Bastiano Romano: A Standalone Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 4) by Parker S. Huntington (4)

Instead of replying no, I took a pull of my drink. I’d missed Everett’s seventh birthday party, too.

“Hey, Bastiano.” The mafia bunny’s low voice rasped. She probably meant for it to be seductive, but she sounded like a pack-a-day smoker with double lung implants. “Wanna get out of here?” Her acrylic-tipped finger trailed across my back before she took a seat to my right.

A condom filled with Icy Hot.

The vise grip of a pissed-off orangutan.

Two things I’d rather have on my dick than her.

“Leave,” I replied, not bothering to see who it was or what she wanted.

Wasn’t it obvious, though?

People had a tendency to get distracted by exteriors. I had a nice one. One that, had I not already been born with a gold-coated spoon dangling from my lips, would have afforded me opportunities I hadn’t earned.

A body layered with muscles. Intense dark eyes. Sharp jawline. Thick, coffee-colored hair. A gentleman’s cut that could cover your car payment and then some. Look past that, and I was a thirty-year-old—almost thirty-one—who didn’t know what he wanted in life.

If there were a female version of me, I sure as hell wouldn't date her. Still, women fawned over me like my cock was made of gold and they were looking to strike rich. Their mistake.

I downed the rest of my scotch as my dad sidled next to me at the bar. I knew it was him without looking. I could count on him to always carry around a god-awful scent of pussy and alcohol—two things a son should never have to smell on his father, but it wasn’t like I was any better.

He rapped his knuckles on the bar table. “I didn’t raise you to be an asshole.”

I snorted and picked my brain for something that would provoke him. “I know five nannies that would argue you didn’t raise me at all.”

Not that I minded. As a kid, I’d seen him often, lived a cushy life, had everything I needed. We’d never had problems until he paid Elsa off.

My dad ignored me. I could count on him to do that, too.

I lifted a finger, signaling for the bartender to send another scotch my way. He didn’t even glance in my direction. Fuck. When did the service get to be so bad at L’Oscurità? I made a mental note to handle it myself or tell Asher, who had opened the bar I managed when he’d left the mafia. I’d decide later when I wasn’t two-thirds of the way to getting shit-faced.

My dad turned to face me, but I didn’t bother returning the favor. “That was Benny’s girl. Good kid.”

“Benny know his daughter’s whoring around, Gio?”

His eyes flared. He hated when I called him Gio, but he hadn’t regained the right to be called Dad.

“Was that what she was doing? Offering herself up to you?”

“Do you really need to ask?” I reached over the bar top, selected an opened bottle, and poured myself my own goddamn drink.

“Hey! You can’t—” The bartender finally turned to face me. His words caught in his throat when we made eye contact. He looked torn between averting his eyes and sending puppy dog eyes my way in the off chance I’d show him mercy.

Fat chance.

He took a step toward me. “S-sorry.”

Too. Late.

It wasn’t my job to teach others how unforgiving the world could be, but I liked the taste of chewing people up and spitting out their hope. Also, my tolerance for incompetence was a whopping zero when it came to my employees. I ran a business not a charity.

“Mr. Romano, sir…” He faltered for words like a husband caught with his pants down.

I stared at him for a moment, drawing out the tension, amused by the trail of sweat dripping from his forehead to his collar. This was his last shift here, and he knew it. Almost nine million people called New York City their home. I could find someone more competent to replace him within the week. At the very least, it would give me something to do while Asher played doting sap to his fiancée Lucy and Elsa continued to keep Everett away from me.

Gio grabbed the bottle from me after I finished pouring myself three fingers’ worth. He took a long swig straight from the rim that would have made a frat boy proud. “What’s wrong with Benny’s girl? She’s a good-looking gal. Sweet, too, if I remember correctly.”

“You fuck her then.” I paused, my glass inches from my lips. “Or have you already?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, son. I love your mother.” His jaw ticked at my obvious amusement. It tempted me to list the affairs I knew about, but I didn't for civility’s sake.

