Prologue #3
She shifts on her knees and straightens, her breasts swaying and my mind playing vicious tricks on me. “Point is, Hot Pants, you do as you will without consequences.”
Until my father demands I step up.
Until my motherfucking destiny becomes inescapable.
On my eighteenth birthday, my father sat me down in his leather-clad library, the air thick with cigars and aged whiskey.
His steely gaze pinned me to the chair, unwavering, as he mindfucked me.
“Get it out of your system while you can.” By “it,” he meant all the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll I could handle.
Understanding that numbness wasn’t truly the goal.
Escape. Relief. Freedom from the crushing weight of expectations was.
Because when you’re Sebastiano Beneventi’s son, the Life is your only destiny.
It’s like my father sees straight through me, knowing my mind isn’t wired like Sandro’s.
I’m not just some hormone-fueled kid with a rebellious streak a mile long.
There’s something deeper, something restless, simmering beneath my skin, a hunger for the unpredictable, a thirst for the forbidden.
I crave the burn, the sting, the electrifying charge buried in the raw and the real.
If curiosity killed the cat, I’ve died ten times over.
But what’ll truly kill me is the soul-crushing predictability of the famiglie.
Because no matter Don Lucchese’s promises of change, mafiosi will always be mafiosi.
And I curse the day I’m officially one of them.
“Experiment. Test your limits,” my father commanded, his voice a low growl of authority. “But don’t be a stupid little shit. Don’t get caught, don’t get hooked, and don’t fucking die. When your time’s up, you’ll step up as the Beneventi heir. Capisci?”
He meant proving myself, either as an earner, an enforcer—or both, if you’re Sebastiano Beneventi.
The clock in my mind is always ticking, even when the weight in my wicked soul wishes for time to stand still.
She licks her lips once more, capturing my complete attention.
I smirk. “You want a taste of my dick, baby? That’s why you’re tracking my bed partners?”
She rolls her fucking eyes. “Curiosity is why I’ve befriended you.”
“That’s what you call this?” I gesture between us. “Befriended?”
Her sigh fills the room. “You think I’m in love with you?”
“Well … yeah.”
She laughs, and my balls shrivel at the sound.
“Why else be up my ass for years?”
Her laughter dies, and her expression sobers. “You need to marry me.”
“What?” I’m not often shocked, but what the fuck?
“Not now. When I turn twenty-one. But you’ll need to present your father with the idea this afternoon so we can announce it today.”
Her voice is steady, yet her lower lip trembles, slight as a bird testing a wire.
I spot it and the room narrows. My hand moves before my mouth does, sliding to the hollow at her throat to anchor her to the present.
My thumb rests against that tiny quiver and holds it there, light enough to soothe, sharp enough to warn her away.
A quieter violence blooms in my head—how much I’d love catching Lombardi alone, forcing him up against the nearest wall and bashing his head into it until he understands what flesh and blood actually means.
Fina’s a pain in the ass, but no woman deserves the fate he’s offering her.
“A lot can happen in five years,” I say, the lie flat and useless.
“So, I should ask Massimo?”
“Massimo?” I stupidly exclaim. “You’re in contact with him?”
She shrugs a shoulder.
I frown. What is it about her approaching fucking Massimo Grassi for help that irritates me?
“He’s my best option.”
That fucking right? “But he already turned you down?”
“No. He offered me a better alternative. His words, not mine.”
I laugh. “Me?”
“Sad, but true.”
“You were pursuing me.”
“Pursuing? Yes. Offering you my tender heart?” Her face contorts. “Absolutely not.”
I’m hurt. “Why not?” I demand.
“As entertaining and deliciously wicked as you are”—she tosses her long black hair over her shoulder—“I’m out of your league, Hot Pants.”
I think I’m in love.
She gives me this look, her emerald eyes slicing through my defenses, her body a weapon she doesn’t even know how to use. “We’ll marry, then divorce when I turn twenty-two.”
I choke on my own breath. I’ve just been outplayed. Instinct takes over, and I quickly untie her and push off the mattress like it’s ablaze. “You said you were out of my league.”
“Well, I’ll take you over Accardo.”
Bitch-slapped. That’s what this feels like, with me her bitch.
She slides off the bed, smooths her dress, then runs her fingers through her long black hair, erasing every trace of struggle. Like our wedding’s already a go.
“In case you missed it, I’m uninterested in the Life.”
She fiddles with the gaudy pink feathers on her dress, trying to arrange the collar so they don’t fall over like wilted weeds. The more she smooths them upward, the more they spring into different directions, every which way but up.
“You’re a capo’s daughter, for Christ’s sake. And now, suddenly, I want in?” Like I’ll give up my freedom before I’m forced into doing so.
“You can continue with your lifestyle.” She sighs with exaggeration. “I’m fine if we don’t marry until I’m twenty-one.”
“My lifestyle?” I demand.
“Come on, Lorenzo—”
“Renzo.”
“Fine, Renzo. I’ll spell it out for you. You spend Friday nights at Providence’s Sin City and every Saturday getting high and laid at one of several nightclubs.”
Jesus.
“That lifestyle.”
I trace my fingers across my chin. My marrying anyone is fucking ridiculous. Being shackled to one woman? Giving up all the filthy pleasures the world has to offer? Having to answer for my habits, my kinks?
Not happening.
“My father won’t agree. Not even if it’s Sandro.”
Her eyes flash with disgust. “Sandro?”
“It won’t be me,” I say in a firm tone, hoping she’ll drop the idea.
She opens her mouth, the fight still in her. As much as I admire it, I’m shutting this conversation down for good.
“My father earns money. Yours pisses it away. If there’s such a thing as embarrassment by association, that’s how we Beneventis feel about the Lombardis. Do you really expect him to give his blessing to our marriage?”
