256

MATTEO I tried calling Luca again on his second cell phone but he didn’t answer. Where the hell was he?
My eyes shifted to Aria, Gianna, and Lily.
When I had entered the mansion fifteen minutes earlier and seen the bloody handprints on the door and the bloodstains on the marble floor, I was sure I would find Aria dead, and eventually Luca too, because killing her would be the end of her, but she was miraculously unharmed.
Shit, Luca, where are you?
He was out for blood, no doubt. What if he was headed to Chicago? What if he was trying to kill Dante alone ?
Fuck.
I pulled out my second cell phone and called Horace, then hung up , waiting for him to call me back in case he couldn’t speak freely at that moment. It took five minutes before he called me back, and by then I was in the car and headed to New York. I had to find Luca before he got himself killed or the police caught him killing others.
“Matteo, what can I do for you?” said Horatio.
I had never been so relieved that Horace was our spy in the Outfit . He had been working with us for two years now and had never let us down. “In case Luca shows up in Chicago, make sure you knock him out before he gets anywhere near Dante.”
“What?” muttered Horatio. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry.”
Horace remained silent. In any case, he was not a very communicative man .
“I need you to find someone for me. He is a photographer.
I sent you an e-mail with the details. Call him as fast as you can and ask him who paid him to take the pictures of Dante and Aria.”
“Wait, what? What pictures?”
“Read my fucking e-mail. And when you’re done asking him , you’re going to take him to New York.”
Silence. “You want me to come to New York?”
“Not for long. You’ll come back to Chicago once you deliver the photographer.”
“I will,” Horatio said, but I could hear a hint of hesitation in his tone.
“You’ve been working for us for two years,” I reminded him. If Dante had found out, not even Horace’s status as Valentina’s brother would have guaranteed him a quick death.
Horace understood the unexpressed threat and hung up.
He would bring me that photographer, and then I would have a very long and intense conversation with that bastard.
It was evening when Demetrius called me through the ‘earpiece. He was the bastard son of Luca and my cousin, Gottardo . “What is it?”
I had still found no trace of Luca, and I could not involve anyone in the search except Romero. If word got out about what had happened, things would get bad in the Family. “Someone slaughtered all the members of the Jersey MC.”
My foot on the accelerator eased. “Where?”
“In their clubhouse. There are. Orpheus and I were supposed to meet their president to warn them, but someone got to them before we did.”
Shit. “I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”
I stepped on the accelerator and leaned into my Kawasaki, zigzagging through traffic at blinding speed.
The moment I saw the faces of Orpheus and Demetrius, I knew it was bad. They had been Made Men for five years now and had seen a lot of shit. They were good soldiers, efficient and loyal. I entered the clubhouse and my nose plugged from the stench. Blood. Sweat. Piss. Shit.
Fear.
My eyes watched that bloody mess. Limbs, skin and blood everywhere. “How do you know it’s all members?”
“We counted the bodies,” Orpheus said with a grimace.
“I don’t see any bodies,” I muttered. Someone had practically chopped up every single body. I saw a bloody axe on the ground covered with blood and pieces of flesh.
“We counted the heads,” Demetrius added with a wry smile, exchanging a glance with Orpheus.
The heads were also in bad shape, but they were still recognizable as heads.
“Burn everything. Leave no trace,” I ordered .
“Don’t you want to find out who did this?” asked Orpheus.
“No,” I growled. “Burn everything.”
I knew who had done it, and I had to make sure I stopped him before he did worse.
“Fuck,” Demetrius exclaimed, his eyes full of awareness.
He and Orpheus exchanged another look. Best friends since birth. “It was Luca, right?”
I considered my options. Luca had to appear strong. If I tried to hide his involvement, people would get suspicious.
I shrugged my shoulders. “He thought it would send a good message to the other MCs. Take pictures before you burn everything, and send them to every fucking MC in our territory who wants to piss in our pond.”
Orpheus let out an incredulous laugh, a mixture of disgust and respect on his face. “Did he do that on his own? Fuck, he’s a beast.”
I turned and left them to their task.
Where was my brother?
