Lust for Danger: A Mafia Romance -- Book One: The Family [Erotic Mafia Romance Book] Read Free Page B

waved, leaving her to her chatter.
     
    He had to laugh. If there was one thing Natalina liked more than baking, it was gossip. By tomorrow, she’ll probably tell the whole neighborhood , he thought to himself.
     
    But his smile quickly faded as his mind turned to the business of the evening.
     
    He wasn’t going home – not yet, anyway. First he had to stop at Dominic’s club, to pay his respects to the boss and hand him this week’s earnings. And the sooner he got this unpleasant errand over with, the sooner he could go home and crash for the night.
     
    He’d had such a spring in his step leaving the subway, but now his feet were dragging slower and slower as he neared Dominic’s club, at the end of a long, seedy-looking street called Via Lavandaio. The name meant Washerman’s Street, because historically this neighborhood had been where all the laundrymen of Rome lived and worked. But all the washermen had moved away or changed jobs long ago, and now the avenue was the main going-out district of the neighborhood.
     
    And Dominic’s club, Terrazza – the Terrace – was the biggest of them all.
     
    It was only 8:30, much too early for the evening’s patrons to begin arriving. But tonight was Thursday, and Thursdays at Terrazza were always big nights.
     
    In the past two or three years, this neighborhood was starting to become trendy, thanks in no small part to Dominic’s pull with city council members. He was making a fortune off of Trastevere’s transformation, at clubs like Terrazza and a dozen others lining the street.
     
    It didn’t matter to Dominic that the character of the neighborhood was changing – and frankly, most of the residents of Trastevere were happy, as they were seeing business boom for the first time in years. But in Carlo’s opinion, their joy was short-sighted. All these bars and clubs moving in – all the big, flashy new buildings – they were destroying the very thing that made Trastevere special in the first place.
     
    But he kept his opinions to himself, of course. No sense ruffling Dominic’s feathers. And anyway, there wasn’t much he could do about it, now was there?
     
    Carlo walked up the steps of Terrazza, bathed in blue neon light, and slapped hands with the two bouncers working the door: Matteo and Luca, two huge Sicilians who’d been working under Dominic for over a decade.
     
    “How’s it going, guys?” he asked, and they silently nodded their hellos. “You seen my brother?”
     
    “Not tonight, Carlo,” said Luca. “I think Dominic’s still got him down in Fiumicino working the docks.”
     
    “Dio mio,” Carlo groaned. “I don’t know what Rocky did, but Dominic’s been riding him hard for a month now.”
     
    Working the docks – helping unload the illegal imports on shipping vessels – was one of the more undesirable jobs in the organization. It was filthy, tedious, and the police presence in the harbor meant you were at higher risk of getting caught. Carlo’s brother Rocky had been working for Dominic for just over a year now, but somehow he kept managing to screw up one way or another.
     
    Carlo hadn’t wanted Rocky to join the organization in the first place. He’d even gone to Dominic and tried to convince him that his brother wasn’t cut out for the job. But Rocky had always loved the allure of the mafia, and he didn’t listen to Carlo’s pleadings. He’d always been into those gangster movies, with lots of guns and glamour, even though Carlo had tried to explain to him that the day-to-day mafia work was nothing like that.
     
    And in no small part, Carlo felt responsible for bringing Rocky into this life.
     
    “Well, if you hear anything, let me know,” Carlo said. “Thanks, guys. I’ll see you.”
     
    The bouncers opened the door for him, and Carlo stepped into the dimly-lit hall of the nightclub, past the bar and into the back room through a small door to the left of the stage. From there, it was up another flight of