Chapter One

Richard

People often said I reminded them of my dad, which I considered the highest of praises. Not because he was a “good” man; no, a good man would be enjoying this lovely Chicago spring day doing ordinary things, whereas my dad spent his days on shipping docks, ensuring that his heroin supply arrived safely.

Good men didn’t run mafias. Good men didn’t extort, deal, and murder. Good men didn’t train their sons to do the same.

But God above, I was proud to be like him.

According to my mom, I looked more like her than him or my biological father.

Of course, our similarities were not physical. Physically, we were very different.

Where dad had curly blonde hair, now streaked with grey around the temples, mine was as black as my mother’s.

I was built with lean muscle for speed and maneuverability, whereas my dad had always had more visible strength.

Fifty-one years alive, and that muscle definition wasn’t as obvious as it used to be, but I knew from experience that he could still lay a man flat out.

It wasn’t his body that showed his age. That privilege went to the wrinkles on his face, the crow’s feet from laughing with us, the frown lines from his stern demeanor at work and the wrinkles on his forehead from the stress of both.

Sometimes, he said he didn’t know what was harder—being a father of three or ruling over the largest, most prominent mafia family in Chicago.

We’d always laughed at him when he said that because we all knew he’d never give up either.

Now, shielding his light eyes from the glare of the water and his grey-threaded blonde curls displaced by the breeze, I was filled with quiet awe of him.

It happened on occasion, watching him shoulder what seemed like all the world’s weight without flinching, and not for the first time, I hoped I was half the man he was.

Again, a weird thing to contemplate while waiting on a shipment of Colombian heroin, but that was just how things went sometimes in this family.

I turned away from him to peer up the ship’s lofty side as the crane pulled container after container from the deck and stacked it neatly on the concrete. It was a tedious and noisy procedure, but dad told me that this was one of the most important shipments he’d received during his time as Don. It was a new era for the Marino family, and until this process became customary, one of us would need to be present to supervise it. Everything had to go well.

The crane operator did as we instructed and placed our shipping container separately, and as soon as we had the clear, my dad walked up to it with single-minded intent. I followed him, as did the four soldiers with us.

The door unlatched with a loud metallic clank as one of the soldiers hefted it open for us, forcing his entire body into it. The locks on these things were no joke. I took a subtle, deep breath to calm my nerves.

It looked like any other shipping container, with ten ordinary pallets of average crates neatly arranged and wrapped in layers of plastic wrap to keep everything together. A forklift would be required to move them, but that could wait. We merely needed to open them and ensure that the goods had arrived.

I waved my hand, and the remaining soldiers moved forward. They sliced the plastic with a pocketknife, cut the strap with a jerking saw-like motion, and finally pulled the corner box down from above their heads with a grunt. I resisted the urge to wipe my sweaty palms on my pants.

Dad nodded to me, all business, and I stepped forward. Normally, menial work like opening shipping crates would be below me as the underboss, but then again, even being at the shipping dock wasn’t something I’d had to do more than a handful of times. And none of them had ever had a payload like this.

The crowbar pried open the crate with a loud crack as I twisted it, and with a little wiggling, the thing was open.

And then things went to shit.

“Chicago PD, step away from the box!” My hand, along with every other, went straight for our guns. Frankly, it was an instinct. Dad didn’t even twitch.

“Stand down!” he barked at us.

The emotional whiplash of just those two sentences had me drawing up short.

It was astonishing how quickly I went from terrified to defensive to bewildered to betrayed to understanding to angry. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—Even though I was internally both panicked and seething, I slowly released my weapon and saw the others do the same.

A shootout would not work out in our favor today.

My father put his hands up but otherwise stayed perfectly still. He didn’t even turn around to look at the officers as he addressed them. I counted seven, but who knows how many they had hidden in the recesses of shipping container towers? I gritted my teeth and glared.

“Apologies, officers; as you know, my bodyguards are trained to react to sudden disruptions,” dad said smoothly. “How can I help you today?”

“Cut the shit, Marino,” the lieutenant said, all but spitting our name. It made me furious. “We’re here to inspect your cargo.”

“On what grounds?” dad asked affably as if his eyes weren’t icy cold. Still, they couldn’t accuse him of being hostile to them.

“On the grounds of we’ve got a warrant,” the lieutenant snarked. Dad’s mouth twitched down almost unnoticeably, and I knew why.

The ship had just docked, and our shipping container had hit the ground all of five minutes before we opened it. There was no way they got a warrant to search when there wasn’t even evidence yet, but there it was in his hand.

“May I see it, officer?” dad asked. The lieutenant scowled but complied.

“Everybody keep your hands where I can see them,” he said. I obeyed. I hated doing it, but I did. If dad had decided that playing along was the best option, then that was exactly what we were going to do. We didn’t need to actively antagonize the police, even if I was committing this lieutenant’s face to memory with a little too much vehemence.

Dad wasn’t given the okay to turn, so he didn’t, just waiting as calmly as he could while the lieutenant walked up behind him, one hand still poised on his gun. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the tension in his shoulders as he fought the instinct to keep the armed enemy in sight, but I did.

The warrant was produced, and dad took it with a polite thank you.

I stood rigid as he quickly looked it over, not that the police needed him to. The whole point of a warranted search was that they didn’t need his approval. Still, there were guns on both sides, and I’m sure the PD wanted this resolved as non-violently as possible.

“Thank you,” dad said after a moment. “I would like a copy of this for my records, please. Gentlemen, step back and let the officers do their work.”

I did as ordered, and the other soldiers followed my lead. We all kept our hands up.

I wanted to see that warrant so damn bad.

The thing was that the police knew who we were. The entire city knew who we were.

