Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 54092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
How do people live like this? It's a far cry from Diego's luxury penthouse on The Loop. If he's hiding out here, he's gone as far underground in Chicago as he can go without vanishing from the city entirely. As if there's a rock big enough to hide him from my reach.
Pezzo di merda. Piece of shit. He’s been dropping bodies all over Tommaso Genovese’s territory and leaving a trail that leads right back to my doorstep.
"No," Luca says from the shadows beside me.
"Then why are we here?" I flick my stony gaze from the building to my brother.
He reclines against the seatback, hands loose at his sides, dark eyes focused out the window. He looks perfectly at ease, but I know better. Thanks to Diego Butera, my younger brother is a powder keg ready to blow.
He's not the only one, though I keep a tight leash on my anger, appearing as cold and emotionless as ever. I'm not. Inside, I'm seething with fury. Thanks to the machinations of our fucking lawyer, we may be tottering on the edge of war with the Genovese family. And we're currently so deep in the Latin Kings' territory, I'd be surprised if every gangbanger in Humboldt doesn't know we're here by now.
I haven't set foot in enemy territory in a decade. The Kings are no match for my family—no one is anymore. But I didn't get this far being foolish. I may have let my father shackle me to his fucking empire to spare my twin brother, Nico, a life in chains, but I have no intention of letting it kill me.
It's been two decades since Nico last spoke to me of his own free will. But he's alive and he's free. Luca and Gabriel, our youngest brother, are alive too. I haven't kept us safe this long just to die in a fucking drive-by. It'll take more than a gangbanger with a pistol and a pipe dream to take down the Valentino family.
No. If war comes, it'll be because I brought it. It won't be because I stepped foot in gang territory. And it certainly won't be because Diego decided to set us up to take the fall for his crimes with the Genovese family. People like the Latin Kings and the Genovese family may think they run the streets, but that's only because I let them. Everyone knows I rule this city.
Chicago is my sandbox, my kingdom. In a city where crime doesn't sleep, I'm a waking fucking nightmare. Nothing happens here without my approval.
Except Diego Butera, a little voice whispers.
The headache pounding behind my eyes ratchets up a notch. Not for the first time, I question how the hell we managed to miss what he was doing. As our lawyer, we trusted him more than most, and he betrayed us. How did Luca miss it? How did I? Better question, what does he stand to gain from sparking a war between us and the Genovese family?
I'm not sure I even want to know the answer to that question, but I intend to find out anyway. Unless I do, he may succeed, sparking a war guaranteed to be vicious and bloody. I've spent far too goddamn much of my life trying to avoid that very thing to let a motherfucker like Diego drag my family into one now.
"Butera stops by here twice a month," Luca says, his dark eyes still trained on the building across the street. "He stays for a few hours."
"He has someone here," I say, understanding dawning.
Luca nods, not looking at me.
"A girlfriend?"
"He's been coming for two years. Every Friday night."
"Figlio di puttana," I mutter beneath my breath. Son of a whore. It is a woman.
Luca nods again, confirming what I already knew. He doesn't look at me, letting me decide for myself what I want to do with this information.
My soul is black with the sins I've committed to keep our father's empire in one piece but targeting women and children has never been among them. Some crimes, even I won't commit. The mass of scars on my abdomen burn as if to remind me why. I fight the urge to touch them, refusing to show that weakness to anyone, even my younger brother.
I trust him with my life. But Luca and Gabe weren't there the day our mother was gunned down and I was shot outside of an ice cream parlor. Once upon a time, Nico and I shared that burden between us. Now, I shoulder it alone. Somewhere on the far side of the city, Nico does the same. We're strangers now, our weaknesses our own.
As far as my twin is concerned, I'm as bad as the man who raised us. I'm the devil, the monster other monsters fear. He's not wrong…not entirely. But he's not right either. Not entirely. Not yet, anyway. Was the devil's soul gone before he slipped into hell, or did it die when the gates slammed closed behind him?