Mafia's Broken Omega (Mated in the Mafia #6)

1. Cord

1

CORD

I stared at Vince's empty chair and sighed. It hadn’t been long since my brother was killed and left me in charge of the family, but I was already feeling the pressure. The last thing I ever wanted to be was in charge of the business.

Vince wasn’t supposed to turn into a controlled dickwad who left us no choice but to take him down. He would have brought the world down around us if we’d let him. He was hellbent on a war between our family and the Ferrinis. We never would have survived.

Thus, I became the head of the family. A role I never imagined.

The whiskey in my glass burned on the way down as I chugged it, grateful for the heat that immediately spread through my chest. "Fuck." I slammed the glass down and dropped into the chair.

Everything felt wrong lately. I was a fraud and would probably get myself and the rest of my family killed if I didn’t start making better decisions.

I opened the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out the ledger Dad—and then Vince—kept locked up in there. It was the complete record of all the names and numbers we kept for insurance. The legit companies that laundered the non-legit cash. And the non-legit companies we ran for ourselves and others.

Now, it was my responsibility. Every loan shark, recycling center, contractor, and backroom card game, also known as the entire Mennetti empire, had fallen on my unprepared shoulders. Dad had to be rolling over in his grave.

People died because of that book on the regular, and now that target was firmly pasted on my back.

As an alpha, I was supposed to be aggressive by nature and look at threats as a challenge. But all I could see when I opened up that damn book was a long list of people who wanted me and my baby brother dead.

And everyone knew it. Even at my brother’s funeral, there were whispers around every bend.

"Is Cord strong enough?"

"Vince was the proper leader."

"The Mennettis are finished now."

That night, Uncle Paolo had taken me aside after people had filtered out of the house. He gripped my shoulder with surprising strength for a seventy-year-old man and made me stare into his clouded eyes. "You're the leader of this family now, Cord. People will look to you for guidance. Direction. You won’t let us down."

It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. The alternative was not an option. Failure meant death.

I rubbed my temples as I stared at the shit that demanded my attention. There was a printout of information about a shipment coming in next week. A shipment that needed careful coordination in order to make it past port security. Under that was a territory dispute with the Castellanis up north. They’d been gunning for our trade routes for decades, and now that I was the only thing stopping them from taking control, they were probably gonna get lucky sooner rather than later.

And then there was the sticky note that Rosco slapped on the monitor an hour ago.

Find the fucking mole!

There had been whispers of a mole in our organization for a while now. I didn’t want to believe one of our own was leaking information to either the feds or the other families, but as more raids happened and shipments were seized and people disappeared, it was becoming impossible to write everything off as coincidence.

Vince had been groomed for this kind of responsibility since birth, and I was always the backup. The spare. The muscle who was told where to be and what to do. I’d never had to make a lot of decisions while he and my father were around.

But now they weren’t.

Now it was just me. Well, me and Felik, my baby brother who had shacked up with the family inadvertently responsible for my current situation. The Ferrinis had killed both my dad and my brother, not that I blamed them.

In this fucked-up world, it was every man for himself.

If Andro hadn’t taken out Dad, his family would be dead. And if Vince were still around, Felik’s mate would be gone. The only good thing that had come from all the deaths was that the Ferrinis and Mennettis had formed an alliance for the first time in history. That and Felik and Jer had the cutest twin girls to ever exist. Verna and Ellie were too perfect for words.

With the joining of our families, I wasn’t completely alone. Our partnership was part of the reason no one had tried to have me killed. At least not yet.

A sharp knock interrupted my thoughts just before Salvo entered the office. He’d seen fifty years of my family business and didn’t so much as smirk at the wrong time. He was a vault, and I trusted him with my life. "We got confirmation, boss. It's DiSanto who's been talking. At least, one of the people. He seems to be working with someone else, but at least we have one name."

My stomach dropped, and I collapsed back into the chair like all the air in my lungs had been sucked right out. “Are you sure?” Anthony DiSanto had been with us for as long as I could remember. He was Felik’s godfather and had given me a hundred dollar bill for my confirmation. He was family. Trusted.

And now he was giving information to people who wanted us dead.

Salvo exhaled loudly and gripped the back of his neck. "Positive. We have the recordings."

I nodded, immediately knowing what Vince would do. What our father would have done. What I was expected to do. "Bring him to the warehouse. I'll handle it."

The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but I stayed stoic.

Salvo nodded once and left the office, probably surprised I’d finally grown a pair.

But had I?

Was I really gonna administer my first death sentence as the head of the family? Yeah, apparently I was.

My hands trembled slightly as I poured another drink. What I really needed was advice from someone who wouldn't see my discomfort as a weakness. Someone who had a vested interest in keeping the Mennetti name respected and in power because of our brother’s mating.

I pulled out my phone and stared at it for several minutes before pulling up Andro Ferrini's direct number. My thumb hovered over the screen as I tried to find the courage to make the call. This wasn't how a powerful leader behaved. Vince never would have reached out to a stranger for help.

But I wasn't Vince. And pretending to be him would get us all killed.

I hit the call button and held my breath. I could keep my cool with Andro. He had been nothing but kind to me since my brother rescued his. He’d assured me on multiple occasions that my family was his family and I could reach out at any time.

And after a quick call, I’d have Davison take me to one of my favorite places. An omega strip club owned by my cousin, Georgie. I’d been going since before I could drive and lost my V-card in one of the back rooms at just fifteen years old. It was a safe space where I could be one of the guys without having to put on a mask of strength and power. With the right attire, I could even pretend to be someone else for the night.

I just hoped there were some cute guys working. The afternoon shift could be hit or miss. It wasn’t usually the A team, but sometimes a hot omega needed to cover a shift or started early.

And with my luck, it would be a bunch of prudes who didn’t do private rooms no matter how big of a tip I promised. It had been too long since I’d been able to get away.

One thing was for certain, I needed to take the edge off if I was going to off the man who was selling our family secrets. A nameless, faceless omega would help me forget about the responsibilities that weighed me down like boulders cascading down a mountainside, knocking me loose one by one until my grip slipped and I let go.