Married to the mafia King

Our cars pulled up to a building in the old section of Florence.

Back in the day, it had probably been a palace of some sort. Now it had been converted into a five-star hotel.

There was a circular drive in front of the building. A couple of valets and bellboys were waiting around but they seemed nervous because of the six goons in dark suits standing next to them.

“This is it,” I said to Lars and Massimo. “Let’s go. Vincenzo, stay with the car.”

“You got it, boss.”

Lars, Massimo, and I got out along with six guys from the other two Mercedes. Altogether there were nine of us as we strolled over to the Agrellas’ henchmen.

“Signor Rosolini,” one of the suits said, then moved to frisk me.

“I’ll save you some time. I got a Glock in the back of my pants, and all my friends are packin’. But you even touch me, you’re gonna draw back a bloody stump.”

The guy got a worried look on his face. He was a low-level stooge and I was a capo; he knew better than to mess with me.

But he tried anyway.

“I got orders,” he said.

“Yeah? Well, here’s your new orders: fuck off.”

I started to walk past him

And he put a hand on my shoulder.

I slapped it off and got up in his face. “WHAT the fuck did you just do?”

Lars, Massimo, and my men all tensed.

The Agrellas’ goons all looked like they were about to shit a brick.

Suddenly the front door of the hotel opened and somebody new came hustling out:

Carmine Agrella.

Forty-five, paunchy, and greying, he was one of the Agrellas’ capos and the brother of Dominic Agrella, the don of the family.

I’d met Carmine several times over the years. He was a grinning, backslapping idiot in a $5000 suit.

I didn’t trust him any farther than I could throw him.

“Adriano!” he said with a big smile and his arms thrown out in the air, like we were old pals. “So good to see you!”

I wanted to say Yeah? Almost as good as when you let those assholes try to kill my family?

But I held my tongue.

“Carmine,” I said.

“Welcome to you all!” he said to my crew.

“Thanks,” I said sardonically. “Now if you’ll just lead the way, we can go inside and get things started.”

Carmine winced like he was really, really sorry about what he was going to say next.

“Ah we have to insist: no guns in the meeting.”

“Yeah, fuck that,” I snapped. “We’re not handing anything over not to you, not to your boys, not to nobody.”

Carmine winced some more. “I apologize I really do but I must insist.”

“Yeah? You ‘must insist’? Well after what happened to HIM ”

I pointed at Massimo.

” and my brother Valentino and my sister Alessandra last month, on YOUR territory, I must insist that you go FUCK yourselves in the ass. We’re here as a courtesy to YOU, not the other way around. So if you want us to hand over our guns have a nice night, we’ll be on our way. Come on,” I said to my guys as I turned back to the car.

“Signore,” Carmine pleaded.

“Say hi to Don Agrella for me,” I snapped as one of my foot soldiers opened the rear door of the Mercedes. “Tell him my brother sends his regards.”

“You know what?” Carmine said in a conciliatory voice. “It’s fine. Come on in. Keep your guns. You’re our guests. That’s what’s important.”

Aha there it was.

I’d been expecting him to fold, and he had.

Before I could say anything, though, Carmine added a caveat.

“Although if we make this concession… it would have to be just you and your brother. Your men would have to stay outside.”Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.

I weighed that for a split second.

My foot soldiers weren’t gonna be in such a high-level meeting anyway, so…

“Lars, too,” I said as I pointed at him.

Carmine smiled like we were all one big happy family. “Absolutely.”

“Alright, then.” I stepped away from the Mercedes. “Everybody but Lars and Massimo, stay here with the cars.”

Carmine beamed and swept his arm towards the hotel. “Right this way!”

I followed behind him with Massimo on my right and Lars on my left.

“Nicely played,” Lars said under his breath so only I could hear it.

“High risk, high reward, right?” I muttered back as we entered the lobby of the hotel.

Bianca

I nervously checked my phone for the 200th time.

It was almost 8 o’clock, and I still hadn’t heard from my father.

I sighed as I sent another text: CALL ME.

Suddenly a man’s voice snapped, “You can’t have that in here.”

I looked behind me to see one of the Agrellas’ men. He was a thug like all the others, but he wore a more expensive suit.

“Alright, fine, I’ll put it away.”

“Turn it OFF and put it away,” he snarled.

“FINE.”

I powered down my phone and looked for a place to stash it.

We were in a gorgeous hotel suite on the third floor. From the outside, the building looked like an ancient palace owned by the Medicis or some other Renaissance family.

On the inside, though, it was modern and luxurious to the point of obscenity

Including the pile of cocaine on the mirrored coffee table in the middle of the room.

Another girl was already snorting a line with a rolled-up 100-euro bill.

One of the perks of the gig, I guess if you were into that sort of thing.

I wasn’t.

I just wanted to get in, get out, and buy my father some time.

I decided to stow my phone in the master bedroom off the main suite.

As I walked past the girl doing the blow, she gave me some side-eye.

Bitch, I thought as I strolled past her.

