10 years ago …

“Dante, have you seen Christina? Did she come here?” Maria asked. Her voice was panic stricken and she walked straight in when I opened my door, looking around frantically.

I shook my head.

Four days ago, Christina and I had the worst argument ever. It was so bad I told her I was done with her.

It was an attempt to shake her up, because realistically she knew I would always be there for her. It was written in my DNA to look after my little sister, so even if she pissed me off and worried me sick, I would still be there for her.

“What happened?” I asked Maria.

It must have been something big for Maria to come seek me out. I wasn’t aware that she knew I existed.

“We had an argument and I really need to find her.”

“Well she wouldn’t be here, we had an argument too.”

Maria looked worried and I knew she wanted to tell me something, but was holding back.

How long had I known her?

It was a good twelve years give or take and her favorite thing to do was letting me know in her world I didn’t exist, or doing her best to show me what kind of men she was into.

This girl… no woman—I kept forgetting we weren’t kids anymore— could be a real bitch when she wanted. Still it seemed to be coded in my fucking DNA too to entertain this soft spot I had for her. The soft spot that instantly wondered if she was okay and not thinking immediately that something might be up with Christina.

Something more than what I saw and it definitely wasn’t something I was going to allow to slide.

My sister with Donny Manello at the Crowthorne Society.

To me it was the same as throwing her into the lion’s den. Except that den was an old gentleman’s club that belonged to the Antonella family. The worst crime family known to man. Fucking hell. When I saw some of the unsavory types Christina had been with I wanted to raise hell. Donny was of the unsavory variety, because the Manellos were just a little bit better in terms of being human than the Antonellas.

Danger—that was what it was.

Danger. It was the thing this woman who stood before me loved. Maria loved danger. She was the queen of it. She wore the face of an angel, but would be draped on the devil’s arm if he were offering it up.

Dangerous guys who had deep pockets were her thing.

If you didn’t have deep pockets then don’t bother to look in her direction. She’d told me that once, back in high school when she was eying up a guy twice her age.

Christina had always idolized her and followed Maria everywhere.

They had gotten a place together two summers ago and it was then my worries really took off.

Maria got my sister mixed up with people like the Manellos. If Christina was at Crowthorne’s, there was no doubt that the invitation was handed down from Barabbas Antonella, who may as well be old Lucifer himself.

“Dante,” Maria clasped her hands together and gave me a long, hard terrified stare. “I think she’s in trouble.” She blurted and shocked me to shit when she covered her mouth and started crying. The last time I’d seen her cry was back when we were kids. I didn’t even know she was capable of tears.

She had my attention now and focused it right back to Christina.

“What kind of trouble?” My breath hitched somewhere between my heart and sternum.

“The bad kind. Oh God, Dante, she told me she’s pregnant.”

A wave of shock shattered me.

Oh God, no. This wasn’t happening. Pregnant?

Fucking hell. I knew something like this would happen. I wasn’t overacting or being the overprotective big brother when I went looking for her the other day. I could sense she was in trouble.

“Pregnant?” I asked shaking my head.

“Yes, and the father wants nothing to do with her. She got mad and said she wanted to destroy him. She had some kind of dirt on him. Dante, the type of guys I’ve seen her with lately are all bad. All of them.”

There was an edge to her voice that twisted my nerves into tighter knots.

“There’ve been so many different guys, and she’s changed so much.” She added. “I don’t even recognize her anymore. She’s out of control.”

“Did she say who the father was?”

She shook her head and winced, crying harder. “She wouldn’t tell me.”

The other day when Christina and I had argued she wouldn’t tell me who she was seeing either. She’d told me to mind my own business and fuck off—stay out of her life. Maybe she’d told Maria the same too.

Yes, Maria was right. Christina had changed. Changed dramatically. I didn’t recognize her either.

Now this. Pregnant, by someone who was no doubt like Donny Manello. Or fuck maybe it was him.

“I’m going to look for her.” I grabbed my keys and pulled my guns from my jacket pocket—my twin Berettas. Maria looked freaked when she saw them.

“Dante, wait, you should calm down. You wouldn’t want to make things worse.”

“Calm down? You come here telling me Christina’s pregnant, in trouble, and you’re worried about the guys she’s been seeing. You said they’re bad and she wants to destroy the father of that baby. How the fuck am I supposed to calm the fuck down?”

“Dante, let’s just go find her. There are two places I haven’t looked yet. I’ve looked everywhere else. Please let’s just try these two places.”

Yes, let’s and if she wasn’t there, I would take matters into my own hands big time.

“Come.” I didn’t care that she wasn’t my girl. I took her hand and led her out the door, holding her hand like she was mine. Daring anyone to challenge me about it.

Danger had so many faces, it could be anyone. It could be those people in charge like Raphael Rossi, the Chicago mafia boss who had money and power.

He was the kind of danger you knew about and avoided. You wouldn’t piss him off.

We were full blooded Italians. Pa had links with the Rossi family from back in Italy so when he died Raphael sent for us from New York and set us up here. I worked for him as an associate so I knew the ropes. I knew my place and the dangers that lurked around me.

