Page 185 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

We’d also drunk anothertwobottles from the mini-fridge.

Okay, okay…

She’d had maybe three glasses total.

I’d drunk all the rest.

I was still mildly buzzed from two and a half bottles of champagne over the last six hours.

Not only that, but I was 100% sure he wouldn’t smell sex on me because I’d taken a shower –

And he wouldn’t smell anything else because Cat had followed Paolo’s advice about not wearing perfume.

I walked over to Don Vicari, leaned over, and breathed in his face.

By the way, this was – by far – the weirdest fucking thing that had ever happened to me in theCosa Nostra:a mafia don sniffing my breath like he was a parent busting a 13-year-old kid for raiding the liquor cabinet.

“What the fuck isthat?”he barked.

“Champagne.”

He looked at me with disgust. “Champagne?! What the fuck areyou, a faggot?”

My blood boiled in one second flat.

I didn’t care if anybody was gay or not –

But I knew Vicari did.

And he was quite obviously questioning my manhood –

The worst insult he could level at me.

I about lost my fucking mind –

And I was already buzzed –

So I did something I probably shouldn’t have.

Scratch that:

Something Idefinitelyshouldn’t have.

“No,” I hissed, “and if you ever call me that again, I’ll slap the fucking shit out of you.”

Rocco looked over at me in wide-eyed terror.

Don Vicari was shocked –

And then his expression turned murderous.

He leapt up and swung his arm at me in an open-handed slap –

But I’d studied hand-to-hand combat for months under Lars.

I didn’t even think. I just blocked him.

My forearm struck the inside of his,HARD,and stopped the blow.

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