Devoted to the Don (Morelli Family #6)

by Leighton Greene

“How can you be so sure?” he asks, coming up beside me to look out as well. His fingers slide into mine and I squeeze his hand as I answer. “Because I make my own luck.”

I break into a run, charging through the dispersing crowd, and I reach the hooded figure just as it reaches out to grab Finch.

“If the IFF want it so badly, it must hold a lot of power,” Róisín says, looking at him in the mirror. “Why should it be any better that I give that power to you, Don Morelli?”

“Yes, alright, I was wondering about my platinum Armani cufflinks. They made it through.” “Praise Jesus,” I say, holding up the crucifix.

“I am not fucking you in the Colosseum,” I tell him in a low voice, but he just laughs. And maybe I would.

I’m so focused on Finch, and on making my way under the deceptive light of the moon, that I only hear someone behind me seconds before they strike. I whirl around, but it’s too late. There’s a tearing sting in my arm as a needle stabs in; I stumble back against a wall; everything goes dark.

And then I understand. He was so busy worrying about me when those lights went out that he wasn’t worrying about himself. I bend double, anxiety hitting me right in the gut, grabbing at myself until the fear and guilt passes over. My fault. My fault. It beats a tattoo in my brain.

“No, no,” he insists, trying to pull me back. “Not in there.” He abandons any attempts to speak English, but his Italian is easy enough to understand. “There are bad people in there.” I take his hand and push the money back into it. “I understand,” I tell him. “Don’t worry. I’m bad people, too.”

“Rats,” says the same voice, and then sighs. “Just the rats. Maybe they can chew on your toes, eh?” “They’ll be eating your eyeballs soon enough,” says a cold, threatening voice, and I put my hand out to the wall to steady myself. It’s Luca.

Even these days, I forget just how ruthless he can be when necessary. But Finch reminds me now as he reappears, gun steady and well-aimed, and lets off three shots.

I push Finch behind me and, just as Muscles reappears, I throw the knife straight at him. It hits his throat, burying in to the hilt, and he drops like a stone, gargling and choking.

Once we’re through, I put my hand on his arm and stop him for a moment. “How?” He knows what I mean. “Our wedding rings.”

I’m pretty sure that blond is not going to forgive and forget my killing of his brother. And he seemed the vicious type. I suspect he’s going to make this personal.

“Yes, Don Morelli,” he says in my ear. “I understand.” For a moment, I consider taking him into the train restroom and having very awkward, uncomfortable sex with him in that tiny room.

“I’m saying there are ways to intercept electronic communications, and that becoming suspicious of our closest allies will only lead to paranoia and poor decisions.” I drain my espresso and set the cup down. “Trust me,” I add with feeling. “I’ve been there.”

He’s a D’Amato by marriage and a Donovan by birth, but he also has a Morelli inheritance, and I can’t stand in the way of that.

There is nothing I enjoy looking at more than an Italian man in a suit, unless that man is specifically my husband and the suit is specifically Armani. As much as I tease him about it, Luciano D’Amato really was put on this earth to wear Giorgio’s creations. A match made in heaven—or maybe hell.

“We’ll have a large bottle of San Pellegrino and two glasses,” I tell the bartender in my best Italian. “At once, sir,” he says back in English. I guess my best Italian is still not going to fool any actual Italian.

“Because he wants to make it personal, baby bird. He wants to avenge his brother. He wants to look at me close up when he kills me, to watch the spark leaving me.”

“It would be the height of bad manners to shed blood at the opera,” Luca says reprovingly, as he takes off to the left, around the corner. “I assume,” he throws back over his shoulder. “You assume correctly, although it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.”

The feeling of being most alive when my life is under threat. And I know, too, that sense of escape—from fate, as Luca calls it. But I call it Death.

“Kiss me for luck?” “We make our own luck,” I remind him, but I kiss him anyway.

But whatever happens tonight, at least I know Finch’s life is not in danger—only his liberty. The IFF want him for what they think he knows, so they still need him alive.

But if this is some trick, you should know I have a new blade that needs blooding.” I grin at that. “Deal.”

