Page 1 of Gardener for the Mafia

Chapter One

Lorenzo

I sit back in the bar moving the tip of my finger around my glass, taking in the scene with the cold gaze of a lion stalking the Savannah.

A group of men sit in the corner, trying their best to look tough, one with his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal a dagger tattoo on his forearm. They leer at the women and some of the women – in their skin tight skirts and low cut tops – grin and giggle and one even flashes a slice of her leg at them.

I turn away, shaking my head, and then take a measured sip of my beer. Matteo, my consigliere, will be here soon. He’s never late, but I got here early due to another meeting I had close by.

There’s a horizontal mirror above the bar, running the entire length of it, multiplying the bottle necks. The late afternoon sun slants in and catches it, causing the more colorful bottles to light up like a rainbow.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” a woman says from beside me.

I glance at her.

She’s stick thin with the sort of cheeks that make her face look sunken in. Her leather skirt rides so high up her legs I’m sure I could see her underwear if I bothered to look. I catch her gazing at my gold watch with wide frantic looking eyes.

“Not as pretty as you, though,” she croons, sliding up to the bar.

I bite down a scathing remark. Even if this woman has no shame and even if the approach she’s taking could never, in a million lifetimes, excite me, she’s still a person and deserves respect.

“I’m not interested,” I say, taking a small sip of beer.

When I choose a woman, it will be for life. I want a woman who can bear my children and be a partner, not just a piece of flesh I can pick up and use whenever I want.

I want somebody who will compliment me, a goddamned teammate. I long ago gave up on finding her though. I know that if I find her, my body will instantly react. My seed will leap around inside of me, eager to escape and make a home inside her womb. My primal instincts will beat their chest inside of me, like a silverback gorilla staking his territory.

When I look at this woman, I feel none of that. I feel nothing. Not even disgust. I’m so used to her type and so bored of it.

“I’ll do anything you want, baby,” she goes on, just like I guessed she would. “I know what I’m doing, too. I’m good.”

I shake my head, biting down so my jaw juts out like boulders from my face. I feel it pressing against my skin.

I suppose a forty-two year old billionaire mafia boss is appealing to women like this, vultures, hangers on, women who specifically target wealthy men and try to exchange their bodies for a taste of it. Or perhaps she’s the other sort, the ones who just want casual skin on skin contact and then to forget about it the next day.

Neither interests me.

“I don’t care how good you are,” I tell her firmly. “Leave.”

“Wow,” she huffs, tossing her head so that her bleached blonde hair falls across her shoulders in strands. Her roots showing. “I would’ve sucked your dick, you know. I would’ve proper deep throated you. Your loss.”

I laugh gruffly. “My loss,” I agree sarcastically.

I turn back to the bar as she gets to her feet and walks unsteadily toward the group of men in the corner. She seems to enjoy the way they all yip at her approach like starving hyenas.

Finally, Matteo arrives. My second in command is a short man with a shock of coconut hair and a wispy black mustache. The men are always giving him a hard time on how his hair and mustache don’t match.

“Sorry, boss,” he says. “Traffic was a bitch.”

“We good?” I ask.

“With Diego Romano?” he mutters, sliding onto the stool next to me.

“Yes,” I say.

He runs a hand through his hair, his silver rings gripping tightly onto the flesh of his fingers. “You know what that pricks like. The bastard won’t quit. Keeps saying that the only way to make sure the Romanos and the DeLucas are properly allied is for you to marry his daughter.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I tell him.

“I know,” Matteo says. “That’s what I keep telling him.”

I glance at the mirror, watching in the reflection as the woman drops into a man’s lap and starts squirming around, giving him a lap dance. I look away quickly, wondering if I’ll ever find my queen, the woman I’ve been searching for my entire life.

“Come on,” I say, standing up and patting Matteo on the back. “Let’s go handle business. Diego will get over it. We run a clean business, no mess, no drama. I want to keep it that way.”

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