Page 90 of The Gangster King

Jono is dead.

I knew he’d be punished, but I didn’t think Dante would kill one of his best friends. Who the hell is he? For a second I thought I could love him, but now I know I never could. He’s as cold and calculating as my father.

As his father.

Asallof them.

Dante Baldassare is a gangster, just like all of them.

I could never love him.

“What do you want us to do with the body?” Someone asks, and I press my face into Leo’s shirt.

“Graham. Take over,” Leo says to his second and carries me back to the house.

“Yes, sir,” he answers in our wake.

“Leo, he killed him.” I sob. “He killed Jono.”

“I know. That motherfucker,” he replies roughly.

Leo, like all of us, grew up with Jono. I can’t say he was my favorite person, but we played on the same playgrounds, went to the same movie theaters, and drank at the same bars. He was Dante’s friend, and we did all the things kids do in their teens and twenties. Together.

We were mafia kids. We couldn’t hang with too many others.

Now he’s dead.

Because of me.

“What’s going to happen now?” I ask when he puts me back on my feet near the front door.

I don’t want to go back inside.

I don’t know what I want anymore.

“That will be up to Father.” Leo places his hand on his hips. “He wants me to marry Gianna. You are to marry Roger Amato. The rest...fuck. If Dante doesn’t drop this, Adelina, it’s going to create a multi-family war.”

Because of me.

“There’s only so much Carlos will accept. His pride.” Leo rubs his jaw.

I nod, knowingly.

I reach out my hand and touch my brother’s arm. “Dante has wanted to marry me forever, you know that.”

“Since he was fucking five years old. I remember him telling me.” Leo shakes his head.

He did?

“Five? What did you say?” I ask, surprised.

Leo gives me a silly smile. “I said, that’s gross.”

I can’t help smiling back. They were two little mafia heirs learning to be men. Bad men.

Which they’ve achieved.

“Do you love Gianna?” I ask. I’ve never asked him the question before.