Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Mercenary.” Andrei rolled his eyes. “He’s not a mercenary.”
“Private security? FBI? What?” She clearly wasn’t going to let up until she knew the truth, and since Andrei was so very good at looking like a killer when he was trying to be a brother, I took one for the team.
“Assassin,” I spoke up. “I’m an assassin, and I work for this dipshit, not by choice, mind you, but because he has me by the balls—though between you and me, I think he likes it that way.”
“Shut up,” Andrei snapped. “Wasn’t part of your job preparing her for what she was walking into?”
“Whoops?” I shrugged. “And I’m not going to do your dirty work; you want her to know what she’s walking into? Fine, but it should come from you, from blood, but since you’ve just completely disregarded how that may affect a girl of nineteen, I’ll do it for you,” I jerked her against my chest and leaned down whispering in her ear, “Welcome to the Cosa Nostra, the Five Families of Chicago. The Mafia. Blood in. No out.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’m in the Gotti family; my wife’s the boss.” —John Gotti
Andrei
“So that went well,” I muttered once all the guys had made it to my house. Tex had already opened seven bottles of wine as if I was hosting a party. I’d sent Katya up to a room to get a bath. Alice was with her, so I knew she would be okay even if she was skittish. Alice knew how to sew bullet wounds closed and would clean her up just as well as any of us.
Santino Sinacore.
Of all the people that had to be an heir beneath me, it had to be him? I asked myself this on a daily basis.
The single reason he wasn’t dead was because of the old man, his grandfather—our adopted grandfather—and the respect I had for him. Otherwise, I’d be stepping in pools of his blood and smiling while I was doing it.
He was too dangerous to keep.
And too dangerous to let go.
His price was his freedom, but he knew just as much as I did—it was a fairy tale, something you believe because you need hope.
A man like Santino wouldn’t survive without blood on his hands—and only a man like me would know that.
He wanted to leave.
Which made me want to keep him at the house even more, if only just to keep the one thing he wanted out of his reach. I had use for him, after all, and the last thing we needed was someone like him free out on the streets taking up random hits doing God knows what.
It was safer to keep him in the Family even though I swore in that moment I would never take a bullet for the bastard. He was ruthless, immature, tormented—he was me before I met Alice, and I knew that man very well; it could always go one way or the other. Either they redeemed themselves somehow with the help of those who loved them, or they died in the darkness.
I was very close to the second.
He already had one foot out of the light, ready to take another step. Rumors swirled that his dad beat him into submission, that by the time he was twelve, he had his first kill—a cousin who had stolen the boss’s car as well as some liquor.
What the cousin didn’t know was that there were highly secretive documents in the glove compartment ready for a drop-off right before he decided to steal the car.
It wasn’t his first infraction.
But his third, and he’d been warned.
So, Santino was given a gun, told to shoot his best friend at the time in the head, and fucking Santino walked right into that room and just shot. He handed the gun back to his dad, announced he was hungry and walked upstairs.
The story, to this day, still sent chills down my spine. And I’d lived with an equally fucked up dad.
Footsteps sounded. Chase strolled into the room, sat on the couch, and put his feet up on my coffee table.
I sighed loudly even though I knew it wouldn’t change the outcome. “You’re an animal.”
“He really is.” Tex took a sip of wine, a red drop slid down his chin as he stared at me and purposely ignored it as it went down his neck. I swear if that man handed me a hanky and asked me to wipe, I was strangling him where he sat.
One day they were going to drive me past the brink of my self-control. I fucking looked forward to that day like a kid waiting for his first trip to Disneyland. “Napkins. Use them.” My teeth clenched so hard my jaw hurt.
Nixon snorted out a laugh, grabbed his own wine, then shared a look with me while Phoenix dropped what felt like a bomb on the middle of the table. It was a simple black folder. Dangerous, if you asked me.