PROLOGUE
UNNAMED BOY
I stand in an alley,blood dripping from my hands.
I hold a knife in my left hand, my fingers wrapped around it tightly, as if it's the only thing keeping me alive. I have no idea why I hold this knife and have no memory of using it. To my right, a man lies with his throat slit, a pool of crimson seeping over the concrete.
That's when I look up and... seehim.
Not just anyone.
Not a man who visits thebasementand rapes me and my friends.
A big, brawny bastard with an enormous rifle in his hands. He stares into my soul, and for the first time in so long, I feel all right.
Safe. Protected. Desired.
I don't know his name and I don't know why he's here with me in this alley. All I know is that he's the most beautiful man I've ever seen and I want him,him, not the men my captors force me to have sex with, to be my Daddy.
I take a step toward him. But before I move, spots dance before my eyes and I crash to my feet.
1
BENEDETTO
"Get the boy to Gianluca."
I sit in the black transport van, my rifle perched on my lap. My bulging shoulders are flexed, and my fists curl with rage.
Who… is this boy?
I was at the Little Bunny Club with my two brothers when I got the text. My assistant, who's been keeping an eye out on the Diavolos' crime warehouse in Yonkers, messaged me that a boy escaped from their basement. After he sent me a picture of the boy, I knew I had to act.
One look at the blond boy in the alley, blood dripping down his hands, awakened something in me. He was standing next to a dead body and I knew he was in trouble.
"Who are you?" Reaching out, I drag my thumb across his cheek. There's a pink Band-Aid on his left arm, with blood trickling out of it. He clutches a caterpillar stuffy in his right hand, holding onto it for dear life.
I wave my hand in front of his eyes. "Wake up."
No movement on his gurney. He doesn't do so little as blink.
It’s fucking ironic. I never act so quickly to rescue someone. My family controls the most vicious Italian Mafia crime organization in New York City. We've seen more dead bodies than most NYPD officers do in a lifetime. Death doesn't bother us anymore.
This boy wasdifferent. Though blood pooled at his feet, his expression betrayed a vulnerability that didn’t match his years. The way he stared at me, shaking and trembling, was unlike anything I'd ever seen.
He didn't belong in that alley, covered in crimson.
He's the type of boy who belongs in the Little Bunny Club, a bottle in his mouth, a stuffy under his arm.
The type of boy who needs a Daddy to place him on his lap and tell him everything will be all right.
He needed a rescuer.
I refused to let him die.
"I can't believe this shit." My brother Constantine's voice reaches me from the front of the transport van. "The Diavolos are worse than we thought."
"I agree."