Chapter One
Primo
A deep refreshing inhale relieved my lungs but did nothing to release the muscles clenched with biting tension in my neck and back. Sleep beckoned, but I ignored the silent call to answer a more primal urge, one that called for an order of death with a side dish of devastation.
Upholding my Caporegime (Capo) position and ensuring our family duties were met was paramount to my region in St. Louis. My reign as Capo for the past two years had gone smoothly, only requiring me to bring out the brutal savage that resided within me a few times. However, trouble greeted me upon my return from Sicily, where I attended Don Ermanno’s funeral and the crowning of Don Enzo, the new head of our family.
The emotional and criminal fallout of Don Ermanno DeLuca’s recent death stirred up trouble within the family as well as with our enemies. There was always an adversary willing to risk it all to test a DeLuca, and we were a very accommodating family.
Two days after my return, I didn’t resume my normal duties, but played the role of a detective who was attempting to learn why two of my men had dropped bodies. A failed hit was executed against them while they made a routine drop.
As expected, other families and crime syndicates assumed we were vulnerable and easily distracted. They were going to take their opportunities to strike, unaware that the DeLuca bloodline could process several emotions in the same breath.
Pain, anger, fear, and sorrow were the emotions experienced by most. DeLucas created another emotion—savage. We could mourn the loss of our Don, celebrate a new one, and put a bullet in a motherfucker’s head for testing us all while letting tears fall.
Another deep inhale lifted my chest high, the oxygen feeding my brain before I released a long sigh. I could count on one hand how many hours of sleep I’d had in the past three days, but day-to-day operations were an all-consuming entity that didn’t understand the body’s physical limitations.
Today, the sun had risen and laid a new source of trouble at our doorstep. A robbery attempt at one of our stash houses had left one of my men dead. My last three hours were spent processing the scene and determining that the break-in wasn’t a run-of-the-mill robbery.
No evidence of a struggle was found, nor were any of the doors damaged, indicating the culprit was more than likely invited into the house. One of my most loyal men, Geno, was shot, execution-style, in the back of the head. The reinforced steel door securing the money room hadn’t been touched. All that was taken from the premises was his phone and computer equipment, which indicated it was a fact-finding mission—someone gathering information on my family.
This drive tonight was the closest I would get to a break, so I concentrated on the powerful growl of my black Charger’s Hellcat supercharged V8 engine. When too many thoughts clogged my head, I turned them off and focused on one mundane function.
My phone rang, a sound that was about as devastating as being shot in the ass. The disturbance caused dread to creep into my brain, putting an end to my mental respite and reopening my mind’s freeway.
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“Primo. I hope you’re on the way. Shit is getting crazy enough to make my trigger finger itch.”
It was my cousin, Brizio, whose club I was currently driving towards for an emergency meeting.
“Leandra’s here, crying and shit. Said two guys just tried to grab her. She made it to her SUV and got away, but they shot at her. Took out her rear window.”
“Motherfuck!”
My fist pounded into the steering wheel making the horn honk loudly from the angry punch I threw.
“My sentiments exactly,” Brizio agreed, the irritation in his tone coming across the phone line.
“I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
“Okay. See you then.”
He clicked off.
A scowl sat like a prominent fixture on my face, the ache of my anger causing it to deepen. A fucking future dead body had my name stamped on it for attempting to take out multiple members of this family with no rhyme or reason to their actions.
My car engine responded with a loud roar when I slammed my foot down on the gas. I zoomed past other motorists, the swirl of colors from head and taillights swiping past my tunneling vision. This must have been what my thoughts coursing through my brain resembled.
A flash of light peeked into my peripheral vision, causing me to whip my head around in time to meet the blinding glare of a vehicle’s rapidly approaching headlights. The shine put serious stress on my corneas, making me squeeze my eyes shut for a second.
The front bumper of a black Dodge Ram was at my rear passenger side, so close the driver could have puckered up to kiss my bumper’s shiny ass cheek. On guard now, I reached for one of my peacemakers, a stainless steel FNX .45.
The impact of the first metal-clapping bump was slight, a tap. However, at seventy-five miles per hour, a tap was all that was required to encourage momentum, force, and gravity to send me into a spin.
My car rejected the turn I forced on it with my aggressive maneuvering. The tires left burned rubber on the highway and protested with a loud, car-shaking scream at my attempts to steer into the spin.
A concrete divider sat immovable on my side of the highway, and motorists speeding along in the lane on the passenger side had no idea that two tons of revved-up metal were aiming to get at them. A spin-out would cause a deadly crash or a possible pile-up.