Page 51 of The Mafia King's Reign
What I'm not used to is a woman who's gotten under my skin without permission—without even trying.
A woman who makes me want something more dangerous than power.
She makes me want to be the man she sees when she looks at me in that library, surrounded by books and innocence and light—things I have no right to touch.
She makes me want to be worthy of her.
And that terrifies me more than any bullet ever has.
Because men like me don't get to keep women like her.
We ruin them.
* * *
The call from Raffaele comes at seven in the morning.
“I can’t make it.” His voice was tight, controlled in the way that meant something had gone sideways. “The Volcov situation downtown, they’re pushing into Little Italy, testing ourboundaries. I’ve got six men holding position, but if I leave now, we lose the block.”
I stand at the window of my study, watching the first pale light bleed across the estate grounds. “How many of them?”
“Ten. Maybe twelve. They brought muscle from out of state. New faces my men don’t recognize.”
“Then make sure those new faces never leave Little Italy.” I set the cup down on the windowsill.
“I’ve already got Franco and his crew flanking them from the east. They won’t see it coming.”
“Good. Make it public. I want the message loud and clear. Little Italy belongs to the Vitales. Anyone who thinks otherwise ends up in the harbor.”
“What about civilians? There’s a deli on the corner.”
I think about that for a second. It’s one thing to eliminate soldiers who know what they’re getting into and do it anyway. Soldiers who, if given the chance, would take out another soldier for the sake of greed. But civilians minding their own damn business with potential loss of woman or children is not something I take lightly.
“Evacuate them first, then… burn the block if you have to.” I don’t raise my voice. I never do. My father always taught us that only a weak man needed to seek to be heard. A man with power needs do no such thing. The quieter the command, the more weight it carries. “The Volkov family needs to understand that testing our boundaries has consequences. Permanent ones.”
A pause. Then: “Understood.”
“What about Russo? You shouldn’t be walking into that meeting without me there.”
“Zio Arturo will be with me.” I watch a groundskeeper cross the distant lawn, oblivious to the violence being orchestrated around him. “And I’ve already positioned twenty men around that warehouse. Tommaso thinks he’s meeting with two people. He’s meeting with an army.”
“Sal, this feels wrong. Asking for a meeting on a random Wednesday? Half the payment in cash? It’s a setup.”
“I’m counting on it.” I smile. “Stay on top of that operation. Arturo and I will take care of the rat.”
“Call me when it’s done. I want to hear how he screamed.”
The line goes dead.
I pocket my phone and turn back to my desk, where Tommaso Russo’s file lies open. Photographs. Financial records. A list of properties, associates, and family members. Everything I need to dismantle his entire fucking existence.
His wife. His children. His aging mother is in that nursing home on the Upper East Side.
Everyone has pressure points. The trick is knowing which ones to squeeze first.
The drive to the warehouse takes thirty minutes.
Arturo sits beside me in the back of the armored SUV, his weathered hands resting on his knees, perfectly still. My uncle took care of enforcement alongside my dad for years, taught me to shoot when I was young, and helped me bury the men who betrayed my father. He’d spilled enough blood to fill an ocean, and yet he still held that steady calm that came from absolute certainty in who he was.
