Prologue
Lorenzo
I had a hundred years in the trunk.
Kidnapping was kidnapping.
Throw in some extortion to make shit worse.
Then when you took them across state lines, you were fucked.
When they had a bump or bruise anywhere, you nabbed yourself an aggravated federal kidnapping charge. Even if she banged her own fucking head.
Add on the gun in my jacket, the mysterious package I needed to pick up—that looked suspiciously like several bricks of cocaine—and the fact that I was a known member of the New York City Cosa Nostra, and I was looking at life in prison if I got caught.
That was why I had a soccer-mom hold on the steering wheel and a granny tap on the accelerator.
And once I got back to the city, shit would only going to get worse.
False imprisonment.
Sprinkle in some possible torture.
Maybe a murder.
But yeah, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let's go back to see how the fuck I got myself in that situation...
Chapter One
Lorenzo
"Not now." The words growled out of me as I cocked my arm backward before swinging, my fist connecting with a jaw with a satisfying cracking noise.
I shouldn't have enjoyed it. Nor should I have felt a stirring of pleasure at the groaning and whimpering that accompanied a broken jaw. There was no denying that I did, though.
What can I say? When you grew up as the son of a mafia Capo dei Capi—boss of all bosses—you developed some fucked up interests. Like inflicting pain.
"You know I wouldn't interrupt if it wasn't important," Emilio, my cousin, said, closing the door behind him.
Turning toward him, I found him leaning against the door, likely wrinkling my gray suit jacket that was hanging there.
Emilio was a bucker of convention. Which meant that today, he had on slacks but no suit jacket, just a simple black shirt, tucked in. I was convinced the only reason he bothered to tuck was to show off his belt buckle collection. Today, it was a more understated silver scorpion.
Emilio didn't inherit the dark hair and eyes of my father's side of the family, taking instead after his mother which had his hair a light brown, and his eyes a dark blue.
"What is it?" I asked, reaching up to wipe sweat off my brow, only to notice the red staining my fingers and palm, then use my rolled-up sleeve to complete the task instead.
Emilio's gaze went to the man currently cuffed to a folding chair a few feet behind me, the left side of his face swelling quickly from the jaw break. His right eye was swollen shut, his nose still trickling lazily.
"You almost done here?"
Not nearly.
"Hold on," I said, turning back, cocking my arm, and landing an uppercut under his jaw. He was out before the chair teetered on two legs for a second before falling backward, colliding with the floor. "That should shut him up for a while," I said, making my way toward my cousin, letting him open the door so I didn't spread blood everywhere.
We were in the basement of a butcher shop that had been in the family since my great-great-grandfather came over from Italy about a hundred years before. I stopped to wash my hands in the utility sink in the short hall between the back room I was using to earn compliance from someone who decided it would be okay not to pay us for a couple months and the main storage area.
"Alright. What is so important?" I asked as we moved into the storage space, metal racks bending under the weight of decades-worth of crap that no one bothered to pack up and get rid of. The room was always dusty and musty, wetness seeping in through the walls. My father couldn't even come here without getting a wicked allergy attack from the mold tucked in hidden corners. Not that he ever got his hands dirty anymore.
"Just got back from seeing your father," Emilio said, sighing heavily. No one enjoyed a meeting with my father. Better him than me, though, at this point. I generally kept myself busy enough that he didn't bother to request my company. It was an arrangement that seemed to be working for us thus far.
"What is he up to now?" What I really wanted to ask was What the fuck is he screwing up now? But you had to be careful how you spoke to or about my father. Someone with an ego as fragile as his was, didn't take kindly to any sort of criticism.
"He's got a job."
"For you or for me?" I asked, already mentally ticking through my overly booked schedule. I could hardly fit a morning workout in these days, let alone another job.
"He doesn't want me to do it. He wants my eyes on the new puppy," Emilio said, referencing a new soldier my father had added to the crew, a sniveling little asshole who only got in because he was such a kiss-ass. During one of our many arguments, I had told my father as much. The yelling match that followed was why I hadn't been in my father's presence in several months. But, clearly, he took my concerns seriously enough to have eyes on the little bastard.