Diego: A Dark Mafia Hate Story (Chicago Crime Family Book 1) Read online

  Of course Riccardo could have made sure that Alberto just disappeared and no parts of him were ever found, but that wouldn’t have delivered the same message.

  The chest of drawers is heavy, and Donata insists on pulling all the drawers out to “help” me, even though I stand there and argue that it’s fine, she doesn’t have to. She’s blabbing the whole time, and I’m not really listening to what she says. I’m imagining her bent over that bed, legs spread wide for me, as I slap that bubble butt of hers. I like it rough. I want her to like it rough too, I want to stain that pure soul of hers and make her dirty like me.

  Donata has me move the drawers not once, but three times. Three. Finally, she’s happy with it.

  All this time, Vinnie is down in the soundproofed basement, tied to a chair that’s on a tarp, facing a table full of tools. That’s not the worst thing; he’s probably pissing and shitting himself in terror, literally. That was why Claudio and I came upstairs in the first place, to let him sit and sweat for a little while.

  The best way to break a man down is not just physically, but psychologically. I look on it like I’m tenderizing meat before I slice it. We beat him up a little before we came up here, broke his nose, blackened his eyes, but that was just the appetizer to the buffet of pain we’re about to serve him.

  But still. Donata said two minutes. It’s easily been fifteen.

  When she’s finally happy with the location of the chest, she needs help putting all the drawers back in.

  The whole time, I’m inhaling her sweet scent, and listening to her breathe hard as she wrestles with the drawers. My dick is so hard it could smash diamonds into powder. My balls are bluer than Papa Smurf. And since I’ve got a multi-hour torture session scheduled as soon as I can escape little miss precious, there’s no relief in sight any time soon.

  And when I start to head for the door, she calls out to me in her soft voice. “Diego.”

  “Yes?” I say with a snap of impatience, as she walks over to me. I tense up, but she doesn’t try to make a move.

  She just stares into my eyes challengingly. “Why do you act so weird around me?”

  “Well, for one thing, you order me around like a servant.” My temper’s starting to fray. Normally I can keep my cool through just about anything, but she does weird things to my head.

  “I apologize. Can we start over?” she smiles sweetly. “Just talk to me for a few minutes.”

  “You want to talk?” I bark at her. “Ok, I’ll start. You’re a bored, spoiled little girl who’s playing with fire, and I’m the one who’s going to get burnt. So how about you let me get back to work?”

  She doesn’t act offended. She doesn’t budge. “What kind of work are you doing? You never said what you were doing here.” Her gaze flicks to my shoes, and I realize that there’s a red splash of blood staining my dark sneakers.

  “Painting,” I snap. I push past her.

  “So that’s it? You’re going to just leave?” Now there’s a faint undercurrent of hurt to her voice.

  Something in me snaps. All the anger and frustration that I keep dammed up inside me explodes, burning past the barrier of my common sense. I see my father in his coffin, and hear the dull heavy thud of my mother dropping to the floor of the funeral home as she faints. I feel the bile rising in my throat as I read about Alberto’s hand being retrieved by a fisherman – with every single finger broken. Denied lust throbs in my groin as I remember all those times that Donata hovered near me, sneaking me gazes underneath her thick lashes when she thought I wasn’t looking…

  You want to play with me, poor little rich girl?

  I shove her up against the wall and in one swift motion, I’ve got one hand gripping her chin, hard. My body presses against hers and my hard cock presses into her stomach and her eyes open wide.

  I bend my head down and kiss her, violently, my tongue thrusting between her lips. She’s warm and sweet and she tastes of mint, and she moans into my mouth. She loves it. Her thighs part and I slide my leg in between them. We fit perfectly, molding into each other, our flesh becoming one.

  The kiss goes on and on, and she arches her back, pressing her hips into me. She’s kissing me back. Hungry, sucking at my mouth, a low hum of pleasure thrumming in her throat.

  When I finally pull away, she gasps in shock and goes rigid, horrified by what she just did. Kissed the help.

  “Is that what you want?” I snarl at her. Tears shimmer in her eyes.

