Mafia Queen

Chapter Forty Three

I bit my lip. He had been pushing me for a commitment since the beginning. "I see. You want me to build to up your escort service over here, but stay out of the spotlight so you can take credit it."

"No, no no, Amore." He shook his head. "That's not what I mean. Of course, I want you here, running things with me, but like you said, you aren't in a position to move. And you could start a fighting ring in Sicily and see how your current clients like it. I could even send some of my men with you to get it started. Think of it like a pilot and then once things progress, we can merge and finally be together." I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off. "Together professionally, of course." He smiled wryly.

I sat quietly, wondering how I could use this as a bargaining chip. I could negotiate with him, tell him he could use my name to build his business up if I could take Luca and a few of his other prisoners to begin my own fighting ring, but I would need to make sure other things were in place first. Angelo And Marco and the rest of the men would need to be ready to attack, to wipe Niko out completely with no mistakes this time. Once he started digging around too much, he'd surely find out that Stephanie Bianchi was a made up person and it wouldn't take long for him to weave the connections together.

"There is no need to make rush decisions. You're still here for another week, right?"

I nodded.

"Then let's just spend our time getting to know each other instead of discussing this." He smiled, refilling his glass of wine. It was going down like water and he didn't seem to notice I hadn't touched mine. "I'm hosting an important poker game tomorrow night. Some of my biggest clients will be there, and I want your girls to come."

"You want my girls to service your men?" I arched my eyebrow at him.

He chuckled. "They won't be forced into anything. I just want to see what you speak of in action. You saw my fighting ring, and you know it's easier to understand when you can see it with your own eyes. That is, if you think they will be interested."

"They'll do what I tell them." I said dryly, finally putting the wine to my lips. It hadn't killed him yet, so I figured I was safe. He was switching everything up on me today and I hoped Angelo and Marco were watching this and crafting some kind of plan because I certainly didn't know what to do.

"Good." He smiled. "It's at 7PM tomorrow."

Niko spent the rest of lunch making small talk with me and I did my best to stay on my game. All I could think about was Luca and getting him out of there. By the time I left, I hardly remembered most of what we talked about after he asked me to bring my girls to his game tomorrow.

The cafe was a short walk from the apartment, and I needed the fresh air. I waved Angelo off in the car, but knew he was trailing me the entire way home to be sure I wasn't going off course again.

He pulled the car into the garage a bit ahead of me as the doorman opened the door for me. We walked into the building at the same time and stood in front of the elevator, not speaking just in case someone followed us. Angelo had a disguise, but we still couldn't be too careful.

We didn't speak until we were in the comfort of Jace's apartment.

"He wants me to bring the girls to a poker game tomorrow." I burst out the second the door closed behind us.

"I know." Angelo sighed, taking off his hat and the rest of his disguise. "I'll call Hailey and let them know."

"We're doing it? I thought Axel wanted us to wait a little while before doing anything else?"

Angelo's face got serious. "Fuck Axel, Charlotte. I can't bring myself to watch that bastard treat you that way any longer. We're getting Luca back, and we're doing it tomorrow night, without Axel."