I already know I’m not going to like what’s to come from the minute I pull up outside La Volpe Rossa.
The place looks like an ordinary Italian bistro. It’s massive and could hold about two hundred people. The interior and exterior are stylishly decorated too, like the other restaurants that line Main Street, but what goes on behind those doors is anything but ordinary.
Pa bought the building and built it up over twenty years ago. Before that, it was a rundown dry cleaner with the signs falling off, and home to all kinds of vermin.
Now, it’s a Michelin-starred restaurant listed as one of Chicago’s finest. The top section is for the elite. For bosses in our alliance to hold meetings. Some of the most top-secret alliances and plans have taken place in here, and in true La Costa Nostra style, they’ve been secret as fuck.
The bottom, the basement, has seen me there far too often over the last few months. I’m there almost as much as I am home or at The Dark Odyssey. Some dumb shit is always rubbing me the wrong way, or maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten more vigilant and I’m not as tolerant as I used to be.
I’m older. I’m forty-four, and I’m not the lighthearted boss I was when I first got the title.
The men outside look tense, like they always do when they see me. It’s respect and fear mixed together. Most of them are long-time patrons who knew my parents right from Italia. Some work for Pa, others are associates in some other way.
They bow their heads when I approach, and I do the same.
I walk in through the glass doors that swing inward when I push them open. I’m greeted with the aroma of food that reminds me that I haven’t eaten since lunch. There’s only a handful of people in here tonight.
Good.
I’m already too worked up to be around a crowd and probably should have gone through the back. I’m furious as fuck about Mark’s daughter tied up in this. In all honesty, there’s only one way I should handle the shit of the situation. Too many have already suffered because of his selfishness and recklessness.
I go through the Staff Only door and walk down the corridor past the kitchen, where the chefs are joking around about who’s doing the late shift.
They don’t see me.
That’s good too. The rage inside me wants to unleash. It’s times like these when I’m irrational and I can’t get a handle on myself. Unfortunately, sometimes the people I care about the most get bruised from my wrath.
One chef, Chef Romi, has known me since I was a kid. I don’t want to make a guy like him scared of me tonight.
The air changes when I near the end of the corridor. It’s like the line of demarcation, warning that what’s to come next is violence.
I take the stone steps down, listening to the slow drip of a broken tap outside. We need to get that fixed. I swear on nights like these, though, it’s part and parcel of the danger that lurks in the dark. Mobsters at their finest.
Mobsters and monsters. Sometimes we’re the same thing. I don’t think I’m much different.
Salvatore meets me at the door as I go down the last set of stairs. I’m in the basement now. He doesn’t look good. He looks as tense as I feel, and I know it’s to do with the girl. I wish she weren’t here too. This kind of thing hasn’t happened in a while, but it’s always messy when there're witnesses or people who get caught up. Wrong place or wrong time.
“Hey, they’re down there,” Salvatore says with a sigh.
“They give any more trouble?”
“No, they’re just scared.”
I’m glad he and Gabe have been on the case with me. The whole damn problem started at Renovata, my investment company, but Mark dragged everyone else in too when he thought it was a good idea to try and steal from the family business.
My damn fault again.
Mark has worked for me for the last eight years. I thought he was the best person to trust when it came to handling my business accounts. That just gave him access to fuck with our lives.
All the man did was make me look bad in the worst way. Now I have my brother looking at me with a question in his eyes. I know what it is even before he asks.
“Ava Knight, age twenty-six, magazine editor. Journalist. Press. Media. What are you going to do with the girl, Vin?” he asks cautiously.
That info was him laying the cards on the table. Laying down things I would have found out and known they put us at risk of exposure.
“She’s seen too much,” he adds.
Seen too much, but what does she know?
I wonder if Ava Knight knows what her father did.
Does she know how much he owes?
How long he’s been stealing from me and taking me for a fucking fool? I think this grates me the wrong way because the records showed that he stole from me when I was at my lowest. Right after Sorcha was killed in cold blood. The man used that as a gateway to rob me to fund his little habits.
That’s not what tonight’s about though. That’s small fry in comparison to the recent shit. Mark deserves death at least, for the dumb fucked-up shit he did that could have gotten people killed.
Salvatore looks at me waiting for an answer that I can’t give just yet.
“Vin,” he prods, then his eyes go wide. He must think I’m going to kill her. “Vin, think before you do anything. Hurting women isn’t our way.”