But they couldn’t prove it or get any charges to stick, partly because of good lawyers and partly because we were good at our jobs.

We were constantly caught in this ludicrous dance in which we claimed to be regular upstanding businessmen and they pretended to believe us, but I didn’t like how this waltz was going.

They couldn’t have a warrant. But they did, because if it was falsified, dad would have called it out immediately.

They had to have gotten enough notice to seek a judge for the warrant, obtain it, and be here to serve it, and there was no way they could have done so within the time the ship was docked. Furthermore, no judge would approve a warrant without evidence, even if they knew it was us.

So what did they have on us, and how long had they had it?

And who gave it to them?

But that was a problem to be solved once the police weren’t close enough to count our nose hairs.

My immediate concern was that the police were diving fingers-first into what was anything but an average delivery. Sure, we made it look like one, but they were coming in here with such single-minded certainty that I knew they wouldn’t be leaving until they’d uncovered it. I watched with shrewd eyes.

“Richard Marino?” one cop asked, sidling up to me. I glanced at him, then back to the three policemen unpacking the box.

Out came one light fixture, then the other…

“Yes, that’s me,” I answered, biting back my annoyance at having this half-wit in my face. The cop, a man coming out of middle age with a thinning hairline to prove it, gave me a hard look all over.

I could tell he was trying to gauge my threat level and was smart enough to assume it was reasonably high. Good.

“Working as a bodyguard?” he asked. I grunted. “I’ve never met a man who would expect his son to take a bullet for him.” I grinned sharply.

“Oh, you must be new to Chicago,” I said with feigned mirth. “Everyone in this city knows that he pushed me, his bodyguard, to the side and then ended up taking a bullet himself. The press went crazy about it. A simple Google search will surely answer any questions you might have; it was only a year ago, after all.” The officer, who had most likely lived in Chicago his entire life, got all broody as he scowled at me. I just smiled even brighter.

He could play his petty games all he wanted, but he was still going to lose. I learned the art of the clapback from my mother. She was a stripper for the majority of my early childhood—and strippers were brutal clapback suppliers.

“This lamp is heavier than the other ones,” another cop, elbow-deep in our box, declared.

Fuck.

The light fixtures that would be installed in one of our hotels were modern in style. Each one resembled a pinwheel of sticks and orbs, and although sticks were simply sticks, orbs could hold a variety of items. Say, a lightbulb.

Or a carefully wrapped bag of heroin.

But the fact that they immediately singled out one of them over the rest—now that was a problem. No matter what that fool said, we’d taken specific precautions so that the weight difference between those with and without heroin would be negligible. Unless it was packaged incorrectly in Colombia, that man shouldn’t be able to tell just from feeling them. A drug-sniffing dog could pick it out if they were all lined up but—

Wait, they didn’t even bring dogs.

This amount of intel, and they didn’t know it was a drug bust? Or did they know and were so confident that they didn’t need the dogs to do the job?

Nothing about this made sense, but lo and behold, when they unscrewed the first orb, heroin fell out.

“Looks like heroin, sir!” One of the officers said while picking up a baggie without any gloves on.

Although I suppose they didn’t need to swab for prints as they had already caught us red-handed. “Five baggies, looking like an ounce each. There’s likely more hidden throughout the shipment.”

My mind was already whirling, giving up making sense of the last minute and a half in favor of figuring out what would happen next, and I could see my dad going through potential scenarios as well.

One thing was for sure—we were actually, genuinely in deep shit.

“In that case, we’re going to have to take you in,” the lieutenant told my father, looking smug. “Put your hands behind your head and keep them there—and the rest of you, do not move, my men will react. I can’t take you in for a shipment your names aren’t on, but one wrong move or mouthy word will get you hauled down to the station with your boss. Understood?”

Shit. Shit shit shit—

“Do you have any weapons on your person?” the lieutenant asked, one officer briskly frisking my dad down. I burned with rage. That was my dad. My dad.

“Yes, sir, a Jericho 941, legally owned and registered. It’s holstered at my right hip.” Said handgun was swiftly pulled from its holster.

“Loaded,” an officer reported.

“An unloaded gun isn’t much help in a fight,” dad smiled. “Don’t worry—you will see that the safety is engaged.” The officer looked and frowned.

“Safety is on,” she confirmed. That didn’t stop the lieutenant from wrenching my dad’s hands down from behind his head with far more force than necessary.

“Hey!” I shouted. Dad shot me a warning look. “He’s not resisting, you don’t need to be so rough!”

“You wanna come with?” the lieutenant asked threateningly. The handcuffs slapped loudly onto dad’s wrists.

“I’m just asking you to be a little gentler with an aging civilian, officer,” I said. At that my dad finally let some emotion through his calm façade—and that emotion was fond exasperation.

“Aging, Rich? Really?”

“Aging well,” I amended, rolling my eyes. Dad scoffed.

It was strange, but something about that familiar banter felt like a lifeline, and I latched onto it with surprising desperation. I guess no kid liked seeing their dad dragged off in handcuffs, even if said kid wasn’t a kid anymore. I’d always known it was a possibility, but seeing it…

I felt unmoored. Lost and young.

I did my best to pull myself together. We were going to get my father out, but in the meanwhile, I was his underboss—in his absence, the whole family would be looking to me for guidance. I wasn’t about to let them down.

Keep a cool head, my dad had said to me once. If there’s one virtue I wish I’d had more of as a young Don, it would be patience.

Well, it was time for me to put that into practice. I’d have to be patient now so that when I got Dad out later, I wouldn’t leave a single loophole for them to pull him back with.

He was a strong man—he’d be able to hold his own for a few days. I hoped.

I was just going to have to trust him to keep himself alive.

