Mercenary (Gangsters of New York #3) - Bella Di Corte Page 0,132

strung together to make a word.

I know who I am.

I’ll always be a Don—the boss of this thing we called our life.

A Word From Donatello (Adriano):

Shh…let me tell a little secret.

I’m not who I used to be.

The chubby chipmunk described in this book no longer exists.

After Adriano Lima went down and this new man was created from his ashes, I was born again, so to speak.

See, I was addicted to food. I used it as a crutch. I lived to eat, not ate to live.

That life, it came with a lot of things that tore me up inside. Things I never thought I’d have to deal with.

Like my conscience.

I didn’t know how to deal with it.

So I ate.

And I ate.

And I ate.

I filled my stomach with food when my conscience felt empty and was growling at me.

It was fucked up—but in that life, it was what it was.

For example. I once ate a bowl of spaghetti while a man was lying on the floor at my feet, moaning in pain, his intestines hanging out of his stomach after I had caused them to.

You know what I did?

I offered him a bite. Then I described in detail to him how each bite tasted.

But that was then. This is now.

Now.

You wouldn’t recognize me if you saw me on the street.

I’m nothing but solid muscle—no more chipmunk cheeks to hide my food for later.

What else?

Oh, yeah, I fell for a woman. She’s older than me and hates my guts. (Can you guess who she is? I’ll give you a hint. Her name was the same as mine, except it ended in an ‘a’ instead of an ‘o’.) Hates the life I used to live. She still accuses me of being a part of it. She acts like I can’t be anything else. Like it’s in my blood and can’t be washed clean.

Adriano would have given up.

The new me? He finds her hate a challenge.

I found something that food could never fill.

Life beyond the life.

Afterword

I hope you enjoyed Mercenary, the last book in the Gangsters of New York series. What a wild ride this has been! Thank you so much for being a part of it!

I wanted to take a moment to point something out about this book. I knew right away that Corrado (the one in this book) and his father, Corrado Palermo, were a lot alike. The sins of the father were visited upon the son. In many ways, Corrado and his father’s story ran parallel to each other, but years apart.

Mari recognized the same downfall in her brother, and she knew that talking to him would only get her so far. The scene in the dining room at Emilio’s mansion on Staten Island speaks for itself. Actions over words. Corrado chose his wife (essentially his family) over the taste of vengeance—something his father couldn’t do.

So after reading Machiavellian, if you’ve ever wondered about Corrado Palermo and his wife Maria (Mari’s mamma), this story definitely echoes theirs. Even down to the time spent in Sicily.

The ending to Corrado and Maria Palermo’s story was not a happy one. I’m thankful that Corrado and Alcina’s ended on a different note.

I hope you enjoyed Mercenary as much as I did writing it. I know I’ll always think about the groves, the singing, even the candles and the moon, when I close my eyes and think about them.

Much love,

Bella

Acknowledgments

I truly have no idea where to begin. I have no idea how to truly express my gratitude and thankfulness for what has happened since Machiavellian was released. The amount of love I’ve received for the Gangsters of New York series has blown me away.

Before I truly get started, let’s go back a little, to the moments before I released Mac.

I wrote an acknowledgment in the back of Mac because I had no idea if I would continue on with the series, or stop there. My future in writing was uncertain. I’ve always been a writer, but I didn’t start sharing my stories until 2013 (under a different name). Then I wrote the Fausti Family, and I fell hard and deep for the criminal worlds in my mind. I knew it was something I wanted to keep writing about, and I would have, but maybe not published as often. After I finished writing the Fausti Family, I wanted to jump right back in to that world. I wanted to see if the story strolling around in my head would amount to something equally as great as the love