  “No, you bastard! I just wanted some civilized conversation.” She stumbles away from me, her face flushing pink.

  “Well, you came to the wrong place. Are you going to run and tell daddy now?” I say that because I know that when I put it that way, she’s less likely to actually do it.

  “Tell him about what? You’re less than nothing, so nothing could have happened,” she spits furiously, and storms off. I guess that’s her idea of a burn.

  And there we go. Even the sweetest little Mafiosi princesses turn into tantruming bitches when they don’t get their way. As best I can figure out, she’s too prim and proper to actually come on to me, but she wanted me to either hit on her or at least flirt with her.

  I walk downstairs and see her storming out of the house, purse in hand. Thank fuck; I was afraid she’d be here all damned weekend.

  I find Claudio is back in the kitchen, drinking another beer. He arches an eyebrow at me. “So, she still a virgin? And how fast do we need to get out of town?”

  I flip him the finger and walk off, towards the back of the house. He follows me, winding through a long hallway, to the basement door, where I turn the deadbolt. “Seriously, the fuck took so long?” he asks.

  “She wanted me to fucking help her move a chest of drawers. All over her room.” I shake my head in disgust. I probably should be sweating bullets, but I’m not worried. I’ve always been an excellent judge of character, of what people will and won’t do. And as annoying as she is, I don’t believe she’s the type who’d ever snitch. Once at her house, one of the maids broke an incredibly expensive vase and nearly fainted from terror. Donata hurried to take the blame, enduring her father’s furious yelling with meek, downcast eyes and mumbled apologies.

  She’s the type of royalty who gets off on pretending she’s one of the common folk; she holds doors open for servants, folds her own laundry, cleans her room before the maids get to it, straightens up after her little brothers and reminds them to put away their toys, remembers the servants’ birthdays with generous gifts.

  They all adore her; they fall for her bullshit. And that’s all it is. A salve to her conscience, just another way she can feel superior because she’s graciously lowering herself to our level.

  I swing open the door and we walk into the room, and my heart drops to the bottom of my shoes. And now I am sweating.

  Because Vinnie is gone. Disappeared.

  Vanished from a room with a deadlocked steel door.

  Chapter Two

  Diego

  I’m thrumming with anticipation as I stride into the office on the 10th floor of the building owned by the Commission – the group of highest-level goombahs who rule over all of the families in the U.S. The building is in the business district, a big ugly fortress of steel and glass. It’s a monument to the success of decades of criminal enterprises.

  This is a big day. I’ve never been invited up here before. I walk in with two of my crew members, Claudio and Rocco at my heels. I’m wearing a suit to show respect. A nice pin-striped navy number, custom-cut. My men wear suits too, off the rack, but tailored to adapt to their muscular bulk.

  Umberto is sitting in a leather chair at a fancy dark wood table with elaborately carved legs like from some 14th-century villa. His eyes are bloodshot, face set in grim lines. I hide my smile as I stand at the table with my men, waiting to be told where to sit.

  Angelo Calibri, brother of Tiberio, the Chicago Capo, sits in the throne-like chair at the head of the table, his dark little raisin eyes fixed on Umbert
o. Two of his bodyguards stand up against the far wall, glowering. He waves at me, pointing at a chair across from Umberto. Claudio and Rocco remain standing.

  The fact that a low-level soldato like me has been invited to this meeting? It’s a sign of how seriously the Calibri brothers are taking this.

  Fortunately, I have friends who work for Angelo, who’ve kept me informed about what’s happening. And the news is very, very good – for me.

  Not so good for little Miss Priss.

  Because she’s the one who let Vinnie go. That’s why she was batting her baby blues at me, that’s why she led me upstairs and kept me up there for so long. She was keeping me distracted so Joey could escape. Does that hurt my pride? Maybe a little. She wasn’t jonesing for a taste of Italian salami when she tried to flirt with me, she was stabbing the Family right in the back.

