Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

by Seth Eden

  “Alexis would love this garden,” Willow said.

  “That’s what I was thinking right before you came down. I was thinking about asking Kelly to have one put in at the new estate.”

  Willow shifted next to me a little. It was hard to read, but then she said, “That would make me happy,” so I didn’t ask.

  “Then it shall be done.” I would give Willow anything she wanted for the rest of our lives. Even if I was just some ex in her life who wouldn’t let go, I would take it. “Thank you, by the way.”

  “For what?” Willow asked.

  “For looking into Denise. I know you don’t want to be involved.”

  “I didn’t want to be involved, but I think we’re pretty far past that, Sandro.” There wasn’t harshness in her voice when she said it, but comfort. “I stayed here so that you could lean on me when you need to. So lean on me.”

  I kissed her forehead again. “Okay. I will.”

  “The only way we’re getting through all of this is together.” She looked back up at me, and she had a determined smile on her face. “So let’s figure it out. Together.”

  I smiled back at her, a small one that grew each additional second her eyes were on me. “Yeah. Together.”

  12

  Willow

  Alessandro and I managed to stay outside the fray of the barbecue for about an hour, but once the food was done, Stacy beckoned us over to the table she’d set up so that we could sit together and eat. They’d put together quite the spread—grilled hamburgers, chicken, and hot dogs; a fresh fruit salad, a couple of additional salads, one with apples and mandarins among the greenery, and something more like a seven-layer salad; and of course, Denise’s cake. All the fixings for the meat were in platters in the middle of the table, and the buns had all been lightly toasted. My stomach actually let out a light grumble as Alessandro and I sat down at the table.

  We started to pass food around the table for everyone to grab what they wanted, and it made me happy when Alessandro quickly dove into the fray to grab a wing off the platter with the chicken to set on my plate. He knew I was partial to them. I took some of each of the salads and a hamburger, and I left Denise’s cake to rot. I’d rather eat mud off the ground than risk my life with whatever she could have added to it.

  When everyone had full plates and had a chance to dig in, Alessandro cleared his throat. “So, Denise, tell us about yourself.”

  I could see everyone eyeing him in confusion, but I knew better. He wanted to do some fishing, and for the first time, I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “Like what?” Denise asked. “I’m twenty-five. My birthday is December tenth. My favorite color is orange. My favorite food is honey buns.”

  Alessandro laughed, but I recognized it. It was vapid and hollow, one he’d given me several times before—totally fake. “Well, that’s all good to know, but I guess I’m more wondering about your childhood. What was it like growing up with Dario and Dante?”

  Luca gave Alessandro a completely confused expression there but kept his mouth shut. All eyes were on Denise as she bit into her hot dog with a roll of her eyes. “Annoying mostly. Donovan coveted them like precious angels, but they were bullies, and stupid, at that.”

  I remembered how easy it was for Stacy to goad Dario and Dante out into the hallway when she saved us from them. Marco and Luca had worked pretty closely with them and thought they had okay intelligence, but I didn’t think that the older Varasso brothers were the most intelligent men around, either.

  “Dante wasn’t awful, I guess, especially when he wasn’t around Dario, but when they got together, they were a shit storm.”

  “You were the youngest, right?” Alessandro asked. “Like Gabe?”

  I listened with anticipation. In Stacy’s studio, Denise had said she was born between the boys. Alessandro was a techie and had incredible attention to detail. I highly doubted that he forgot.

  Denise shook her head. “No, I’m in the middle. Er…I was.”

  The Varassos had open-fired on Donovan and Dante Binachi back after they kidnapped us. Dario only escaped because Stacy had already shot him in the leg and left him outside so that he couldn’t stand at the door when Donovan kicked it down.

  “Was Dario as arrogant as he is now as a kid?” Marco asked, but he wasn’t playing into Alessandro’s ploy. He was just genuinely curious. “I fucking hated working with him.”

  “Yes,” Denise said with a roll of her eyes. “It didn’t help that my dad acted like the world began and ended with him.”

  “Must be nice,” Luca said.

