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

Chapter 37

Mafia Kings: Valentino: Chapter 37

An hour and a half later, we pulled off the main highway, navigated through a bunch of smaller streets, and wound up at an open-air café within sight of the Mediterranean.

Outside on the patio, a bunch of wannabe tough guys were sitting and standing around.

They were trying to look like badasses but not quite pulling it off.

To the average person, they were probably frightening – but none of them had the presence of Dario, Adriano, or Massimo. And they didn’t look one-tenth as scary as Don Vicari.

Plus, they were all dressed in tracksuits or clubbing clothes, with too-tight shirts to accentuate their biceps.

Super try-hard, super cringe.

In the center of the group was a smaller guy holding court. He was dressed in a black tracksuit with red and white piping on the sleeves and legs. He wore a wife beater under the unzipped jacket, although he probably shouldn’t have. It revealed his slight gut.

I could tell he was Don Vicari’s son just from the facial resemblance: the same vicious eyes, the same meaty nose. But he didn’t have a mustache, and his hair was buzzcut down to a dark fuzz on his scalp.

All in all, he looked like a cheap, two-bit thug.

How he acted towards me didn’t change my impression.

“Ahhh, here he is,” Rocco half-joked, half-sneered as Paolo and I walked up. “My new brother-in-law. Pop said you were pretty as a little girl. He wasn’t kiddin’, was he, boys?”

They all laughed.

“Better than being ugly as fuck,” I replied.

Rocco’s smile faded as he glared up at me. “You’re late.”

“What, did I hold you up from eating another pastry?”

The tough guys around him shifted uncomfortably. Apparently nobody talked back to Rocco.

“Funny guy,” Rocco said in a pissed-off voice. Then he turned to Paolo and tapped his Rolex. “What the fuck?”

Before Paolo could speak, I said, “That’s my fault. I ordered him to go see Rosolini.”

Rocco gave me a bewildered look. “Why?”

“My family’s originally from there.”

“That piece of shit town? My condolences,” he said with a laugh, and all his buddies laughed, too.

That pissed me off.

Partially because I kind of agreed with him –

But I wasn’t about to let him know that.

“My last name’s Rosolini,” I said coldly.

“Then I’m doubly fuckin’ sorry,” Rocco said with a grin. “Must suck to be named after a shithole.”

All his buddies laughed again.

I smiled. “Well, we can’t all be named after child-molesting, wannabe priests.”

‘Vicari’ was Italian for ‘vicars,’ which were lower-level representatives of the Catholic church.

There were a couple of scattered laughs from the dumber thugs –

Until they realized Rocco was pissed, and they shut the hell up.

“What did you just say?” Rocco asked, his nostrils flaring.

“Oh – I thought we were just having fun. But sure, if you want me to say it again: we can’t all be named after – ”

Rocco shot to his feet, his chair scraping on the concrete, and stomped over to me.

I had to stifle a smile.

Dude was 5’3”. He didn’t even come up to my chin.

I soooo wanted to reach over and rub his head like I would a little kid –

But guns might get pulled if I did that, and I didn’t have a gun.

So… not a good idea.

There was silence from all his friends as Rocco glared up at me, his chest all puffed out like an angry rooster.

Then he gave a dead-eyed smile. He was obviously copying his father, but Rocco couldn’t quite make his look as unnerving.

“You’re a real joker, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Sometimes.”

“You like bustin’ people’s balls, huh?”

“Only if I know they can take it.”

That last comment was totally calculated on my part.

implying that he could take

and got pissed off, then he was showing he couldn’t take a

He was a master of verbal judo, and I’d picked up a few things from watching

realized the bind he was in and

said with a grin to his buddies, and everybody started chuckling again, albeit uneasily. “You hungry, tough

trying to build bridges, I figured I should meet

disappeared. “Well, too fuckin’ bad, because you’re late. Late fuckers don’t eat, they go straight to work. Now

to build bridges,

to cut me down to

going to be

behind. Lucky

Tony and

and just nodded after Rocco quit talking. “Nice

up and watch the pros do it. Time to

‘making money,’ he meant

strolled from shop to shop, laughing and jabbering as they went, acting like it

friends entered a restaurant or shop, the owners immediately

Nothing bad happened, though.

Not at first.

much

we’re callin’ him. You’re gonna be seein’ him a lot in the months to come, so memorize the

was too stupid to do

shops, one after

more nauseated as

movie, forced to watch a bunch of douchebags

out of Rocco’s hands, give it back to the shopkeepers, and deliver a little speech: These assholes won’t be back again –

that was a good way to

show, and that I could take them with the training

Don Vicari’s hardened foot soldiers

was trying to do when he

had put his foot down: no more drugs, no more human trafficking, no more prostitution, no more extortion – all things Papa

but he held fast,

we were

didn’t prey on

like Don Vicari and

everyday people they were shaking down

this ill will for what

the

up, our family made ten times

Vicari was richer than us, why bother

come up with was this was the way Don Vicari kept his idiot

there wasn’t

one of the shopkeepers couldn’t

kind of place that sells t-shirts

was in his

us enter the shop, his face

a chipper voice. “It’s your favorite

metal paperweights of

the women in broken English. “Please,

answered in an American accent. “But it’s the middle of

I said in English. “We need to confer with

“But – ”

at the

don’t think the women understood Italian, but

out the door without

to the old man. “So, Nazzareno –

Vicari… please…”

asked, turning his head slightly like he was hard of

have your

asked in fake

let me know he was expecting

all a

an example of the

stomach tightened with

sick, Signor Vicari,” Nazzareno whimpered. “I’ve had

fuck do I care about your wife?” Rocco

his arm to rake a bunch of

I’d had a pistol, I would have

man said, nearly crying. “I have to close the shop when I take her –

fuckin’ hire somebody,

afford to hire anyone – no one wants to work for what I

my fuckin’ money, and this is the second time in two months that you’re late,”

asshole ripped down a display of t-shirts hanging on the wall.

at the guy who’d torn down the display, then looked back at Rocco. “I know, Signore,

know what we do to people who’re late?” Rocco asked in a low, threatening

give you everything in the cash register, but –

it’s not gonna be enough, is it?” Rocco said with

of snow globes

shattered, and water spilled over the

and held out a handful

the register and held them out, too. “This is another eight euros – nine –

Rocco slapped his hand and sent the

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