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

Mafia Kings: Valentino: Chapter 31

The highway followed the coast and eventually headed up into the hills. Soon we took a smaller highway farther up into the mountains.

The view was gorgeous – especially the sparkling blue of the Mediterranean behind us.

Cat would have loved to have seen this, I thought bitterly.

As far as I knew, she’d never seen the Mediterranean.

And now I’ll never get to take her.

Thirty minutes later, we took an off-ramp into nowhere. There were only a few scattered villages along the two-lane road. Everything else was rolling hills that went on for miles, full of scrub brush, boulders, and a few cedar trees here and there. Occasionally you would see a crumbling stone building, probably 200 years old, that the inhabitants had abandoned.

Then things got worse.

The road narrowed to one lane with a stomach-churning drop on one side. If there hadn’t been metal guardrails, it would’ve been incredibly easy to just go sailing off the cliff.

Thank God there wasn’t any traffic coming in the opposite direction. I had no idea how they would have gotten past us.

The road itself was awful. Chunks of asphalt were broken away, and there were potholes everywhere. The ride became a series of jarring bumps as the caravan continued.

Finally, after 25 minutes of driving out into the middle of nowhere, I saw what looked like a large stone building in the distance. It was surrounded by tall, skinny cedars and had a sloped roof of rounded clay tiles.

Is this it? I wondered.

Sure enough, we turned down a gravel road towards the building. After a few minutes, we reached a massive brick wall with a wrought-iron gate, much like the one my family had around our property in Tuscany.

Unlike ours, though, there were no surveillance cameras or automatic gates – just two guys with shotguns standing guard.

As soon as they saw the cars, they unlocked a chain around the bars and pulled the gates open.

After we drove through, they shut the doors again and locked the chain.

Beyond the brick walls, there weren’t any trees – just lots of dry grass and rocky ground. Probably so nobody could sneak across the property and attack it.

We soon came to the building I’d seen from the road. Its three-story walls were made of massive sandstone blocks worn down by centuries, with two dozen arched windows barricaded with metal bars.

I wondered if the bars were to keep people out… or in.

The SUV drove around the corner, and I realized that the wall belonged to just one of two buildings that made up a larger compound.

Between the two buildings stood a massive iron gate – not made of bars with space between them, but a solid sheet of hammered metal.

Perfect for stopping bullets, I mused.

the metal slab was a single doorway big enough for a person to

went inside. Then he and three other men manually pulled back the iron gate on creaking hinges so

entered, I noticed the rooftop terraces on either side of the gate. At least half a dozen men

Snipers nest.

between the two buildings, and I realized it was actually

gravel gave way to a worn cobblestone road that stretched for at least two hundred feet between

the right was a grassy courtyard. The fountain in the center had what looked like an ancient Roman sculpture of a woman

hung from chains embedded into the stone walls. Inside them were colorful flowers and desert-looking

SUV parked in front of the entrance to the main building: giant

driver quickly hopped out and opened

didn’t do the same for

on,” Vicari said. “Time to meet your future

the car as the

out

face was wrinkled as a walnut, with skin browned by decades of harsh sun, and white hair pulled back in

neck, lots of black lace, and long sleeves that came down to her

steps, and it was a long process just to travel a few feet – but she

said. “Ninety-one years old and sharp as

old woman, who had finally reached the bottom

Vicari said, “this

me and smiled. Her teeth were tiny

right?” Vicari said. “I got

in a thick Sicilian

a chuckle in spite of myself.

up and patted my cheek softly

a surprisingly

with guns, and her grandson was a

daughter,

the

And was immediately confused.

was a girl standing in

she was actually kind

a nice face, even

looked at me, but when our eyes met,

was dark brown, curly, and extended

old-fashioned – a floral print dress with dark brown flowers on a light brown background. Everything about it was incredibly modest: sleeves halfway to her elbows, a neckline that hid her collarbones, and a hem down to her knees. She also wore white stockings, flat brown shoes, and no jewelry of any

I wasn’t crazy about was how thin she was: tall and skinny with no boobs or hips to

but in all the right places. I knew a lot of

my wife-to-be was more of a