Page 20 of Made to Sin

She looked up at me, seriousness falling onto her face. “I don’t question what you do, Luciano, but don’t you go around trafficking women like those other mobsters do, okay?”

Her logic pulled another rough chuckle from me. Drugs and guns blew over her head, but she drew the line at women.

“Damn straight, Tori. You say it best.”

“The only woman I ever want to see you take is your future wife when you bring her to meet me.”

“You already know.”

“Good. Now, come be useful and help me with this. Who thought it was a good idea to give me an all-black puzzle? It’s like they want me to get glasses soon.”

I eagerly kneeled beside her to finish the aimless puzzle and satisfy the missing child in me.

Growing up as a Made Man, it was too easy to forget that I was a kid once. I mean, what kind of kid had to learn to take a life rather than the sharing-is-caring bullshit?

—

Future business with Marco was relocated to my club basement. There was no shot I was going to get anything done with Katarina and the events of that afternoon lingering around in his house.

Marco sat on the leather chair across from my desk, going over disorganized papers I couldn’t care less about. He slid over a page with a printed map of his borders and pointed to a red highlight.

“I need Romeo Bartolo to be dealt with. He’s been pushing in on my borders for some time now.”

I sipped on my whiskey, letting out an internal curse at how stupid I was to work with someone like him. Marco was a don, he should know how to take care of border issues himself. I weighed the pros and cons of what he was asking. He was desperate, and Romeo had been bothering all of us for a while now. Besides, the Bartolos and Benevetis had a mutual enough relationship for me to step in without causing a bigger issue. Cons were limited if I could wager a beneficial deal.

“What do I get in return?”

His shoulders loosened. “What do you want?”

He was a fool to leave a deal to my choosing as a visceral reaction pushed me to ask for his wife. For once, I wanted to be reckless and say it just to see what would happen.

Fuck it.

“Ah, an open negotiation. In that case, will your wife do?”

Marco laughed like it was the funniest joke someone had ever told him. His grin stretched further than I thought was humanly possible, the yellowness of his teeth reflecting against my eyes.

If he thought I wasn’t serious, he was blind to the effects his wife had on the people around her. But now wasn’t the time to correct him. If he was going to waste my time, I was going to waste his.

I flickered my pen back and forth. “I want the route at our borders and a port on the coast.”

Honestly, I didn’t need any of the routes and had enough to manage as is. The main thing I was aiming at was to get someleverage. I had purposely chosen the most expensive price the Camellos had to offer, so he would deny it and give me an extra option that he never would have given before.

Greedy men never win in theCosa Nostra.

My father taught me that money might be tempting, but a strong family built on power and intellect. Wealth was a bonus.

To prove his point, when I was thirteen, he dropped me off in front of a pizza shop curb and had me learn to fend for myself on New York’s shady streets. I couldn’t come home until I made twenty thousand dollars.

From stealing to begging, I had to scrape by for any food and shelter I could find. It was the worst year of my life, sleeping in subway station bathrooms and surviving off of stale bread, but it was when I understood what he meant.

Marco’s face blanched at my request. “That’s impossible! The route is my main source of trade. Choose something else.”

He fell right into the trap I laid out.

I gave him a lazy shrug that suggested I wasn’t open to negotiations. “That’s not my problem.”

He clenched his jaw and stared at the map on my desk, the highlighter stark against the gray print. There was too much on the line, and without my help, he risked losing it all.

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