God, is this what he felt every time he sent me on a mission? I felt a lot less angry about all those years he’d held me back from fieldwork now.

Dad must have seen the fear in my eyes because even as they were pushing his head down into the squad car, he called out, “I’ll be alright, son. Just help your mom while I’m gone, you hear?”

I nodded, throat full.

That was a promise.

It meant I won’t die, and I trust you to get me out of this.

But, at the same time, it was a reminder: while he was gone, I was the acting Don, and that meant that my main concern had to be the ultimate good of the family.

He said help your mom, but he meant put the family before all else—even me. He was telling me that this might not be a battle worth fighting.

Well, fuck that. I was fighting it.

I’m sure I wasn’t hiding the anger or the fear very well, but no one ever said I had to be emotionless to be good at my job. And I was going to be damn good.

As I watched the squad car pull away, taking my father with it, I swore to the simmering hate in my chest that I would be so damn good at it that the family would be cleaner than ever by the time he was back in his office.

“Now, we are seizing this shipping container, and our office will search all its contents. We will need statements from each of you—”

“I’m not saying shit,” I grit out, glaring at the officer who’d spoken. “I’m invoking my right to stay silent.”

All the soldiers took turns saying the same, and I started planning. As soon as I was released, I’d be calling Arthur, dad’s consigliere of almost a year now, and I already knew the first thing he was going to say.

Get a good lawyer.

Chapter Two

Lauren

I huffed, rubbing my neck, trying to loosen it before returning to the never-ending mountains of paper on my desk.

Well, “desk” was a generous word. I had a fold-out table in a cramped room without any windows because ‘natural light would discolor the pages.’

I was stuck in a glorified broom closet doing barely more than an intern because I needed to be reminded that good grades didn’t translate to good work.

Funny thing is, they’d be right if I ever flaunted my academic achievements. But since I didn’t and worked hard for every scrap I salvaged for myself, they were just bitter old men playing with their power over me. Fucking disgusting.

Part of me wonders if I would have worked this hard to get into and through law school so early in life if I’d known I’d end up doing mind-numbing digitization work from cases over a decade old. Then I remembered what I was running away from and thought, yeah, I still would have worked just as hard.

Just, maybe, taken a different job after I passed the bar.

Truthfully, my job was one any intern could do. It didn’t require special knowledge or training that the interns wouldn’t already have had anyway. Still, the partners at this firm looked at my academic record and immediately decided that I must have been a stuck-up bitch who thought she didn’t have any more to learn.

So, obviously, they had to humble me so that I could “start from the bottom like everyone else.”

Except, last I checked, no other bar-certified lawyer in this firm had literal decades of student debt as I did. If that’s not starting from the bottom, then what is?

I sighed to myself. I was getting righteous again—my blood sugar was probably low.

I stood and stretched, groaning quietly as my spine remembered what the word ‘straight’ meant with a satisfying series of cracks, but based on the sounds coming through the door, I didn’t think I wanted to make the trek to the staff room just yet.

Some guy out there—not someone whose voice I could place—was talking quickly and urgently. I groaned. I didn’t want to barge into a situation, I just wanted my damn apple.

However, stepping out of my office, the words were suddenly not what I was worried about. The man I saw through the glass door of the conference room, that had been left slightly ajar, was hot.

He was easily one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen in person.

His dark hair was swept back from his forehead, leaving only a strand or two to draw my attention to his similarly dark eyes. There was something about the way they sat on his face, large and framed by the thickest lashes I’d ever seen on a man, that made him seem like he knew all too much, yet kept it all secret. I loved secrets.

He was built angular yet relatively slim, but the veins in his forearms indicated that this man was capable of delivering a devastating hit. And his hands were big. Did I mention his hands were big?

“I know it’s a real warrant, that’s half the problem!” the man insisted, those intense eyes narrowing. “The ship had just docked so there was no way they had enough time to get a warrant, let alone the evidence!”

“They must have been tipped off somehow, sir,” Barker responded, in that voice that said he was being polite but also very much trying to get the man to leave. “Regardless of the reasoning for the warrant, one was issued. This wasn’t an unlawful search; there’s nothing our office can do for you.”

“When did I say the problem was the search?” the man hissed. “If this was a real search then why didn’t they bring any drug dogs?”

I paused. Now that… that was interesting.

“Police protocol isn’t something we have any experience with—” Barker started.

“They weren’t looking for anything; they knew exactly where to go. Like the drugs had been planted there.”

“Through international shipping?” Barker said. “That would be impossible to prove.”

Now, I was intrigued. I stepped closer, my mind catching onto elements of what I’d heard and picking them apart. Sure, this guy was hot, but that fell to the wayside in the wake of a puzzle. Especially when Barker was lying.

“Listen, sir, I am very sorry, but we won’t be able to take your case. It’s just not something we can help with. I can suggest you try your luck with Charlotte Hall, she has more experience with litigating police overreach.”

Or they could just check when the warrant was written against shipping records and go from there? Check police protocol about canine units in known or suspected drugs busts?

It wasn’t like they had to prove who did it, just cast reasonable doubt that the culprit was the client.

The man snarled, wound tight. He marched out of the conference room into the reception area.

Why wouldn’t the partners take the case?

There were elements I didn’t know, sure, but they were standing so resolute it was like they’d decided not to take it before the man ever opened his mouth. And it wasn’t an impossible case—it was a good one, even.

All I’d need to find was one piece of proof that it could possibly be a setup, and the client would walk free. So what was really going on here?

The man glared at Barker and Archer for a moment before cursing hotly and storming out like he had no more time to waste when there were other lawyers in the city. Were any of them as good as Barker, Carter, and Dark? Well, not most of them, no, but there were still plenty of good options that were in the same bracket.