LUCA I watched the girl push her bare ass up before turning around the pole, her dark eyes fixed on mine, her red-painted lips spread in a flirtatious smile. She fell to the ground and crawled toward me, her sagging top revealing large fake boobs.
“I see you’re watching our new stripper,” Matteo said as he sank into the chair next to me. I ignored him as the girl turned on her back and pulled back her top, revealing her large pierced nipples, which she began to twist as she eye-fucked me. I could take her to one of the back rooms of the Pergola and fuck her until she went crazy.
“I’ve been looking for you since yesterday,” Matteo said, in a strained voice.
He leaned forward, preventing me from seeing the girl.
I looked at him with half-closed eyes. His brown eyes searched my face as if he were looking for a fucking treasure hidden somewhere. “You look calm.”
“I am calm,” I said.
“Demetrio told me he heard that someone slaughtered every MC member in New Jersey. Remember those assholes who thought they could take over the gun trade in Jersey?”
I watched the girl over Matthew’s head. She went back to the pole and walked around it shirtless, her tits bobbing up and down.
“I went there. A complete bloodbath. Limbs and skin everywhere. Ten dead.” Matthew arched his eyebrows. “They were hacked to pieces. Most of the work was done with an axe, but some got some love with a skinning knife.” He leaned forward and struck the knife strapped to my chest.
The dancer lifted herself onto the pole and spread her legs to form a V. Matthew turned sharply toward her. “Why don’t you fuck off?”
Her eyes widened and she let go of the pole before running toward the locker room. My eyes followed her ass. I hadn’t fucked anyone’s ass since Grace four years earlier.
“Do I have to undress for you to hear me?”
I leaned against the back of the chair. “I’m listening.”
“I guess you have.”
“Their screams and blood sounded like fucking heaven,” I murmured.
Matteo shook his head. “Fuck, Luca. You’re not going to get mad at me, are you? Last time I saw you, fuck. And now you’re all calm, it’s weird even for you.”
“I am calm.”
Matthew sat down in the chair, pushing us away , and I knew I would hate what he said next. “I saw Aria in the villa yesterday morning.”
My heart clenched tightly, but I kept a calm expression.
“She will stay there. She won’t go back to New York. Have Sandro watch over her.”
Matteo rubbed his temple. “Luca, listen, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t think Aria has betrayed you.”
I stood up, my eyes focused on the dressing room door where the stripper had disappeared. Matteo pushed my chest, his eyes blazing with anger.
“For God’s sake, will you stop this shit? You’re driving even me crazy, and I’ve seen you at your worst.” He paused.
“Although I have to admit that what you did in that clubhouse might be the most twisted shit I’ve ever seen.”
“You saw the pictures of Dante and Aria,” I said with a tight fucking throat. I clenched my fists, hating the fact that my body had betrayed me.
“They don’t show anything. I talked to Horace. He got his hands on the photographer and will bring it to us tomorrow.”
“I can’t take Horace now. We need him as a spy.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “I know, and he’s going back to Chicago.” He had risen through the ranks since Valentina had married Dante. Like his brother, he was our perfect asset.
“Did you hear what I said? We can talk to the photographer tomorrow. Horace already questioned him and it’s like Aria said, he met Val, then Dante joined them and forced Aria to leave the restaurant with him, but you can make him say the same thing again tomorrow if you don’t believe me.”
I nodded, but other than that I did not react. My exterior was stone but I couldn’t control my fucking interior. I felt fucking relieved, but it didn’t matter anymore. The day before had shown me one thing: I had become weak because of Aria. It was a weakness, a weakness I could not afford as Chief.
“So will you help me interrogate that asshole?”
I smiled. “Sure.”
Matthew frowned. “I’m not sure you really understand what I’m telling you.”
“Oh, yes,” I said softly. “Aria went to Chicago behind my back. That’s a fact. She didn’t cheat, who cares?” The words seemed to burn in my throat. A fucking lie. Even thinking about Aria with someone other than me was like a stab in the heart.
A weakness.
I had never been weak in my life.
Aria was a weakness I could not afford.
