Page 115 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

But now, at 7:45 on a weekday morning, it was deserted.

From a side street, I could hear theputt puttof a scooter racing past, but not much else.

No church bells, no laughter, no talking… just the silence of a dead town.

Now I knew why my father had never brought us to visit.

The fantasy had been better.

“Let’s go,” I said to Paolo as I got back in the SUV.

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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 tolooklike 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. Buthe 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. Popsaidyou 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.”

“Thatpiece 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 –

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