  And Vinnie, who’s always been a rat, flagged down the first cop that he saw, a guy who was patrolling the lakefront neighborhood where Umberto lives. Vinnie spilled everything – including the fact that Donata stumbled on him in the basement and let him go.

  She should have known better. Vinnie wasn’t worth her throwing her whole life away. He was a drug dealer who was selling cocaine for us and he cut it with some shady shit, and caused six overdose deaths. Not that any of us gave a fuck, but it brought the heat down on that particular branch of Umberto’s operation big time.

  Vinnie’s always had crap luck. And the cops who patrol that neighborhood? Most of them are on Umberto’s payroll. Sergeant Brown, the cop he spilled his guts to, was. Vinnie figured that out, unfortunately, when the cop tried to take him back to Umberto’s house. He grabbed for Sergeant Brown’s gun, and the cop had to shoot him.

  The only problem was, Vinnie gave some useful information to the cop before he figured out he was one of Umberto’s men. Now this guy has way too much information about our operations, and the price of his loyalty just increased ten-fold. And he made sure to let us know that he’s passed on that information to some friends, and if he were to die or suddenly disappear, the entire Chicago police department would show up at the doorstep of Tiberio Calibri himself.

  “We’re all here now. Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Angelo says to Umberto, his voice harsh.

  Umberto hunches his shoulders, the picture of misery. “I am very, very sorry. She is locked in her bedroom right now. She will be punished, severely. She won’t be able to walk without crying for weeks. And then she’ll be married off to someone who can keep her in line – someone from the old country. She’ll be shipped overseas, and -” Umberto’s speaking faster and faster. His words are tumbling out on top of each other.

  Angelo shakes his head slowly as Umberto talks, and holds his hand up, and Umberto falls silent.

  “Not good enough. You are aware that Vinnie blabbed Diego’s name to the cop? First and last name. The name of his bar. Where he lives. Diego used to be completely under the radar, never had so much as a parking ticket. Cops didn’t even know he existed, and he wasn’t connected to us in any way. We don’t have a lot of guys like that. I don’t need to tell you that Diego’s one of our best men, and thanks to your daughter, Vinnie’s brought down a world of heat on him. And now, Sergeant Brown is going to tell his buddies to watch Diego like a hawk so he can gather up more information that they can use against us.”

  I assume a martyred air. “It’s all right, sir, I can carry on as usual.”

  Angelo scowls. “We appreciate it, but it’s too risky. You’re going to have to scale way back.” I knew he’d say that. But I just scored points for being willing to take the risk. It never ceases to amaze me, how easy it is to jerk these guys’ strings. They adore suck-ups, as long as you do it right. And I know how to do it right. “So, Umberto, what this means is that Diego can’t do any big jobs for us. He probably can’t do much more than manage his bar for at least the next few months. Maybe longer. You know he used to earn a cut of all the business in his territory. This will cost him a couple hundred grand, easy, and that’s just over the course of the next few months.”

  Umberto flicks a wretched glance at me and mutters “Sorry, Diego.” He looks like he’d rather be chewing ground glass than forcing out those words. It’s not easy for a man like him to humble himself to those who he considers inferior.

  I look at him, and I think of my father lying dead on the sidewalk, after that bank job went south. A bank job that Umberto, Angelo and Tiberio had sent him on.

  Funny thing – nobody here knows that my dad was one of the three men who died in that screwed-up heist. That’s how little his death meant to them. They wouldn’t remember his name if I shouted it at them.

  But they’ll know when they take their final breaths – because his name will be the last thing they hear when the light fades from their eyes. Roberto Costa.

  “How are you going to make it up to him?” Angelo demands.

  “I’ll give him a year’s pay,” Umberto mutters sullenly.

  “Still not good enough. Your daughter jeopardized his entire career and greatly diminished his value to us.”

  Inspiration surges through me. I can see that Angelo wants to not just punish Umberto but crush him. Angelo has a deep disdain for women – the things he does to hookers turns even my stomach, and I’ve flayed people alive more than once – and having Umberto’s daughter hand us our ass is infuriating to him on a very deep level.

  I clear my throat, and Angelo shifts his attention to me.

