All Chapters of Indebted to the Mafia King: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

140 Chapters

Loukoumades

EleniI blink awake in the morning with my mouth watering. Cold sheets. No Dante. I check my phone and find the usual text. At Piacere today, had to leave early, news when he gets home. I drop my phone with a groan. My stomach grumbles. I think I spent all night dreaming about loukoumades, these honey puffs Mama used to make for my birthday, or whenever she was in a really good mood. The air even smells like them, as if I brought the memory from my dreams into reality.If Dante was here, I could have convinced him to drive around to find some. Instead, I’m just going to have to throw myself on Seb’s mercy. Or, more accurately, the mercy of Seb’s alarm clock. He’s rarely awake before noon.My mood sours as I get dressed and discover my favorite T-shirt fell out of the laundry basket before it got taken this week, so it’s still dirty. I pull on one of Dante’s and scowl at myself in the mirror as I brush my teeth. Today sucks. Maybe I’ll skip schoolwork and catch up with a few of my cap
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Why?

EleniMama doesn’t like the news I’ve fallen in love with Dante, judging by the lecture that follows. Still, I sit politely and listen to every word, smiling at the sheer joy of having a mother to scold me again. After that, we talk over police procedurals, her favorite show and how to watch them, for a few hours, catching up on everything we haven’t had time for in our last few calls. Gianna shows up because I forgot we made lunch plans, and unlike Dante, Mama took to her instantly. Before an hour passes, she has Gianna in the kitchen with her hair pulled back, walking her through the steps of properly seasoning lamb for gyros. I sit at the kitchen island, correcting Gianna’s technique when Mama isn’t fast enough. She smacks my hand away when I try to steal a bite of pita, and for a moment, I think I know what it was like to be Christos when we were kids. She means the smack, but so much affection sparkles in her gaze that I know I have nothing to worry about. My heart squeezes. I
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Yes

EleniDespite how tired he seemed a moment ago, Dante comes alive when I kiss him. He grips my hips like the last anchor in a storm, and I undulate against him like the waves he’s trying to hold on through. I don’t know what to do with this warmth in my chest. It’s something more permanent than love, more certain. So I just wrap myself around him, slide my hands into his hair, and try to find a place where everything makes sense to me again.Dante pulls back. “I’m a little sore tonight. I don’t know if I have the whole routine in me.”That home-warmth flares.“Okay,” I say. “I don’t mind.”He smiles against my lips. “I love you.”“I love you too.” A giggle bursts from my lips. “Do you want me to…?”Dante trails his kisses away from my mouth, down my neck. “Only if you need it. I’m happy just to feel you tonight.”He’s nearly liquid underneath me, languorous and slow. I shake my head. I’ve never seen this side of Dante, not straining against his own iron control or forgetting about it
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Best-Laid Plans

DanteThe next morning, Eleni lies splayed across my chest, her naked shoulders peeking above the blanket. Her hand lays open, and the ring I picked out for her glitters on her finger. I smile. It was time. Being “just a girlfriend” in this life put her in so much more danger. At least, that’s what I told Tony and the other guys. But who the fuck was I kidding? The birds are singing, the sun is shining, and my fiancée is drooling a little. My ribs hurt with how full my heart is.Or with the weight said fiancée is putting on my still only mostly healed bullet wound. But I’ll let El wake up in her own time. I brush a few curls back off her face.She wakes up with a snort and blinks up at me in total confusion for a second. Then, she touches the corner of her mouth where the drool was coming from and turns bright red.“It’s okay!” I try to say before she can freak out.She buries her head beneath the pillow. “Forget the proposal. I’m moving to Alaska.”I roll over top of her, caging her
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Here and Gone

EleniA week after Mama arrived, we walk along South Beach with our sandals in our hands, looking out over the water at the Verrazano.“—and then Adriani said, ‘if you get another orange from that man, I’m going to nail them to his front door and let the streets run orange with the juices!’” Mama says.I laugh so hard I actually have to stop walking. The sand burns my feet, but I don’t mind. Mama and I have spent nearly every day together since she arrived, and as much as she complains about Theia Adriani, she tells stories about her younger sister almost constantly.“Theia Adriani should meet Tony,” I say when I get my breath back. “I think they’d either fall passionately in love or hate each other on sight.”Mama smiles. “Tony is the one with the very stiff hair, yes? And those lovely eyes.”I swallow down another burst of laughter and decide to tell everyone about the “stiff hair” comment later. “Yes, he is.”She nods. “And he is the right hand. Capo supreme.”“Caporegime,” I corre
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Saying Goodbye