It was me who instilled that concept into him, and the rest of them. Me… not even Pa. I’ve been the eldest for close to ten years now, and it’s me who made sure all the boys knew the code we live by.
I get it though. I’ve changed. That’s what happened. I’ve changed, and everyone knows it. When Sorcha was killed, I became the beast.
A heartless, merciless, soulless creature.
That’s why my brother is giving me the reminder.
I look at his face and think of how similar we look. He’s not like me though. He hasn’t been through the same things as me, so he won’t understand that rage is what courses through my blood, as it does my mind.
I look away from him and move to the door of the room holding my captives, leaving him staring after me with worry in the dark hue of his eyes.
Pushing the door open makes it creak, and I’m greeted with the sound of a woman sobbing.
It’s the girl.
My gaze lands on Mark holding her as they sit in the corner of the dank room. The lighting is dim, but it’s bright enough to see them. Mark with his salt and pepper hair pressed against his daughter’s long brown hair that’s a matted mess. Fear oozes from them. It’s so thick it could be tangible.
The fear is visible when he looks up and sees me. At least I can give this motherfucker some credit for looking ashamed. Ashamed, and from what I can see, stoned.
Stoned from drugs he bought with my money.
I’m not a saint, and I won’t claim to be anything other than the mobster I am, but fuck, the first rule we know to follow as Giordanos is to keep our heads out of shit. This man has not only turned cops toward me but the fucking feds, again.
Bastard.
I hate feds more than I ever did because they were involved in the whole plot to destroy me which resulted in Sorcha’s death.
“Get up and fucking come here,” I order him, and I’m glad he has the good sense to do as I say.
He shuffles out of the girl’s arms and is visibly shaking. I look to her, and my frown deepens when I see her tear-stained face.
She’s beautiful, has the kind of beauty that’s striking and makes you want to stop and stare. It’s pure beauty, and the innocent plea in her eyes makes me think she couldn’t have known what her old man’s been up to.
At least I don’t think so. She looks at me, and more tears stream down her blotchy cheeks.
My eyes drift down what I can see of her body, curled in as she hugs her knees to her chest.
She shouldn’t be here. Something about the way she looks at me gets me though. Her stare seeps into me and touches something deep down. Something locked away. I don’t know what that something is… it’s not my soul, and I can’t take the time now to acknowledge it. Eight years I’ve known Mark, and I never thought to look a little deeper into his family.
I never had any cause to, and other than the standard checks to make sure my staff are suitable for my business, I don’t dig deeper than that.
I snap my gaze back to Mark and reach for my gun in my back pocket. Ava cries harder when she sees it.
“Kneel!” I shout. My voice carries across the room.
Mark drops to his knees, and I look at him.
Mercy is the thing that cripples us.
I will not give it tonight. People don’t take the act of mercy to mean what it should—they see it as weakness for a guy like me.
“So, how are you going to pay me back? Two million dollars, Mark, and my name gone out the door just like that. You gambled away two million dollars of my money and tied me up with drugs and prostitution,” I begin.
I’m not looking directly at Ava, but out the corner of my eye I see her flinch at the snapshot of the revelation of the truth.
“I’m sorry, Vincent. I’m so sorry. Please… I’ll pay you back,” Mark says with a nod, like he really believes he can pay me back.
I actually laugh, although I feel like starting my damage with his knees. Blow off his kneecaps and work my way up. I laugh, and it’s not laughter or humor. It’s a crude sardonic sound that pours from me.
“How the fuck are you going to do that? I want it now!” I lash out and knock him over with the back of my gun. Ava screams, and it throws me off. It’s another reason why she shouldn’t fucking be here. “You motherfucker, evil bastard. You know you can’t fucking pay it back. I’m your boss. I don’t pay you that much, and obviously, you no longer have a fucking job with me. What do you really expect me to do here?”
Mark wiggles back on his arms crying like the motherfucker he is.
“Please, Vincent. I had some problems… I wasn’t thinking straight,” he sputters.
I cock the gun and fire one bullet that hits the wall. I can’t take this shit. “You have problems? You fucking bastard. You started stealing from me when I had problems.” I’m talking like I still don’t have those same problems. “That’s when this started. What do you want me to do? John was beaten to near death because the Montagues thought it was him who was stealing from them. But it was you. He’s in the hospital now with two broken legs. Wife and children at his side. How is that fair? Dino nearly lost an eye and got a bullet in his arm because the Stevensons thought it was him who was stealing from them. But it was you. Should I continue?”
