Married to the mafia King

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Lucia

I grew up in a mafia family.

The Fiorettis have ruled Venice for generations. Every smuggled kilo of cocaine… every shipping container that went ‘mysteriously’ missing from the docks… every euro paid in extortion…

My family got a cut.

Venice itself has always been wealthy. Back in the Middle Ages, it was one of the richest cities in the entire world.

Over the years, things got a lot worse for Venice but not for my family. At least not as far as money was concerned.

I was born into the lap of luxury. Armani, Fendi, Balenciaga, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Ferrari… those were names I grew up around from the time I learned to talk.

You see, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

It was solid gold and studded with diamonds.

But there was a price.

There’s always a price.

Massimo

I grew up in a mafia family.

My grandfather came over from Sicily half a century ago to stake his claim in the countryside outside Florence, Italy. He established a small kingdom within the Cosa Nostra. After my grandfather’s death, my father turned that kingdom into an empire.

I was the fifth of six brothers, so I knew I would never head up the family. That honor belonged to my oldest brother Dario, who deserved it. He was a born leader and he sacrificed the most out of all of us. He took the fall for the family on a corruption charge and went to prison for four long years.

When our father died murdered, we later found out Dario was the one we all voted to lead us.

So I knew from an early age that I would never be at the top…

But I always knew I would be of service.

I was trained from the time I could walk to be a fighter for the family.

Though the second youngest, I was by far the biggest of my brothers 6’7″ and 270 pounds. Papa used to joke that a strain of giant blood must run in our family.

But I didn’t want to fight.

I wanted peace…

But that’s in short supply when you grow up in the Cosa Nostra.

At only 26, I had seen assassinations… car bombings… over two dozen gunfights…

And yet, I hadn’t experienced anything like the insanity of the last couple of months.

A raid on our home by a gangster named the Turk…

Dario almost killed by an old woman seeking revenge…Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

A Sicilian gangster who wiped out a rival family and tried to kill us, as well…

And now the betrayal of our family by our own flesh and blood.

We found out when my brother Adriano married Bianca, my new sister-in-law.

A month before, a rival family in Florence the Agrellas had conspired against us.

Bianca had seen a stranger talking to one of the Agrellas just hours before the bastards sprang their trap.

Assassins showed up at a hotel to kill Adriano, Bianca, Lars, and me.

We escaped by the skin of our teeth…

But we never discovered who the mysterious stranger was that Bianca had seen.

That is, until he congratulated her at the wedding reception.

It was our cousin Aurelio

The son of our uncle Fausto, who had been our father’s consigliere for 25 years.

Our world was turned upside-down in an instant.

As soon as we found out about Aurelio, all of us huddled in the study of our family estate.

Dario and his wife Alessandra…

His consigliere Niccolo…

Adriano and Bianca…

Niccolo’s twin, Roberto…

My youngest brother, Valentino…

And Dario’s best friend and the enforcer for our family, Lars.

Outside the house, our guests were still celebrating the new marriage.

Inside, though, we were preparing for war.

“Are you sure Aurelio was the same man you saw with Bautiste Agrella?” Niccolo asked.

“I’m positive.” Bianca shuddered. “I could never forget his eyes.”

Niccolo looked at Dario. Both of them were stunned into silence.

“Shouldn’t we ask him what he was doing there with Bautiste?” Valentino said. “Maybe it was a coincidence.”

“Aurelio was there three hours before assassins burst in and tried to kill Bianca, Adriano, Lars, and Massimo and five hours before those same assassins killed the entire Agrella family.” Niccolo snorted. “That’s one hell of a coincidence.”

“Are you absolutely certain Aurelio didn’t recognize you?” Adriano asked his new bride.

“I’m sure,” Bianca said. “I didn’t even see a flicker on his face. He’d have to be the best actor in the world not to have reacted at all.”

“But what if he knew beforehand, and seeing you wasn’t a surprise?” Niccolo asked, playing devil’s advocate.

Roberto shook his head. “Why in the world would he come to the wedding, then? If Aurelio knew ahead of time who Bianca was… and if he thought there was any chance she could identify him… he would have just stayed away.”

“There are a lot of ifs in that sentence,” Niccolo said drily.

“Yes, but if he thought that his presence could give away the game, it would be the height of recklessness to show up here. He could’ve said he got Covid and nobody would have batted an eye.”

“He didn’t see me in Florence that night,” Bianca insisted. “I only got a brief glance at him, so it wasn’t like he had a lot of time. And there was a woman standing between us and he was looking at the other man in the room with him the entire time ”

“You say that you only got a glance,” Niccolo interrupted, “but you’re one hundred percent SURE it was Aurelio?”

“Absolutely!”

“She’s already said ‘yes’ a dozen times,” Adriano barked. “Stop asking her.”

Niccolo put up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m sorry, Bianca. I don’t meant to badger you. I only ask because if Aurelio actually did conspire with Mezzasalma that means our own flesh and blood tried to kill us. And it’s likely that our uncle told him to do it.”

I looked at Niccolo in alarm. “You think Fausto is behind this?!”

“Aurelio’s not smart enough to pull this off. If anyone planned it all out, it was Fausto.

“Think about it:

“Fausto was Papa’s consigliere for 25 years. He lived in this very house and knew all its secrets including the location of the escape tunnel out the back.

“And what about the old Sicilian servant woman, Filomena? I can’t prove it I’ve gone back through the records and can’t find anything concrete but Fausto could have easily hired her.”

Niccolo ticked off fingers on his hand. “Especially since she confessed to poisoning Papa…

“She told Alessandra about the tunnel…

“And she tried to shoot Dario the night the Turk broke in.

“As far as the Turk goes, Fausto was the one who set up the business meeting with him. If you’ll recall, Fausto later admitted that he and the Turk were already doing business together. It was probably Fausto who got the Turk to come after us in the first place or at least promised him a cut of the profits if he took us out.

“Then you have Mezzasalma and the attempted hit on four of you at the hotel.

“Bianca saw Aurelio in Bautiste Agrella’s office just a few hours before it all went down. Aurelio was probably acting as a messenger for Fausto. He might have even set up the Agrellas lulled them into a false sense of security so Mezzasalma could come in and wipe them out.”

“But what if it was all just a coincidence?” Valentino asked. “What if Aurelio escaped being killed by Mezzasalma?”

“The Agrellas were our allies or rather, our supposed allies,” Niccolo said tartly. “We were the ones who split Florence with them. We were the ones they betrayed by bribing politicians and policemen behind our backs. If Fausto or Aurelio had any contact with the Agrellas, they should have let us know. And they didn’t. Not to mention that if Aurelio had barely escaped being killed, don’t you think he would have mentioned it at the wedding? ‘Wow, guys, you’ll never believe what happened to me…'”

“So you think Fausto was behind the Agrellas trying to take back Florence from us?” Adriano asked.

“It makes sense.”