Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Have your move, son. That way you leave your mark. That way they know you. They respect you.
But Romeo didn’t play games.
He’d never killed a man and never planned to.
There was no need for the Boss to get his hands dirty.
Romeo knelt beside the body and patted the dirty, saggy jeans for identification, but everything’d been taken. There was nothing but the body and the putrid smell of decaying flesh.
Why? Why here? The Rossi family was not sloppy with their hits. Ever.
“We can’t call anyone,” he said to Ottavio. The only person he would trust would be his father, who was currently in Tuscany and had been for the past week.
“Do you know who it is?”
Santo shook his head. Romeo turned on him sternly. “Why were you here?”
Santo shrugged. “Heard the boys come down, thought I’d hide and scare you all.”
Romeo scowled, then turned back to the body.
“What do we do, Rome?” Ottavio asked.
“We fucking leave it,” Santo muttered. This time, Romeo didn’t tell him to watch his language.
He caught Ottavio’s eye, and Ottavio’s jaw firmed. He knew as well as Romeo did that if their father had killed this man—and all signs pointed to his guilt—he’d go to jail, and this time, they’d toss away the key.
“No,” Ottavio said with decision. “We get rid of the body.”
“Tavi,” Santo said, kicking a tree stump. “How the hell do we—”
“Not we,” Romeo interrupted. “Us. You go back up to the house and make sure Orlando’s got the little ones under control. Fuck if I want them coming back and seeing this…”
“No way.” Santo planted his feet firmly on the ground before him. “You guys might be bigger’n me, but you’re not big enough to get rid of the body of a man yourself.”
He had a point.
It took two hours, six hands, and five lies to his mother, but when he went to bed that night, the deed was done and his father’s truck parked where he’d left it.
He couldn’t tell his father, though his gut told him his father well knew.
But why did he leave the body like that?
He couldn’t tell his mother. She’d send them all to Italy to boarding school like she’d threatened to for years.
He couldn’t tell any of the soldiers or the men he’d grown up around and called uncle or cousin, because who could you trust? And what if his father had been the one to commit the murder?
And before they went to bed that night, Romeo made Santo and Ottavio take an oath sworn in blood, his trusty switchblade sealing the promise.
Nothing ever happened.
No one saw the body.
They were smoking by the quarry and went out for a drive, and they’d take whatever punishment they got without complaint.
“We have oaths,” Romeo told them, and he felt the weight of his words as he said them. Oaths that bound. Oaths that silenced. “We’ll swear an oath tonight.”
Oaths that would one day tear them apart.
Chapter One
“These violent delights have violent ends.” Romeo and Juliet
Vittoria
Present day
I’m a stranger in a foreign land, and I don’t quite know what to make of that yet, but the bar that beckons to me with bright neon lights promises liquid courage and actual food. I pull out my wallet and look at what’s left.
Pathetic.
Maybe they need a dishwasher here? Heh.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not planning to relocate to Boston. In fact, I'm planning to spend as little time here as possible. Hell, I wouldn't be here at all if not for the letter that showed up on my doorstep informing me of a meeting tomorrow.
Tell no one, the letter had said, and so I hadn't. It’s easy when you have literally no one to tell, not a friend or soul to confide in. But I couldn't ignore the damn thing, either. So I'd jumped in my car in upstate New York this morning and driven east with hardly a dollar to my name.
My stomach growls insistently, suggesting this had not been the wisest choice.
But I'm a survivor. That's what I do. And I'll deal with this just like I've dealt with all the other shit that life's thrown at me. Ashton Bryant will not undo me.
I pull down my visor and flip open the lighted mirror to make myself look presentable. Who knows, maybe I’ll luck out and a guy will buy me a drink.
No.
I don’t need anything from anyone. I’ll buy my own damn drink.
Quick swish of mascara that’s nearly dried up. Quick swipe of lip gloss from the edges of the tube. My hair’s a hopeless cause, but I quickly tame it under a fabric headband and hope it gives me a whimsical look. I glance down at the button-down top I’m wearing and, with a sigh, unfasten the topmost buttons. I’m not about to whore myself out for money, but a girl could flash a little cleavage for a free drink. And hell, do I need a drink. Maybe two.