Mafia Princess Read Free

.’
    Without a thought about what she was doing, she got into the back of what she soon realised was a very smart car. It seemed brand new. She could smell the leather.
    The driver, who introduced himself as Luca, said: ‘Momento!’ They had to wait for another friend, just a couple of minutes and they would be on their way. Theywould look after her, take her home. She mustn’t worry, must stop crying. The other guy, Franco, got in the back of the car with her.
    Pat didn’t care as the moments ticked on. She sat silently all wrapped up in her aching upset. It was the end of her world, of her life. She was traumatised. She felt dead inside.
    Suddenly, the driver was talking to someone. There was a clunk and a pull at the front passenger door. A short, wiry young man with a flowing flop of black hair climbed in beside the driver.
    He twisted, whirled around, and stared at Pat with a naughty grin: ‘Ciao, bella! Ciao, tesora.’ [‘Hi, lovely! Hi, beautiful!]
    His name was Emilio. Emilio Di Giovine.

CHAPTER TWO
WONDERLAND
    ‘To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.’
    WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ,
    HAMLET
    Luca, the driver, invited Pat to a nightclub and she agreed. She wanted to forget Alessandro. She put on a yellow dress to brighten her spirits and went out intending to have some harmless fun.
    That evening Luca’s best pal Emilio Di Giovine once again magically materialised in his tight shirt and tighter pants. He arrived late at the noisy, smoke-filled nightclub, explaining that he’d crashed a borrowed car and the owner was not amused. Emilio was not bothered. As his friends jabbered questions about the accident, he shrugged: ‘It happens.’
    His eyes were watching Pat dancing and he was soon making his way across the crowded dance floor to talk to her. It was as if Luca didn’t exist.
    ‘Do you want me to take you home? Why don’t you go out with me?’ He said he would take her out the following night.
    ‘You’d better not take me home,’ she said. ‘I came here with Luca.’
    But Emilio came round the next night and the two of them went to a funfair. From then on, he kept coming to pick her up, each time driving a different car. They were allspanking new and when she queried this he told her: ‘My dad has a garage.’
    After stealing a kiss on an early date he said, ‘Pat, you’re the kind of girl I want to marry.’
    Mum was twenty-three years old and she’d heard plenty of chat-up lines so she laughingly brushed this off as nonsense. It was silly, Italian Romeo talk from a boy who was only nineteen years old. Her instinct was to tell him to hop it. Yet it was nice to hear the passionate patter after the heartbreak of Alessandro. It was good for her self-esteem to feel wanted.
    And so was his lifestyle. She couldn’t get her head round the new cars: a Porsche on Tuesday, a Mercedes on Thursday and a nippy Alfa Romeo for Saturday and Sunday. There was always something new for the weekend.
    ‘Emilio, what do you do ?’
    With a charismatic smile and not a hint of shame, he replied, ‘I race cars and work as a mechanic at my father’s garage.’
    As far as Pat was concerned, he might have said he was going to the Moon along with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin who’d just become the first men to take a stroll up there. It didn’t make sense to her. It was curiouser and curiouser. Their trips around town only confused her more. The flash cars weren’t the attraction. He was like a magnet for people, who hurried over to talk to him as if they just wanted to be seen near him.
    Everywhere he went his language was cash but in many bars and restaurants his money was foreign to them; theowners wouldn’t take it, saying their meals and drinks were on the house. He wore bespoke suits, his shirts and ties from the Via Montenapoleone designer shops, his shoes imported, English and cap-toed. He was groomed to perfection, having a wet shave and his moustache trimmed every