Savage Devotion (The Ravelli Empire #2)

3. Chapter One

Chapter One

Dante

I watch the surveillance feed flicker across the wall-mounted screens, cold blue light washing over my knuckles as I clench my fist tight enough to whiten bone. Rain lashes the bulletproof windows of my London safe house, but I barely register the storm outside.

My focus, my entire fucking being, is locked on my brother accepting the crown I've coveted since childhood.

Luca, the favored son.

Luca, our mother's darling.

Luca, standing where I belong.

"Rewind it," I command, my voice like gravel over steel. "Show me again."

Marco, my favored lieutenant obeys without question, fingers dancing across the keyboard. The footage reverses: dignitaries retreating backward through ornate doors, champagne flowing upward into crystal flutes, and Luca's hand on her back.

I lean forward, a predator catching scent of blood.

I focus on the woman at my brother's side.

Bianca Sutton. Now Bianca Ravelli.

The fucking maid who somehow bewitched my brother into marriage… and now stands crowned as his queen of my empire.

But it's the slight swell of her stomach, visible when she turns to the side, that makes my jaw clench until teeth threaten to crack.

An heir. My brother's first seed, already growing inside her.

Memory claws its way forward. My father's study, sixteen years ago. The smell of cigar smoke and expensive scotch. His voice like a blade.

"The Ravelli line will run through Luca, not you. You're too volatile, too unpredictable. You must learn that a blade without a handle cuts the one who wields it."

I fight the images, but all I can see is my fourteen-year-old self, standing ramrod straight, refusing to show the wound his words carved.

"I'm stronger than he is, father. I've proven it time and time again."

"Strength without control is weakness, Dante." The dismissal in his eyes was worse than any bullet wound I've encountered since. "Your brother understands power. You understand only violence."

I blink away the memory, rage crystallizing into something colder.

"Fuck," I breathe, studying Bianca's face on screen. She isn't what I expected. Not cowering behind Luca but standing beside him, chin lifted, eyes watchful. There's an intelligence there that irritates me. Like she's assessing the threats, cataloging weaknesses.

One of my men shifts nervously in the corner. "Well, it looks like your brother got lucky, yeah? Your old man drops dead, and he slips right into—"

I move before the sentence finishes.

One heartbeat I'm seated; the next, I have him pinned against the fucking wall, my forearm crushing his windpipe.

"My father," I enunciate with deadly precision, "was murdered . By that whore my brother married."

His eyes bulge, face purpling as I increase the pressure on his throat. The room falls silent except for the desperate scratching of fingernails against my sleeve.

"I—didn't—" he gasps.

"Choosing words poorly in this organization," I continue conversationally, as if discussing the weather rather than slowly suffocating him, "has consequences."

As his struggles weaken, my gaze catches on something protruding from his jacket pocket—a child's drawing, crayon-bright against the black fabric. A stick figure family beneath a yellow sun.

The sight of it… this pathetic reminder of normalcy triggers something explosive inside me.

I release his throat only to drive my fist into his face. Over and over. The crunch of cartilage is satisfying, blood spraying across the wall as his nose shatters beneath my knuckles.

"FUUUUCK!"

I hit him again. And again. And again and again and again… the roar from my chest growing louder with each hit.

The impact of my fist is a release for the fury that's been building since I watched Luca claim my birthright. Claim the Ravelli throne despite my every attempt to throw him off.

When I step back, my entire body shaking as my chest heaves, he slides down the wall, leaving a smear of blood, his face an unrecognizable mask of bruises and broken bone.

He whimpers, a wet, gurgling sound.

"Clean yourself up," I say, straightening my cuffs. "And if you ever speak of my father with anything less than complete respect again, I'll cut out your tongue and feed it to you."

The other men in the room stand frozen, eyes averted, bodies rigid with the instinctive fear of prey animals sensing an apex predator.

As it should be.

"Get him out," I order, turning back to the screens. "And bring me the secure phone line. I've got an empire to take back."

My men drag their bleeding colleague from the room as I focus again on the image of my brother. His face is harder than I remember. He's more like our father's now, like because he has the ring on his hand his body has been carved from the same marble that Vito Ravelli was.

I can't look away. That signet ring that glints on his finger—our father's ring—marking him as the new Don.

It's a ring that should be on my hand.

