Page 36 of Isle of Beauty

“Why not?” My father perks up with interest.

“She’s mine.”

Silence ensues. I wait with bated breath, my heart beating a drum in my chest. His eyes spark with curiosity and something I can’t decipher. He doesn’t need to know I hate her as much as I do him and that they’re both going down at the end of it, even if my soul dies with them.

“Since when?”

“Since before she got married to Eduardo Garcia. I’ve been looking for her for three years.”

Alessio seems satisfied with my response, a slow knowing smile spreading under his beard. He surprises me and asks if Julian knows.

I wince. I wanted to tell him first but I had no time. He’s the son who’s been trained as the perfect little mafia prince since before he could walk. I’ll need to make amends but that’s an issue for later.

“There would need to be training. A lot of it. Are you sure you know what you are asking for, figliolu?”

FIFTEEN

LANA

SHOWING UP TO FAMILY DINNER UNINVITED IS FUCKING RUDE

Giulia and I are fifteen minutes late when we pull up in the Bartoli’s driveway. Everyone’s car is already neatly parked to the side of the mansion overlooking the sea.

“Bea’s gonna flip,” she complains.

“She’ll understand business is more important. We need to track the motherfuckers who set our property on fire this afternoon. How the hell did no one catch a glimpse of the culprit? In fucking daylight?”

When we received the call from our contact at the police station that one of our establishments in the city centre of Sant Armellu caught fire, Giulia and I ran to the place. No one was working at the small restaurant we use as a front for laundering money, the shift only starting later in the day, but the place was unsalvageable.

“G, I need you to get to the fire department for their report. I’ll tell Bea you’re working.”

“I don’t want to miss Mammona’s ravioli,” she groans.

“I’ll get you some later tonight, I promise. I really need to update the family. I don’t like this. Out of all the buildings in the area, Tino’s Pizzeria was the only building which burnt. Why did the fire not spread if it was an accident?”

“Fine. But you better be at my place with those damn ravioli’s by ten pm. I’m not starving because of you.” She sighs then kisses my cheek and turns back her heels to get back into town.

As I enter the house, I find my mother and Bea Bartoli on the large sofa to my left, glasses of champagne held aloft in their dainty manicured hands. They’re the perfect image of what it looks like to be a mafia wife. Sophisticated, supportive to their husbands, beautiful but unassuming, caring but not about business. My sister Angèle looks exactly the same, like a costume you get at the shop. She and her husband are absent today, but Marie and Lisa are lounging in the garden. Knowing them, they probably stole a bottle of Alessio’s best wine and are drinking casually, pretending they don’t really want to be here.

“You’re late,” Bea pouts.

You don’t come to dinner at Bea Bartoli’s house late, unless you want to get the humiliation of the century in front of your entire family. Julian is usually the one getting humiliated, to my delight. I might have even recorded a few of these sessions. Maybe we’ll play them at our wedding reception. I snicker at the thought.

I kiss her on the cheek. “One of our buildings burnt down, Bea, so I was a little preoccupied. You know how it is.”

She frowns but doesn’t ask questions. She knows the council needs to hear it first. None of them are here so my best guess is that they have retired to Alessio’s office.

A frown lines my brow. They never start without me. “Where are they?”

“In Alessio’s office, Lana. We have an impromptu guest.”

My eyes widen in surprise. Who would dare come uninvited to the weekly family dinner? Last time we added a new placemat was when Angèle married Lino and he finally got his seat at the table. Literally.

As I take the first steps in the corridor towards the closed office door, a sense of foreboding falls onto my shoulders. Alessio never closes his door unless the council, made of him and Julian Bartoli, my father Pietro Moretti, my uncle and cousin, Umberto and Dominic Moretti, and myself, is complete. All decisions are made with unanimous votes.

Whatever awaits behind isn’t good.

I knock but don’t wait for an answer to turn the doorknob and enter.

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