Page 51 of Taboo Flames

He blinks at me, then shakes his head with a chuckle. “You were always my favorite, Gio. It’s how even death doesn’t scare you.”

“He’s been sending her threatening messages. I have to do something.”

He nods before giving me an eerie smile. “I know you do. Good thing I don’t fear death either.”

After we land six more holes, we return to our seats on the wicker chair, and a blonde, blank-faced woman appears seemingly out of thin air with wine and glasses.

I raise an eyebrow when I read the label on the bottle. “The 1947 Cheval Blanc? What’s the occasion?” The cost of the bottle is in six figures.

He pours the wine into the glasses and passes me one. Then he holds his glass up, a smile playing on his lips. “To losing our heads.”

I hesitate, then sigh and clink my glass against his. “To losing our heads.”

Giordano described it better than I would have been able to. I’ve lost my head to Aurora Vitale…and I don’t want it back.

CHAPTER 14

Giovanni

Today, I am seated with my new business partner. A man whom they call “The Priest.” He is a literal priest who is also a mafia lord, and he annihilates his enemies under the guise of it being God’s will—a true savage.

“Know what I think?” The Priest says. “The Albanians lack the fear of God, and they need to be vanquished.”

I don’t dig into The Priest’s whole religious schtick. I stopped believing in God a long time ago after he joined the rest of the world to turn his back on me, but The Priest is an avid businessman and extremely reliable.

He also doesn’t mess around, and we share common enemies.

“We can’t move that amount of drugs through Castillo’s territory without one of the damn Albanians popping out and trying to claim taxes,” I say angrily.

“The hand of God will wipe them out with fire and brimstone like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

I snort. “I’m this close to raining bullets and grenades down on them.”

The Priest shrugs. “That works too.”

“How many men can we get to guard the trucks?” I ask.

He runs his hand through his thick, white beard thoughtfully. “Most of my men are tied up in security detail for some visitors I’ll be expecting, but I can spare about five.”

“Not even close to enough,” I say, verbalizing what we are both thinking.

The attacks on our product shipment are at an all-time high, and despite our best efforts, the Albanians continuously find a way to discover our routes. We’ve even gone as far as using a decoy vehicle, but somehow, they still found out the whole plot.

I’ve done a complete sweep of my ranks to dig out the mole, but all to no avail.

Fuck knows how they are getting their information. The only thing I know at the moment is that their attacks are getting really expensive and damn annoying.

I can’t continue losing my products and sending my men on suicide missions.

“Sorry, I’m late,” another man says as he walks in. He has the same dark brown hair and sharp grey eyes as The Priest.

I immediately concluded he was the brother I spoke to on the phone several times. My physical interactions so far have been solely with The Priest, but I know their operation isn’t run entirely by him.

While The Priest is more of the…well, simply put, the religious fanatic psycho killer of the Guerras, his brother, Estefan, is more of the numbers guy.

Estefan clasps his brother on the shoulder for a long moment before taking a seat. Then he nods at me in greeting, and I nod back.

“Are you discussing the Albanians?” he asks. “I’m damn tired of those interfering bastards. We’ve lost over three million worth of products in the last month alone, and it’s fucking with our numbers.”

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