I wasn’t even sure if I loved my mother. I almost forgot what she looked like with how little we saw one another. Looking in the mirror wouldn’t help. I didn’t get any of my features from her.

I had my dad’s high cheekbones. His strong jawline. The full lips and fawn-brown eyes. All of his strong Italian features. Whereas Mom’s stature veered on the short and slim side, my dad and I towered several inches over six feet, built like Navy SEALs moonlighting for the WWE.

I slid a glance to Gio. “Sure.”

“I do,” he insisted.

He and Mom shared an arranged marriage of sorts. A total farce, if I’d ever seen one. Back when none of the five American families had gotten along, both of my great-grandfathers thought it would be a good idea to start the first alliance between syndicates, beginning with an arranged marriage between my parents.

It didn’t really work. The Rossi and Romano syndicates weren’t any closer than they had been before the marriage. Not until I came along, bonding the families with something thicker than half-assed marital vows.

Still, it wasn’t like a Rossi would come up here for a few drinks and a Knicks game, but say one did. He’d no longer find himself floating face down in the Hudson River for it. Progress, I’d say.

“She’s my wife. I love her.”

It would have been a convincing statement had Gio not downed two fingers of whiskey after saying it. And that sex scent in the air. Someone with anosmia could smell the pussy clinging to his skin.

I muttered a curse, finally turning to face my dad. “Stop sending mafia bunnies my way, Gio. I’d rather fuck a spiked Fleshlight.”

Giovanni “Gio” Romano intimidated people. He had to. It came with the territory. No one talked to a Romano caporegime like this. Ever.

Apart from me, that was.

It wasn’t like I didn’t love my dad. We had issues—a past I wanted to forgive yet couldn’t—but I did love him. If he kept trying to rope me into the underworld, that love would dry up. He thought that if, by some stroke of luck, I fell in love with a mafia bunny, I’d follow his footsteps in the family business.

Never going to happen.

Not anymore.

That would take nothing short of a miracle, and I wasn’t exactly the type of man to inspire one of those.

Gio ran a hand along his jaw. “We’re not the plague. We’re your family.”

I grabbed the bottle from his hands, forgoing my glass and drinking straight from the rim. “Family. Not co-workers. Not bosses. Family. Jesus Christ, Gio. It's not the end of the world if I don't work with you. I'm happy here."

Not really.

I didn’t need money. My inheritance exceeded the GDP of some countries, and my MBA from Wharton gifted me with the know-how to multiply my investments. I’d fired Lewis and quit my job at Launder, Inc. eight years ago. Managing Asher’s restaurant was something I did to get Gio off my back. It wasn’t my passion. I wasn’t sure I had any passions, except getting laid, but even that got old.

Working here afforded me a little distance from the Romano family business. Technically, this wasn’t a mafia establishment, but despite him leaving the mafia, Asher was close enough to the family that Gio had left me alone for a while.

Until last month.

About the same time Asher had proposed to Lucy, Gio had started stirring this shit up again, pushing the daughters of powerful Romano men my way. It needed to stop like Tila Tequila needed a filter.

“Well, if you're planning on spending the rest of your life managing college kids at a bar”—Gio nodded in the direction of the bartender, though we both knew I actually ran the three-time Michelin star restaurant connected to the bar by the drywall to my left—“you can at least make yourself useful.”

I didn’t take the bait, instead focusing on the last half of his sentence. “What do you want?”

He inclined his head in the direction of my office and stood, not bothering to pay for his drink or tip the bartender, not that the little shit deserved it. We walked there, passing an employee break room shared by the bar and restaurant employees along the way.

My ex Dana winked at me from inside. I ignored her and flicked a piece of lint from my suit lapel. As soon as we entered my office, Gio locked the door. Never a good sign. Fuck me. I was too buzzed for a serious conversation right now.

