Page 207 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

Instead, it was all about works of art. Paintings, statutes, that sort of thing.

And pictures of cities – Tokyo, Athens, Moscow.

And cat videos.

They seemed to like those.

“It’s socute!”Isabella cried out – alot.

When we finally got to Cefalù, I took the phone back.

“Awwwww!” both girls whined.

“Time to go see the world in person and not on a fuckin’ phone,” I said as I handed it to Paolo.

“…okay,” Isabella grumbled.

Cefalù was a beautiful medieval town on the seaside.

Narrow, winding streets made of cobblestone.

Apartment balconies overhead with brightly colored laundry drying on the railings.

And everywhere you looked, shops for tourists: cafés and restaurants, clothing stores, knick-knack stalls full of tchotchkes.

There were all those shops for tourists because there were touristseverywhere.They thronged the streets, snapping pictures, and stopped off for cappuccinos or glasses of wine.

Isabella and Ludavica alternated between staring at everything in openmouthed wonder and shrinking away from the crowds of people.

It was no wonder they shrank away: there were probably more people in the streets of Cefalù than they’d seen at any one point in their entire lives – except maybe at mafia weddings. Maybe.

I got on one side and positioned Paolo on the other. We ran interference for the girls, acting as bodyguards as we pushed our way through the crowds.

We finally reached a place where the tourists thinned out, and I herded the girls over to a streetside restaurant. We took a table and gave the server our orders, which came out a fewminutes later. I had a beer, Paolo had coffee, and both Isabella and Ludavica got glasses of white wine.

“Wow,” Isabella said, her head swiveling around to take it all in.

“What’s it like getting out of the house for the first time?”

“Amazing,” she murmured as she stared around.

She meant it. Though she was clearly overwhelmed by all the people, I could see in her eyes that she was taking in all the little details.

“Oh my gosh – it’s aTesta di Moro!”she cried out.

That’s ‘head of a Moor’ in Italian.

‘Moor’ was the old term for any Muslim from North Africa hundreds of years ago.

“Awhat?”I asked, looking around.

“Those faces over there! I’ve read about them, but I’ve never actually seen one before!”

Isabella pointed at a nearby shop with a bunch of ceramic pots sculpted to look like human faces, always in pairs.

One was a man with a mustache and a turban, and the other was a beautiful woman, sometimes with a crown.

I’d seen variations of them in tourist shops in Pozzallo and Gela but hadn’t thought to ask about them. Mostly because I hated Rocco and his crew and didn’t want to talk to them.

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