She stares at the floor, like she’d like it to swallow her up, disappointment carved into every inch of her.
No reason for it to sting the way it does. I barely know this girl.
“Like I said, a lot can change.” I open the bedroom door, signaling an end to this discussion. “Give me a few minutes before you follow me downstairs.”
I walk out before she can respond, putting distance between us and the ridiculous idea I’m her salvation.
Wrong bastard to approach for help.
I’m famished by the time I reach my seat.
“Where’s the clinger?” is the first thing Sandro asks me, nodding toward the empty chair beside the one I’m settling into.
A chair awkwardly squeezed between mine and the mafioso to my right, when it should be at the far end of the table with the other children’s.
“Guess she got tied up elsewhere.”
He shoots me a look.
I smirk, giving nothing away. “What did I miss?”
“Roberto Ferrara has an FBI agent in his pocket.”
“No shit?” I stab an asparagus with a fork and stuff the tip into my mouth. “Don Lucchese loves strong government connections,” I say while chewing.
“Yeah,” Sandro replies. “Know what else he loves? Good table manners.”
“Not what he told me when I approached him earlier to wish him a happy birthday. He asked about you.”
“Damn it.” He places his wine on the table, buying the bullshit. “You covered for me, right?”
So fucking gullible.
Finally recognizing the lie, he elbows me hard in the side.
Point made, I shove another asparagus spear into my mouth.
The luncheon is interrupted by spoons tapping against glasses, signaling the birthday toasts will begin.
Fina appears in a blur of pink.
I wait, ready to lock eyes—and yeah, offer her encouragement. Without so much as a glance my way, she takes a seat with the children.
“Can’t believe that bloodhound gave up,” Sandro declares. Not a huge Fina fan. She gets beneath his skin like nobody else.
I fill our wineglasses with an expensive Chianti Reserve I pinched earlier from the Beneventi wine cellar and raise mine high. “Let the games begin.”
And they do, amateur hour first. Toast after toast. Boast after boast. Male egos locking horns like rams battling for dominance.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Midway through, Don Lucchese interrupts to acknowledge my father for his financial prowess. Everyone applauds, and then, timing it perfectly, my father does what he does best, and drops another bomb. He’s entering the casino business.
The room hums with excitement, the air practically vibrates.
Everyone murmurs with curiosity. Except for Bible Belt Benny Manocchio.
His face hardens, lips pressed into a razor-thin line, his knuckles whitening around his glass.
Benny controls the South with claws buried deep in the gaming business.
Two types of men rise in rank among the mafiosi, the earners and the enforcers.
My father’s both, and can kill men twice; once financially, sabotaging a rival’s financial assets with the click of a finger, and secondly, the traditional smoking-gun way.
Today, the opposite happened. Overnight, he made every criminal in the Twelve wealthy.
Not equally, of course, though no one’s complaining.
And no one’s dead yet.
Benny has yet to turn a huge profit. And, if he doesn’t wise up and raise his glass in toast, his chance to do so is over. Hard to turn a profit when you’re turning up tulips.
Don Lombardi stands.
Snickers ripple through the room, that’s how much respect the bastard has.
“Don Lucchese.” He raises his glass. “To ensure a new era of peace, I’d like to announce the engagement of my daughter, Elia Seraphina Lombardi, to Carlo Accardo.”
Silence suffocates the room.
“Accardo’s what—fifty-two?” Sandro mutters.
“Fifty-three, with the hygiene of a pig.”
Judging by the reaction of those around us, we’re not the only ones disgusted.
Lombardi shifts, sensing the unease. “He’s agreed to wait until Elia’s twenty-first birthday.” With that, he sits, shoulders hunched, eyes down.
My attention falls on Fina.
She pours herself wine from a bottle that doesn’t belong at that end of the table, and casually sips it. Like she’s unaware of the pity-filled glances cast her way.
“In this world, that’s how the Life goes,” Sandro murmurs, watching her, too.
There’s no middle ground in the famiglie. Escape it or let it sweep you under.
If my goddamn future wasn’t so precarious, I’d almost feel bad for her.
Present
Fina. Fina. Fina.
Cold water hits my face, then I’m slapped. My head snaps to the side, and I slowly return to the present. Light blinds me as awareness creeps in.
I pushed things too far this time.
I’m hanging from a Saint Andrew’s cross, arms and legs spread wide and wrists and ankles tied, knees buckled and body lax. Naked. Blood pumped full of coke, Adderall, and hell if I know what else.
The scene’s a blur. I was whipped and abused, first by a kinky couple who took turns with the braided leather flogger and then by everyone watching, who joined in, tongues colliding around my dick, sucking me off, then denying my orgasm.
Pure ecstasy filled with pain and pleasure.
But it wasn’t enough … it’s never enough.
“Tagliatelo e rivestitelo prima che arrivino i soccorritori,” a man nearby exclaims.
Cut him down and clothe him.
Before the emergency workers arrive.
Did I even come before darkness disrupted the fun?
Cursing, Guiseppe, a club guard, uses a switchblade to free my wrists and ankles while a second guard, Giovanni, grabs hold of me, then lowers me to the floor.
I’m too weak to do much but twist my lips into a lopsided grin.
Scowling, they stare down at me. “Il tuo polso si è fermato.” Your pulse stopped.
“Sei morto.” You died.
“Come fai a vivere?” How are you even alive?
Fina …
She wouldn’t let me go. Even after I failed her … lost track of time … skipped out on her … broke promise after promise …
Blackness descends as the weight of it gnaws at my soul.
Promise me you’ll save me.
But it’s too late.
I’m too far gone.