The Manellos and Antonellas were the other kind of danger; the unknown. The one’s you never saw coming.

We got out to my garage and I pulled out my bike. I handed her my extra helmet. We jumped on and set out, tearing down the road.

The first place we went to was the park. Maria said Christina had come out here a few times to do some drawings.

No one was here today.

That just made Maria more anxious, and me …

Well … I got a bad feeling. A really bad feeling that worsened when I saw stop number two.

We pulled up at a classy apartment complex in the city. The kind wealthy businessmen used when they were working right in the heart of town.

We took the elevator up to the penthouse suite and it truly started to get under my skin when I thought of what the fuck Christina must have been getting up to with these men.

Men who had to be much older than her. She was only twenty-one. I was four years older than her. Donny, I knew was in his early forties.

“When did you come here?” I asked Maria.

“I followed Christina here.”

“Followed?”

“That was how desperate I became. There was a party here. We had this joke about Mr. Mystery Man, I was hoping to see who he was. I thought for a while she was just seeing one guy over a long period of time and didn’t want to tell me, but I think I was wrong,” Maria answered. “She came here with one guy I thought was him, but when she got here she met another. They were both tall with dark hair. Looked like the usual rough types from the bar, but loaded. I didn’t get in so I didn’t see much past the door. ”

When the elevator doors opened we stepped out and made our way down the corridor.

The door ahead was slightly ajar. Maria sped up, but on instinct I grabbed her arm to stop her from rushing in. Panic made people careless, and clearly she wasn’t thinking straight.

“Door’s open, who would leave the door open to a penthouse suite?” It was my years of seeing too much shit that put my ass in gear and my mind on high alert for every single little thing.

An open door might have been fine to a normal person, and maybe it was.

Still I erred on the side of caution. Always.

Guns ready and eyes sharp, I pulled her behind me and proceeded with caution. I pushed the door so it was fully open and slowly we stepped in.

I truly pitied any fucker who dared come near us, because my senses were on high alert. Something was definitely off here. I could feel it, the tension in the air twisted my insides.

There was a coffee mug on the table, newspaper open and set on the sofa, and an empty plate on the floor next to the sofa. Those seemed to be the only things out of place.

Those and … rose petals.

Pink rose petals.

I stopped with Maria and she held onto the ends of my jacket. She saw them too.

Rose petals were dashed all over the floor leading down the corridor.

Maria tugged on my jacket.

“Dante, her purse is here.” Maria whispered pointing over to the floor to ceiling glass window.

There was a woman’s purse on the floor. Christina had so many I wouldn’t have known that was hers.

I tightened the grip on my gun, not because I was angry at finding the purse. It was, because she was still here or had been. There were no sounds coming from the inside of this place and the door had been left open. It was suspicious as fuck.

Uncertainty. The not knowing. The speculation. It all built inside me like a volcano ready to erupt.

All that was left to do was go further, down the damn rabbit hole. Follow the rose petals and see where they led.

Or to whom?

I stepped forward again, Maria holding on to me. We moved down the corridor, stepping on petals that lined the hard wood floor.

We rounded the corner and something tickled my nose.

Four years I’d been climbing up that ladder of the business. Working my way in to work for the great Raphael. I was still a grunt, but a grunt with a chance. I’d been in Chicago for twelve years. I had always known I wanted to be part of Raphael’s crew. Anyone who had the chance I’d been given would jump at it, the same way I had. However, it came with the good, the bad, and the worse.

The worse being how I was able to pick up the scent of blood in the air, right off the bat. Like a wild animal sniffing out both predator and prey, I could smell it and knew danger was near.

Or something else.

I didn’t realize my movements had sped up and I was no longer exacting the caution and bravado I displayed when first coming in here. Eager to see where the roses led to, I hurried down the corridor and into the bedroom where I froze.

The sight of Christina lying lifeless on a massive four poster bed hit me first. There was blood all over the bed. All over her.

It was like I’d just stepped into a nightmare.

Maria fell to the floor screaming and crying.

Crying and screaming.

The guns left my hands, the metal echoing against the walls as they landed on the floor.

No …

She must have been asleep, or something. She must have …

Lifeless was how you looked when you were asleep. Right?

But her eyes were open, unseeing and her pale skin was even lighter, lips a shade of blue I’d seen too many times in my young life. And, the bed was covered in blood.

There was so much blood.

Still that couldn’t mean what my brain was telling me.

Christina was my little sister.

My sister.

Pa asked me to take care of her and Ma. On his death bed it was the only thing he had asked of me. I did it. I took care of them always, that was my first priority above everything.

So, this wasn’t really what I thought.

“Christina, get up.” I walked closer, right up to the bed and that was when I saw it.

A note. A note tagged to her stomach. It said:

Whore, this is what you get.

“No …” I shook my head in disbelief. “This can’t be happening.”

No …

No …

“Noooooo!” I cried out reaching for her. I picked her up and held her against me. She was so cold and lifeless.

My beautiful baby sister.

My sister.

Someone killed her.

Someone had taken her from me.