Matthew shook his head. “Anyway. We’ll talk to that photographer tomorrow. Maybe you’ll be more tolerable after that.”
Horace nodded as I shook his hand. He was only a couple of inches shorter than me. It was unmistakable that he was related to Valentina. Same eyes, same hair color. At least he wasn’t flattering Dante.
Dante. My blood boiled just thinking about him, his hands on Aria’s shoulders, his mouth close to her ear and his fucking arm between her legs….
Matteo pushed me. “Will you pull yourself together, for God’s sake ? I can’t let you make another killing.”
“Why not? I’m sure it will silence many of our enemies.”
Matthew shook his head before turning to Horatio, who was listening with mild interest.
“Where’s the asshole?” asked Matteo.
“Trunk. He shit his pants. That’s why I didn’t want him in the back seat,” said Horace. He led us to the back of his BMW and opened the trunk. A short, fat guy in his 30s was huddled inside. He smelled of piss, shit, and sweat. He looked at us with glazed eyes, his mouth covered with duct tape.
I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up, then pushed him to the ground. Behind us the building of the old Yonkers power plant rose skyward.
The gateway to hell.
I smiled at the whimpering man on the ground as he looked at me as if I were the devil. “So you took those pictures?” I asked with a low growl as I knelt beside the man , unsheathing the knife from the holster on his chest. I removed the tape so that he could speak, but not only that: so that I could hear his screams.
He looked at the blade with open horror. “Please! I only did what I was paid to do. I meant no harm.”
My smile widened. This was what I was meant to be.
Brutal. Cruel. Ruthless. Not the fucking emotional mess Aria turned me into.
Most of the time I let Matteo do the torture because he was a master. He loved to play with his victims. I preferred to kill. Not today. Horace and Matteo stepped aside while I took care of the photographer. He had long ago revealed his last secret when I had plunged the knife into his fucking heart and granted him death. For a long time afterward there was silence as I tried to manage my fury.
Dante had let the photographer take those pictures and sent them to me because he knew Aria was my fucking weakness. He hoped I would lose my mind, go wild , maybe attack Chicago. I wasn’t sure about that.
Horatio cleared his throat. “I also found out yesterday that Gottardo and Ermano contacted Dante a few weeks ago to help him bring you down. Dante was wary of them, thought it was a trap, but in our meeting yesterday Scuderi encouraged him to trust them.”
“Gottardo and fucking Ermano. Those fucking bastards,” I hissed, focusing on them instead of the fact that Dante fucking Cavallaro had tried to make me believe that Aria was having an affair with him. Fuck that. Love, a fucking weakness!
Matteo looked at me cautiously as if he thought I would break Horatio’s neck or his just to kill something. “At least it’s just them and a couple of low-ranking soldiers. Nothing we can’t handle.”
“Oh, we’ll handle it,” I said. “I wish I hadn’t given Gotthard a quick death.”
“You slit his throat, Luca. There are nicer ways to die,” Matteo said. Horatio’s eyebrows rose in mild curiosity.
“Nicer than what Ermano will have.”
“For sure,” Matteo said.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll be back in Chicago before anyone notices I’m gone,” Horace said. I gave him a quick nod of assent. He exchanged a few more words with Matteo before leaving .
Matteo approached my side. “So Aria did not betray.”
“We should attack tonight. I want to eradicate the root of our problem as soon as possible. The family is full of traitors, I always knew that Gotthard was one of them. And now Ermano too. Those two have always been stupid.”
Matteo scowled, “Luca, did you hear what I said?”
I went at him. “Stay out of my marriage, Matteo, and make sure your wife doesn’t turn you into a fucking idiot.”
Matteo said nothing, and it was for the best because I was out for blood again.
That night, Romero, Matteo and I attacked Ermano’s vacation home in the Hamptons. Ermano was supposed to return to Atlanta the next morning. He would never return.
Orpheus and Demetrius were headed to capture Gottardo’s other legitimate son. I knew Demetrius would have no problem handling his half-brother. No love was wasted between those two.
