32. Savage Devotion
Book Two Preview
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."
My 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.
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 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. A blade without a handle cuts the one who wields it."
I fight the images, but all I can see if 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 worse than any bullet wound. "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.
I hit him again. And again. Each impact 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, 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 now 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 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. "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 the Ravelli's have found themselves a fierce little queen."
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. He celebrates it." Vladimir pauses. "She's carrying his child. Visibly now."
"I have eyes," 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 48 hours."
I study her face, committing each angle to memory. Another pawn. Another innocent caught in our bloody game.
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?"
"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."
I end the call before he can respond, setting the phone aside as I continue studying the Castellano woman. Francesca, according to the file Vladimir has sent. Twenty-six. Educated at the Sorbonne. Her father's favorite and only daughter.
The perfect bride for the true Ravelli heir.
When Marco returns to the room, I'm still staring at her image, something I refuse to name stirring beneath my interest.
"Sir… judging by that look we are to complete the final preparations? For the penthouse?"
"Yes." I lean back in my chair, envisioning the space.
My private sanctuary. The cage I'm preparing for my little bird.
"The master suite needs specific modifications," I tell him, each word dragging as months of planning finally begins. "Remove the existing bed. Replace it with the custom frame from Milan… the one with the reinforced posts."
Marco makes notes on his tablet, face impressively neutral. He's been with me long enough to understand without needing explicit details.
"I trust you got the restraints from Tokyo," I continue. "Have them installed. The black leather set, not the rope." I pause, remembering the fire in Francesca's eyes. "And the Saint Andrew's cross against the east wall."
"Yes, sir." Marco's fingers tap across the screen. "The surveillance system?"
"Cameras in every room except the bathroom. But audio recording everywhere." A predatory smile curves my lips. "I want my security team to hear every sound she makes."
I rise, crossing to the window to watch rain lash the London skyline. My territory. My hunting grounds.
"The walk-in closet should be stocked with appropriate clothing. All black. All my taste." Another pause. "Size four, if the file is accurate. Include lingerie, but not the kind that tears easily. I want her to work for it."
Marco clears his throat. "And security protocols?"
"The usual. Reinforced doors. Biometric locks keyed only to my fingerprints. Windows sealed and bulletproofed." I turn to face him. "The suite will be both sanctuary and prison. Comfortable enough that my bride doesn't break too quickly, secure enough that she never questions who controls her world."
Marco nods and taps at the screen of his notes. "And finally, sir, the package for your brother? Is it ready?"
Something cold and certain settles in my chest. "Not yet. Leave me to finish."
When I'm alone again, I move to the private safe hidden behind a panel in the wall. Inside rests a velvet box containing an exact duplicate of the Ravelli signet ring—the one Luca took from our father's dead hand.
I place it on the desk, then remove my jacket, rolling up my sleeve.
My own signet ring glints in the low light, the one that is identical to my brother's, commissioned in secret after Vito refused to have a matching one made for me.
"There is to be one ring," he'd told me. "One heir. That's tradition, Dante."
I place my hand flat on the desk, spreading my fingers. From my pocket, I withdraw a blade that I've specially chosen, specially sharpened for this task.
"Blood recognizes blood," I murmur to the empty room. "And a Ravelli knows the price of power."
The first cut is precise, a curved stroke around the base of my finger where the ring sits snug against my skin. Blood wells immediately, running in rivulets across my palm and onto the wooden table beneath.
I don't flinch.
I welcome the pain.
Pain makes men like me thrive, and if I'm to claim what's truthfully mine, the throne that will give me complete power across the continent… then I need to do more than thrive.
I need to rule.
With blood.
My face remains impassive as I continue, separating skin from metal. The pain is clarifying, a focus point that burns away doubt and weakness as I cut my own flesh in a symbol my brother will recognize all too well.
This is the difference between Luca and me. My brother inherited his crown.
I will carve mine from my own flesh.
By the time I slide the ring free, my hand is slick with blood, the wound a raw, pulsing point. I wrap it quickly in a cloth, stemming the flow without addressing the damage.
There will be time for that later.
The ring, now coated in my blood, goes into the velvet box alongside a handwritten note:
To the False King. Your throne is built on sand. Your queen carries poisoned blood. Your heir will never wear this crown. The true Ravelli will claim what's his. Blood will have blood. —Dante
I seal the box despite the throbbing pain pulsing around my hands, then press the intercom.
"Sir?" Marco's voice answers immediately.
"I have the delivery for my brother," I say, a smile curving my lips despite the agony radiating from my mutilated hand. "Ensure it reaches him personally."
"Yes, sir. Anything else?"
I glance once more at the photograph of Francesca Castellano, her defiant eyes staring back at me from the tablet screen.
I imagine those eyes widening in fear when she's brought to my safehouse. Imagine breaking that defiance, bending it to my will until fear transforms to need, resistance to surrender.
Nothing about her capture will be safe.
My cock stirs at the thought. It's been too long since I've had a worthy adversary in my bed. Too long since I've felt the sweet surrender of someone fighting their own desires.
"Tell our Volkov friends I accept their offering," I reply, anticipation threading through the pain. "The Castellano princess will make an excellent bride for the true Ravelli heir."
As Marco's footsteps fade, I watch the blood seep through my makeshift bandage, turning the white cloth red. Just like the Ravelli empire will run red before I'm finished. Just like my brother's perfect life will crumble beneath my hands.
Luca plays at being king, but he doesn't understand sacrifice.
I do. I always have.
And I've only just begun to show him what I'm willing to bleed for.