Page 84 of Don’t Say Mafia

When he was finished, Gage wiped the blade clean on the man’s own discarded shirt . . . and then looked at me and smiled.

That same surgical emptiness stared back at me now.

“Come back to me, buddy,” I said softly, watching as he slowly blinked and the light returned to his eyes. Being close friends with a psychopath wasn’t the easiest thing, but we’d all figured out how to manage it.

“Well, look at this,” a familiar voice called warmly. “My favorite investors, gracing me with their presence.”

Dominic Bianchi swept toward the table as if he was still walking into a dining room in Milan instead of a strip mall–adjacent jewel box in Vegas. He was wearing his usual perfectly tailored jacket with a silk pocket square, and his dark hair was threaded with silver at the temples. The man held multiple Michelin stars and never let anyone forget it.

We owned the restaurant, but Dominic ran it. And he ran it like it was his kingdom.

“Numbers are up again this quarter,” he announced proudly, clasping my shoulder before shaking Gage’s hand. “Eighteen percent. Private dining bookings are saving you heathens from yourselves.”

“Imagine that,” I said dryly. “People like good food.”

He sniffed. “They like my food.”

He adjusted his cuff and glanced toward the windows with theatrical disgust. “And I achieve this excellence in a climate that is actively hostile to human life. Forty degrees Celsius last week. In Milan, we have seasons. Here, we have the sun trying to murder you.”

“You say that every week,” I reminded him.

“Because it remains true.”

Gage smirked into his drink.

Dominic kept talking—something about a wine program expansion, a critic flying in from Chicago, and a new truffle supplier he was convinced would change our lives.

I was only half listening because over Dominic’s shoulder, near the bar, an employee I didn’t recognize was standing there, slowly rolling silverware. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and he had black hair that appeared to be holding an entire vat of gel. Besides the unfortunate hair, there was nothing in particular that was notable about him . . . except for the fact that I’d never seen him before.

That alone set my blood humming with warning.

Since this was a restaurant that we owned and used frequently for business meetings . . . we closely monitored who worked here. We didn’t hire just anyone. Every person who moved through these doors was someone who’d been carefully vetted. No exceptions.

“Dom,” I said casually, nodding behind him. “Who’s that employee?”

Dominic frowned. “Who?”

He turned to follow my line of sight.

Behind him, the man’s hand slipped from the silverware to his pocket. A second later, he was raising a phone and aiming it at our table. A flash sliced across the room, and for a second, no one moved.

The man shoved the phone back down and took off toward the front door, somehow unlocking it in the blink of an eye and pushing outside into the raging heat.

“What the fuck?” I growled, already shoving out of the booth. “I’ve got him,” I threw to Gage as I ran.

He nodded and headed straight for the kitchen doors without a word or a backward glance.

We were careful.

Always.

The Syndicate’s business was layered, buried under shell companies and polite corporate fronts. On paper, nothing connected the dots in a way that would hold.

But Gage wore a badge. And even if he wasn’t assigned anywhere near us, even if no one officially suspected anything, we did not get photographed casually having lunch together.

Not where someone could spin it.

That was why we used Velluto for this kind of meeting. We closed it to the public for “a private event,” sat at a back table with no sightlines from the street, and used staff who were vetted within an inch of their lives.