Page 8 of Snowed in with the Mafia

Nope.

I really don’t have the time for any niceties right now, and I lurch forward before I can straighten out my thoughts.

“I understand you are busy men, and your time is of utmost importance. The same can be said for me and my time,” I say and immediately regret it, but it’s fine. They need to know, I mean business.

“That said, I’ll get to the point immediately so we can deal with this matter in a mutually beneficial way.” Okay, so I’m getting right to it all in one go.

“I have some very important information to impart… in fact, what I have to tell you is beyond important and could change the course of your lives and the status of your organization as well. Without this information, you will be facing a situation so detrimental that, personally, I’m not sure how you could undo it.

“That’s why what I have to offer you is priceless, and yet all I’m asking for is to be remunerated. An amount so inconsequential it will barely make a ripple in your multi-billion-dollar fortune.” They’re worth six hundred billion dollars, and that’s only their legitimate businesses. No one knows how much wealth they’ve amassed as the heads of the Falchi Family. In total, probably a trillion dollars. It’s obscene.

“How much do you want for this information, Alessia?” Nico asks, his thick, silky eyebrows dipping to the center of his forehead as he continues to peruse every part of me. Here I go.

“Two hundred thousand dollars.” Oh, my god. This is it. I asked them for money in exchange for information.

“Consider it done,” Vincenzo says, and I swear the man thinks I’m amusing.

“I want it in writing.”

“You have our word,” Luca says, smiling. If there’s one thing certain in the underground world, it’s that when the heads of a family give you their word, it’s binding, unbreakable, and irreversible.

Except, the forefathers of the Passero family didn’t quite abide by that rule. In this case, though, it’s different. I have to think ahead. There’s every chance they’re going to twist my head off my shoulders in a rage when I tell them of the grand scheme of my uncle’s, but, I still need that money to go to Gianna. And there’s only one man I trust to make that happen.

“I still prefer it in writing, please.” I rummage in the pocket of my skirt and pull out a sheet of paper, which I unfold. Written on the page is a one-line sentence stating that they’re contractually obligated to pay me two hundred thousand dollars. It also contains Manny’s banking details. I cleared all this with him beforehand. He thought I was insane, but I promised him my plan would work, and when it comes to protecting Gianna, everything goes.

Once the money goes into his account, it will serve as a sign to him and Gianna that my counter-plan went according to plan—and that I’m still alive and will make it back home.

I hold the sheet out, and Vincenzo takes it.

“Who is Manny Phillips?” Vincenzo asks, his jaw clenching.

“A friend I trust.”

“If he’s your boyfriend, we will have to kill him,” Nico says.

“God no,” I cry. What is wrong with them?

“Manny is in love with my sister, Gianna. He’s going to ask her to marry him.” That might have been an over-share, but they can’t do anything to Manny.

Luca takes out his phone as Vincenzo hands him the sheet of paper. Silence ensues for a moment.

“Done,” Luca says, and shows me his phone with the details of the transfer to Manny’s account. I can’t believe my eyes. They paid me before even hearing what I had to tell them.

“What information do you have, Alessia?” Nico asks.

I close my eyes, swallow my nerves, and begin.

Chapter Eight

Alessia

They paid me. Just like that. I was only supposed to ask for one hundred thousand dollars; the amount needed to pay the elders of the Passero family to reclaim the farm. But then I got cocky. The additional hundred thousand will go toward fixing the house and ensuring our crop of peaches and apricots for the next season is profitable enough to sell jams and preserves. We might actually become sustainable.

“I’m sure you know everything there is to know about the Passero family. Their reputation as a proud and honorable mafia family has been tarnished over the last sixty years due to heads of the family being unsavory characters, double-crossers, and consumed by greed.

When the last don died, his son Roberto was slated to take his place. Instead, he chose to dismantle the family. His youngest brother, Tony Morena, could not accept that all that remained of the Passero family were the elders at the table, and that was only due to the law of the Italian mafia. As you know, theReale Doratodictates that a mafia family of the committee can only be dormant, not extinguished.

“When Tony and his wife, Martina, discovered it was the year the Falchi were seeking a virgin to bear their heir, they saw an opportunity and set everything into motion. They entered a virgin into the virgin registry.” I pause, reconsidering my wording. I can never let them know that the Vergine Selettore was blackmailed into this scheme as well.

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