All Chapters of The Mafia’s Red Rose Chose the Third Man: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

By the time the shooting was over, I couldn't lift my right shoulder.Niccolo refused to take me straight home."The clinic.""It's a bruise.""Your shoulder took too much recoil in that last round.""Are you a doctor?""No.""Then shut up.""All right."He agreed, then had the driver take us to the clinic anyway.I was too annoyed not to laugh.The doctor examined my shoulder, confirmed there was no fracture, and told me not to shoot for a few days.As the nurse was reaching for a painkiller, Niccolo said, "A different one."The nurse looked up at him."She's allergic to that ingredient."I turned sharply toward him. "How do you know that?"Niccolo paused."Your father told me."I stared at him."My father doesn't even know whether I take sugar in my coffee.""Then maybe I remembered wrong.""Niccolo."He picked up his cane, perfectly composed."Let's go."He was dodging the question and not bothering to hide it.I watched him the whole way back.He leaned back in his seat with his ey

The first thing Niccolo did when he came in was look at me.He didn't ask whether I was frightened and he didn't ask what had happened.He clearly already knew.He spoke directly to me. "My lawyer will be here in ten minutes."The police have been contacted as well."Matteo's face went cold."This is between the Rossi, Moretti, and Ferro families."Niccolo turned his head. "And?""The Vitale family has no standing to make decisions for her.""I have no intention of making any," he said flatly.And it was that line, of all of them, that made Matteo pause.Niccolo took a document out of his inside pocket and put it on the table."The letter of intent for the engagement. Signed yesterday."My father's name was at the bottom.And mine.I simply hadn't decided yet when to make the engagement official."Given the agreement between our families, the Vitale family has every reason to provide her with lawyers and security."Matteo glanced down at it."You think one piece of paper frightens anyb

At 18, Niccolo had just completed a dangerous escort job for the Vitale family.He was young. He had taken a few men out and brought the whole convoy back intact, and he thought that proved he could handle anything.When he got home, his father, Alessandro Vitale, slapped him before doing anything else."Why?" I asked."Because I hadn't been given permission."Niccolo's smile was thin."He told me I was gambling with my life. What I heard was that all he would ever see were my mistakes."I said nothing.I knew that feeling far too well."So I got in a car and left."He told me to come back and I didn't."That night, men were watching the Vitale cars. By leaving alone, Niccolo had made himself an easy target.Alessandro went after him with his men. They found him in a parking lot just as the ambush began.As the first shots rang out, Alessandro shoved Niccolo behind the car and was hit himself.I asked, "He died right there?""Yes."Niccolo's voice stayed steady. "He was still cursing m

I held that old coin and looked at it for a long time."What if you had known it was me?"Niccolo sat back on the sofa. "Meaning?""Suppose you'd known back then that the little girl in the vineyard was Serafina Moretti."I looked at him."If you'd known how bad my reputation would get, that I'd chase Luca, that I'd use an ambush to force Matteo to marry me, would you still have come looking?"Niccolo barely thought about it."Yes.""Why?""Because the first time I met you, you weren't exactly sweet-tempered either."I glared at him.He went on, entirely straight-faced. "You swore, you gave orders to a wounded man, you promised to marry someone in exchange for food, and you lied beautifully." Niccolo smiled. "So when people started saying you were vicious and competitive and impossible, none of it sounded unfamiliar."If anyone else had said that, I would have gone for their throat.But coming from him, somehow it didn't sound like an insult at all.After a moment, I finally said what

Nobody had lived in the house by the water for years.A damp, dusty smell greeted me when the door opened.The living room still held the furniture my mother had chosen, and there were even photographs on the wall of me collecting prizes as a child.I stood in front of that row of trophies with my fingers beginning to shake.Behind every one of them was Bianca.Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to smash the glass case.