Page 17 of Luciano (Belles & Mobsters 1)

I never told my father all that happened that day except that she betrayed our shipment location. He didn’t believe it. My old father was actually on her side, defending her. After that, the only thing he told me that day was that Vitale men never let their women go, and he never taught me to be ruthless to women.

By the time I went to get her, she was already gone.

“She won’t have a choice,” I answered my father. “She is my wife and her place is here.” In our world, divorce was non-existent. It is till death do us part, literally.

He nodded, pleased with my answer. I wondered what was going through his head. Without another word, he carried on to the patio and towards his garden he maintained. That garden has been his only consolation since my mother’s and sister’s deaths. When Grace came into the picture, she’d help him mess around in there, but since her disappearance, he kept himself busy expanding it.

Grace was Papà’s willing pupil when it came to his garden. It was as if he kept it going for her, waiting for her to come back. She told him she loved white lilies so he had a whole section dedicated to white lilies and nurtured them, like they were his children.

I knew from the background I had Roberto, the man that worked for me for the past thirteen years, run on Grace, she had never stepped foot in the garden before meeting my father. Her life was a fancy, golden gilded cage from the moment she was born.

Her parents had guards assigned to her even before she was born. She was treated like royalty, a combination of Astor and Romano family legacy pretty much making her an American princess. The odd part was that for all of Grace’s famous family on her mother’s and father’s side, there was not much in her background. Her father, while being a Romano, chose to become an ambitious political figure with the whisperings of presidential potential. Her mother was a famous opera singer that came from a wealthy family.

Once her parents died in a car accident, her uncle and grandmother took her in and information on Grace became even more scarce. For years, nobody even knew what she looked like or where she was. Once a public darling figure, she vanished like smoke. The boarding school she attended kept her secluded just as her family had done.

It was Massimo that ran into her information and obtained her picture by sheer accident when he hacked into the Juilliard School. He was helping his old friend get his sister into a program there and those two wanted to check where she stood before manipulating the results to ensure she got it. Imagine the surprise finding out that Grace Romano, the only descendant of the great Romano legacy, lived right in my backyard.

Sophia and Alphonso Romano protected her like a rare treasure, keeping her out of the public eye. She was their most valuable asset. I didn’t have a doubt that they trained her to be atrueRomano. After all, she had proven herself when she betrayed me at the first opportunity. She threw away what we could have had, could have been, for her loyalty to her family.

When she walked into my nightclub, I thought destiny brought her to my doorstep, handing her over on a silver platter to avenge the killings of my mother and sister. But now I wondered if it wasn’t a trap, a well-played web thrown over me.

I shook my head and swallowed the bitter pill memories kept bringing, then headed to the house exit. From here, I would see my helicopter in the distance. Roberto was already there, waiting for me. He wasn’t family but he had proven himself enough. He was thirty-five years old, five years younger than me and despite his loyalty, I had never brought him into my inner circle. I paid him well, but the cruelty that lurked in his eyes didn’t sit well with me. Yes, it was necessary to survive this world, but even cruelty had to have limits.

“How is the weather today for flying?” I asked him.

“Perfect skies,” he retorted. “I’ll get you there safely.”

I nodded and got in. I could fly the helicopter myself but usually preferred to catch up on my business on the way to the city. Our family home was an hour outside the city, although I had a large penthouse there too. And a few apartments where I used to stash women I banged. But that was before Grace. Now they just sat empty or rented. I didn’t even know, since they were part of my vast real estate portfolio.

It took no time to land on the roof of the skyrise building I owned, in the middle of the city. I descended from the rooftop and directly into the conference room where the meeting waited to start.

I nodded all around the table and sat down at the head of it, Roberto immediately to my left. Usually that spot was reserved for Massimo, but he had a more important mission to handle. Namely, hunting down my wife. It worked out well that he was in Europe already even before I needed him to track her down.

The meeting started, each department head updating me with the status. This was the legitimate side of my business, the one that allowed me into a majority of the buildings in New York. In this city, I was the Ruthless King. Luciano Vitale's name was feared right along with the name of Cassio King.

My phone rang, and I glanced at it. It was Massimo.

“Gentlemen,” I stood up. “Roberto will lead this meeting. I have to take this call.”

I trusted Roberto to handle this business, and I had competent people running the departments so there was no doubt business would be handled. It didn’t mean I trusted those people any more than the next person. I only hired the best, and I knew each person in this room understood their job. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here.

Nodding at Roberto, I gave him a silent command to take care of this. His long years of service and loyalty earned him the trust to run my legitimate business. I would check the meeting minutes later, because there would never be full trust there. Whether it was my distrusting nature or the fact he wasn’t family, I wasn’t sure. Roberto hasn’t done anything to earn that distrust. He was an orphan and considered this job, the men he worked with, part of his family. Those were his words and God knew he had proven himself over and over again.

I strode away without a backward glance. When it came to Grace, I didn’t give a shit about any meetings, as long as everyone did their job and profits came in. Finding my wife was the top priority right now.

Once I was out of the meeting room, I strode to my office and shut the door.

“Massimo.”

“Luciano, I need you to come to Sicily.”

“What the fuck are you doing in Sicily?” I growled. “You are supposed to be looking for my wife. In Germany!”

I would kill him myself. Once he came back, I’d strangle him with my bare hands.

“There is a woman here. I think it might be her.” A deep exhale came over the line. “I just happened to be roaming the street, meeting an old friend, and this woman caught my eye. I think it’s her.”

Luciano, you are staring.Her soft voice resonated in my chest and my brain.

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