PROLOGUE
CLICK
THREE MONTHS AGO
"I don't know what the fuck he is thinking." My hands run down my face as frustration sets in. My boss Dario Lassiter is the undercover crime boss of Florida and several other cities. He is also a lawyer in the daytime. Normally, I would say he was a smart, levelheaded man who doesn't make rash decisions and has everything in order. As his right-hand man and best friend, there is not much I question about the decisions he makes. I didn't even question him when he brought home a girl he barely knew and subsequently made her his wife. The Queen of his empire. The only person to be feared more than him even though she is sweet and kind.
No. I didn't question those decisions because I saw how much and quickly she changed him. Gave him something to live for. I didn't question it, but I also didn't understand it. In the life we lead, having something or someone we love be out in the open makes them a target, which is why I put my little sister Daffodil far away from me and the family we were born into.
My father was a hitman for the Coronado Cartel. He was not considered a made man, but he married my mother, who was a Coronado, so they found a place for him. For years we lived this charmed life as Coronado's by blood, but also as a Barbieri who didn't have to worry about our safety. The problem was my father. He loved my mother, well, I think so, but he couldn't keep it in his pants. When she got diagnosed with ovarian cancer, it devastated me and my sister. My father sort of drifted after that, never coming home for more than a few hours. When she passed a year after her diagnosis, I watched him spiral. I was nineteen at the time and took on the role of big brother/father for Daf, who was only three at the time.
For five years, I took care of her and the house and tried to keep tabs on my father. My uncles attempted to recruit me and find a place for me since I was their blood, but I wanted nothing to do with that shit. They are mental. The fifth-year is when shit hit the fan. Quanico, my uncle, found out my father was stuffing his wife every night, and rumor has it the last two kids might be his. My father fled with the threat of a bounty on his head.