The Mafia's Legacy

Chapter 5: The Law of Coffee

Victoria P.O.V

Victoria had just gotten home from late night practice with Noah – their talk earlier in the week resulting in her requesting the rink to stay open a few hours later so she could make it to practice every night – when she spies the first c***k in the façade at House Russo.

Or, more accurately, she hears it.

Walking toward the library in the east wing, the room adjacent to her father's study, Victoria hears her father curse loudly. She acts on instinct, years of self-defense training bubbling to the surface as she looks around the hallway before placing her weight on her toes and leaning her back against the wall.

It's not unusual to hear her father cursing. He actually does it quite frequently. But to hear him cursing out the Bianchi family, a family she was certain they never did business with?

That's enough to make her spin stiffen and her veins run cold.

Victoria slides to the double bay doors and presses her ear to the hinge on the door frame. She closes her eyes and imagines all the words being flung around the room crawling in between the small gap.

However, her father doesn't raise his voice again, causing Victoria to bite her tongue to stop it from clicking in frustration. She turns so she's facing the door, and reaches for the handle, flinching when her fingers touch the cool metal. Slowly, she twists the doorknob before pushing on it so that a c***k of golden light shines into the dark hallway.

She holds her breathe and peeps inside.

Giuseppe is sitting at his desk, head as low as his murmuring voice. Victoria strains to hear his words as they rotate between English and Italian, his arms aggressively swinging in front of him as he talks on the phone. The folder she glanced the night of the dinner lays scattered around the room, the red 'Bianchi in movimento' laying upside down closest to the door.

Standing as still as a statue, she counts her heartbeats in silence.

The clock ticks on the wall.

Logs creak and snap in the fireplace.

The candle flame dances widely in a silent breeze only it can hear.

Victoria reaches fifty and purses her lips as her belly drops with heavy disappointment. If she stays out here any longer someone will find her lurking. Then she'll have to either lie about what she was doing or explain why she thinks everyone is keeping secrets from her. And that's not a conversation she wants to have any time soon, especially with so little evidence to back up her claim that they're actually keeping anything from her in the first place.

Victoria blinks those thoughts aside, phantom guilt rising from her stomach and her cheeks heating with shame at the mere thought of getting caught. She twists the door handle once more and starts pulling it closed.

“Bianchi at my firm?" Giuseppe spits, his throat reddening in anger against his dark olive skin. “Sul mio cadavere!"

Victoria freezes, her head flicking up as she tunes back into the conversation like a dog being pulled on a leash. 'Over my dead body' her father had said. She resists the urge to lick her lips as her throat dries. So, she did hear right the first time. Whatever is putting the guards on edge has some connection to the Bianchi family.

'Maybe they are the prosecutors in a case Papa is working on?' She muses. But that doesn't make much sense, the Bianchi family are criminal defense lawyers like her family are.

Her father's words ring like echoes in her ears, the sound drowning out the accelerating thumps of her heart.

Or they were the last time she checked.

Realization slams into Victoria like a tidal wave. She swiftly closes the door before the small gasp fighting past her lips gives her away. Whatever the Bianchi are doing now, it's much more dangerous than a legal case. And it's definitely related to the underworld.

She marches back to her bedroom in the west wing, pulling out her phone from her sweatpants and typing out a quick text to Cora on the way.

'You want to see what the new café inside my families law firm is like Saturday?'

--------------------

“So, this is where you're going to work once you graduate?" Cora asks, her pink tinted lips puckered around a straw. She's sitting beside Victoria facing the high wall to ceiling windows and slurping on an iced coffee.

“Most likely." Victoria responds dryly. Her cold drink is untouched in front of her, condensation dripping down the sides and seeping into the red napkin underneath.

“Mhm..." Cora tilts her chin down so she can peer over her sunglasses at the bustling lawyers in the colorful courtyard. “I approve. It's close to the entrance too."

Victoria titters. 'That's kind of the point,' she thinks as her fingers tap along the arm of the sunglasses in front of her. Since they sat down twenty minutes ago, she's been sweeping her gaze from person to person, eyes narrowed and focused like a hawk.

If the Bianchi's are trying to pull anything over her father, she'll stop them.

“Victoria..."

How exactly that will happen, she hasn't thought about yet. She's never really had anything to do with the underworld, but that doesn't mean she's completely clueless.

“Victoria...!"

One step at a time. First, she needs to gather actual evidence to prove her theory that the Bianchi family is trying to use their mafia status to jeopardize the legality of Russo Law Firm.

“Victoria!"

“What?" Victoria snarls at Cora, brushing her tapping hands off her thighs.

Cora huffs in exasperation. “Look. Isn't that Antoni Amato?"

Victoria follows the direction Cora's head tilts toward, turning in her seat. Her eyes instantly lock on the five men walking down the escalators, navy blue suits shining like a lighthouse beacon in the streaming sunlight. And amongst them, nestled in the middle, is her Beast, Antoni Amato.

Victoria's face pales and she's on her feet before her heart has a time to finish its current beat. “We need to go."

The Amato's are second only to her family in the underground mafia world. They deal in weaponry, often times supplying the tools her father's contracted men use. It's why Dante and her father have kept an amicable peace for over thirty decades, leading to them becoming reasonably close friends.

Is that what the dinner was really about? If the Amato is having problems with their deliveries, could her father be helping them sort it out? Or maybe he drew up an official contract saying the Russo's won't be purchasing from other families, the dinner simply a show of solidarity?

If that's the case, as there is no other reason Victoria can think of for Antoni and his men to be at her family's law firm, then she has no need to stick around and talk to them.

Confusion paints itself colorfully across Cora's face. “What, why?"

Victoria swings her purse over her shoulder, ignoring the painful pull of her loose hair trapped under the strap as she reaches across the bench to grab Cora's bag too. “I just remembered I have something to do at home. It's really important, so we need to leave right now. No delay, chop chop."

Cora's lips smack open, doubt and anger simmering within her blue eyes turning them a shade of cooled steel, when a shadow fills the gap on the floor between them. Victoria watches as Cora's jaw slackens and her eyes widen, any emotion clearing away like clouds in a summer breeze. Even without the dark pink heat spreading across Cora's round cheeks, Victoria would know the presence that now stands before them.

The lemon scented hair gel is a dead giveaway.

Victoria grinds her teeth and spins slowly on her heels. Antoni is smiling at her, his perfect lips twisting up gracefully at the edges while his eyes crinkle in cold amusement.

“Hello, Bell." Antoni purrs.