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.

agreed. “And the other families in the Council,

rule with an iron fist, not the velvet glove. And they are

question a Sicilian’s integrity. That

a

we make a promise, we swear on the things we cherish the

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 calling down ruin on yourself and risking the deaths of everyone you

Superstitious, maybe…

it deep down in our

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 his enemies – would kill him on principle alone because he can never be trusted

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

“Do NOT make any promises to a Sicilian you don’t intend to keep. Because if you go back on your word… they’ll fucking kill you for

shiver ran up and down my

could tell Niccolo

promises made me

Vicari even need an arranged marriage?” I

enough I’d had to

had to marry some chick who looked like

it,”

to realize he was trying to

don’t know,”

ever seen her – but I doubt it.” Niccolo smirked. “She might not be up to your usual standards, but

not bring

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

benefit him,” I

already told you, that’s the entire reason

alliances with other families

bet it’s because he already controls all of Sicily, and

the middle of a war, and we’re kind

the mainland families of the Cosa Nostra. They think he’s

“A country bumpkin.”

Niccolo warned. “Yes, the Sicilians aren’t quite as worldly as some of the other families… but they’re ten

you’re saying is, we’re the only ones desperate enough to strike a deal

“More or less.”

Fuckin’ GREAT.

a goat to some bunch of hick psychopaths, and their daughter probably had

thought

a second,” I said.

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

is because he kidnapped Bianca. While Adriano and Massimo were chasing them, she yanked on the wheel of Mezzasalma’s car

agreed, “Mezzasalma

Vicari had something to do with Mezzasalma

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 targeting

believe him?” I asked

“Not a lot of things you can swear on that

he fuckin’ hated his

that around Don

wasn’t going to,” I protested

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