The Devil’s Wife (Sacred Vows #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

SALVATORE

I could kill the rat.

I could remind the other three men in the room exactly how I’ve earned the name whispered behind closed doors.

But the rat’s just pissed all over his pants, so I’m not overly eager to touch him.

Dom shoots me a shit-eating grin from behind Barbara and Red. He’s either laughing at the grown man with piss on his pants or reveling in how much I hate to get dirty. Probably both.

I shift my attention back to Virgilio.

“You thought it was a good idea to break omertà?” I don’t bother to raise my voice. He’s not listening.

“ I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. Please please oh god make it stop …”

The acid eating away at his left hand doesn’t listen either.

Barbara watches with his arms crossed over his hefty belly, wiry eyebrows drawn low. For a man who’s always shuffling to the nearest armchair, grumbling about back pain, he stands tall now, as unyielding as stone.

His weaselly nephew Red stops posturing long enough to turn and spit on my concrete floor. Fucking disgusting. Behind him, Dom shakes with suppressed laughter. Dick.

Virgilio’s steel chair rattles as he trembles. Staccato clacking joins his choked sobs.

“Maybe you could have been forgiven, Vio, but you ratted on family. Your own family. And they’re not happy with you. Your good cousin Serafina”—at this, Dom’s smile turns grimace—“she’s been sent off to Aldo. Your brother and your uncle, they have to clean up your mess. And it’s a big fucking mess.”

Virgilio cries harder, tears mixing with blood, snot, and spit.

I’ll need two scalding-hot showers after this, but I school my expression as I pick up a set of slip-joint pliers. Tradition demands I start with his tongue.

My phone pings.

Frowning, I straighten my back and check my phone. Distantly, Virgilio sobs in relief.

Worm

She got in.

I let the pliers clatter to the tray and swipe to the app for my security system, circling Vigilio with measured footsteps so no one can see my screen.

It’ll be a false alarm. Nothing to get excited about.

Through the camera, Marisol springs up from her computer chair and pumps her fists in the air. A slice of soft belly winks from under the hem of her shirt and— fuck me —no bra. She plucks a lime-green flash drive from her computer tower, kisses it, and dashes out of the camera’s range.

The insignia for Luporini Enterprises is dimly visible on her second computer monitor.

Pride and anticipation swell inside me.

Worm

Looks like she’s going to a friend’s house. Want me to send someone to intercept her?

I consider this to the slow rhythm of Vigilio’s labored breathing. She’ll need a deliberate touch—too light and she won’t take the threat seriously, too serious and she’ll take it as a challenge.

No one knows Marisol better than I do. I move toward the exit. It’s best I handle this myself.

“Boss,” Dom calls out after me. “Where are you going?”

I nearly forgot about the other people in the room. My part’s done here anyway.

“I’m tracking down the hacker.”

Don exhales and scrubs his jaw, but doesn’t argue. “And dumbass here?”

I’m already halfway out the door.

“Oh, him? Red can kill him.”