“She does, actually,” I argued. “She’s the niece of Giuseppe di Carlo, the same man who tried to fuck with Cosima and therefore, who tried to fuck with me. You di Carlos have been so far up my arse lately trying to fuck up my deal with the Basante cartel that I figured I should return the favor.” I paused and studied the video with him. “Violetta does have a fine arse.”
Mason thrashed against the coarse ropes even though they dug into his shoulders and back. The movement opened old wounds, causing his skin to weep red tears.
I studied him without emotion. A psychologist might have called it dissociative behavior. They might have blamed it on one of three popular schools of criminal theory like the Chicago School or strain theory that postulated my tendencies were rooted in poverty, lack of education, or cultural pressures. But I was a Cambridge graduate in psychology, the son of one of the wealthiest peerages in the United Kingdom.
They might have explained it away by using subculture theory—that I was a privileged white boy acting out against societal mores.
They would all be wrong.
It was simple.
I was the son of an evil man.
There was a difference between a bad man and an evil one.
A bad man was corrupted by the influence of his upbringing or surroundings, by the people he associated with, and perhaps by the choices of other people in a position of power over him.
An evil man, a man like my father, Noel, was born a different kind of being than most others. A man whose natural expression was violence and whose moral compass wasn’t so much broken as never formed at all. A man who thought and felt only of himself and his need to sin.
Noel Davenport might have been a duke of the fucking realm, but he was a criminal, a murdering sociopath of the highest order.
As his son, was it any wonder I’d drifted into crime myself?
Of course, it was Noel who drove me out of the British moors I’d grown up in, from the well-heeled society of my fellow Oxbridge graduates and peers to the dark, shifting dens of immorality in Italy’s southern mafia stronghold.
But it was easy for any man to blame his choices on someone else.
Yes, Noel drove me from England and my birthright as a wealthy, ennui-laced aristocrat. But I made the choice to hitch my cart to my “uncle” Amadeo Salvatore’s criminal enterprise.
Honestly, I loved life. I love the pleasures to be had in it. The sex, the food, the bloody good wines, and all those highs were only amplified by the edge of danger and fear that my existence in the underworld lent to my life. I lived every day like it was my fucking last, and I’d learned that from my mother.
Chiara Davenport, the Italian beauty who’d been seduced by Noel into moving from Italy to the cold, wet lands of England where he neglected her, abused her, and then, ultimately, murdered her.
There.
My entire history summarized neatly. I was a thirty-five-year-old man with a degree in psychology and a job that relied wholly on my ability to perceive others. I knew who I was, what I wanted, and how I was going to get it.
But as I stared at Mason struggling, as if that would free his sister, I had a flash of misgiving as the high, smooth contralto voice of a certain ice queen lawyer infiltrated my thoughts.
You might have no problem beating a man or threatening his family if he goes against you, but I’ve been the daughter of that man, and I’ve been that child who was threatened.
I growled at that voice and banished it to the farthest reaches of my mind. I didn’t need Elena Lombardi’s judgmental voice in my head urging me to fuck up this situation even further. It was my last night of freedom before being tethered to my fucking apartment, and I needed Mason Matlock to break like cheap plastic.
“Feel like telling me what I want to know?” I asked Mason in a hard rumble. “Or should I tell Adriano to use that knife on the softest places a woman has?”
Mason swore savagely at me in English, so far removed from his ancestry that he didn’t realize Italian curses were far superior. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I raised a brow at him, then coiled quickly to land an exact punch to his left kidney. His breath exploded from his lips, bloody spittle flying over my black shirt.
“There isn’t much I wouldn’t dare to do,” I told him somberly as he coughed and fought to breathe through the pain. “And, Mason, any man of honor would do all that was in his power to save the life of an innocent loved one, si?”
“Yes,” he hissed, glaring at me from under his sweaty hair.
I nodded. “Yes, which is why I must do this to you and yours. Cosima was in a coma because of your actions. And actions have consequences. This is yours, and if you don’t tell me what the fuck the di Carlos have planned for me, this will be sweet Violetta’s too.”
Mason slumped against the ropes and loosed a thready sigh. “I don’t know much.”
“Boh, why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” I suggested mildly. Walking over to where Frankie and Jaco sat, I dragged one of the extra metal chairs across the concrete with an ear-splitting screech so I could sit in front of Mason. I pulled my gun from its holster under my arm and held it loosely between my knees as I braced my forearms on my thighs to smile up at Mason’s bloody face. “Let’s start with the names of the men who shot out Ottavio’s, hmm?”
He balked, his eyes trained on the heavy gun in my hand. “I only know the name of one.”
I inclined my head magnanimously. “That will do, for now.”
“Carter Andretti,” he confessed on a breath. “I went to school with him.”
“How quaint,” I mocked as I flicked a finger at Jaco, who nodded immediately and stalked off, already dialing a number on his phone.
I didn’t need to tell him to find Carter and kill him horribly, but only after he confessed who his other associates in the car had been.
The men who shot at Cosima would die in the most creative ways I knew how to dole out death.
