Page 15 of The Mafia's Property

Dante chuckled. “She and Simona and a few of their friends went on a girls’ trip. I’m all alone.”

“And you will stay like that,” I said, blocking Freya once more.

Dante laughed even harder, and that’s when I realized he’s playing with me. Fuck. She has me off my game and reacting irrationally. I needed some space between us or I would go crazy. We had spent too much time together already. “Go to your room,” I said to her.

“You don’t have to dismiss her,” Dante interjected. “I would love to learn more about Freya.”

“Since when did you care about our women?” Rico calls out.

Dante turns to Rico, “Since you two started fighting over them.”

“We’re not fighting,” I said. “I don’t care about her,” Rico said. Dante smirked. It shouldn’t surprise me. He was already aware of what’s going on. He had eyes and ears everywhere. Freya could be one of them for all I knew. “You must be tired,” I said to her. It was another command for her to leave, and she took it without complaint.

When I heard the door to her bedroom close, I said, “Is that why you’re here?”

“Not really, but when one hears the twins are fighting, one has to know why.”

“We aren’t fighting,” I repeated. “We just decided not to share, that’s all.”

Dante took a sip of his beer while his eyes trained on me the entire time. Assessing. I hold his gaze. “Why now?”

“Why do you care?” Rico asked. “Nosing into our business is not like you at all. Is this what married men do?”

Dante shrugged and raised his hands in surrender. “I was simply curious. I heard you weren’t getting along and thought I should check in. Like a good older brother.”

“God,” Rico pinched his brow, “It was Stiks, wasn’t it?”

One of our men, our sometimes driver, sometimes bodyguard assigned to us by Dante, had a penchant for sending info to Dante from time to time. An old timer, Stiks, was old enough to be my father, but still sharp and more than capable of handling himself in a violent situation, making him a valuable soldier. However, his old-fashioned ways of being loyal to “the big boss” could be a little stifling. Dante didn’t even deny it. “He heard you two arguing over a woman.”

“Property,” I said. “That’s all she is. We were arguing over a toy.”

“That I don’t want to play with,” Rico added, “So really there’s no issue here.”

“And the business with Maeve?”

“Stiks told you that as well?”

“You’re not coming from her wedding?”

“Journalism was your true calling. You could have been a fantastic investigative reporter.”

Dante took a sip of his drink. “You need to get over her.” It sounded less like advice and more like a warning. He didn’t like outsiders or ‘normies’ as he likes to call them. And Maeve is the ultimate outsider. She was one of the few women I was with who weren’t titillated by my occupation. Maeve was also the only other woman until Freya that Rico has never been in to.

“I don’t know why you’re obsessed with that bitch. She treated you like shit and yet you still yearn after her like a puppy,” Dante said.

“You don’t understand--”

“She said your family is dogshit. I’m dogshit. Our father was dogshit, mother was—”

“Because her father forced her to,” I retorted, a little too harshly. Dante realized he has gone too far and backed off. “But that’s not why I’m here.” He lightly punched my shoulder. “Business is my chief concern. And the game.” The last part was hogwash. Rico and maybe Giovanni, if pressured, were the only ones in our family who cared about sports. There’s another reason he came here. He was being too cagey and too nice.

I went to the fridge and grab a beer of my own. “Is the casino okay?” I called out.

“Never been better,” Dante said. “Ever since we consolidated the hotels, business has boomed, but that’s also led to some redundancies.” The takeover of the Saccone business has been profitable even on our end, so I am not surprised by the news. “So, you want us to fire some people?” I asked when I got back to the living room and took my seat on the couch opposite Dante’s. Rico was too preoccupied with the game to even note my presence. His attention was on the game and every once in a while he would shout, “pass!” and “You idiot!” and “what are you doing!”

“I got that handled. It’s the new people staying that have me worried. I’ve heard rumblings that some are still loyal to the old toad. You’d think with the way he treated them and how his empire collapsed, they would be amenable to our rule.”

Ah, there’s the pitch, or at least the start of it. I took a slow sip of the drink and let the cold, foamy drink bubble down my throat. “Sounds terrible.”

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