I prod because there’s fucking more. The two million is just the start. That was what he took from me personally.
To date, the total amount of money Mark has had in his fucking hands is two and a half million. Motherfucker.
“I’m sorry,” Mark wails, but I can’t take it. Not another second more of his sorrys.
I fire a round of shots at the wall and grab his throat. I hold the gun to his head and growl, “I should kill you dead!” I get ready to cock the gun again.
“Noooo!!!” Ava wails. I don’t know how she moves so fast. She rushes over and throws herself on me, at my feet.
I don’t know anyone who would dare do that. She doesn’t know me, or know of me, and she doesn’t seem to care that the look of me is warning enough to stay away.
I glare at her as she starts begging, and this…. this is another reason why she shouldn’t be here.
“Please, have mercy! Please, please, have mercy on him.”
Fucking fuck… she’s begging for the very thing I’ve learned to hate.
Mercy.
I have her father by the throat in one hand, looking like he’s ready for the end. And she’s at my feet begging me. She looks up at me, and I see her eyes properly for the first time, couldn’t have seen them before from all the way over here. Not in this light.
They’re bright green, but there’s a slight hint of brown around the rim of the iris that blends into the green. Rare and striking.
Our eyes lock, frozen in time, and I look beyond the terror and see pain. I recognize it. It’s pain as dark as mine.
Pain filled with suffering. Pain mixed with guilt. Pain mixed with terror. It’s not the terror from the situation at hand.
It’s older.
What I see in her eyes is older. Maybe that’s the something I felt moments ago. It’s back now, and it beckons me to stop. Stop what I’m doing.
I’m shocked to shit when I feel my grip loosen around Mark’s neck. I continue to stare, and while I’ve loosened my hold on Mark, the gun’s still cocked.
She sniffles and gulps air, breaking the trance. “Please, I beg of you. Don’t kill him.”
“He can’t pay,” I counter. I don’t know why the hell I say that. We all know that fact.
She glances at her father and pants, then she returns her gaze to me.
“Take me…” she stutters, her voice a hush.
“No!” Mark cries before I have time to process her words. I look from one to the other and tighten my grip on Mark once more.
“Take me instead. I’ll do anything,” she says with more insistence.
My gaze intensifies on her. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Ava, no, don’t!” Mark wails.
I glower at this bastard. It shouldn’t have come to this. I squeeze his neck hard, and he gasps for air, trying to catch his breath.
“Take me!” Ava screams, taking my hand, surprising me again. The gun isn’t far from her. “Take me instead. Please don’t hurt him. Don’t kill him. Please.”
She’s serious.
Fucking hell, what the hell am I supposed to do with that offer?
I look to her and know what she means.
Take her instead of killing her father….
I don’t know what to be furious with more. I’m not a good person, but maybe I’m not evil enough yet to kill a man because he owes me millions and damaged my name when his daughter is pleading with me for his life. Begging me for mercy. Maybe I’m not evil enough to avoid showing her mercy.
It’s not him. It’s her. It would be her I would be giving this lenient act.
I can’t leave here with nothing though.
I lower the gun and look her over. Now her eyes show a different panic as she realizes what I’m doing.
It’s like she can’t believe it. I can’t either. I can’t believe my rage isn’t emptying a round of bullets in Mark’s gut.
“Salvatore!” I call out, and Salvatore comes through the door.
He freezes when he sees them at my feet.
“Vin,” he says my name tentatively.
“Take her to the house,” I order him like he’s my servant. He might be second in command to me, but he’s not my slave.
He won’t question me here though. He wouldn’t in front of people like this. The look he gives me is enough, but he knows not to fuck with me.
Mark starts shouting the minute Salvatore takes Ava.
“What are you going to do to him!” Ava screams. It mingles with Mark’s agony-filled shouts. “Wait, no,” she cries, pulling against Salvatore’s arm.
She may be ballsy, but her petite frame is no match for anybody.
“Get her out of here,” I tell Salvatore.
“No!” she cries.
“Look, lady, you better shut the fuck up, or your old man gets it now.”
That silences her, but she’s still looking at me.
“Come on, doll,” Salvatore says and has to practically lift her up to get her to go with him.
She’s crying as she goes, but I can’t worry about that.
I have to think about what I’m doing. This is the first thing to truly test me in years, and it’s a big test.
I look back to Mark as he shakes and cries so hard my own hand shakes.
What the hell am I going to do with this fucking prick? And his daughter… what am I going to do with her too?
Am I seriously going to accept her offer?