I leaned forward and bared my teeth at the man who would, no doubt, die soon. It wouldn’t be by my hands, if I could help it. As Elena had said, I was poetic about crime, and it was considerably more elegiac if Mason was murdered by his own blood.
“Now,” I coaxed as if he had a choice. “Tell me how your scum family knew where we were meeting the Basante crew.”
The Basante deal would mean an influx of untold millions into the Family coffers. They were one of the leading Colombian cartels with access to some of the highest-grade cocaine in the world. Our borgata had a diverse scope of interests, mostly illegal gambling, real estate schemes, and money laundering through the oil and gas trade. Drugs were messy and violent, but they paid out massive dividends. I’d been arguing with Tore and Frankie for years about staying out of it, but when Juan Basante himself approached me to cut a deal for distribution, I wasn’t foolish enough to say no.
Only, the motherfucking di Carlos, the city’s Costa Nostra outfit who were the biggest cocaine distributors in Europe and closing in on that distinction in North America, had taken umbrage with our move. They’d ambushed our first meeting thirteen months ago, and I’d gotten shot in the side as a souvenir.
Mason was the nephew of Giuseppe, the man who’d lured Cosima into his web, and the only witness to the drive-by shooting at Ottavio’s deli that left her in a coma. He had also been very poorly guarded by his so-called family, just a single bodyguard who’d followed him about his life on Wall Street like a suited shadow. It had been all too easy to abduct him before the police could remand him into protective custody.
Mason winced. “Seriously, man, I don’t know who told them about it.”
“But you know someone did,” I surmised.
He hesitated, absently licking up a dribble of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “Maybe.”
I sighed heavily and called for Jaco. “Call Adriano and tell him to have at the girl.”
“No!” Mason yelled, then whimpered at the pain it caused in his potentially brok
en ribs. “Fuck.”
I narrowed my gaze at him as I gestured with my matte black Glock G19. “You claimed to love Cosima, yet you put her in danger. Now you claim to love your sister, yet you will allow me to have Adriano hurt her?”
“They’ll kill me,” he whispered brokenly. “It’s all fine and fucking dandy when you’re talking in hypotheticals, but actually knowingly exchanging your life for someone else’s is another story.”
“This is true,” I agreed, knowing perhaps better than anyone what it was like to give up your life and everything you’d known. I’d done it in my early twenties, exchanged polo sticks for handguns and clean money for dirty. Tore had done it nearly five years ago when he’d pretended to be dead and changed his name to help Cosima and to lure out the villain who had killed my mother.
Death was nothing.
Sacrifice, that was the real killer.
And it seemed Mason was unwilling to die like that.
“You worry about the di Carlos killing you? When they have been in shambles since Giuseppe's death? When I have you here in front of me and the sight of your cazzo di merda face makes me want to drill a bullet through your skull? I think you have more pressing concerns,” I said as I stood and trained my gun at his head. “You have five seconds to tell me what I want to hear, or I’ll kill you.”
It wasn’t a threat.
A threat implied probability, a chance either way.
No, my words were a promise.
It was early in the morning, dawn a pale thought starting on the horizon. I was about to be chained to my house because of a murder I didn’t commit, and I was fucking tired of this shit. I was tired of feeling like the di Carlos had something on my Family, something important that when pulled, would explode my operation like a hand grenade to the belly.
Mason’s lips quivered as he stared at the ground, and seconds later, wet seeped through his tattered pants, the sharp scent of urine perfuming the air.
Oh, good, he knew I was serious.
I grinned at him in a way that was more of a grimace and cocked my gun.
He sucked in a deep breath and shuddered before whispering, “They…They have a mole in your outfit. Apparently, he’s been working for them for a little over a year.”
A shot rang out, echoing in the cavernous hangar. Mason screamed, but the bullet only skimmed past his right ear, barely nicking the flesh.
The vibration of the shot rang through my head, loud and buzzing.
A mole.
A fucking goddamn traitor.
Traditore. Piagnone.
Rage scoured through me, ripping up the inside of my chest like talons.
A borgata was a hierarchical organization, in most ways and in most families more like a company than an organic community. But it was also family.
Especially for me.
The pathetic little lost boy whose mother had been killed by his own father, whose own brother didn’t believe him when he’d cried wolf, who’d been stranded in a country that wasn’t his own.
Italy had embraced me the way darkness consumed sight, swallowing me up intractably in her shadows. Tore became my father, his Soldati my brothers and cousins and uncles.
To find out now that one of them had gone against a bond that was meant to mean more than blood set my soul on fucking fire.
I’d end them.
Not just because they were a threat to my business, to my freedom, and my family, because a man who turned against those who had protected him, hand-fed him success, wealth, and love, deserved to be run through with the cold blade of my fury.
In the mafia, sometimes the only honor to be found was in revenge.
And I was going to make sure whoever the damn mole was would pay with every drop of his blood.
ELENA
When I was little, my mother told me something that unexpectedly etched itself in my soul and became both a burden and an instinct I bore for the rest of my life.
