Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Roselyn Vega -
When Gabriel De Luca waltzed into the nightclub where I was bartending, looking like he'd just stepped out of the pages of GQ Magazine: Wall Street Edition, it felt like fate.
I hadn't seen him in ten years, but it felt like no time had passed between us. He'd been my first boyfriend, and I trusted him, so when he asked me how I ended up bartending for one of the most feared crime bosses, I told him everything. After that night, he went MIA, and suddenly, I'm very concerned for both our safety.
When he finally shows up, a week later, he's acting different, walking different, and even looks a little different, but I'm so relieved that he's okay that I barely register those things.
A couple of nights later, when he breaks into my apartment in the middle of the night I realize that it wasn't Gabriel who'd walked into the club the other night, but his brother. His infuriating, domineering, dangerous brother, who, unlike Gabriel, followed their father's footsteps into the world of organized crime. He demands that I pack my bags and go with him. I refuse, fight and argue, but the thing about Dominic De Luca is that one way or another, he always gets his way.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
ROSIE
The massacre happened on a Tuesday.
Seven days later, we were all burying loved ones. Shortly after that, we fled the scene of the crime and let new families build dreams where ours had shattered. Before that fateful Tuesday, our cul-de-sac had been tight-knit, families sharing meals, kids riding bikes and walking to school together. If a complete outsider dropped by during dinner, they would have seen a beautiful mix of cultures blending at the table. It was us (the Vegas), the Marchettis, the De Lucas, the Patel’s, and the Patriarchas. We’d always felt fortunate to share a block with those names. After all, they practically owned Providence, which ensured no one fucked with us. Until they did, in the worst imaginable way.
Dad ripped us out of there with such force that it took a couple of years for our roots to attach to new land. Since the move, he’d preached so much about wrongdoings that I thought he had cleaner hands than a surgeon about to walk into the O.R., but of course, I’d been wrong. I wasn’t sure if all of the warnings he’d given were for my brother’s and my sake, or his own. Maybe to talk himself out of whatever he was thinking about getting into. The reason didn’t matter anymore, since his own warning didn’t resonate enough in himself. They say children shouldn’t have to pay for their parents’ sins, but all of us who grew up in that cul-de-sac knew better. We knew it was only a matter of time before someone knocked on the door to collect some kind of favor, or in Dad’s case, money he’d borrowed.
I hadn’t seen Gabriel De Luca in ten years before he waltzed into the club where I was currently paying my father’s dues. Time had done him well, at least physically. He looked like he’d walked right off the pages of GQ Magazine: Wall Street Edition. He’d been my first boyfriend and first kiss, but our relationship was cut short prematurely. When we reconnected a few weeks ago, it was as if no time had passed at all. Not in a fairy tale, love at first sight sort of way. Sparks didn’t fly, and butterflies didn’t flutter, but there was a bond, a kinship. The kind only a person who’d survived the same trauma could understand. Some would say it was kismet that he ended up working as the accountant for the man who owned the club where I was bartending, but because Tommy Costello was the owner, and Gabe De Luca was, well, a De Luca, I’d call it inevitable. It wouldn’t have mattered, us sharing this boss, if not for the fact that I’d poured my heart out to Gabe about everything from how I’d ended up working for Tommy in order to clear my dad’s debt to him, to some of the personal things I’d overheard Tommy talk about in his office. Gabe hadn’t stepped foot here since that night, and while some may call that a coincidence, I knew better. I’d seen the way the bouncers practically dragged him out of here and put him in the back of an Uber. To make matters worse, he wasn’t answering my calls or texts, and I had no idea who to turn to about this. The only person who could possibly know his whereabouts was his brother, but I’d been careful not to ask about that De Luca. Besides, Gabe told me they’d moved to Italy to be with their father when they left Providence. I was sure his brother had managed to take over the entire boot by now.