I killed Ermano’s first soldier with a twist of the neck before he could give a warning; Matteo felled the second with his knife. Without waiting to see if Romero had knocked out the third, I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. A door to my right opened and I lashed out with my knife toward the person and arched upward at the last second, sticking the blade a couple of inches above a little girl’s head. Her mouth opened for a cry and I pressed my hand to her lips. She struggled as my arm wrapped around her waist. She fought hard as I leaned toward her ear. “Not a sound. Nothing will happen to you, Kiara.” Her eyes flickered in recognition. “Where is your father?”
My cousin pointed to the door at the end of the hall, her arms bruised. I let her go and she looked at me with huge eyes, wrapping her arms around me. My eyes observed the bruises on her collarbones and her swollen cheek. Ermano was my father’s brother to the core.
Matteo ran toward me and I pushed Kiara toward him, then crawled toward the door he had pointed to. He had not lied. He had no reason to. Before I could open the door, someone else did. His wife was standing in front of me. Ermano must have sent her to investigate the noise. Damned coward.
I pushed her to the side and barely managed to dodge a bullet. Ermano hid behind the huge bed and shot at me. A heavy thud resounded a second before I threw myself to the ground and pulled out my gun. Looking over my shoulder, I saw his wife on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. Ermano had shot his wife by accident, or perhaps on purpose: who knows what was going through that crazy fucker’s head? I wouldn’t have shot him. It would have been too fast.
Matteo crouched in the hallway and signaled for me to stay down.
I sneaked over to the bed.
“What do you want?” yelled Ermano.
“Get out so you have a quick death,” Matteo yelled. As if it was going to happen. I was going to tear him apart, muscle, bone, and skin.
I moved even closer to the bed. I could see Ermano’s knees through the gap under the bed. I aimed for his right kneecap and fired. His high-pitched scream was music to my ears. I pushed myself off the ground and was beside my uncle in two big strides, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him until we were at eye level.
“You can say goodbye to that quick death, uncle,” I growled.
Two hours later, Matteo and I left the villa. Romero would take care of the cleaning brigade. As we approached Matteo’s Porsche Cayenne, a disheveled brown head popped out of the back seat.
“Fuck,” Matteo muttered. “I forgot about Kiara.”
I rubbed a hand over my head. “How old is she?”
“I have no idea. We have too many cousins. Twelve?”
Sighing, I opened the back door and leaned in. Kiara recoiled from me and pulled her legs against her chest. “How old are you?” I asked her in the most civilized tone I could muster after ripping her father to shreds.
She looked at me as if I were about to kill her.
I carefully scanned Kiara’s face, trying to remember.
“Twelve?”
She swallowed.
I closed the door and Matteo locked it before sliding into the passenger seat. “Where?” asked Matteo.
She was our cousin and I had to make sure she was safe, but my options were limited. She was too young to be given in marriage and honor dictated that I choose family, but who could I trust? Aunt Egidia and her husband Felix in Baltimore were the most respectable of the bunch. “Egidia. In the meantime we will take you to Marianne and her husband.”
“What will happen to me?” she finally whispered.
She still clutched her legs to her chest. ” You will be safe.”
Matteo looked up at me. “No one will hurt you, Kiara, least of all Luca or me.”
I was happy when we left our cousin at Marianna’s house. Her husband was a loyal soldier and would make sure Kiara was safe until she moved in with Aunt Egidia.
Afterwards, Matthew drove to the meeting point we had agreed on with Demetrius and Orpheus: the Yonker power plant. Angelo, Gottardo’s last legitimate son, was tied to a chair.
He gave me a glare as I approached, then spat at Demetrius’ feet. “You bring shame to our name. You son of a bitch. My father should never have welcomed you into our home.”
“Welcome you?” hissed Demetrius.
“He is mine,” I warned him before Demetrio could stick a knife into his half-brother. I pulled out my knife. “Let’s see what kind of secrets you have for us, Angelo.”
After that night, the Family would be free of traitors and ready to face war with the Outfit, and I would lead them with brutal concentration without the chains of love to hold me back. No matter how long it would take, no matter how many lives it would cost, I would bring Dante Cavallaro down, even if he killed me.