The man slammed the door so hard the clock on the wall fell to the floor with a vindictive clatter.

The few people gathered in the reception area started to mill away, either talking amongst themselves or returning to their tasks, but I wasn’t ready to do that just yet. Something about this just wasn’t quite adding up—there was another element here, and I was determined to know what it was. All I had to do to find out was stick around a few minutes.

People talked a lot about how old women gossip, but old men were just as bad.

With Barker and Carter both shaking their heads behind the front desk, I was sure they were going to talk about it if I stayed around them long enough.

And hey, I just so happened to need a snack.

Sure enough, by the time I was halfway through my apple, the old shits were gabbing like I wasn’t even there. “Damn, coulda been a good case,” Archer sighed. Barker groaned.

“Yeah, the whole no-drug-dogs thing really raises a lot of doubt. It would have been a pretty solid win.”

“Yeah, but never work with a Marino.”

“What was all that noise?” Dark asked, emerging from his own office.

“Marino,” his partners answered simultaneously. I’d heard that name before, everyone had in Chicago.

“I had heard rumors that since Bernie Silverstein died, the Marinos were looking for a new firm. Bernie had been representing the family for decades, but Silverstein jr. has decided to do things differently and they had a break up,” added Carter.

“Yeesh. You do one case for them and they’ve got you in their pocket for life. No win’s worth that.” There were assenting hums all around.

“It may mean steady work,” Barker shrugged, “but it’s the only work you’ll ever get again. No one willingly says ‘oh yeah, lemme just hire the firm that works for the mafia. Bet they’re trustworthy folk. The only reason Silverstein can get away with it is because his dad died.”

I hadn’t had any cases relating to the Marinos yet, but I knew they were the family that basically ran Chicago’s underground.

“Yeah, I say you should never trust a snake not to bite you.”

Even I knew what the Cosa Nostra tenets were. Don’t snitch, don’t involve civilians, don’t hurt women and children—the very foundations of the Italian mafia.

Things started clicking together in my head. I needed a win, a big one, and this was arguably one of the biggest clients in the city.

And he’d just walked out the door angry.

Chapter Three

Lauren

I didn’t finish my apple, and I didn’t wait for the elevator. I ran down those side stairs like I wasn’t wearing heels, begging the universe to give me a break.

Both in the sense that I would still find him there and, pun intended, that I would not break an ankle or my neck in my rush to get to him.

The lobby was light and open, and it was clear the man was not there.

Without pausing to breathe, I dashed for the front entrance; he could have exited through the back door as well; there were parking lots on both sides of the building, but the front was more likely. If the receptionist looked at me in surprise as I sped by her, I didn’t notice it.

I had a single-minded focus.

To win a case and get myself out of that damn closet!

And oh, the universe delivered. The man was still in front of his car, unlocking it, and adrenaline gave me the little boost I needed to make it to him before he could open the door.

Of course, running in heels was a loud affair, so he’d turned to see me coming a few long seconds before I got there. In retrospect, that was probably a very good thing for me.

Sneaking up on someone raised on fighting was probably not the greatest idea.

I slowed as I reached him, panting embarrassingly hard. I was a jogger, not a sprinter. Sue me.

“I want to take your case,” I gasped quickly, pulling up short. He frowned down at me. I was right—he really did have an intense gaze. It was like all of his focus was on me and just me. Whether that was good or not… Well, I guess I’d find out.

“Come again?” he asked, suspicious. I steadied my breath, fixing my posture.

“My name is Lauren Kylin, junior partner at Barker, Carter, and Dark Attorneys, and I want to take your case.”

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Chapter 1 

Rose  

This is the end of the road for me. 

Of all the many painless ways to die still, the universe decides mine is by the hands of Benedetto Corte. 

Poetic Justice. 

I sniff, grinding my teeth from the pain of aching bones shaking rabidly from fear.   

I guess I underestimated the fallout of humiliating a family like his. Even I know when you poke the beast, you get added to its menu.  

“Where are you taking me?” I try in a futile effort to shrug out of his strong brooding hand that is wrapped tightly around my upper arm.  

“To safety,” he gruffs, with his deep silky voice, and keeps dragging me along.  

Reassuring indeed. Except this is Benedetto for crying out loud, the cousin to Romano that I was engaged to and cheated on. Publicly. The media made my infidelity the headline news for days as if rubbing salt to injury.  

I made out with Tiziano in public. I don’t know what I was thinking, and now that I think about it, I wasn’t thinking. Because I of all people should know that you don’t mess with a family like the Montis and expect not to get stung. You can’t humiliate them and have them take you to safety.  

“Benedetto, I don’t want…” 

“You don’t have to want it, you need it,” he keeps his eyes on the dark road ahead of us.  

I’m dying. I know he is going to kill me. He will do it for Romano. The scary thing about Benedetto is that it’s impossible to see him coming. I didn’t see him coming. I didn’t think he would be the one coming. I was so into my head I didn’t think anything or anyone would be coming.  

“I don’t need your safety” I scoff, trying to sound as brave as I can, but I’m one squirm away from peeing on myself, “How about you let me go and I find my way to safety?” I wriggle, trying to get free with my knees constantly knocking against each other.  

“How about you say thank you?” He stops, his hold lessening around my upper arm.   

“You have some nerves to think I’ll believe your safety theory,” I tug my arm away from his grip, and it swings, hitting something in front of me which is now registering as a black matte car, which explains why it blended into the darkness easily.  

“You don’t have to believe it, just get in the car” He opens the door of the car and the warm car light comes on. 