DanteI stand on the porch of my safe house upstate, fidgeting with my watch. When Eleni told me she mentioned Christos to Mama, I nearly stopped breathing. I expected demands for answers about why I killed her son. I didn’t expect tearful requests for his last words, college stories, and to leave from the airstrip upstate when she returned to Greece a few days later. I can just see the two of them through the trees, standing in front of the half-hidden grave. Eleni holds Mama, and both of them shake. For the first time in a week, I can actually forget about Camila. I stand on the edge of a towering, personal grief, knowing I was the one who caused it. Still, I’m never really sure if I regret shooting Christos. I miss the devil-may-care freshman, the once-in-a-generation running back, the bastard who made me laugh and carved a line through parties with me. I fucking hate the memory of the taste of his blood, the gunpowder that stained my hands for what felt like weeks after. But the
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Shots Fired

EleniI stand on the wrecked stage of Piacere and turn in a slow circle. The two bars glisten under thick drifts of broken glass, and puddles of spilled alcohol drool away from them. Not a table stands upright. More than half of them are splintered. Under the brilliant daytime lights of the club, goosebumps pepper my skin. It feels like looking at a ghost.It feels like looking at The Greek Corner, the day after Baba’s murder and my rescue, when Tony took me back.Dante storms up the stairs. “They took a good fucking chunk out of the basement, but either they couldn’t find the secret door, or they couldn’t get through.”His eyes dance with rage. I step over one of the poles, ripped from its mooring to lean against the stage, and close the distance between us. Still, I don’t touch him. There’s an electricity radiating off him that I can’t catch up with yet. My anger feels dull, faraway. It’s too much like that day, the day my whole life changed, for me to touch it yet.“Anyone hurt?” I
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Turnabout

DanteI check the cylinder on my second pistol—full—and slide it back into place with a click. Adrenaline courses through my veins as I put my eye to the sniper sight Tony set up on the apartment roof across from the Russian warehouse Cal showed us.“We’re trusting Cal Duncan?” Tony asks.“You got another fucking option?” I reply.His sharp sigh behind me tells me I’ve already won. I knew I was going to. If we give the Russians more than twenty-four hours, we look weak. But we don’t know shit about their operations, other than this warehouse. Assuming Cal was telling the truth. And if I’m being honest, I think Cal’s more likely to give us the warehouse of another syndicate, on the off chance he lied, so at least I don’t have the deaths of civilians to worry about. I lean back from the sight.Tony stands behind me, along with Seb and three other capos. Seb’s just about vibrating out of his skin, being taken on an all-capo mission. Tony said it wasn’t a good idea, but his induction is n
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Race Against the Clock

DanteThe lanky Russian advances on me, and I raise Seb’s pistol because mine is pinned under his body. His fingers slip limply from the trigger, and I grimace as I land three shots in the Russian’s chest. He drops like a sack of rocks. Tony skids through the haze of gun smoke to my side.“Seb,” he whispers urgently.Seb’s eyes roll aimlessly in his head. My heart hammers. Tony has no idea where his fucking gun is. It’s my job, from underneath his bleeding brother, to keep all three of us alive. A much bigger Russian advances, wearing a set of brass knuckles, and I blow him away before his attention can lock on us.“Sebastian Bellini.” Tony takes his younger brother’s head in his hands. “You have to fucking answer me, or I’m going to tell Nonna you’ve been missing her, and she should really call every day.”Seb coughs. “Dick.”Tony and I exhale matching gusts of relief. It’s not over yet. Tony wedges his arms under Seb, keeping him as still as possible while I slide out. The front of
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Wartime

EleniI flip a page in my textbook, but the words blur in front of my eyes. Dante’s out raiding his only lead on the Russians right now, trying to get any kind of thread that’ll lead us to their boss. I helped clean up at Piacere as long as I could, but eventually, after the week with Mama and the emotional stress, I had to call it a night. I was hoping I’d get in a little studying so I could actually be ready when classes started in a few weeks, instead of waiting until things got crazier and crossing my fingers, but reading is proving harder than I hoped.Ben, the son of Thano’s capo who saved me during exams, leans into the doorframe. “How’s it going?”“Like shit.” I lean back in my chair. “Thanks for taking me home anyway. At least this way I’m not doing a shit job with broken glass.”He chuckles. “It’s my job, somehow. Heard you’re leaving school, though. Going all in on the life?”“Going to the Tandon Institute, actually.” I close my textbook and hold it up so he can see the ver
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