Nico (Ruin & Revenge #1)(17)
She waited on the pavement for Dante to emerge, but when he reached for the door, Papà shook his head. “You’ve done what I asked you to do. I don’t need you tonight. Rev will take you home. Wait for me.”
Hand shaking, Mia tugged the edges of her dress together and followed her father into the restaurant. No matter what happened, she couldn’t go through with the wedding. A Mafia marriage was for life. It didn’t matter if there was cheating or beating, or if civilian law granted a divorce. Cosa Nostra would ensure that the two parties stayed together using whatever means necessary to get that message home.
And there was no way she could become a Toscani for the rest of her life.
FIVE
“Hey, sweetie. Wanna spend some time?”
“Testa di cazzo.” Nico slapped Luca’s hand off his shoulder, steering his SUV with one hand. “You’ve been fucking too many hookers. You sound just like them.”
Luca, a well-respected Toscani soldier with his own crew of associates, laughed. “That’s ’cause you won’t share what you’ve got going on in that casino. Young, drunk, available women in Vegas for the weekend all ready to party. How many do you invite up to your penthouse suite every night?”
“I’d tell you, but you can’t count that high.” Despite his tension about the operation they planned to carry out as soon as Vincenzo gave them the sign that everyone was in the restaurant, he was glad of Luca’s joking mood. Luca had withdrawn after the tragic death of his newlywed wife, losing himself in his work to the exclusion of everyone including his young son, Matteo.
Luca ran his hand through his thick blond hair, cut to stand up straight on top. With his hazel eyes, and rugged features, he looked more Nordic than Italian. “Anytime you feel like hosting another party, just let me know. I’ve decided to stick with casual hook-ups and one-night stands. No pain. No heartache. I won’t fucking care if they get whacked, and I don’t have to deal with little Matteo getting attached.” He tapped Frankie on the shoulder. “Whaddya say, Frankie? You in?”
“Nah.” Frankie shook his head, lost in thought. “I’ll keep watch.”
A prominent New York Mafia family had taken Frankie in when he was nine years old after his mother and father were killed in a revenge attack by the Russian mafia. Trained as an enforcer, he had been sent to Las Vegas by the New York boss to help the Toscanis in their bid to take control of the city, but he had quickly become attached to Nico’s crew. He was more like a biker than a wiseguy, with his long dark hair, biker boots, and Harley belt, and he had the biker swagger to match, but he was fiercely loyal, and there was nobody Nico would rather have at his back.
Nico had never seen Frankie with a woman. No hookers. No girlfriends. No one-night stands. If not for the fact that Frankie had once confided in him after they’d had one too many drinks, that there was a woman he wanted but couldn’t have, Nico would have pressured him more often to join their parties.
“You’re missing out,” Luca said. “Last time we had six girls up there skinny dipping in Nico’s patio pool.”
Nico pulled up in front of Il Tavolino, an old Vegas Italian restaurant that looked like it had seen better days. He pushed his weapon out of sight under his suit jacket. “So this is the thing I told you about.” A thing was mob speak for an illegal act that was better left unsaid. “A friend of mine, Lennie, owns this joint. He says he has a problem.” A friend of mine told Luca and Frankie that Lennie was a civilian as opposed to a friend of ours, a made guy in the mob. Usually, Nico’s “friends” came to him when they had a problem, instead of Nico traveling to see them, but Lennie reputedly served the best cannoli in the city, and Nico was a sucker for sweets.
Gianni “Big Joe” De Cicco was waiting for them at the front entrance. Heavily muscled, a few inches shorter than Nico and bald as a stone, Big Joe had gotten his nickname due to his resemblance to a mob-friendly cop who’d been named “Little Joe.” He was a mob associate who had been with the Toscani family for ten years—three of those with Nico’s crew—and had proved himself loyal, honest, and trustworthy. Nico planned to open his books when things settled down so Big Joe could become a made man.
“Right on time,” Nico said. “I’m gonna start thinking you’re a cop the way you’re never late. Luca’s always dragging his feet and Frankie sometimes just doesn’t show. Maybe you should share your secret.”
“Don’t want to let you down, Mr. Toscani.” Big Joe gave a little shrug as if he were embarrassed by the attention. “I know what it’s like to be counting on a guy and have him not show up. My plumbing business has a high turnover ’cause I don’t put up with that shit. And if I won’t put up with it from my guys, I wouldn’t expect you to put up with it from me.”
A retired jewel thief from Miami, Big Joe had moved to California to escape the heat of an FBI crackdown. He retrained as a plumber, started a business, and did some work for a few wiseguys on Nico’s crew. Once it became known he did a good job at a low price, he became a hot commodity. Everyone needed plumbing work, and he quickly became the go-to guy for the mob. Eventually, Nico had taken notice, and now he worked exclusively for Nico and his crew, transporting stolen goods in his plumbing trucks between jobs fixing leaky faucets.