  “Sir, may I speak to you privately?” I say.

  Umberto burns me with the hatred of his gaze. This is a gamble, because if Angelo doesn’t back me, I’ll be dead before nightfall. And so will my associates, including Claudio and Rocco. But I’m relying on my ability to play people, to sense what motivates them, what buttons to push and when. My friends call me the Puppet-master. My instincts have kept me alive so far.

  And my instincts are telling me that now is the time to go in for the kill.

  Outside in the hallway, Angelo says, with a hint of impatience “Talk.”

  “Sir, rather than money, I ask you to give me the girl. Donata. Umberto lost control of his daughter, and she has wronged me. She should be the one to pay for her sins.”

  The thing with Angelo is, he’s a bully and a sadist. If he’s on your side, you’ve got a powerful ally. But fail him or cross him in any way, even unintentionally, and he’ll gleefully tear you to pieces like ripping the wings from a butterfly.

  He thinks about it, and nods.

  “If I give her to you, her punishment needs to be very public,” he informs me. “She needs to be dragged through the mud. Made into a whore.” His thick lips curl in a smile and his eyes almost disappear.

  A warm glow lights me up from the inside, and I’m hard just thinking about it. Public punishment? Yes, I can certainly manage that. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

  When we return to the conference room and Angelo delivers the news, Umberto doesn’t take it well. He goes white as a ghost when Angelo informs him that he will not only be paying me half a million dollars, and paying the Calibri brothers a million dollars, he will also hand over his daughter to me at my bar by six p.m. this evening.

  “Please, sir,” he begs Alfredo. “My daughter has always been a good girl. Modest, loyal, well-behaved, a credit to the Outfit. She made one very foolish error, she is deeply remorseful, and I will punish her very severely.”

  “She is no longer yours to punish.” Alfredo stands up, his pale blue eyes gleaming with malice, his thick cruel lips twitching in barely disguised glee. “Six p.m.” He strolls to the door without a backward glance. His men follow him out.

  Umberto waits until the door shuts behind them, before he turns his wrath on me. “You brown-nosing little motherfucker! You set this all up somehow, didn’t you? You’ve always had your eye on my Donata!”

  No, I didn’t set it up, but now that he mentions it, if I’d known how well this would all turn out, I’d absolutel
y have arranged for it to happen.

  I just smile at him politely. “No need to have her pack her bags. I’ll be providing her with a new wardrobe more fitting to her new station in life.” He always dressed her like a nun, swathing her beautiful body in layers. That ends tonight.

  “I’ll cut your throat before I let you get your contadino fingers on my angel!” Umberto bellows and lunges across the table at me. He just called me a peasant.

  Claudio and Rocco jump to their feet, fists balled, leaning in to the threat.

  And a voice booms from a speaker in the corner of the room. Tiberio Calibri. Apparently he’d been secretly listening to the entire conversation from his office in Milan, where he’s currently on “vacation” because things have gotten too hot for him here in the United States. He’s been on vacation for a year and a half now, after a prosecutor opened an investigation into his operations.

  The fact that he’s overseas is one of the reasons that I haven’t accelerated my plans. It also means that Angelo is the acting Capo.

  But in the meantime, Tiberio still likes to perceive himself as running things in Chicago, and his brother indulges him.

  “Umberto Rosetti, you have just disrespected my brother’s authority.” His voice makes Umberto yelp.

  “Sir, I am very sorry! But my daughter, sir – please!”

  “The decision has been made. And because of your disrespect, the timeline has been moved up. You will have your daughter delivered to Diego’s bar in 90 minutes, or I will have her throat slit. And your wife’s, for good measure – while you watch. Diego will do it for me. You will not threaten Diego or his associates in any way, and from now on, Diego reports to my brother, not you.”

  Umberto’s face is ghost-white. His mouth opens and closes like a fish flopping on a deck, gasping its final breaths. I’ve just jumped enormously in prestige and power. Reporting directly to Angelo basically puts me on the same level as Umberto, who also reports directly to Angelo.

  “Yes, sir,” he chokes out.