The bauta backs off immediately, his cloak opening around him as he whirls around. “Motherfucker,” my new friends breathes. “He has a gun.” I’m so glad he noticed. It would have been irritating to have to point that out to him as well.

He begins to back away, turning to the entrance, but stops when he sees me heading toward him. His eyes burn straight into mine. He wants to kill me. Wants it badly enough that he’ll squander a few minutes of his escape time to do it.

I couldn’t bear to see him cover up again, not now that he’s returned to the pink hair that reminds me of the night we met.

He gives one glance back over his shoulder at our dead enemy. “Guy should’ve paid more attention to my shoes,” he murmurs with satisfaction.

“Because I would like us to be friends. Friends are always more useful than enemies.” “I have many friends already. Some of them very much dislike you, Don Morelli.” “I can imagine.”

You know,” she says, smiling down at her pet, “Andreas here has something of a crush on you, Don Morelli. Perhaps a few days and nights with him would be an appropriate thank you for saving my life instead?” I step forward, my hands on my hips. “I beg your fucking pardon?”

“It’s a key,” I say.

Duh lol finally it's said

For just a moment, I feel a warm glow at my back, as though Luca’s snuck up behind me, about to hug me, but when I glance over my shoulder, he’s still at the kitchen table. Huh. Weird.

Ghosts are usually cold but i like the idea of Tino patting him on the back

Finch’s eyes are hard and green when he tells me, “Well, if she doesn’t kill the fucker, I will.”

So I’m not letting you in to see Ms. Donovan without surrendering your weapons.” For all O’Hara’s geniality, he doesn’t mess around when it comes to protecting his Boss. I pull out my Sig Sauer, ignoring Finch’s sharp, “Luca,” and hand it over.

Rory Byrne blinks. Laughs. “Are you for real?”

With how much he was mentioned it mskes sense

“I really am sorry, Conor. We had a good time, though, didn’t we? But put the gun down, now. You know you don’t want to shoot me. And you definitely don’t want to shoot Ms. Donovan, here.”

Poor Conor

O’Hara fires two shots, deafening in the small room. Byrne takes one of them to the forehead, the other in the cheek.

But when I glance back over my shoulder, I see Tara pulling her second-in-command into a warm embrace. It’s never easy being betrayed. God knows I’ve discovered that myself over the years.

“Don Morelli,” she says formally, looking me straight in the eye, “I want to thank you for what you’ve done. You have proved once again that you’re a great ally—a great friend.

“Is Conor okay?” “No,” Tara says. “I think he’ll blame himself about this for some time to come.”

Blackmail’s an ugly business, and it only causes more bad blood. Much better to lance the boil and let the infection drain away completely.

my financial advisors, telling me I’d been granted permission to buy up the stock I wanted, making me a majority shareholder in the company Louis Clemenza relies on.

“Then you should have made that clearer to your business partners in Italy. Or had contingency plans in place.” “Oh, yeah? Like Tino Morelli had contingency plans? Look where he is now.”

Clemenza barks out a laugh. “More important? What could be more important than—” “Your life,” I tell him, because I can’t help myself any longer. “Your life, Don Clemenza, is hanging in the balance. Has been, all night.”

He’s a little like me in some ways, Louis Clemenza. He likes to appear harmless.

“What retribution? You trying to give an old man a heart attack?” “That’d be the easy way to go, wouldn’t it?” I observe. “Tino Morelli didn’t get the easy way out. Neither will you.”

“Vollero’s a rat!” Clemenza shouts. “You can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth! He’s been telling me all about your business, things he shouldn’t—” He breaks off as Luca smiles. “I didn’t say it was Al Vollero,”

“The Commission has grown tired of your games, Lou. So our decision is this: you’ll step down as head of your Family. You’ll get the hell out of New York, and if you know what’s good for you, out of the country. You’re officially retiring, Lou. Congratulations.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Clemenza make a sudden movement. I glance up at him; with hatred and vengeance twisting his face, he’s taken the neck of the heavy sambuca bottle in both hands like a baseball bat, and is swinging it straight for my head.

And along the way, Vollero managed to turn more than one Clemenza member into a friend of the Morellis. “You’re the one Al Vollero turned?”