deep that I’d never find a way out, unless it was in a body bag.

  By the time we made it to the restaurant, the breath was coming faster from her mouth, and her feet showed no sign of slowing. Again, she was almost too eager. I went to put my hand on her lower back and usher her into the restaurant, but she shook her head.

  “Let’s go through the back,” she said. “Gabriella and Bobby are having dinner. Mamma told me. I don’t feel like catching the gossip train tonight. Patrizio has our private table reserved.”

  Bobby worked for my father, and Gabriella was one of Angelina’s many cousins. Every time we saw her out—or at family gatherings, or passing her in the hall—she had nothing to talk about but the wedding. Waa. Waa. Waa. The woman could talk for days without needing a glass of water.

  As we turned the corner, entering into the dark and damp alleyway that ran parallel to the restaurant, the zippy sounds of Louis Prima met us, along with the smell of boiling pasta, roasting garlic, stewing tomatoes, and tonight’s already freezing trash from the dumpster.

  Instead of stopping to let me open the door for her, as usual, she stood in front of it, staring at the metal handle. A second later her eyes darted up to meet mine before they returned to the cold brass.

  “You’re stalling,” I said, calling her out on her odd behavior.

  Louis Prima sang out “Angelina” from behind the door, and her eyes flew up, her body tense. When the realization washed over her that no one had called her name, she visibly relaxed, but I knew better. She was wound tight.

  “You’re being foolish, Vittorio.”

  “Am I, Princess?”

  She whirled on me, and I caught her wrist before she slapped me across the face. “Fuck. You,” she spat at me.

  “Touched a nerve?” Her father called her Princess, and she hated it. She hated it so much that during our private meeting to discuss the terms of our marriage—“this is what I expect from you,” I’d demanded; “this is what I expect from you,” she’d countered—she requested that I never call her that. But something was off tonight, and whatever she had locked down on her tongue, she needed to get it off of her fucking chest. It was unlike her to keep quiet.

  She yanked her wrist out of my hold. “You know you did! You know exactly what you’re doing. At all times! You’re so cold. So…” She paused, like she was trying to collect her thoughts. “It doesn’t matter. There is no changing you! It’s useless to even waste my time and breath.”

  I lifted my arm, making my jacket fall back, exposing my wrist. My expensive watch lit up the darkness and the wolf on my hand. “Time.” I motioned toward the Panerai. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me when I spoke those last words. “What do you know—”

  Before she could finish, two big goons I didn’t recognize stepped out of Dolce. Patrizio ran it, but it was just a front for the Scarpones. One of the goons smoked a cigarette. The other one had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket, collar pulled up to his ears. Each man took a spot next to Angelina.

  “I’ll only say this once,” I said.

  “Say what?” Cigarette said. His Irish accent was light, but I caught it.

  “Move.”

  “Or?” Leather Jacket said. He was Italian, but not a man I knew.

  I said nothing, staring at them, giving them the chance to retreat without me having to use violence.

  “The baby’s not yours,” Angelina blurted.

  It took me a moment to break eye contact with the two goons and concentrate on her.

  “I can’t marry a man who doesn’t love me,” she continued, and I could see how the two fuckers standing next to her made her feel brave. Confident. “I hate that we have to part on these terms, but I promise to bring you flowers. It’s the least I can do.”

  My eyes moved with the two fuckers next to her, who were moving closer—not to me but to her.

  “After all these years you didn’t learn a fucking thing from me, did you?” I said.

  “I learned enough to know that you’re not capable of love. You’re too fucked up to even attempt to feel it. Noemi—”

  “Keep her name out of your mouth,” I almo
st growled.

  Even with the two next to her, she knew she had gone too far, so she changed course, cutting right to another quick. “Do you honestly think I’d have a child from you? I want the Scarpone blood, but not from you.”

  “You’re stupider than I gave you credit for,” I said.

  She went to take a step toward me, no doubt to land the slap that she couldn’t before, but my brother took a step outside, wrapping an arm around her waist.

  “Come now, sweetheart,” he said. “Don’t you think my brother’s having a rough night as it is? Go easy on him.”