His hand captures mine before I can think of an escape, and swings me in front of him, tacking me in place with hooded eyes, and dark hair ruffled on his head. I clutch my purse that’s in my other hand, that he is not making numb from holding too tight, to my trembling stomach.  

Is this what death looks like?  

Because I feel like I’m staring at death right in the face. Deadly handsome one. I gulp dry air into my drought lungs.   

Whoever used the word drop-dead gorgeous, probably meant Benedetto. And it’s funny that I never actually spared him more than a glance all the years that I have known him. But it’s not funny that I am seeing this dicey side of him. It’s spine spiking.  

“In the car,” he points to the open door that I am standing in front of with his head, gives a dry chin lift smile, and frowns immediately.  

“Kill me here,” no please don’t.  

If I step into this car, everything changes. There’s no undoing that, there’s no escaping from him.  

“Ben     …” 

“Do me a favor Rosaline, for the rest of this trip, keep your pretty mouth shut,” that chin lift smile again that has mobster scribbled all over it.  

“I will open my mouth as much as I want to,” I swallow more dry air, maybe talking will make him let me go.  

My father once said if I’m ever kidnapped, I can make the kidnappers want to kill themselves from the pain of having to listen to me ramble.  

“You will open your mouth?” he scoffs dryly. 

“Yes,” I hold my breath, crossing my fingers.  

On a mission to get free through rambling. 

“You want my cock in it so badly?” he cocks his eyebrow.  

“What?” I cough out and blink repeatedly as the picture of his length shoved into my mouth sprints through my mind.  

Abort mission.  

I clamp my lips. Insufferable grouch.  

“It’s good to see we are beginning to have mutual understanding,” he shoves me slightly into the car, and I sit, defeated, “seat belt,” he closes the door.  

 I hate his commanding tone and the fact that I am strapping my seatbelt on instead of trying to open the door and escape. That part I’m just being logical. He has a gun somewhere, just one pull, and this will end quickly.  

I inhale and almost choke on the oak scent blanketing the charcoal-black interior of his car. The scent is dry, woody, and with hints of a sensuous undertone. Like the grouch rounding the car and climbing into the driver’s seat. 

He straps his seat belt on and turns on the car, the engine purrs gently to life. He takes one hand to the steering wheel and wraps his cosmic tattooed fingers around it, and in the same debonair charisma, he starts to drive us out of the alley and into the ever-buzzing streets of New York City.  

My mind is moving in a spiral right now, thinking of any clue that might make everything that’s happening right now make sense to me. I don’t know if he wants to take me somewhere quiet to kill me, I don’t know exactly how he intends to do it, I don’t know why he is delaying or not saying he wants to kill me.  

“Benedetto, I know I messed up, I know I shouldn’t have humiliated Romano like that with Tiziano,” I hug my purse to my stomach with both hands.  

“It’s a little too late for that Rosaline,” he keeps his eyes on the road ahead, which is a good thing. What is not a good thing is him calling me Rosaline instead of Rose. 

“Rose,” I mumble. I don’t like how he calls it in a way that makes it look like he named me. As if the name      Rosaline is his to call.  

“What is that?” 

“It’s Rose, not Rosaline,” I look to the side, watching as streetlights swing past us.  

“Okay,” he shrugs briskly with one shoulder.  

I didn’t think he was going to listen. Maybe he can be reasoned with after all.  

I rush my family words, “I was saying I’m sorry, that I know you want to kill me for what I did to Romano and I know I deserve…” 

“Shut up, Rosaline,” he clips and turns to the left as we get to a crossroad.  

I nod like it’s an answer and kill the thought immediately. He cannot be reasoned with.  

He navigates through a one-way street that brings us out to a pedestrian which thankfully doesn’t have anybody walking. It’s looking, unlike New York City with its usual heavy traffic and many harlequin splashes.  

“Are we leaving New York?” I look behind me, feeling my stomach wall jam. It starts to vibrate and I swallow down a lump in my throat.  

“Pick that,” he sucks his teeth in a fit of irritation.  

Pick what? My mind does a reboot and the vibration registers as my phone and not my stomach walls. I don’t see a difference though. I’m visibly trembling. And it’s with shaky hands I open my purse, adjust the rim of my oxblood mini slit dress and pull out my phone to look at the screen. My father is calling.  

Benedetto stretches his hand out to me, and I suck in the oak-soaked air as I drop the phone on his palm.  I’m feeling lightheaded. The streetlights and cars moving past us are beginning to blur out.  

He receives the call, and puts it on loudspeaker, only looking at the screen slightly to do that before returning his eyes on the road.   

“Rose,” I can smell the fog of fear from the creakiness of my father’s voice.  

“Rose!” Lawrence screeches. 

“Dad,” I gulp, “Lawrence,” I sniff. I never thought a day like this would come where I’d rather be home with them than partying with friends.  

“Are you alright?” my father whispers into the phone.  

“We heard Benedetto has you, is he around you?” Lawrence joins in the whispering.  

“He is…” I clear my throat, “yes,” I whisper like he cannot hear me.  

“Don’t trust him, don’t trust whatever he tells you,” my father warns and I can picture the crinkles on his forehead deepening like it does whenever he is trying to make a strong point.  

“Run Rose, whatever chance you get, run and never turn back till you get to a safe ground     ” Lawrence rushes his words in like he does when he has so much to say and very little time, I can almost feel the veins on his neck straining and his eyes onyx eyes bulging as he talks.  

I want to go home. It’s when the worst time comes that you realize you had it better.  

“Don’t, I repeat,” my father grits, “trust whatever he has to…” 

Benedetto ends the call and tosses my phone on the dashboard. 

“I’m going to throw up,” I dry heave and wrap my hands tightly around my nauseous stomach.  