The secure phone appears at my elbow, held by my second-in-command, Marco. His face is expressionless, eyes carefully averted from the violence he just witnessed.

"The Volkovs are ready for your call, sir."

I take the phone, watching as the Volkovs themselves appear in the footage I watch from the privacy of my private London hideout.

I study them approaching Luca and Bianca with the measured caution of wolves scenting a trap.

Dmitri's silver head bows in mock deference.

Demyan's eyes linger too long on Bianca, like the filthy fucking inbred he is.

My brother doesn't flinch. Doesn't react.

But I see the tension in his shoulders, the barely perceptible shift of his body to place himself between his wife and Demyan's hungry gaze.

"Leave me," I command, and the main room of my safehouse empties within seconds.

Alone, I make the call.

"Mr. Ravelli," the accented voice answers on the second ring. Not Dmitri or Demyan, but Vladmir, their security chief and my insider for the Volkov family. "We were expecting your call."

"Your bosses played their parts well," I respond, eyes still fixed on the screen where Dmitri now speaks to Bianca, his mouth too close to her ear. "Did they learn anything useful?"

"The security is impressive but not impenetrable. Three weak points identified. And the woman..."

I can hear the smile in his voice, oily and smug.

"What about her?"

"Haven't you heard? She killed your father herself. Bullet to the head."

The image rattles me. "Of course I've fucking heard!"

Vladimir is silent for a long moment before taking a breath. "Of course, sir. Seems Luca Ravelli has found himself a fierce little queen. To shoot the Don, that is no mean feat, even in our world."

Something cold slithers in my gut.

The knowledge sits like acid in my veins: my father, the great Vito Ravelli, felled by a hotel maid. Not even granted the dignity of dying at the hands of a worthy opponent.

"And my brother accepts this? A woman's interference?" I keep my voice level despite the rage boiling beneath.

"He more than accepts it. It would appear he celebrates it." Vladimir pauses. "She's carrying his child. Visibly now."

"I have eyes, you dumb fuck," I snap. "I can see that for myself."

"Then you understand why the Volkovs are... interested in your proposal. A child with such a bloodline—"

" No ." I cut him off, surprising myself with the vehemence behind the words. "The child is off-limits. This is between my brother and me. The baby is innocent and will remain so."

Vladimir hums with surprise on the end of the line. "Interesting principles for a man of your... reputation, Mr. Ravelli."

"Don't mistake my principles for kindness. I am not weak," I respond, jaw tight. "I'm precise. There's a difference."

This is the core of what my father never understood, what Luca still doesn't see.

My violence isn't chaos. It's art. It's language. It's the purest form of the absolute control I crave so much.

"Of course." His tone shifts to business. "So… about our arrangement. We've prepared the package as discussed."

An encrypted notification pings on my tablet. I open it to find a folder of photographs. A woman with raven hair and eyes like broken amber. Skin like porcelain, a mouth made for both cruelty and submission. The woman is beautiful, yes… but it's the fight in her gaze that catches my attention.

"The Castellano princess," Vladimir continues. "Currently in Vienna, attending her cousin's wedding. Our people are in position to claim her, as per your request, sir. She can be delivered within 24 hours."

I study her face, committing each angle to memory. Another pawn. Another innocent caught in our bloody game.

She's just one more piece in my intricate game. A game I've been playing since Vito first looked me in the eyes and told me I wasn't worthy.

For years, I've been building alliances with the Fukuda boys from Japan, making deals with the Iranian syndicate, securing territories in Naples that even Luca doesn't know about.

My captive princesses father has been broken. And now she belongs to me.

But it's never been about the women themselves—not my mother's death, not Bianca's capture, and not this princess.

It's about power. It's about proving that I can play this game better than anyone else in our bloodline ever has.

Another flash of memory cuts through me—my mother's hand on my cheek, her voice soft but urgent: Sometimes monsters are made, not born, Dante. Remember that.

"Miss Castellano is to be untouched," I say, voice dropping to a register that makes even hardened killers tremble. "Do you understand, Vladimir?"

"Mr. Ravelli, I assure you our men are professionals—"

"Bull shit. I'm fucking warning you, Vladimir, if she arrives with so much as a bruise I didn't authorize, I'll return the favor tenfold on the men responsible." I trace the woman's face on the screen. "She's not merchandise. She's leverage. And she's mine."