Deadly Secrets (The Moretti Syndicate #1)

Prologue

My name is Sophia Russo, and I was born an entitled princess in the Boston Mafia.

My father was a Russo, but my mother was a Moretti. The particulars of what exactly that meant never concerned me much, nor did the less-than-legal aspects of my father’s profession. That blood tie to the Moretti name was all that mattered. It was enough to earn me a place at the table, the roof of a mansion over my head, and pretty much anything money could buy.

The world was handed to me on the silver platter since day one. Mine for the taking.

And I did. I took.

Clothes. Makeup. Oh, God, the shoes. Tuition for classes I barely attended, and bribes to professors ensuring I’d pass. Parties. Clubs. Boys.

And why not? Life was good. Lorenzo Moretti was king. The Italians ruled Boston’s North End, as inevitable and unstoppable as a November nor’easter.

Until we weren’t anymore.

Boy falls in love with girl. ‘Two families, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.’

You know the drill.

The writing was on the wall when my best friend Emilia fell in love with Alfie Doyle, a high-level member of the Irish mob family known as the McTiernan Clan. But for a while, it worked. Emilia kept the doomed affair secret from even me, until Lorenzo’s sons Dominic and Angel caught wind of it.

The aftermath? The Irish were now kings, and the Morettis were decimated. Family dead. Friends left in hiding. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like such a princess anymore.

Death has always been in my periphery. I’ve scented its sweet decay, felt the bottom drop out in the aftermath of its impact, and heard its echoes. Always, though, it hovered in the wings. Stalking the edges, never quite meeting me head-on.

Never like this.

The walk to the ICU is a lonely one, but it’s one I know well. Here, death waits in stasis. Medical machinery wages war against fate, battles fought over mere inches. Seconds. It’s only been two months since that horrific night, nothing more than the blink of an eye against my 20 years of life, but I know these walls better than the ones in my own bedroom.

Luca Mariano’s room is the second one on the left.

The nurse gives me a smile. “You can go in, Miss Russo. No change, but he’s stable.” I try to muster a smile in return. I don’t want to be the kind of person who takes kindness for granted, but it’s hard. The doctors and nurses here are doing their best, even when their best just simply isn’t enough.

I enter quietly, even though it doesn’t matter. The cacophony of life-saving machinery is an affront to this hallowed place, the figure on the bed reduced to the mechanics of bodily functions. The nurse shoots me a pitying look as I pass, and I know what she’s thinking. He doesn’t know if I’m here or not. He can’t feel me holding his hand. If the ventilator didn’t force air into his lungs, he wouldn’t even be breathing on his own, his brain reduced to nothing more than static across a blank screen, his heart the only thing that stubbornly refuses to die.

That’s bullshit. Luca is still in there. I know he is.

I sink into the chair next to the bed and try to find a comfortable position, which is a losing battle. The hard plastic chairs in here are about as unforgiving as a slab of marble. I think they do that to discourage visitors from staying too long.

Yeah, good luck with that. Patience and sheer bullheadedness is a family trait.

I’m the only one who comes to visit him anymore. In the beginning, when this was new, Dante and Julian used to come all the time—well, Dante more than Julian. My brother is uncomfortable with emotional scenes, and quickly found excuses not to visit. Dante lasted a bit longer, though he’s a pragmatic at heart; lingering with grief over an impossible situation doesn’t come natural to someone so well versed in dealing death.

So here I am, alone in my vigil, but it’s worth it. Luca isn’t alone. He isn’t forgotten, and he won’t be left to rot in this bed.

“Hey, Luca. It's me," I whisper, as if, at this point, it would be anyone else. I squeeze his hand. It's cold. “How are you feeling? You look better today. I think so at least.”

He doesn’t move.

My heart sinks. It’s a silly game I play, and it's stupid, but sometimes, in my weaker moments, I imagine him waking up. Those are the darkest times, the ones I can barely claw my way out of. I imagine a smile in place of that ventilator. I pretend those eyes are open and looking into mine. I feel his fingers gripping mine.

Instead, my only answer is a mechanical inhale, exhale, and the beep of the heart monitor. It’s not even him breathing. I can’t bear to listen to the sound of the machine doing it for him. It’s a stark reminder that this is what he’s been reduced to. A body. A husk with a soul trapped inside.

Luca’s hair is growing back on the side they had to shave it, and I run my fingers through the soft, dark locks. Someone must have washed it recently. The kindness of strangers lodges a lump in my throat I can’t swallow past, and I carefully brush his hair back from his forehead.

“Emilia and Alfie got settled down in...well, you know." I don't elaborate further. The girl Luca gave his life to protect is still on the run with her Irishman, and even these walls have ears. "They have their own place now, and Emilia opened up another store. They're doing good, Luca. Really good. I think you’d be glad to know that, especially since…since…”

Since you loved her first.

It’s hard not to be bitter at Emilia. The heart wants what the heart wants, and Luca had never registered as more than a brotherly presence in Emilia’s life. It’s hard to watch unrequited love manifest from the sidelines, though, especially when Luca betrayed the family not once, but twice for Emilia’s Irishman.

Especially when Luca ended up with a bullet in the brain for his efforts.

And Emilia? Gone. She’d escaped down to South Carolina with her Romeo after the war with the Irish that left two of ours dead and Luca in the hospital. On the run and living under fake names, because if Dominic Moretti ever found out Alfie and Emilia were still alive, he’d kill them both. Just like he’d do to Luca, if he discovered his betrayal.

I keep all that locked down. After the war, I moved out of the family’s mansion in the North End and got my own apartment north of the city. My brother Julian is still deeply entrenched in the mafia, but he keeps that to himself; he seems to understand my need to insulate myself from that lifestyle. Luca is my last remaining tie to it.

I grip his hand in mine. “You can’t let those bastards win, Luca. You’re a warrior. A survivor. God knows you’ve been through so much already, but you’ve got to keep fighting. You have to wake up. You have to. You can't let this happen. You have to be ok. You can't let this be it, Luca. You can't ."

Whoosh. Hiss.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I know the rhythm of his heart better than my own.

It's been the backdrop of my visits for the last few weeks. I've come to depend on it, to take comfort in it. The regularity of it. It's steady. It's reliable. It's predictable. Three things my life has ceased to be since the moment an Italian fell in love with an Irishman.

It's just so unfair that this is the fallout.

I look down at our hands. Mine are small, the nails painted light pink, his large, the fingers long and calloused. I lace them between mine and squeeze, as I've done a hundred times since he was moved to this hospital bed, but he still doesn't squeeze back.

I'm starting to lose faith. What if this is all there is?

"Please, Luca. I need you."

I don't even know why. Luca has never been anything more than a friend to me, but I can't explain it. I can't justify it. I just do. I need Luca. He has to wake up. I'm all he has left, and he's all I have too, it feels like. It's a vicious cycle, a never-ending loop of grief and sorrow, but it's all that's left after the fallout from Emilia's whirlwind romance. And I'll cling to it for all that I have, because I need to believe that Luca can still be saved.

"I won't leave you, Luca," I whisper, bending down to brush my lips against the knuckles of his lifeless hand. "I promise."