She said to me, “Elena, lottatrice mia, you are just a girl in a very large world that owes you nothing. Not one thing in your life will come easy. This is the way of girlhood in Napoli. I wish it was not so. I wish I could have given you a better start, but understand, every woman must be a fighter, Elena, because history has tricked men into thinking women are less.” Caprice gripped my face in her hands so tightly, I remember thinking she might pop my head like a crushed watermelon. “This is what you must understand, Elena. They are wrong. Women bear the trials of their men, the delivery of their babies, the weight of their families. Women are extraordinarily strong. So, you must trick the men into giving you power. Do not tell them you are strong, and do not fight them with words because words can be undone. Fight the injustice with action, lottatrice mia, because action can be understood in any language, by any man.”
A young girl in Italy was not typically encouraged to pursue “male” careers like lawyers, doctors, or policemen. A woman I grew up with became a mafia prosecutor, one of the most dangerous professions in the country, and when she was killed by a car bomb on the way to work one morning, the community said it was sad but avoidable… if she had stayed home and had children like the rest of them, she would have been safe.
I didn’t want to be safe. I wanted to be brave and bold in the only arena I’d ever felt capable in—my job.
So even though I was only a fourth-year associate at Fields, Harding & Griffith, I already had a reputation in the office as a ruthless fighter. I went to bat for my clients with a single-minded ferocity that shocked most people because outside of the courtroom, I was polished, prim, and ultra-feminine. I was only given relatively low-profile and pro bono cases the more senior associates and partners didn’t want, but no cases were too little to give my all to.
Perhaps because I hadn’t known much kindness or luck in my life, I appreciated all too much how poignant small acts of service and valor could be.
Sometimes, unfortunately, the silk blouses, high heels, and red-painted lips and fingertips confused my male co-workers into thinking they could condescend to me.
“So, Lombardi, you got saddled with the Salvatore case,” Ethan Topp said as he leaned against the glass wall of the conference room where I was working.
I didn’t look up from my research on historical mafia trials in the southern New York District to spare him a glance as I said, “Saddled with the same case you practically begged Yara to work on?”
There was a brief silence then, from my periphery, I saw as Ethan pushed off the wall and leaned over the glossy black table, attempting to use his size and masculinity to cow me.
“You know, you can be a real bitch,” he sneered.
I swallowed the weary sigh that swelled in my throat. This wasn’t the first time Ethan had come at me. He was the son of a well-established lawyer at the firm who didn’t understand why nepotism couldn’t make up for his lazy work ethic.
“I’m wearing heels bigger than your dick, so if this is a pissing contest, I think it’s safe to say I win,” I said lightly, finally looking up to deliver Ethan a mega-watt smile I’d learned from Cosima.
“You fucking––”
“Ms. Lombardi,” Yara’s silken tones sounded from the door, and Ethan swiveled almost comically to face her. “I take it you’re well briefed now on the specifics of the case?”
Ethan gaped as I nodded. “Yes, I’ve already filed for a speedy trial as you asked, and I have some ideas of how we can approach pre-trial motions.”
“Excellent.” The elegant older woman nodded at me, which was as good as a hug coming from her before she turned to finally lift an eyebrow at Ethan. “Mr. Topp, while Elena has accomplished all of this, have you only succeeded in trying to distract her, or have you completed any of your own work?”
Ethan flushed as bright as his copper-toned hair, muttered something about being busy under his breath, then excused himself, practically running out of the room past Yara.
When he was gone, Yara smiled slightly at me. “It takes a certai
n woman to wear shoes like that, Ms. Lombardi.” She shifted her weight to one heel to showcase her own towering high heels, velvet black Jimmy Choo Anouk pumps.
A startled laugh worked itself out of my throat, falling past my lips.
I couldn’t help but beam at her as I sat back in my chair. “I agree.”
It was no small thing to discover an ally, especially a powerful one in a top NYC law firm. Associates were treated as lowly factory workers by most of the partners who strutted through the halls like capricious dictators, and lawyers were often encouraged to pit themselves against each other. It was like high school on steroids with bullying, comparisons, and associates crying in the bathroom stalls a daily occurrence.
It was nothing compared to my upbringing in Naples, so it didn’t faze me, but I could recognize that Yara had just extended her protection. By the end of the workday, every other associate on our floor would know about the subtle put-down she’d handed to Ethan and the validation she’d gifted me.
I felt high on the moment, which was why I didn’t notice the saccharine set of Yara’s smile. It was only when she closed the door to the conference room and stepped forward to curl her hands over the back of the chair across from me that a little thrill of premonition worked up my spine.
“I understand you have a working relationship with USA O’Malley,” she said casually, even though the moment she spoke the words, I knew there was nothing casual about where she was leading me.
I blinked at her. “I wouldn’t go that far, but we have a passing acquaintance.”
Which was an understatement.
Yes, I’d first met Dennis in the hall at the Pearl Street Courthouse two years ago, but the USA had known about me my entire life.
This was because, against all odds, he was my criminal father’s best friend growing up on the streets of Brooklyn.
I could still recall the look of utter shock on his face as he’d automatically reached out to steady me when we bumped shoulders in the crowded hall and the way his mouth had formed around my name, more breath than sound.
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