  “One time when he was ten, eleven, something like that, and I was seven, our school had this science project. He had this amazing volcano project, and I had a dumpy little soap and sponge experiment. Granted, Dario’s was so good because my dad had some scientist from Malldie’s under his thumb and agreed to cut his debt down if he helped. So we went to school, and I had this friend, Kaitlyn, who was, like, in love with Dario. He convinced her to set up the whole damn thing, and she did it really cool. His professionally built volcano looked like it was in the middle of this tropical island.

  “The teachers fawned over him, even though he didn’t even do anything. Meanwhile, I’m standing off to the side with my sponges and the different colored soaps that my mom helped me make. My dad didn’t even come over. He stood by Dario the whole time, and my best friend, who was really just my friend to be around Dario, abandoned her own project to go look after his. He got to stand on this podium for winning, too.” Denise was boiling. Her fingers were causing indents in the bun around her hot dog, and she was staring off like she was revisiting the scene. “Then my dad left—left the science fair—with only Dario and forgot me there.”

  “Where was your mom?” Gabriel asked.

  “At home with Dante. He was still in preschool, so he wasn’t at the fair.” She threw her hot dog down on her plate. “Don’t even get me started on him. He could do no wrong. One time, Dante and I were playing tag, and I didn’t even want to fucking play, but my dad made me. He couldn’t catch me, so he got really pissed off and tried to throw a ball at me to knock me down. He missed and hit this marble pillar that my mom had an old, victorian vase sitting on—something my dad got her as a wedding present. The vase fell and shattered, and my mom cried for, like, three days. My dad asked who did it, and Dante was standing, like, right fucking there, looking as guilty as the day is long, but he said I did it, and my dad just took his word for it. He locked me in my room and fed me meals like a prisoner for damn near a month.”

  “So, I take it you don’t miss him?” Marco asked.

  “If I could dig him up and kill him again, I would,” Denise spat back. “Sorry,” she grumbled, “I didn’t mean to ruin the fun with my family stories.”

  “That’s my fault. Maybe I should not have asked,” Alessandro replied, side-eyeing me.

  He, no doubt, had the same confusion that I did. Denise’s stories and subsequent anger seemed truthful. I didn’t believe a whole lot of what came out of her mouth, but when her body started to shake with anger as she told stories about her childhood, I could hear the ring of truth.

  She grinned at Alessandro. “It’s okay. I appreciate you taking an interest in me. What about you guys? I know things were tough between you and your dad, as well, but you seem pretty close as brothers, at least.”

  Marco and Gabriel took the lion’s share of the conversation after that, telling miscellaneous stories about their childhood. Luca and Alessandro would occasionally throw in little tidbits of their own, and it made me uncomfortable how quickly they’d all fallen into a sense of normalcy with her. I realized that Alessandro had started it in order to delve into Denise’s past, but soon, they were all chatting with her like an old friend. I was more than a little relieved when everyone started to stand up from the table. Luca, Marco, Gabriel, and Alessandro went off to have a two-on-two game of bean-bag toss, and Denise and Molly went to replenish their drinks and watch.
Stacy stood up and started to clear the table, so I joined in.

  “Thanks, Willow,” Stacy said with a smile.

  “You don’t have to thank me. I ate, too.” We threw the paper plates in the trash, covered what was left of the food, and cleared the table of any debris. When we were done, Stacy looked as if she was going to walk over to the group, so I grabbed her arm. “Hey. Can I ask you a question?”

  She nodded. “Of course!”

  Stacy’s aura and connection to the universe stuff was a little far-fetched for me, but it seemed to have some basis when she spoke about things she wouldn’t otherwise know. I didn’t know what to think about Denise. My gut reaction was to think that maybe she was really a Carducci, but there was truth to her stories about being a Binachi. Maybe Stacy just had a really above-average ability to read people, but I thought maybe getting her thoughts on the woman would help inform my opinions a bit.

  “What do you think of Denise? Do you think she’s being truthful?”

  “Denise hasn’t lied to us, I don’t believe,” Stacy said.

  “You believe everything she’s said?” I asked again. She didn’t hear what Denise had told the boys that morning, and I’d only heard the tail end of it, so all of that information was out of play.

