Page 50 of Vicious Intentions
“Have they now?” I ask, smiling thinly.
“They have. Families that have not yet beenconverted.”
Moretti’s gaze flicks toward three family heads standing close together, murmuring conspiratorially under the deluded assumption that no one is paying attention to them.
But I am always paying attention.
Ferraro, Lombardi, and Marino. The last three families still loyal to my father.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Don Alfonso,” I retort. “By the looks of them, they’re around my father’s age. Things tend to happen to men who grow old and weak.”
“And their sons?” Moretti asks quietly. “The ones loyal to the old way of thinking?”
“Accidents happen every day,” I reply, with a sinister smile.
“Truer words have never been spoken,” he chuckles. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”
“I doubt you need the reminder, Don Alfonso.” His smile falters at my statement.
It isn’t a threat. I like Moretti. He’s been a useful ally and instrumental in bringing most of the families into my fold. But if I’m to be the boss, there must always be an imbalance of power between us. I won’t allow him to believe he handed me my throne, or that I owe him any kind of fealty just because he was standing at my side when I took what was rightfully mine to begin with.
There can only be one king in New York, and he’s looking at him.
“Now, my apologies, Don Alfonso,” I say smoothly. “I must take my leave. There are other matters to attend to.”
“You’re not staying?” he asks, surprised.
Moretti’s gaze drifts to Niccolò and Raffaele, who are laughing away with Rocco, their laughter likely provoked by something the younger Moretti said.
The sight warms my cold heart, even as it unsettles me. It should be me standing beside Raffaele as he smiles like that. It should be all three brothers together, not Rocco.
Still, I’m starting to accept that maybe that will never be in the cards for us. Not while Raffaele still blames me for stealing the future Carlo promised him.
“You all enjoy yourselves,” I say, offering a parting squeeze to Moretti’s shoulder. “It is a special day, after all.”
I leave the club without so much as a glance back. I don’t actually have anywhere else to be. But on days like this, when restlessness and bitter resentment coil too tightly beneath my skin, there’s only one place I want to go.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve moved my father from safe house to safe house, ensuring no one ever learns of hiswhereabouts. Tonight, he’s hidden away at the bomb shelter—one of my preferred places to keep him.
I don’t bother with greetings when the soldiers on guard open the door for me. They’re used to me stopping by every few days to visit the great Carlo Donato Senior. They’re also used to pretending they don’t hear every vile thing I do to the man.
That’s another reason why I love this bunker so much.
In other safehouses, I sometimes feel the need to temper the level of pain I want to inflict on my father. After all, for all intents and purposes, he’s still their boss, even if only on paper. It mustn’t sit right with them hearing their boss being so cruelly treated by his own flesh and blood.
But in this bunker, I can fully unleash all my hatred on the man, knowing no one will hear his pleas for mercy except for me.
As I descend the stairs and move deeper underground, surrounded by reinforced concrete, steel beams, masonry brick, and hardened cement floors, my excitement begins to fever my blood, my throat drying at all the possibilities of pain I might inflict on him tonight.
I turn the latch on the red door of his cell and step inside. Rage blinds me when I find the bastard curled in the corner of the room, vomit splattered on the floor beside his mouth. I rush to his side and verify that he’s completely unresponsive. His heartbeat is so weak that it takes several tries to find it.
I grab his lapel, the fabric filthy from years of wear, nearly disintegrating beneath my grip.
“You don’t get to die yet,” I growl at him. “I’m the only one who decides when you die.”
I shove him back onto the filthy mattress and grab my phone.
Niccolò answers on the second ring.
