Accardi (Genevieve and Matteo) by Allison Franklin novel Chapter 141

Chapter One Hundred and Forty

“Deal.” Conor answered.

“What?” Gen hissed.

“Yeah, what?” Jada repeated.

Conor kept his face impassive, staring straight at Dina so she knew he wasn’t bluffing. “Mira wanted me out. I promised her. I’m out. You can have it. You can sign Jada over as leverage. I’ll never get back in the game. Fuck this life.”

Dina pursed her lips, impressed. “Well?”

Gen met Jada’s gaze. Louis gripped her shoulder tightly in warning. Jada nodded and let out a breath. This would be her penance, this would be her sacrifice

to achieve peace.

“Jada.” Louis whispered in exasperation.

Jada stood. “I’m sorry, Dina.”

She turned and fled, leaving her cards and chips forgotten on the table. Louis chased after her.

“We have a deal,” Gen said, ignoring the churning in her stomach and disgust with herself. “I want the evidence before we sign. I want it today. I think

that’s more than fair given what you’re getting out of this arrangement.”

Dina leaned forward and flipped Gen’s cards over, revealing her Royal Flush. Dina smirked and shook her head. “You weren’t bluffing.”

“I don’t have the ability, apparently.”

Dina smiled. “It’s fine. You can have these chips. I’ll be drowning in more soon enough.” Dina stood up and whacked her sons on the back of the head. “Let’s

1. Get Bennett’s files or do I need to do that myself too?”

Dina and her sons walked away, bragging to themselves about their new future. Gen turned to Conor as he stood up.

“You better not fuck up, Conor,” Gen growled.

“Don’t intend to,” he answered back. He started for the door.

“That’s my sister.”

Conor rounded on her. “I lost my world!” he yelled, “I’ve spent weeks trying to feel anything at all. All she wanted was to run away and leave this life. That’s it. She didn’t care what I did, I could have been a fucking janitor feeding her ramen noodles on a shared spoon and she would have loved me. I just came from a meeting in which I agreed to never seek her out again. I just destroyed my life for a second time. I don’t give a fuck about my father’s. And that’s all this is, Gen,” he said, gesturing around at the people staring in their direction. “His life. Not ours.” Conor screwed his eyes tight and fisted his hands. “Not mine. Just mine.”

Gen watched him walk away. Leo stepped up beside her.

“You okay?” Leo asked.

“Let’s go,” Gen said firmly. “We have less than twenty-four hours til I have to kill someone and we have a ton of shit to get done before that.”

8:57 pm G D D D

Accardi

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-One

Gen reached for the door and hesitated. She pulled her hand back, closed her eyes, lifted her chin toward the sky and took a deep breath. When she reopened her eyes, she jerked the door open and was met with a cold breeze and the stench of dirty river water from the Hudson. Why did she have to fall for a man who lives in New York? There’s a new stench around every corner. It’s busy. It’s filled with murderous psychopaths… Well, maybe she belonged in New York after all. She slung Leo’s bat over her shoulder and walked into the warehouse.

Her steps were quiet in the running shoes she’d chosen for the occasion. She pulled the hoodie more firmly over her head, engulfing herself in her husband’s fading honey, tobacco scent. She could have dressed up: worn heels, done her makeup, the whole nine. It just seemed like so much wasted energy. Nothing was guaranteed in this life. Matteo had said the mantra so many times it was slowly becoming her own. If things were to go wrong and she were to die that day, dammit she wanted to be comfortable.

“Any word?” she whispered as Leo sauntered in behind her, snapping peanut shells for an easy snack like this was a daily occurrence. His normal six pm

mafia boss showdown.

“No, Mrs. Accardi. I haven’t heard anything.”

“One of those days you’re going to call me by my first name,” Gen informed him with a raised brow of challenge.

Leo smirked, probably thinking she was trying to lighten the mood when in fact if she focused on the group of deadly people on the opposite end of the

warehouse her legs would probably give out.

“I’ve called you by your first name,” Leo argued.

Gen snorted. “Yeah, when you thought you were dying.”

“Exactly. Only if I know I’ll lose my job will I call you anything other than your married name,” Leo explained.

