บททั้งหมดของ Indebted to the Mafia King: บทที่ 131 - บทที่ 140

EleniI lean back in my seat and groan. “Too…much…food…”Gianna laughs. “Once you give birth, I’m getting you into pole. Even if you never perform, it burns calories like a mother—”Mama starts to frown, and Gianna stops. I laugh. She’s been working on her language.“Well, it’ll let you eat as much as you want,” Gianna says quickly.Mama nods. “If you don’t perform, I think that would be all right with Dante.”Gianna launches into a list of how many dancers Dante has gone out with, seemingly just to scandalize Mama, and I look around the homey surroundings. To celebrate the end of my midterms, Mama suggested we go to Zorba’s Tavern, a warm, blue-and-white-walled little restaurant back in the old neighborhood. We used to come here every time Christos or I got all As in school. I tried to explain I didn’t have my grades back yet, but she was adamant. She couldn’t celebrate my last grades, or me getting into Tandon, so we were going to Zorba’s.“Well,” Mama says. “I suppose some…standard

Dante“Quickly.” I hang up the phone and sit back down at my desk. I don’t know what the hell made El call me like that, but I know the driver headed her way needs to move fast. Anything that scares her, scares me.Which means it’s a bitch of a time trying to get my eyes to refocus on the work I was doing right before she called. I tap my fingers on the top of my desk, hum a song to myself, play music out loud. Nada. Finally, I give up, pour myself a glass of scotch, and take a long sip. Peaty. Rich. Steadying, thank God. When I sit back down at my desk, the words don’t swim off my computer screen.Windows crowd the monitor, all different transcripts of different reports from Teo since he’s gone under. He said something when he came out this last time that scratched an itch in my brain, and I’m trying to figure out where that itch came from.Klondike Paper. Apparently, it’s the name of an office the Russians control, one they don’t intend to let Teo into for a while yet. But I swear i

DanteAfter El falls asleep, I sneak out of bed. Henry might not scare me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to do anything about him. Just that she doesn’t need to worry about it.God, she’d kill me if I ever said that to her face.This is just a temporary measure, I promise myself as I change in a dark closet and leave the room. Just until she’s no longer pregnant.Yeah, that’d stop her from kicking my ass. I shut the bedroom door behind me with a sigh, then call Tony.He shows up twenty minutes later with Mikey in tow, both of them looking exhausted. I raise an eyebrow.“Teo needed an angel on his shoulder,” Tony says by way of explanation.“You call in a replacement team?” I ask.“You think I dropped out of school after kindergarten?” Tony replies.Mikey just nods and walks in with him. Without conferring, the three of us amble into my office and shut the door behind us. Only once I’ve poured everybody a drink and sat in the leather chair behind my desk do I begin explaining.“Wi

DanteI walk up to a shuttered bodega. Pieces of the paper sign flap in the wind, declaring that I can get “sacks” and “dinks” inside. New York City flows around this abandoned piece of itself, not even glancing at it.Perfect.I slide into the alley beside it, unlock the chain on the back door, and step inside. Tony and Cal Duncan stand in the flickering light of the ex-backroom, now lined with knives, cattle prods, ropes, and any other torture instrument a Saint has come up with in the last decade.“I was wondering if you’d ever show your fine face.” Cal smiles. “I called you as soon as I heard.”“I had other business,” I answer crisply. “What did you catch?”“A tuna, if I do say so myself.”Tony rolls his eyes. “Brigadier. No sign of Fyodor, but the place was obviously important to them.”Someone grunts just past the thin door that separates us from the main room. I smile. Brigadier means decent information.“Who has him?” I ask.“One of my boys wanted first touch.” Cal grins. “Sim

DanteDinner at Giancarlo’s is spectacular, as always, but I can’t think about anything other than the look on Eleni’s face when she asked me to tell her where to go. Who to be. I’ve seen that look a thousand times, on a thousand different women. Even on El, when I’ve pushed her to her limits in bed. Once upon a time, I thought it was all I wanted in a partner. To be submissive, pliant, able to fit into my world. Hell, I used to think that was what I wanted out of Eleni.But things have changed, she’s right. She’s just wrong about when. Everything changed the moment she told me why to get a gyro. Again when I took her to bed. A third time when I came back from being shot and discovered she’d whipped my crew into shape. Maybe I used to be a Dante who would’ve taken that open request for an answer and written my own will onto it. I can’t anymore. Not with her.We drive back to the house on Staten Island in silence. El’s still quiet as we walk inside, past the guards.“Go to the bedroom,