I didn’t normally turn to alcohol to chase my demons—not even after Gio had betrayed my trust eight years ago—but I wasn't scheduled for work today and Asher, who I would usually be hanging out with right now, had a fiancée who monopolized most of his time. Don’t get me wrong. I love Lucy like a sister, but times like this reminded me of just how lonely I was.

Loneliness your dad is responsible for, the unforgiving part of my brain never let me forget. Loneliness Everett probably feels, too.

I swallowed and sat down at my desk, not bothering to offer a seat up to Gio. He'd take it if he wanted to. That was the type of men we were. Takers. We only gave when it came to the family, and even then, the number of people who shared the Romano name or—like Asher, Lucy, and our current fixer Niccolaio—had worked their way into the heart of this family was slim.

“We need to talk business.”

“My business or yours?”

One of his cufflinks fell to the floor. He kicked it under my desk, removed the remaining one, and tossed it in the trash like it hadn’t cost a month’s worth of rent in Greenwich. “Ours.”

Translation: Romano business.

Translation of translation: nothing I cared to delve into.

I bit back a curse. I went to L’Oscurità to get away from the mafia business, not to have Gio throw it in my face every chance he got. At any given moment, at least a dozen mafia contacts or members wined and dined inside the building, but the actual revenue L’Oscurità made was a hundred percent legitimate.

Gio ignored my irritation. “Your Uncle Frankie’s caught wind of a rat in our midst.”

I laughed away my disbelief. “No kidding? You see anyone suicidal lately?”

“This isn’t a joke. Our man in the bureau confirmed this.”

And our FBI informants never made mistakes.

“Shit.” The curse hissed past my lips, and rightfully so. By nature, a delicate ecosystem tethered the family business together, and even the slightest tremors could disrupt it. “Why tell me this?”

Exterminating rats fell within the jurisdiction of the head of enforcement for the Romano family. Uncle Vince. My favorite uncle. The most compassionate Romano. Go figure he’d have my least favorite job.

“Vince has narrowed it down to a list of four possible people. We’ve got tails on three of the four, but we need you on the last.”

I gestured around the bare room. No shelves. Just a desk and chairs. “I’ve got a business to run.”

“He’s here. Works for you, Bastian.”

I knew Gio hadn’t meant it as an insult, but I took it as one anyway. “Are you telling me I hired a rat?” Each and every employee here had undergone a careful vetting process. I held a grudge against Gio, but I’d never take it out on Asher and the rest of my family or risk their lives.

Then again, you hired that incompetent bartender, the asshole in me reminded.

You don’t even remember his name, the rest of me agreed.

The judgment in Gio’s eyes didn’t escape my notice. They flicked to the security monitor in front of me. “I’m telling you to be damn sure your house is clean. Before it starts infesting mine.”

I ran a tired hand down my face. Ever since he’d paid off Elsa, Gio had been looking for a way to reshape our relationship. He had never drawn a line between me and the family like this before. He was serious about this, which made me more alert than I wanted to be while tipsy.

A rat was good for no one. A rat at L’Oscurità was worse. It meant everyone I gave a shit about—Asher, Lucy, Niccolaio, Gio, Everett, and the rest of my family—were at risk. I would have taken care of the rat without being asked. When people fucked with what was mine, I left them without a dick to fuck with. Simple as that.

“Fine. I’ll take care of it.” I slid my phone out of my pocket and unlocked the screen, dismissing Gio.

He nodded. “See you around, son.” His footsteps paused a few feet short of the door. “You see Old Man Tony’s daughter lately? She’s got tits out to here.” He stretched his arms out a foot away from his chest.

I spared him no attention as I said, “Kindly fuck off, Gio.”

He laughed all the way out the door, and when the handle clicked shut, I let out a long exhale. This—caring for my family—was how I always got roped into the mafia life. I had gotten away with just running L’Oscurità for a while, but all signs pointed to my reprieve coming to an unwilling end.

And I wasn’t close to ready for it.