Page 65 of Corrupted Heir (Mafia Kings: Corrupted 1)

I wanted to keep her safe, but I was killing the life inside her, snuffing out her light, in my efforts to keep her heart beating. There had to be another way. But whatever way that was, it would have to wait.

Like every day for far too many days, I had a job to do. And today’s job reached a whole new level of unsavory.

I watched as he appeared from the room in the back and strode toward me. I was the first Luca in a decade to see this man’s face. I didn’t feel honored in the least. Repulsed was a better descriptor. But we needed all the support we could get as Tony’s forces grew stronger by the minute.

“Dominic Luca,” the man exclaimed as he stopped in front of the barstool next to mine and took a seat. He motioned to the bartender, and a drink appeared in front of him seconds later.

Despite his graying hair and brows, and the deep-set wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, he was still in good shape. I had no doubt he could go a few rounds of hand-to-hand combat without breaking a sweat.

“Belemonte, it’s good to see you” I lied, clenching my jaw.

I shook his hand. It was just an ordinary hand, but it seemed slimy. Or maybe it was just that giving him this ounce of respect left a bitter taste in the back of my mouth. But desperate times called for desperate measures. I just hoped this artificial partnership wouldn’t come back to bite us in the ass in the future.

Belemonte’s eyes narrowed at me. “You come to stab me in the back?” he said, his voice low and rough from years of whiskey and cigarettes. “I heard about Johnny approving your plans. If you build that casino, I’ll burn it to the fucking ground.”

I laughed. Sure he would—the day hell froze over.

He laughed and patted me on the shoulder while I resisted the urge to break his fucking arm. “I was just messing with you.”

“That’s good to know.” I could feel a headache coming on.

“Hey, I’ve heard good things about you, boy. Making such great strides, and still so young,” he said.

If he called me “boy” again, I was going to do more than rip off his fucking arm.

He squinted his beady brown eyes like he was trying to see into my mind. Could he see the hatred lurking behind my eyes? Part of me hoped so, even if it did nothing to further my cause here. But it was time to play the game.

“I’ve seen the good work you’ve been doing in Queens,” I said. A lie, of course, but smooth-talking was part of the game.

“All right.” He laughed. “’Enough beating around the bush. I accepted this meeting because it takes balls of steel to do something like that after I screwed you out of money.”

I nodded in agreement. Inane chitchat wasn’t really my thing.

“I’ve decided I’m a gambling man today, Belemonte.”

I glanced left and right, taking stock of the five men in cheap suits who had moved closer to Belemonte in the past three minutes.

“I’d hoped that we could put ourdifferencesaside and form a partnership.”

“Honestly, that whole warehouse burning down? Water under the bridge,” he said. “The production line wasn’t to my tastes, anyway. Really, you saved me from having to do it myself.”

Yeah, right. He could brush it off all he wanted. That fire put a big kink in Belemonte’s profits. But I could play along if it got me what I wanted.

“So, you’re not against a partnership?”

His crow’s feet grew deeper, and he smiled like the Cheshire cat. His teeth were unnaturally straight and white. It reminded me of Jonah Hill in Wolf of Wall Street. It was uncanny; he didn’t look quite human.

“Did you think I was an idiot? When you asked for a meeting, I knew what you wanted,” he said. “Why else would you be here? I don’t care if you want to build those casinos. You do you. The mob and the cartel are like foxes and wolves. We exist in harmony, until there’s a food shortage. Right now, things are flush, and I’m willing to see where this could take us—out of curiosity more than anything else.”

I hadn’t calculated that it would be this easy, but maybe that was just because I was used to challenges and roadblocks around every corner. Still, it never hurt to anticipate the worst. It sure as hell beat underestimating some asshole and winding up six feet under for the error.

“Build whatever you need, as long as it’s not on my territory within Queens,” he said. “You know I have to ask, though. What’s in it for me?”

Although we owned Queens, the cartel had small sections of land within the state where they could operate freely within certain bounds. It was a complicated agreement that my grandfather had established. The Free Birds grew out of control over the years, though, so the Lucas couldn’t keep full control of them. Belemonte was a slinky, successful man. If nothing else, he was good at his job.

“Partnership. That’s what’s in it for you. Fifteen percent of the profits at every casino, barring the laundering. And the dockside warehouse operation, it’s all yours,” I said.

The last part was only to sweeten the deal—our drug production was at full capacity. We produced far more than we could ever sell.

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