  “Achille,” I said. “I hear congratulations are in order. You’re going to be a father.” The pieces easily fell into place—her confession and his presence.

  His smile came slow, turning up the corners of his mouth like the fucking Joker. “She told you?”

  “In not so many words.” I returned the smile.

  He shrugged. “We both know it doesn’t really matter.”

  Angelina looked between the two of us, confusion warring with the stoicism on her face. I saw her throat bob when she swallowed hard. “Why didn’t you just kill her, Vittorio?” A brief show of remorse joined the battlefield of emotions she tried to hide.

  “Yeah, why didn’t you kill her, Pretty Prince Vittorio?” Achille mocked. “Not that this would’ve turned out any differently, but you made it so, so easy to convince Pop that one of us had to go. He was all set on giving you the kingdom one day—beautiful wife, beautiful home, beautiful offspring to carry on the family name, and all that belonged to him—and there you go, fucking it all up by betraying him.”

  “We both know it doesn’t really matter,” I said, repeating Achille’s words. It summed up everything so perfectly. All I needed was a bow to wrap things up.

  Achille tucked his nose deep into Angelina’s hair, breathing her in, his eyes shut tight. “Thank you, Angel,” he said. “For everything, but it seems your loyalty to my side was unneeded. In the end, my brother put the nail in his own coffin. You just gave him one more thing to regret. Who needs a woman like you when a man is better off in the bed of a viper? Treachery is an unforgivable sin, sweetheart, no matter who in my family you cross.”

  Her eyes froze and her breath came faster as he slid his nose up higher, along the skin of her face, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. He whispered something in her ear, and she closed her eyes, a lone tear falling. The light of the restaurant caught its slow track.

  Achille finally opened his eyes, gave me a wide smile, and then shoulder checked me on the way out. The two goons next to Angelina took her by the arms; at the same time, four men came up behind me, one holding a knife to my throat. Angelina started fighting, screaming at Achille to come back—“How could you do this to me!”—before she started screaming for me to help her.

  You want to scream for me now, Princess? After you set me up to be slaughtered? The words were on the tip of my tongue, but they’d fall on deaf ears. Instead of screaming for me, she should scream for God, the only force strong enough to stop this. No one was getting out of this alive. Not if the king wolf had ordered it and there was no angel to stop it.

  2

  Mariposa

  Present Day

  Only the truly poor know the difference between being hungry and being starved. My stomach made an obnoxious noise, reminding me of how starved I was. How long had it been since I last ate? One day? Two? I had scraps here and there, crackers from some fast food restaurant that they left out with the ketchup and other condiments sealed in plastic, but that was about it.

  My stomach made an even louder noise, and I mentally told it to shut up. It should’ve been used to the neglect.

  It wasn’t easy making it in a city that easily chewed you up and spit you out. I’d never lived anywhere other than New York. Dreamed about it, but I never had the means to leave. Funds meant freedom, and I was not free by any means.

  Even sadder than the state of my growling stomach was the fact that once I faded from this place called earth (or for some of us, hell), there would be nothing of me to truly leave behind.

  “What is this, Mari?” I said to myself. “A pity-fuck day? This is your own fault, and you know it. You shouldn’t be standing here.”

  I couldn’t help myself, though. As poor as the streets of New York could be, there was another side to it that was every bit the definition of opulent. It was hard to overlook the draw, the richness, the sheer absurdity of it all. How some people were barely making it, eating week-old bread and wearing someone else’s (too small) shoes to keep their feet clean, hustling for their next dollar, while others were wasting thousands of dollars on ass implants and clothes they’d never wear.

  It wasn’t that I begrudged them these things—who am I kidding? I do fucking begrudge them these things. Especially the ass implants when my stomach hosted a pack of hungry wolves howling to be fed.

  Yeah, New York had chewed me up, but it had yet to spit me out. There was no doubt, though, that I was close to becoming dumpster trash one of these days. I’d probably end up with the wasted food I’d love to eat.