The buzz from the club and the now looming danger are driving me sick to my brain. I can’t stomach any of it anymore. I can’t deal with it without letting some out of my system.  

“Don’t you dare throw up in my car,” he unbuttons the collar button of his black t-shirt. 

“I can’t hold it back,” another dry heave.  

He drives to the side of the road that is scarce of cars and hits the brake abruptly. He undoes his seatbelt and climbs out of the car.   

The only things in sight are the street lights and the occasional cars that sprint past us. Other than that, this environment looks lifeless. Which is exactly how I feel.  

I undo my seatbelt, then open the door of the passenger seat at the same time he rounds the car to help me with the door.  

I drop my purse on the seat, climb out with shaky legs, and gulp in the clean, void-of-oak air, taking as much of the clean air as I can into my lungs.  

“Be quick,” he dips one hand in the back pocket of his jeans. 

I can see him now, thanks to the street light.  

Waves of temple-length coffee brown hair that has a golden sheen because of the warm street lights. Studded earrings on both ears. A furrow of brows in a permanent grumpy scowl. Dreamy honey brown eyes, with thick kohl lashes around. High cheekbones looking tight from how hard he is clenching his lips, sunken cheeks which by the way makes me feel like life is unfair to give all of these to a monster like him. And those full lips that have only managed to say annoying words in the short while we’ve communicated tonight.  

“It’s not coming,” I tear my eyes away from him and dip my head to look at the floor instead.  

“I don’t know what you are thinking, but I’m trying to protect you,” he closes the distance and I stumble back, wishing I could melt into the car.  

“How so?”  

“Romano will kill you if he sets his eyes on you, and there’s no place in New York City that you can hide that he won’t find you,” he places both hands on the car, by the sides of my head, keeping me trapped.  

“And why would you want to protect me? He is your cousin,” it doesn’t make any sense. Not Romano wanting to kill me, because that makes a lot of sense. But every other thing about him wanting to protect makes no sense.  

My father and Lawrence are right. He is dangerous. And he just almost had me for a quick bit to think he wants to protect me but I’m seeing past his words that nonetheless sound so convincing.  

“Killing you is tempting, especially when you won’t keep your thoughts to yourself, and keep your mouth shut,” he scoffs.  

“Let me go, I’d rather face Romano’s fury than your so-called protection,” I don’t mean that, but I just want to not be associated with him at this point because of how shrunken he makes me feel, physically and emotionally.  

“You’re missing the point,” he moves away and opens the door for me. 

“What Is the point?” I throw both hands in the air, “I don’t feel safe with you,” I feel tears dance around my eyes, making my vision watery. 

The uncertainty is driving me to the edge of insanity. Only a sociopath would want to toil with someone like this only to kill them in the end.  

“The point is that I don’t need you to.” 

Chapter 2 

Benedetto  

Why, why, fucking why? 

Why am I on this side of the fucking fence?  

I guess it is true what they say, that no matter how much you fight it, the heart just always wants what it wants. And unfortunately for the both of us, I can’t stop wanting her.  

Fuck me. Fuck her. Fuck whoever made that disturbingly truthful quote. Fuck my fried brain for not being able to stop fixating on her.  

I bite down on my lower lip, conjuring the pain to rush to my brain and quiet my twirling mind.  

Pain is a tool for the tumult.  

I’m close to going berserk with the rampaging thoughts of regret after losing myself and acting on impulse instead of logic.  

I shove my phone back in the pocket of my black jeans, after sending a text to Orazio, my childhood best friend and still my right-hand man, to explain the situation on ground as best as I can with my right hand, while my left-hand does the driving.  

I cannot believe I am fucking doing this. 

I tighten my grip around the steering wheel as I drive us to my city, my territory, Boston, to keep her safe from the one man I should be taking sides with and delivering her to for her betrayal.  

I should be going in the fucking opposite direction. I should be doing the fucking opposite thing from what I’m doing right now.  

Someone, please tell me why the fuck I decided to get myself into this mess? This girl is a cheat. She mocked my family with Tiziano, that was seen tongue fucking her in the open.  

My grip around the steering wheel tightens some more as the images of them captured by the press and all the videos that became a trend start to swing past my mind. My knuckles start to turn white from how hard I’m gripping the steering wheel. If I clench any fucking harder I’ll see my knucklebones tear their way through my skin.  

“Damnit,” I grit under my breath.     It’s fucked up. It’s going to get a lot messier than this. I can feel the many ways that this can come back to bite me hard in the ass. Mark is dead.      

This party is about to get fucking wild, but I still can’t fucking stop driving     Instead, if there’s a way this can drive faster than this, or maybe turn into a fucking airplane, I’d appreciate it.  

I steal a look from my side eye and notice she has her head resting on the window frame and her hands folded across her chest.  

She looks different from hours ago. She is no longer quivering as much as before, and her breath sounds a lot calmer from the whizzing ragged tempo they had when I took her out of the rave.  

She was so sure she would be dead.  

Poor thing.  

I turn to look at her for a quick minute and see that she is sleeping. Shoot me already. One minute she is talking about being killed and not sure of her safety with me, and the next she is curled into a comfortable position and sleeping like this is some family on a vacation road trip.  

She makes a soft sound from her sleep, then sweeps her cascading caramel waves off the side of her face to the back of one ear, and hugs herself tighter than before, making her skimpy dress drag up a bit to show velvety flesh.  

I clear my throat and give my attention back to the somewhat hazy road ahead of us. We are out of New York now and in Boston, driving all night must have worn her out, that and the fact that she didn’t speak again after she entered the car, which by the way I’m grateful for.  

