I sighed and started to turn away. I better go back up to the house and check in with Leo. This situation couldn’t possibly get any worse.
I took one step and froze dead in my tracks when I heard voices not far away. “As soon as I get inside Gia’s bedroom, you boys pull back so no one sees you. Don’t worry about me. Just leave it up to me, and I’ll handle it.”
Every hair stood up on the back of my neck. Who the fuck was talking about getting inside Gia’s bedroom?
The voices came from beyond the wall. They were under a stand of sycamore trees, close enough that the guards couldn’t see them.
“We got different orders from the don,” another deep, rumbly voice replied. “We could all get busted for this.”
“I’ll deal with him,” the first man said. “Just do what I told you. If this works, it will be the best thing that could happen to us.”
The don. So these assholes belonged to one of the New York families. Which family had the fucking balls to sneak into the Leone estate and try to get into Gia’s bedroom?
I could only think of one, but I had to make sure. I scrambled up one of the sycamore trees and lowered myself onto the wall. I crouched there holding my breath and looked down.
Romeo Necci stood right against the wall talking to four other slimeballs. Those fuckers were still wearing the suits they had on at Don Alonzo’s funeral. The bastards!
I would teach them a lesson. I crawled along the wall until I positioned myself right above Romeo. The sooner I cracked that shithead’s skull, the sooner we could all sleep better at night.
He kept whispering instructions to his stupid flunkies. They had their heads so far up their own asses they didn’t even think to look up, the cocksuckers.
I pounced off the wall and landed right on top of that fuckwit Romeo. I flattened him to the ground, slung my leg over him, and started swinging. I landed five or six good punches on his fat head before his boys caught me.
One of them landed a crushing blow to the back of my head and two more grabbed my arms. They flung me off their boss and slammed me hard against the wall. The dumbasses made their last mistake leaving me standing.
I rocketed off the wall, ready to tear someone a new one. Three of them came at me at once, and I reacted without thinking. I grabbed two of them by their heads and cracked them together with all my might. The satisfying crunch of bone vibrated up my arms, and I went nuts.
I snatched the third one, spun around, and drove his head into the wall. That left plenty of time for me to stalk over to Romeo, who was prying his worthless carcass out of the grass where I left him.
I swung my leg and kicked him hard in the ribs. Down he went, and I wound up to stomp him to kingdom come when something else hit me across the back of the head.
This one landed hard enough to send stars popping in front of my eyes, and I felt sick.
Another brutal crash hit me lower at the base of my skull, and I felt myself falling. I didn’t black out, but none of my limbs would obey me.
I landed on my knees, and then they were all on top of me. Blows pounded my ribs and head and back. I told myself to get up and fight back, but that second hit disconnected my brain from the rest of me.
I swayed on my hands and knees, feeling the pain of splitting bone shoot through me. I couldn’t see anything but individual blades of grass right in front of my face.
Blood and sweat dripped from my face and landed against the blades. I couldn’t think of anything else, and then, in slow motion, my sight rushed toward the ground.
CESARE
Iclimbed out of the limo and took a deep, satisfying breath of the fresh air. The Leone family estate looked and smelled as beautiful as ever. Nothing had changed in the years since I last visited.
I changed, though. I wasn’t a boy anymore. I was all grown up, and my pulse quickened. I was here to see Gia, and she was all grown up too.
Her father’s funeral gave me plenty to dream about. She was stunning and as charming as I remembered.
I loved Gia more than anything when we were growing up. We even talked about getting married when we grew up, but I had to forget all about that when I got to be a teenager and she was still so much younger.
Any red-blooded man would thank his lucky stars to marry her, but I wasn’t on my way to the altar yet. I still had to win her over, but I wasn’t worried about that based on the way she was acting at the funeral.
I had to win over Leo Evangelista more than her. He was the one who would make the ultimate decision, and the whole mob world knew how exacting his standards were. He didn’t become Don Alonzo’s consigliere by slacking off.
Peaceful stillness hung over the estate. If I married Gia, all of this would be mine. Her father’s empire would pass to me.
I would be more than my father’s heir and the don of the whole Terranova family. I would be the head of the biggest mob organization on the Eastern Seaboard. The combined Terranova-Leone empire would command the loyalty of every other family around. No one would dare to stand up to us—to me.