Gen stopped and turned to face him fully. “Leo, you’re fired.”

Leo chuffed her chin and gave her a look of pity. “You’re adorable.”

“Well, well, well, I’m actually surprised. You showed up after all,” Michele mocked as he and his crew strode across the space to meet them.

“I’m no coward,” Gen clapped back, her eyes sweeping over the group surrounding Michele.

Alessio stepped forward to stand in between them, his suit impeccably ironed, his back straight, his expression stone, giving nothing away. She recognized

Michele’s second, Stefano, and the other two were familiar faces she’d seen when she’d met him at Carmela’s,

“I thought we were only allowed one?” Gen asked, flicking her eyes between the three men flanking Michele.

Michele sanded his hands together. “I’m still waiting for my support.”

“These three not good enough?” Gen asked, pointing her bat toward them.

Michele smiled, his lips turning up and his chin tilting down to elongate his face like a mask in a horror movie. “Not compared to what I’ve got coming.”

Gen placed the end of the bat on the concrete ground beneath her feet and leaned against it. “Well, they have five minutes before I take this bat to the side of your skull.”

“So sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

1/4

8:57 pm

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-One

“I have a lot to lose.”

“Do you? Perhaps we’d be doing the world a favor by helping you lose what you have,” Michele prompted.

Gen’s stomach twisted in disgust but it was Leo who took a dangerous step forward. “Watch your fucking mouth,” Leo growled.

Michele’s eyes moved lazily to her guard. “Are you her protector now? Accardi’s doing a hell of a job in prison.”

The door behind them opened and they all turned to see who it was. Gen inhaled sharply. Conor had warned her. He’d told her what to expect, but seeing it with her own eyes? Seeing Maisy O’Brien smile brightly and walk toward them with an aluminum bat propped over her shoulder made Gen want to take a few practice swings.

“Oh, there she is. Genevieve, have you met Maisy O’Brien? My daughter?” Michele asked, holding up his arm for her to sidle underneath. Michele gripped Maisy’s shoulder tightly, making her eyes roll. If this were any other setting, Gen might say they looked cute; like a teenage daughter ashamed of her father’s overflowing affection.

“Hello Maisy,” Gen said with a tight smile.

Maisy’s brow scrunched down. The green of her eyes seemed darker somehow, like she’d stripped away the last of her disguise and was showing the world her true colors. “You don’t seem surprised to see me,” Maisy said with a pout of her lips. She let the bat drop from her shoulder and a loud ping resounded around the warehouse. Gen was suddenly assailed with images of that same sound along with the crack of it hitting her skull.

Gen shrugged. “We found out yesterday.”

“Bummer,” Maisy said with a shake of her head. She looked at her father. “I was really hoping to see those doe eyes widen with shock. That’s my favorite

part.”

“Later,” Michele promised, squeezing her against him.

“I was also really hoping you would bring my brother with you,” Maisy mocked. Her lip curled up and Gen could suddenly see the resemblance to her father.

“Emmett was busy, I’m afraid.”

“Not that brother,” Maisy said, her voice whining.

“I know who you meant,” Gen hissed. “Conor has other business to attend besides watching me kill his father,” she answered, her eyes ticking back to Michele. “He really wanted to be here though.”

Michele’s eyes narrowed. “Conor is still my son. He will still receive my inheritance. He is still my second.”

“How does that work?” Leo asked the thousand dollar question.

“What do you think this has all been about?” Michele asked, gesturing dramatically around them.

“He’s going to reveal his villainous plan now,” Gen whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Leo who chuckled in response. “Uh, power?” Gen asked, raising her hand like a game-show contestant, “Oh, oh! A burning desire to make the world believe your dick is big enough to please a woman?”

“To prove to the world you have a dick?” Leo guessed.

Gen snorted and nudged him with her elbow. “That was a good one.”

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-One

“Thanks.”

Michele’s glare cut between the pair. “The first answer… was the correct one.”

“Ahhh,” Gen said, looking at Leo and smiling proudly that she’d been right.

“Lucky guess.”

