Mafia Kings: Valentino: Dark Mafia Romance Series #6 by Olivia Thorn

Chapter 27

Mafia Kings: Valentino: Chapter 27

The pilot announced over the intercom that we’d be landing in Palermo in 15 minutes. Between the crackling of the speaker and his Sicilian accent, I could barely understand him.

Niccolo came over, sat down opposite me, and buckled up.

“You can literally sit anywhere else in the plane,” I snapped, gesturing at the empty seats around us.

“Not if I want to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to YOU.”

“Good, you can just listen. That’ll make it shorter.”

“Niccolo – ”

“Shut up. This might be our last opportunity to talk by ourselves, and you need to know what you’re walking into.”

I stared at him. “What do you mean, ‘what I’m walking into’?”

“Sicilians aren’t the same as other families in the Cosa Nostra, and you haven’t been around any of them long enough to know the differences.”

“Papa was Sicilian,” I pointed out.

“Nonni and Nonna were from the old country, yes,” Niccolo said, using the words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother.’ “But they had Papa after they came over. He was raised in Tuscany, and he married a girl from Florence. He was always more Tuscan than he was Sicilian.”

“But – ”

“I need you to be quiet and listen, alright? We don’t have much time.”

“If it was so fucking important, why didn’t you talk to me before?”

“Because you were being a snot-nosed little punk.”

“Fuck you.”

“Valentino, this is a direct order from your consigliere, and it holds the same weight as an order from your Don: shut the fuck up and listen to me.”

Niccolo wasn’t playing around.

I grumbled, but I didn’t say anything else.

“Sicily was conquered repeatedly throughout the last 2500 years. The Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the French, the Spanish – every few hundred years, the island changed hands.

“This led to a streak of fatalism amongst Sicilians. They’re a proud people, but they’re a conquered people. There’s a sort of… underlying attitude that there’s nothing they can do about their fates.

“That’s the environment that gave rise to the Cosa Nostra. The mafia was able to flourish because it was a bunch of men who said Fuck it and decided to take control of their destinies – and everyone around them just accepted it as inevitable, something they couldn’t do anything about. That is, until the Cosa Nostra finally took it too far, the civilians had enough, and the cops and judges started jailing everybody in the 1980s.

“The most far-sighted families of the Cosa Nostra started spreading into the rest of Italy long before that. They were secretive about it, but they built their power bases outside Sicily.”

“Like Nonni,” I said.

Nonni,” Niccolo agreed. “And the other families in the Council,

the thing: Sicilian mafiosos are old-school. They’re brutal. They rule with an iron fist, not the velvet glove. And they

a Sicilian’s integrity. That wasn’t just some

saying a Sicilian

– but you know how when we make a promise, we swear on the things we cherish

Nostra, if you took an oath on the life of your children, your wife, or your family, you were making a blood oath. If you swore on something important and then went back on your

Superstitious, maybe…

believed it deep down in our

Niccolo said. “If a Sicilian makes a promise to you and swears on something he considers holy, that’s a promise he’ll never break. To do so would be an infamia. Other Sicilian gangsters – his allies, not just

sarcastically. I was still fucking pissed at him. “Why

a Sicilian you don’t intend to keep. Because if you go back on your word… they’ll fucking

shiver ran up and down

tell Niccolo was

about promises made me think of

does Don Vicari even need an arranged marriage?” I asked. “Is his daughter

I’d had to

marry some

doubt it,” Niccolo said

realize he was trying to

don’t know,”

I haven’t ever seen her – but I doubt it.” Niccolo smirked. “She might not be up to your usual standards, but I’m sure she’s

her? Why not bring her to

thing about Sicilians: they’re intensely protective of their women. Intensely. Don Vicari’s probably been hiding her away,

benefit him,” I said

course. I already told you, that’s the entire reason for

build alliances with other families on

already controls all of Sicily, and now he wants to expand his power base and branch

why us? We’re in the middle of a war, and we’re kind of

the mainland families of the Cosa Nostra. They

“A country bumpkin.”

aren’t quite as worldly as some

we’re the only ones

“More or less.”

Fuckin’ GREAT.

me off like a goat to some bunch of hick psychopaths, and their daughter probably

I thought of

I said. “Mezzasalma

out the Agrellas in Florence – and nearly killed Adriano while he was

only reason we’d finally gotten him is because he kidnapped Bianca. While Adriano and Massimo were chasing them, she

Niccolo agreed, “Mezzasalma was from

had something to

on his dead wife’s soul that he knew nothing about Mezzasalma’s plans. Don Vicari says he gave Mezzasalma the green light to leave Sicily and strike out for new territory on the mainland, but he says he had nothing to do with Mezzasalma

you believe him?” I

me. “Not a lot of things you can swear

he fuckin’ hated

like that around Don Vicari,” Niccolo

wasn’t going to,” I

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