Page 62 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
“Is there an actual point to this phone call or is it merely to waste my time?”
“That girl of yours. Vitali.” His words slurred every now and then, his fake dentures probably slipping out a bit in his drunken rambling. “You’ll lose the syndicate if you choose her, and there goes my allowance. Don’t screw up.”
The fact that he knew Renata was here unnerved me. I knew he received intel from older soldiers, and I didn’t go after them because they were related to people who served me well, but it still bugged me how informed he was.
My fingers tightened on my phone. “This is none of your business.”
“It’s my business when you run my money.”
“I don’t run your money. I run the De Luca syndicate’s money, which is no longer yours.”
“Drop the Vitali girl. She’s dead weight.”
“No.”
“How does she have you so pussy whipped?”
“It’s called love. You should try it sometime, Angelo. Maybe it’ll make you less of an asshole.”
His crazed laughter met my ear. I knew it had been a while since I’d heard it, because it actually chilled me.
“Love.” He laughed again. “Love!” His Texas accent deepened as his laughter unhinged him. “Ain’t no such thing as love! Love is me killing your Mamma before she could kill me.” He snorted again. “Love. There ain’t no such thing.”
I sat through dinner that evening, relatively unscathed. The two Camerino soldiers across from me discussed the trip to Italy they’d taken, while the woman beside me—I think her name was Marquessa—scoffed.
She turned to me. “Well, I had dinner with the pope last time I visited the Mediterranean.”
I nodded and smiled politely, keeping my irritation to myself. “That’s nice.”
“It was.” She sighed and patted her updo. If I had to guess, I’d say she was in her forties, but talented plastic surgery had her looking thirty. “I had to cut the meeting short to meet with the Italian president. He’s a busy man, you see, but he’ll always make time for me.”
I wondered if she knew that he was my godfather. I kept that to myself as I nodded. “How great of him.”
One of the Camerino soldiers’ wife smiled at me. “You’re from Italy, right?”
“Yes, though it’s been a while since I’ve been back to my home country.”
“I don’t even hear an accent!”
“I went to boarding school in the States and dropped it pretty quickly.”
Marquessa huffed. “Boarding school in the States? I sent my children to England, where they could be properly educated. You can’t trust teachers in America these days. None of them know how to do their jobs properly.”
I clenched my fists beneath the table, wondering if Marquessa would have even bitten her tongue if she knew I was a public-school teacher. In the syndicate hierarchy, Marquessa wasn’t anyone. She was just the highest-ranking member at this table—because I was technically out of the mafia—and on a power trip.
The Camerino wife frowned. “My high school teacher helped me with my college applications, sent in my letter of rec, and helped me fundraise to pay for the applications. I ended up at Degory and graduated summa cum laude.”
Degory rivaled the East Coast Ivy League schools, and still, Marquessa scoffed. “I went to Oxford. My children did, too. On their own merit, mind you. T
here’s no nepotistic legacy in England like there is in America.”
Did this woman realize she was American?
I was two spoonfuls into my lobster when Marquessa leaned forward, patted my hand, and asked, “Why are you here again, dear?”
I looked around to see if anyone had heard her. A few heads turned our way, but they didn’t say anything. I’d opted for a table further away from the main table, where all the syndicate leaders sat. I didn’t recognize anyone here.
A few soldiers and that wife of a Camerino caporegime, maybe. Chances were, they knew I was a Vitali, but the gravity of the connection didn’t register because I’d been out of this world for a decade. Judging from her earlier words, the caporegime’s wife knew for certain.
