Chapter 68

Mafia Kings: Valentino: Chapter 68 That evening at dinner, I couldn’t eat.

All I could think about was the man chained in the barn... the horrors of his wounds...

The way he had whispered, Please... KILL me...

Don Vicari seemed to take pleasure in my distress. He smiled throughout dinner like he’d heard an amusing joke.

The great-grandmother kept her eyes on her plate, not ever looking up from it as she ate.

Isabella kept glancing back and forth between me and her father.

Finally, she timidly broke the silence.

“Is... is something wrong, Valentino?”

“He just had a hard day at work,” Don Vicari said.

“Oh – I’m so sorry.” The look of concern she gave me was real.

I smiled weakly but couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

“But there’s good news,” Don Vicari announced. “I’ve decided to let Valentino escort you around Sicily to various towns. So you can see the sights. An early wedding present, you might say.”

The great-grandmother looked up in surprise.

Isabella stared at her father, her lower lip quivering. “Are you... are you serious?”

“Of course I am,” he said, almost in annoyance. “I wouldn’t have said it if I weren’t serious.”

Isabella suddenly burst into tears, jumped up from her seat, and ran around the table. She hugged her father from the side as she continued to cry. “Thank you, Papa – thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Don Vicari smiled even wider as he patted her arm.

It was one of the few times I’d ever seen him look genuinely happy... like he was a normal human being.

The great-grandmother beamed at Isabella and Don Vicari.

“I can’t take all the credit,” Don Vicari said, his smile shifting to something sly and wolfish. “Your fiancé was the one who suggested it.”

“Really?!” Isabella sobbed.

She flew from her father’s side and ran towards me as though she was going to hug me –

Then she stopped short, like she knew she shouldn’t come any closer.

Still, she shifted from foot to foot like an excited child on Christmas morning.

“Thank you, Valentino! Thank you!”

The look on her face was sweet but heartbreaking.

No one should be that happy about traveling 50 miles away from their house.

It should’ve been their God-given right. Something they’d done all their lives.

“What do you say, boy?” Don Vicari asked, his voice happy but tinged with dark warning.

I forced a smile. “...sure. You’re welcome.”

Isabella went back to her father and showered him with hugs.

The old lady looked over at me and beamed. “You a good boy,” she said, loud enough for the entire table to hear.

If she knew the truth about why I’d suggested I take Isabella to other towns, I doubt she would have felt the same.

As I gave the same forced, sickly smile to the great-grandmother, Don Vicari caught my eye.

When I looked at him, he smirked and stared me down.

I remembered his warning at the barn – both what he’d shown me and what he’d said:

DON’T BETRAY ME.

OR ELSE.

I looked down at my plate again and continued to push my food around my plate.