“Maisy came to me about a year ago, you see,” Michele began, starting to pace. Gen met Alessio’s eyes which proceeded to roll to the back of his head in annoyance. “I knew I had a child, but I didn’t know much about them. Their mother was married. I was grieving at the time.” Gen snickered. His glare was hot on the side of her face as she tried to hold back the giggles. “When she told me about how she’d been treated by the O’Briens, I knew I had to do something.”

“How you were treated?” Gen asked, looking to Maisy.

“I’m the result of an affair. How do you think I was treated?”

“I’ve never seen Emmett treat you with anything but respect.”

“Emmett doesn’t know.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“He was no better though,” Maisy said, inhaling a large breath, an indication that she was about to go on a tangent. “I was used as a fucking spy. Do you know how many men they sent me to? What I was forced to do to get information?” Maisy stepped forward, the bat in her hands gripped in white knuckles. “Do you know I was meant to seduce Matteo? That’s why I was at the luncheon. Unfortunately he brought you and fucking pissed all over you in front of my brother.”

Alessio raised a brow at that and it was Gen’s turn to roll her eyes.

“That didn’t…” Gen began.

“I was glad, actually, one less guy to fall asleep on top of me,” Maisy continued. “Then we went to the track opening and I was supposed to try again. Fucking imbeciles. I knew Accardi was a lost cause. Men can’t see that kind of thing though. When he brought you along again, I was sent off to that fucking Brooks character.”

“Paul?” Gen asked.

“Yeah,” Maisy flicked her red hair behind her shoulder, “Useless. Had no valuable information. Waste of lube and my time.”

Gen wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“I was a whore for the last decade, James O’Brien, ‘the man who raised me,” she said, utilizing air quotes for the last part. “Hated my guts. I reminded him of his wife’s betrayal and why he’d murdered her,”

“Why keep you around?” Gen asked, the mechanics of the mafia family dynamic never failing to shock her.

“Have you not been listening?” Maisy asked, stepping even closer. “Not only would people think James weak because his wife strayed, I was used as a whore, Genevieve. By more than just men outside my family.”

Genevieve’s stomach clenched and she fought the bile rising up her throat. “I’m sorry.”

3/4

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-One

Maisy’s deadly expression softened until she was smiling again. “Don’t be,” she said with a high shrug. “I’ll get my due soon enough.”

“Exactly,” Michele continued, taking back the mantle. “She’ll get Accardi’s business and Conor will take over mine. That way both of my children can carry on the Galante name and make us legendary.”

Alessio sighed. “You’re destroying centuries worth of peace, Michele. For nothing.”

Michele’s head whipped to look at Alessio. “Peace?” He snorted. “There has never been peace between our families, you head-in-the-clouds child. This split in our families happened when our great-great-whatever chose one child over the others. I won’t make the same mistake.”

“Don’t act like this has anything to do with your love for your children. You could have let Conor go with Mira. You could have let him run and handed your empire down to this bitch, instead you concocted this year-long scheme for power for yourself. We both know this little twat won’t take over Acccardi’s operations. You will. You’ll run it all… then run it in the ground,” Alessio stated with certainty.

Michele stepped in front of Alessio so close that their chests brushed against each other. “You’re right. I’ll take over Accardi’s tracks, his casinos, his clubs, but I won’t run them in the ground. I already have all the ins I need, especially with Maisy here at my back. Her brother will fall in line at the tracks and then they can spread to the other operations. I’ll push my drugs through Accardi’s spots, I’ll make a killing. Want to know what I’m doing next?”

“Let me guess…”

“I’m coming for the Palladinos. I’m coming for you. I’ll take back what my ancestors left behind. I’ll be fucking unstoppable.”

Alessio’s eyes rose. He looked over Michele’s head toward Gen whose breathing was sharp and fast. Alessio nodded. “I think we’ve heard enough. Gen?”

She looked at Maisy and gripped her bat tighter. “Let’s do this.”

Comments

R Rose

oh my goodness. I’m not ready for this.

1 Comments >

But also, how is Matteo ok with Gen risking her and her babies life when he’s not around. Unless he turn…

7 days ago

3

SHARE