PROLOGUE
THREE YEARS AGO
My heart stopped, my soul lifting from my body, and I didn't give two fucks if I died right here on this ripped up, old couch as my orgasm slid down my spine, tightening my balls before rushing through my cock. My back arched and my sex pulsed with every ejaculation, my hoarse cry echoing off the barren walls of what used to be a break room.
The woman astride me threw back her head with abandon. “Luca!”
The ends of her long, black hair brushed my thighs as she rode my sex with desperate undulations of her hips, milking every last drop out of me. I palmed her large breasts, greedily soaking in the sight of the ample flesh spilling out of my hands, the dark nipples straining against my palms. But much as I’d love to stay here with her for another round or two, we needed to wrap things up and get back out to the warehouse to oversee the narcotics exchange between her people and mine.
The mafia and the cartel had never gotten along so well.
When I had nothing left to give her, neither a shred of my heart nor a drop of my cum, she lifted her head and looked down at me with a lazy smile, her dark eyes dancing with the joy of being alive. Something icy and hard cracked within my chest, and I felt the corners of my mouth lift in response to her awestruck gaze. My Maria...so fucking beautiful...I was going to fucking marry her. My father might not approve. But as the boss, he would have to see it would be a good alliance.
Pop!
Blood splattered across my face, neck, and chest, getting in my mouth and eyes. Blinking hard, I stared up at her smiling face as the sparkle faded from her brown eyes and her life trickled from the single hole in the center of her forehead. And even though I watched it happen, even though she was right there in front of my fucking eyes, it took me a full three seconds to comprehend what I had just witnessed.
"Maria!" The salty copper taste of her blood coated my tongue, a horrifying contradiction to the sweet taste of her pussy. "Fuck. Fuck...MARIA!" I roared out her name.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Slugs hit the couch around me with a dull thud, each one pushing me to snap out of it. To fucking move. Acting on pure instinct, I slid off the couch to the floor, keeping her lifeless body between my most vital organs and the shooter who stood at the end of the couch, slightly to the left. I felt her body jerk as a bullet went through her shoulder and into the floor beside my head, grazing my ear.
Reaching for my pants, I tried to pull them toward me while keeping myself as close to the couch as I could. It wasn't much of a shield, but it was something. My holster and gun were lying on top of my clothes, if I could just reach them. Keeping my eyes right where someone would appear at the end of the couch and my ears open for footsteps, I slammed a door down on my emotions, sliding easily back into the role of cold-blooded killer. Maybe too easily. The man I was before I'd met her. The man my father had forced me to become. Unfeeling. More dead than alive.
The monster I would unleash once again to avenge her death.
I could feel him clawing at my ribcage. Hear him roaring with rage in my head. My heart slowed to a steady rhythm. My focus became razor sharp. Later, I would mourn the woman I loved. Right now, I just had to keep myself alive.
My fingertips finally touched cold metal and I smiled. This motherfucker was a dead man. Gun in hand, I shoved Maria off of me and crab walked backward, my bare feet sliding on the blood that had dripped to the concrete floor, squeezing myself between the wall and the other end of the couch. Squatting on the balls of my feet, I leaned out and took a quick look toward the doorway, aiming right where the fucker's head would be.
No one was there.
Uncaring of the fact that I was as naked as the day I was born, I stood up and strode to the doorway, throwing my back against the wall. Again, I listened.
A whistle echoed down the hall.
"Gotta go! Gotta go!"
Footsteps ran down the hall, and from the sound of them, I could tell he or she was running away from this room. Away from me.
I stuck my head out of the doorway, pulling it back just in time to avoid being shot in the face as the shooter tried to keep me where I was so he could make his getaway.
But that was okay. I'd seen what I'd needed to see. Even if I didn’t believe it.
Shutting down the rage and confusion that tightened my chest, I gave my head a fierce shake and got myself back in the game. I needed to stay alive now more than ever. I had to warn the family.
Quickly and silently, I returned to where Maria lay sprawled across the floor, her limbs bent at unnatural angles in my haste to get out from underneath her. I picked up her body and laid her on the couch, carefully this time, keeping one eye on the door in case anyone was stupid enough to come back as I dragged on only my pants, not bothering with my shirt or suit jacket, which I laid over her to preserve her modesty. "I'll be back to get you, amore," I told her, then kissed her on the cheek. My lips left a bloody print on her flawless brown skin, and I ran my thumb through it, smearing it toward her ear.
Barefoot, I crept silently down the hall to the main part of the warehouse. Low voices murmured something I couldn’t make out. Then I heard movement. Lots of movement. But I wasn’t so stupid as to make my presence known before I knew what I was dealing with.
Slowly, I slid my shoulder down the wall until I sat on my heels where no one would expect to see me, then quickly looked out around the corner, gun pointed low. The feds swarmed the place like locusts, busting open crates and sweeping the place with drug dogs. My soldiers and Maria’s men were rounded up and cuffed near the loading dock. And the prick who shot my Maria was talking to one of the agents. I didn’t fucking miss the fact he wasn’t handcuffed. As I watched, he glanced back over his shoulder toward the hallway where I was, as though he felt me watching him.
Motherfucker.
Rising to my full height, I jogged back down the hall to the break room, my bare feet silent on the hard floors.
A man was standing over Maria’s body. He held my shirt up away from her body, and he was staring at her tits. Without thinking, I lifted my gun, aiming where his face will be in about two seconds. “You’re a sick fuck. You know that?”