  Stacy nodded again. “I do. There’s a certain way to tell if people are lying or not when you have a deep connection with the universe. It sort of bends toward people telling the truth and away from those lying.”

  “That’s how you knew something was up in your studio yesterday?”

  A bright smile found Stacy’s face. “Exactly.”

  “So, it’s always bent toward her, or whatever? Even about her wanting her own brother dead?”

  Stacy’s head tilted to the side, and her expression went a little vacant. I waited, and a few seconds later, she came back to attention. “That’s the only one. Sometimes, the universe just goes a bit still. Usually, when there’s a mix of lies and truth. It creates neutrality, and that always makes me nervous.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  Stacy crossed her arms. “I guess it makes me think that maybe she really does want him dead, but potentially not for the reasons she’s saying.”

  “Do you trust her?” I wanted her desperately to say no.

  “I trust that she wants the same thing we want, that is to say, our motives are in line with one another. I wouldn’t say I trust her, but I don’t think I need to. As long as she isn’t lying to us, I’m okay with how she can help us end all of this.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was treating Stacy’s words like she was some great deity. I asked Stacy her thoughts because I figured whatever she thought, I would go with that, but something just felt wrong to me about giving Denise any sort of leverage. If we couldn’t trust her, why have her around at all?

  Finally, I just settled for sharing my true thoughts. “I guess I just don’t understand why we think we need her.”

  “You don’t have to understand.” It wasn’t Stacy who spoke then, but Molly’s venomous voice. I’d been so concerned with keeping an eye on Denise that I didn’t notice Molly had walked away from her and back toward the cooler of drinks to our right. “It’s not your place to understand. You have no business poking around in it, regardless, especially because you don’t understand it.”

  “I’ve told you before that I know my place, and it’s to do whatever the fuck I feel like,” I spat back at her. “I’ve had just about enough of you trying to tell me what to do. Maybe everyone else around here bows before you for some reason, but you’re just a kidnapped chef with Stockholm syndrome. Back off.” The words felt evil crossing my lips. I didn’t entirely believe them, but I was also sick of Molly taking any opportunity she could find to test me. “You think because you welcomed the life that you’ve got some sort of seniority, but I grew up in this. Just because I was smart enough not to get involved doesn’t mean I don’t understand it.”

  “You,” Molly said, closing in on me, “better watch your fucking mouth.”

  I turned to face her, unafraid. “Yeah? Or what? I’m not afraid of you, and I never will be.”

  Stacy walked over and tried to push us away from each other. “You guys, come on. We’re having such a good time.”

  “Stace?” Gabriel called out.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the boys had stopped their game and were watching the interaction closely, but I kept the bulk of my attention on staring up at Molly and letting her know I wasn’t going to continue being pushed around.

  “You should be afraid of me, Willow Moretti.”

  “My name is Willow Varasso,” I hissed back.

  Molly scoffed. “Varassos aren’t scared of the life, and they certainly don’t run away from it. They know better than to question the commands of the head of the family, although I guess I can’t blame you there.” She got a little closer. “I suppose none of us take Alessandro seriously, either. Tell me, which personality is he on today? Maybe ignoring the thoughts of a psychopath is the smartest thing you’ve done.”

  My mind went blank. All I could hear were Molly’s nasty insults ringing on repeat through my ears. I lost control over my body, and without so much as the thought of a command from my brain, I cocked my fist back and decked Molly right in the face.

  13

  Alessandro

  I was barely over the shock of hearing Molly describe me as a psychopath when Willow threw her punch. I wanted to ask my brothers if that was really what they thought of me, but suddenly, Molly was throwing a punch back, and then Molly and Willow were in an all-out brawl. I looked over at Luca, but he had a disgusting smile on his face that made me want to punch him. Even in the confusion that was my mind, I knew starting a separate fight with Luca wouldn’t be a good idea.

