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.

“And the

They’re brutal. They rule with an iron fist, not the velvet glove. And they are not

to question a Sicilian’s integrity.

you’re saying a

when we make a

children, your wife, or your family, you were making a blood oath. If you swore on something important and then went back on your word, you were basically

Superstitious, maybe…

we all believed it deep down

old country,” 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

was still fucking pissed at him. “Why are you telling me all

intense. “Do NOT make any promises to a Sicilian you don’t intend

shiver ran up

tell Niccolo

this talk about promises made me think of

need an arranged marriage?” I

enough I’d had to

had to marry some chick who looked like

it,”

Niccolo-speak to realize he was trying to skirt

don’t

it.” Niccolo smirked. “She

not bring her to

protective of their women. Intensely. Don Vicari’s probably been hiding her away, waiting for the right opportunity to make

benefit

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

build alliances with other families

all of Sicily, and now he wants to expand

in the middle of a war, and we’re kind of losing. We’re not exactly the

grimly. “Don Vicari is not looked upon kindly by the mainland families of the Cosa

“A country bumpkin.”

Sicilians aren’t quite as worldly

we’re the only ones desperate enough to

“More or less.”

Fuckin’ GREAT.

some bunch of hick psychopaths, and their daughter probably had

thought of

I said.

was the guy who’d wiped out the Agrellas in Florence – and

him is because he kidnapped Bianca. While Adriano and Massimo were chasing them, she

Niccolo agreed, “Mezzasalma was from

something to do with Mezzasalma

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

him?” I asked

soul,” Niccolo reminded me. “Not a lot of things you can swear on that are more

fuckin’ hated his

make jokes like that around Don Vicari,”

wasn’t going to,” I

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