I can’t deal with her breathy dulcet voice that makes words sound like lyrics from a favorite song. It’s sickening how good her voice sounds, it’s like she could hypnotize with words. And it’s not what I need. I don’t need an extra voice adding to the ones in my head. The noises in my head are enough, I hate external noises especially with no weed in sight to quiet them and filter them.  

I make a swerve and she jumps from her seat, almost hitting her head against the dashboard but my hand stretches in front of her to protect her and her forehead hits my palm instead.  

“Easy,” I sprang into action on reflex.  

I don’t have to look to feel the death glare she is giving to me. If looks could kill, I’d be dead already.  

“Where are we?” she yawns, recoiling from my touch, then looks out the window and I retrieve my hand.  

“Boston,” it’s morning and I had time to clear my head while driving, not like she would notice much difference.  

She sits up and looks around again, this time blinking, gulping, gapping, and closing her mouth repeatedly.  

“Whatever it Is, don’t say it,” I take another turn, this one leading into the driveway of my family’s manor.  

It’s been a minute since I’ve been here and I don’t miss it one bit. But unfortunately, I’ll be gracing them with my presence for a long misery guaranteed while.  

“What makes you think I want to talk to you?” she clicks her tongue.  

Pretty thing.  

I drive through the conifer driveway to the parking lot that Is known as my spot. It’s just in front of the cream and orange building. I don’t have the patience to drive to the main parking lot and then walk down to the building. I’ve been parking here since I started to drive at sixteen and there’s nobody who can stop me.  

I turn the engine off, and climb out of the car, about to turn and start another round of get down with Rosaline, but she surprises me by coming out herself.  

I lead the way, as the housekeeper, Evelyn walks out, with a smile that is unnecessarily too bright for the morning and maybe straining the tight pony she has her gray-black hair tied in.  

What exactly is so good about waking up so fucking early to attend to me and my guest that is making her smile so much?  

She bounces her large blue eyes between Rosaline and me, then dips her hands in the pocket of her apron, which looks more like a washcloth around her waist because of her plus size.  

“Good morning      Benedetto,” she sends some of her smile Rosaline’s way, “good morning miss…” 

“Rose,” she returns the affection.  

“Is Orazio here?”  

“Yes, there,” she nods, pointing behind me.  

“Take her in and make her comfortable,” I dismiss them both. 

“This way,” Evelyn does her charm and leads Rosaline in.  

“This is far from over, Benedetto Corte, far from over,” As expected, Rosaline turns and stabs her index finger at me, with her doe coffee brown eyes spreading open to make her point.  

If she hadn’t said anything, I’d have asked Evelyn to take her to the doctor to check for head injury.  

She claps her lips and turns with Evelyn, walking into the building, in her usual hips-swaying strides on black strap heels that spotlight her shapely legs.  

There’s no escaping this now. And I don’t give a fuck what she thinks, I’m seeing it to the end. When I      leaped into action and took it upon myself to protect her, I hadn’t thought about it thoroughly. But I’m in too deep now.  

“It’s about time you came back,” Orazio punches my shoulder and throws his hand across to give me a side hug.  

“What can I say, had my fun and needed to leave,” I move away from his hug.  

He knows I despise physical touch but he started coming up with this rubbish about a love language that is physical touch. One of these days I’ll kill him. If he’s got a special language he should speak it with the people that understand the damn thing in the first place.  

“I got your text,” he exhales, shutting his stupid drowsy black eyes for a quick second, then rakes his jet black hair with his fingers, “why is she here?”   

“Romano will kill her if she isn’t,” I start to walk into the building.  

He follows after me, “And you brought her here because?” 

“To teach her to play ping pong, why the fuck do you think?” The door opens and I walk into the detailed woodwork and opulent interior of the manor.  

“This is not good,” he comes to stand in front of me and rests his hands on the waistline of his sweatpants.  

“You think?” I try to move past him but he comes in front of me again.  

I get he is the voice of reasoning that’s on some days like today if he could pass for a voice of reasoning, but I’m done having this conversation with a shirtless man who has physical touch as his love language.  

“Tell me this isn’t what I think it is,” he tries to bring his hands to rest on my shoulders but holds them in the air when he meets my eyes. 

“I do one good thing for humanity and it looks suspicious?” I know what he is saying. It’s my disease and my cause. And I know it’s partly responsible for why I dived into the feud and brought her back home with me.  

“I’ll do what you asked, I’ll call Paul, and Lawrence and tell them they have to move to this side of the country for safety, I will start the preparation, but I want to know one thing,” he has a serious expression now, “is it what I think it is?”  

“You fucked the wrong pussy last night or what?” I switch the conversation.  

He should know this is neither the place nor time. 

“We will come back to this,” he exhales, “but I’m here for you.” he starts to move in closer with open arms. 

“Touch me,” I scowl and he moves back with a grin.  

“It’s called accepting and letting my inner self out,” he scratches the stubble on his cheeks. 

“It’s inner self for a fucking reason, it should stay in,” I walk past him to go look for the one person I don’t want to see but have to anyway.  

She should be in her quarter which is on the second floor of the manor. I know she is not alone, but I don’t have a business with the fucker she is with. Blood or not, he should avoid me.  

I take the stairs and it must be my lucky day because she is just coming down from her quarter, still in a pastel blue satin nightwear, her dark hair is fizzled up on her head, with glossy eyes, a streak of mascara on her face, and flushed cheeks.  

She clearly just had sex. Which also explains why she is out this early.  

“Benedetto,” her caramel eyes squint a little as I come up to her, meeting halfway. 

“Mother,” there’s no need for niceties that don’t fucking exist between the both of us.  

“You’re back,” she stutters, “I didn’t know you’d be coming back so soon,” she wraps the robe of her nightwear around herself, trying to cover up some of her shame perhaps.  