  I remained frozen in place while Marco and Gabriel both jumped into the fray. Stacy and Denise were both yelling from the outside of the fight, telling them to knock it off, that they were sisters, and Marco and Gabriel were trying to restrain them. At first, Marco went for Molly and left Willow to Gabriel, but it proved problematic. Marco didn’t struggle to get Molly to calm down. Every time he laced his arms under hers and pulled her back, she would put her arms up and let herself be dragged back. On the other hand, Gabriel was struggling. Marco would manage to pull Molly away, and Gabriel would release Willow, thinking it was over, and Willow would charge at Molly, and they’d be back at it again.

  Willow tackled Molly to the ground and slammed a fist across her face, and a splatter of blood flew out of her nose. Luca took a step forward at that, but I took a step forward with him. He turned and eyed me, and I glared back at him. He swallowed hard but didn’t move toward them again. It was a silent agreement between the two of us—we would either both stay uninvolved, or both get involved, and Luca was smart enough to know why the latter option was a bad idea. I had my dad’s ruthlessness running through me while Luca had inherited his temper. If we got involved, it wouldn’t likely end until guns were out.

  Both of us redirected our attention back to the fight, and Molly was looking worse for wear. Marco and Gabriel were trying to drag Willow up now, but she was small and kept slipping from their grip. To make matters worse, neither of them was trying to use too much force, probably for fear of earning anger from me, but honestly, I would have understood. Willow was tearing into Molly, punch after punch, until her face was a bloody mess.

  Finally, Marco looked over at me weakly, and I nodded. He reached down and full-fledged lifted Willow up, and Gabriel quickly grabbed her legs to restrain her enough to carry her off. Stacy and Denise went to Molly, helping her sit up.

  “Let me go!” Willow still put up a fight, even totally restrained.

  “Willow, stop!” Gabriel screamed. “Enough. You almost knocked her out.”

  “Good! Keep my husband’s name out of your mouth, bitch!” she screeched.

  Something happened to me at that moment that I couldn’t name if I trie
d. I knew Willow was mad in part because of what Molly had said about me, but I assumed she was angrier that Molly was rude at all. All of her aggression, all of that unbridled rage, was all because of me?

  “You better watch your back,” Molly called over. “Don’t let me catch you walking alone.”

  Willow fought against Gabriel and Marco. “I’ll handle you more right now—put me down!”

  Gabriel looked over at me. “A little help?”

  Molly and Willow had enough space between them now that I felt comfortable going to Willow’s side. The second I moved, Luca did, too, but it was to Molly’s side. Marco and Gabriel set Willow down, and unfortunately for Gabriel, he didn’t get out of the way quickly enough. Willow threw a punch and caught him across the cheek.

  “No! Stace!” Denise screamed out.

  I looked over, and Stacy was bolting over, her face now full of rage, something I never thought I’d see from her. Fortunately, Gabriel held out an arm and held her back. “Stop. Don’t make it worse. It was my fault.”

  I herded myself in front of Willow and wrapped my arms around her. “Hey. Stop. Calm down.”

  “She called you—”

  “I know. It’s fine. She’s just pissed that you’re above her now. Come on. We can’t make it any worse.”

  Willow was shaking with rage in my grip. I could tell that if we stayed standing there, Willow was going to snatch free again, so I started pushing her back toward the house.

  “Let me go back,” Willow growled.

  “No. We’re done here.”

  It took some doing, but I finally got Willow into the house. I grabbed her hand and dragged her up the stairs and down to our suite. I unlocked the door and damn near tossed her inside. She turned around to face me, threading her fingers into her hair in frustration.

  “Look, I’m sor—”

  She didn’t even get the full phrase out. I backed her up against the wall, slamming my lips against hers. A buzzing, agitating energy was bouncing all around my body. It would get bigger and bigger and bigger, to the point that it felt like it was going to start to tear my skin open, but it just found a new place to go. I was shaking all over as I pressed my tongue into Willow’s mouth, and she didn’t resist. Instead, her hands rushed up to the jacket of my suit to push it over my shoulders and off. I grabbed the neckline of her blouse and snatched, ripping it down the center. I’d ask her where she got it later to replace it, but I couldn’t be worried about it for the time being, and Willow didn’t seem to care, either. She mimicked my actions, placing her hands into the space between the buttons on my shirt and pulling, sending the small pieces of plastic flying and clattering across the ground.