Page 99 of My Mafia Queen

The thought renders me nostalgic for a second.

How will my life look then? Will I be here in California? Will I be living in Nevada? Most likely not.

Will I be moving north or south?

And will Damaso be with me or not?

The more I think about it, the more I struggle to envision that.

Things were easy at the resort. We spent the nights enjoying sex and chatting like we were lovers.

His words removed my fears.

He was sincere, and I believed him, but that was then. He was with me, his arms around me. A lot of things seemed possible when we were there.

And now?

Life has already shown us it has different plans for us. He’s in New York while I need to deal with my life.

The LA skyline stands out against the sky as I swiftly get pulled back to reality.

Let’s see if my plan works.

I’m suddenly cold. Too damn cold.

20

DAMASO

The limousine pulls upin front of a large historical house in Long Island.

Several cars are parked on the side of the driveway, while royally lit windows overlook the lawn and dozens of people party inside.

I didn’t expect anything less. I knew there was a party.

But the party is only a distraction in case the house is under surveillance.

We’ve been doing this for too long not to know that any gathering involving mobsters sends a shudder of awareness through law enforcement agencies.

“Damaso,” my uncle’s right-hand man says, dismissing the driver who just opened the door for me. “You’ve made it here on time. The party has already started, and Paul will meet with you in the reading room,” he slips to me while shaking my hand, hugging me briefly, and patting me on my shoulder.

This must be important if I can’t even get a feel of the event before meeting my uncle.

All the way here, I’ve tried not to think about his unusual request. It’s not like my uncle had never summoned me or talked to me before, but this particular request came at an unusual time.

And Vadim’s death couldn’t have happened at a worse time either.

I know I have to explain my actions and why I’d strayed away from the original plan and hadn’t thought about keeping my enemies‘happy’and avoiding war at all costs.

In my defense… Vadim’s death hadn’t set a string of events in motion. It hadn’t even been mentioned on TV.

Although it’s not too late for that to happen.

Whether it will be a significant headline depends on how much the Russians want to be in the media.

I figure they don’t.

I enter the house, followed by eight men.

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