  I sighed, long and hard, fogging up the glass window of Macchiavello’s. The name was done in gold and looked elegant. It was the kind of restaurant that you probably needed to make a reservation for months in advance. On the opposite side of the shiny glass, expensive suits and fancy dresses dined, most of them getting the steak. They usually did.

  My mouth watered. “If we make it out of this alive, we’ll be getting the steak, too.”

  It was good to dream, right? I could put it down in my dream journal. I once saw this woman with a mega-watt smile and hair extensions say that I, too, could live the dream, my best life, if only I had one of these journals. I should list all of the things I was thankful for on a daily basis, even things I didn’t have, things that seemed so far beyond my grasp that sometimes I called myself foolish for even thinking about them. The idea was to project all that my heart desired onto my life.

  Will it to be true.

  My entire journal was made up of I am’s.

  I am thankful that I am no longer poor.

  I am thankful that I am a millionaire who wants for nothing.

  I am thankful that I am a world traveler.

  And the one that I’d rather die than let anyone see. I am thankful to be loved beyond measure by someone special.

  I made a mental note to add I am thankful for the steak I had at a ritzy restaurant to the top of my list. Maybe I needed to get more specific more often. Come to think of it, I think the happiness guru mentioned doing just that. I was at work at the time, so maybe some of the details got lost in translation a bit.

  This happiness guru never gave a time limit on when these things were supposed to start happening. I sure as fuck hoped it would be soon. That steak looked so good. If one of the people behind the glass needed a kidney, I’d trade mine for the steak. As far as I knew, both of mine were in pretty good shape.

  Besides, why keep two when you only need one? In light of the prospect, I wasn’t a gluttonous person, and if someone needed my assistance in return for a good meal—just once in my life—I was there for it. Yesterday.

  “Hey!”

  I turned around at the sound of the voice, holding tighter to the straps of my old leather backpack. Normally I wouldn’t have turned around, but the voice was close and the reflection in the glass seemed to be staring right at me.

  “You talkin’ to me?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Get the fuck away from here. You’re scaring our customers. Staring in the glass like some wide-eyed bug that needs to be squashed.”

  Even though his words stung me to my core, because I knew that he knew I was dreaming of the food behind the glass and had no means to even enjoy a burger from some fast-food joint, much less this five-star restaurant, I squared my shoulders and narrowed my eyes against his. “You and what army are going to make me?”

  “You don’t move along, I’m go
ing to have security escort you to a place you might find more your speed. The dumpsters.”

  If I had any fucks left to give, I would’ve certainly given one to that underhanded crack. “I’m doing nothing wrong! I’m trying to decide if I want to come in for a bite or not.” Lie. “But seeing as your restaurant is probably full of rodents like yourself, I think I’ll pass.”

  And to think I was willing to give a kidney for one of his crummy steaks. I needed to up my standards some before thoughts like that took hold and appeared in my journal. Who knew when that shit was going to come true? I’d probably end up owing this asshole a kidney for a steak.

  He doubled over and belly laughed. Then he stopped suddenly and pointed behind me. “I’m not going to tell you again, Dumpster Princess. Get the fuck out of here or—”

  The words died in his throat as an expensive black car drove up to the restaurant and parked in front of it like he owned the place. Like he was king of the world. I couldn’t tell if the driver was a he or a she, but something about the entire scene screamed male. Followed by dominance.

  I thought about walking before the mysterious man stepped out, but since he had silenced Smart Mouth, I waited to see how this was going to play out.

  Smart Mouth almost ran to the fancy car and greeted the man—he was a man. Smart Mouth’s voice was eager to please, the exact opposite of how he’d spoken to me.

  Smart Mouth chattered on as the man stepped onto the sidewalk and headed straight to the door of the restaurant. I wasn’t aware of many men, but this one… Not going to lie, I couldn’t look away from.

  Under what was no doubt a custom-made suit, he probably had more muscles than I could count. He was tall with wide shoulders, jet-black hair, and golden skin. His nose was angular, as was the shape of his face. His lips were full. I wished I could see his eyes, but they were hidden underneath a pair of sunglasses that were probably worth more than I’d see in more than three years.