Although I could understand why she wasn’t exactly friendly.

She looked like a supermodel in a glamorous little black dress.

With my blue wig and leather outfit, I looked like I’d walked in from a futuristic BDSM club.

I had to admit, the leather outfit was sexy… and the thigh-high boots were smokin’ hot.

Maybe that’s why the supermodel was pissed because the mafia thugs were definitely paying more attention to me than to her.

Although the wig was working as desired. Several of the mafiosos had stared at my chest, then looked up at my face

But as soon as they saw my hair, their eyes had gone blank.

Total loss of interest.

Score one for the blue hair.

I went into the master bedroom and put my phone down on a bedside table.

Suddenly the bathroom door opened, and the third woman came out and smiled at me.

She was absolutely stunning. She looked Russian or Ukrainian and had the most beautiful honey-blonde hair I’d ever seen.

Plus she was a lot friendlier than the skank doing rails in the other room.

“Are you needing the bathroom?” she asked in broken Italian and a heavy Slavic accent.

“No, I’m good,” I said.

She smiled and looked towards the main room nervously.

“You okay?” I asked.

“This is my first time doing such a thing as this,” she admitted.

“Same here.”

She put out a hand. “Oksana.”

I hesitated, then shook her hand. “Bianca.”

“Nice to be meeting you!” she said cheerfully.

I couldn’t work up quite as much enthusiasm, given that I really didn’t want to be there, but I smiled anyway. “You, too.”

Suddenly another mafia thug poked his head into the room and barked, “They’re comin’ get out here!”

As soon as he disappeared, I muttered, “Asshole…”

“Yes, right?” Oksana said with a smile but she tottered off obediently in her four-inch stilettos.

Griping silently, I followed along behind her.

As soon as we got into the main room, the front door opened. A talkative guy in his forties and an expensive suit entered.

” and we’re so sorry about all that unpleasantness last month. You have to believe me we didn’t know about any of it.”

He was immediately followed by three much younger guys all of them dressed in stylish designer suits, all of them handsome.

One was blond with piercing blue eyes and a short beard. He looked Swedish.

The second was gigantic a huge guy, at least six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and a massive build. He was definitely Italian, with dark brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

But it was the third man who really caught my attention.

He was around 6’2″ with piercing eyes and three days’ worth of scruff.

His hair was black, his skin olive.

He wore a scowl, which directly contrasted with the two other guys’ placid expressions.

He also exuded this vibe, like he was a coiled-up ball of energy like he could go off at any second. Totally unpredictable.

But it was his suit that really got me. It was the flashiest a dark grey sharkskin suit by Prada with a midnight blue silk shirt open at the collar.

On somebody else it might have looked gaudy, but he pulled it off.

The impeccable tailoring and thousand-dollar shoes certainly helped.

He definitely stood out from all the other men in the room with their black and navy suits.

Not quite punk rock, but… daring. Unconventional.

His eyes darted around the room like he was taking everything in

And then they stopped on me.

Our eyes met, and there was this almost electric click.

I stopped breathing.

There was a second that felt like it lasted ten times longer

And then everything went to shit.

He turned angrily to the chatty older guy and snarled, “You brought whores to our meeting?!”

It was obvious he was referring to me.

I was the only woman in the room he’d looked at for more than a split second.

I immediately bristled. My entire body tensed.

ASSHOLE

“Whaaaat?!” the chatty guy said, like he couldn’t believe such a thing could even been suggested. “No no, no, no, no, no just some beautiful ladies, some companionship for the gentlemen ”

“And this what the fuck is this?” the asshole snarled as he pointed at the mirrored table with the pile of coke.

The girl who’d snorted some earlier suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

The older guy stammered, “Well, it’s just we wanted to offer every concession ”

“This is a business meeting, not a fuckin’ whorehouse!” the asshole barked.

“Of course, of course we’ll have it removed immediately.”

The older guy clicked his fingers, and a couple of the gorillas moved the coffee table into one of the smaller side rooms.

The coke-snorting girl looked very unhappy.

“May I offer you a drink?” the chatty guy asked.

“I’ll pour it myself,” the Angry Asshole said as he walked over to the bar.

I noticed he picked out a bottle of scotch that probably cost north of $5000.

“Please, make yourself at home,” Chatty Man said with a smile. “Don Agrella will be here in 20 minutes.”

Angry Asshole looked back at him with an expression both enraged and incredulous. “He’s not here?!”

“He was unavoidably detained,” Chatty Man said in a sad What can you do? kind of voice.

“Wonderful,” the Angry Asshole seethed, then pointed at all the thugs standing around. “Get these other guys out of here.”

“Of course,” Chatty Man said. He motioned to all his minions, who filed out of the room.

Then Chatty Man looked at me and the other girls and jerked his head like Get over there and TALK to them!

Cocaine Girl moved first and walked over to the Swede.

Oksana nervously approached the giant.

Which left the Angry Asshole for me.

I sighed inwardly.

Great.

But if I was going to buy my father some time and knock a third off his debt, I had a job to do.