“I’m back, and here with a guest that will be here for a while, I have something to fix,” Scraps of information, that’s what she deserves. It’s a little more than what she deserves.  

“How long will you be staying?” She is slowly getting to the full height of her irksomeness.  

“That’s none of your business,” I clip and she knows I mean it.  

“Benedetto, the household has been doing fine since you left, Claudio has it all under control and now that you’re here, you should let him know you’re back     and for how long you will be staying.” She rushes her words out like they’re burning coal on her tongue that she needs to spit out.  

“What did you say?” I take a step closer and she stumbles back.  

I swear to the fucking devil I am one fucking snap away from throwing her down the fucking stairs.  

“I’m not saying this to upset you I’m…” 

“I should take permission from him to stay because you decided to make your brother-in-law your husband? He is not my father. And this is my fucking house.” I’m burning hot and with how she trembles and cower I know my mannerism matches the force of the wildfire spreading through me. 

The last time she did this     was when she told me she was getting married to my uncle, Claudio, just a few weeks after my father died.   

They can preach all they want about true love, and I don’t give fucks, but they should draw a line when it comes to what can be said to me.  

“I’ll just go back…” she spins and takes the remaining stairs to her quarter.  

Asking me to take permission to stay in my fucking house. Madness. 

I dig my fingers into my palm and bite down hard on my lower lip till I feel the pinch of a cut and taste the iron of blood.   

Damn, she vexes me.  

I take the next round of stairs to my father’s office, trying to find solace in the one place that distracts me from giving into my rage and the compulsive need to lay my hands on her. My anger isn’t something I wish on my enemy, and she is hardly one.  

I punch the code into the drawer by the door that houses the key of the office and when it opens, I dip my hand in and retrieve the key. I turn it into the keyhole and twist. With a click and clang it opens and I walk into the office that comes alive with warm lights at the scent of a living thing.  

I head straight for the scotch in a decanter on the bar by the side of his desk and chair. I don’t bother for a glass, I open it and take a swig, wanting the bitter-sweet burning liquid to wash past my throat quickly and go to do a good job of easing the pit fire in my stomach.  

I take more swigs, I can’t even count how many I’ve taken and with the way I’m feeling, I might need to gobble down the entire thing to feel its effect. I’m not lightheaded when it comes to alcohol. I was told I started drinking when I was a toddler because my old man would scoop a spoonful and feed me with it. And the older I got, the more scoops I got.  

I miss that man. I miss him so damn much it hurts to see how they are soiling the legacy he left behind. He wasn’t the easiest father to have, but he got some things right. And when my cause started manifesting, he was the only one who taught me how to harness it and bend it to my will.  

I start to pace, feeling unsettled as the thought of having to put up with Claudio and my mother for the rest of my life starts to gain momentum in my mind. It’ll be subjecting myself to a nightmare. But leaving, running, I won’t do it again. It’s the reason they feel they have this right in the first fucking place because I left. 

I blow out an exasperated breath. I need to rest my head, I had a long night and a longer day ahead. I drop the decanter on the desk and walk to the mini library to randomly pick up something from his history section to read that can bore me to hell and make me sleep. 

As I walk past the little center table with a quill and a sage that has not been used for years since his death, I have the urge to sit exactly where he used to sit, which is on the forest green one-seat cushion close to the table.  

I’ve been avoiding certain things but I think it’s time to change that. I have to start walking in the prints of his footsteps if there’s hope for his legacy to stay evergreen.  

I sit on the cushion and as I adjust my legs to fit into the space between the cushion and table, an off-sound piques my interest.  

It’s coming from the floor. I stamp my boots against the hardwood and hear the hallowed sound again like there is something beneath. I stamp my boots around but I don’t get the same sound.  

I search around the things on the table and find a letter opener that belongs to my father. I push the table to the side, then use the letter opener to glide through the sides of the rectangular woodcut and I pull.  

A letter.  

In a dusty white envelope, with my father’s stamp pressed into a blob of red wax on it, and… I pick it up and flip it. It’s addressed to me. And it’s been here all along. 

My father spoke to me about everything, no matter how grisly the details. I knew his will before he died because I was in the room with his lawyer while he updated it. If he has something to tell me that he couldn’t say to me, best believe I won’t like what I’d be finding.  

I drop my face in my palm and exhale sharply.  

This is a secret.  

I can feel the weight of it even though it’s only paper because the words that couldn’t be said in person speak volumes. 

And the one thing I know about secrets, especially when it’s left by the dead, to be found by the living. 

It’s never good.  

Chapter 3 

Benito  

Son, 

My fierce boy.  

Like I always say, death has no friend.  

If you are reading this, it would be because I’m already dead.  

I know death comes with grief but I hope you can look past yours and find this letter soon, before the iron gets too cold to twist. Because I know you enough to know that when your heart is home you will come into this study and you will find this letter.  

Listen son,  

There’s a seed of discord that has been sown between me and your uncle Claudio, and as you know, a house divided against itself cannot stand. The Corte clan is experiencing a division and your Uncle is at the forefront of it.  

Knowing my brother, he will not stop until he gets what he wants, which is my place, and he wants it now more than ever. If he doesn’t take it now, it will be harder to get it later when you are ready to take over. And with his threatening tone yesterday, he will strike sooner, even though I am keeping things in place to make that vain.  

If my death happens within the next week after the date of this letter, then that’s all the proof you need. 

Listen, Son. Protect your mother, protect yourself, protect La Famiglia.  

I have faith in you to take out the bad egg.  

There’s no stronger emotion like pain, use it to keep yourself grounded. That’s what being a leader entails.  

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