Feral Fiancé (Mafia Lords of Sin #11)

Chapter 1 Giuliana

GIULIANA

The thunder of an explosion rattles my apartment windows so hard I think they might shatter.

I jolt upright in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs as I try to process what the hell just happened.

What the fuck is going on?

I stumble to my bedroom window, still wearing the oversized Cubs t-shirt I sleep in, and push aside the dark curtains.

A few blocks away, orange flames lick at the Chicago sky, painting the low-hanging clouds an ominous amber.

The fire is massive.

Whatever exploded was big.

My stomach drops as I realize those flames are near where my veterinary clinic is.

“No.” The word comes out as barely a whisper, nausea rising in my throat. “Please, no.”

I grab my keys from the kitchen counter, not bothering to change out of my pajamas and flip-flops.

My hands shake as I lock the apartment door behind me, and I’m halfway down the stairs when my phone rings.

“H-hello?” My voice is still groggy from sleep and low with fear.

“Ms. Conti?” a deep voice rumbles. “This is Chief Rodriguez with the Chicago Fire Department. I’m afraid I have some bad news about your veterinary clinic.”

The world tilts sideways. I grip the stair railing to keep from falling. This can’t be happening. “How bad?”

“There’s been an explosion. The building is…” Chief Rodriguez sighs and my stomach lurches.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s a total loss. We’re going to need you to come down and speak with our investigators.”

The phone slips from my numb fingers, clattering down the concrete steps.

I chase after it, my vision blurring with tears I refuse to let fall. Not yet. I need to see it first.

I need to know for certain that everything I’ve worked for since veterinary school is really gone.

The drive passes in a nightmare haze of red traffic lights and my own ragged breathing.

I can smell the smoke now, acrid and bitter, seeping through my car’s air vents.

As I get closer, the orange glow grows brighter, more terrible, until I have to pull over because I can’t see through my tears.

When I finally park across the street from what used to be Conti Animal Care, the heat hits me.

The building is completely engulfed, flames pouring from every window and reaching toward the sky like grasping fingers.

The metal sign I installed last year—the one I saved for six months to afford—lies twisted and blackened in the street.

Firefighters yell at one another as they try to smother the fire with their hoses.

People are gathered on the sidewalk, watching the remnants of my life’s work burn away.

Two years.

Two years of eighteen-hour days, of sleeping on the office couch when I couldn’t afford both rent and supplies, of building something beautiful from nothing. Gone in minutes.

I press my hands to my mouth, trying to hold back the sob that threatens to tear me apart.

The heat from the fire makes my eyes water, or maybe that’s just grief. I can’t tell anymore.

“Ma’am?” a gravelly voice behind me makes me turn. “Are you Dr. Conti?”

The fire chief is a mountain of a man, probably in his fifties, with silver hair and kind brown eyes that have seen too many disasters.

His yellow turnout coat is streaked with soot, and exhaustion lines every inch of his weathered face.

He looks like someone’s grandfather, the type who’d fix your bicycle chain and sneak you extra cookies when your parents weren’t looking.

“Yes.” My voice comes out as a croak. “This is—this was my clinic.”

His expression softens with genuine sympathy. “I’m Chief Rodriguez. We spoke on the phone. I’m real sorry about this, doc. I can only imagine how much this place meant to you.”

I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Behind him, firefighters continue to spray water onto the inferno, but it’s clearly a lost cause. They’re just trying to keep it from spreading to the neighboring buildings.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I manage to ask, wrapping my arms around myself to try to keep warm. Or keep myself upright. I’m not sure right now.

“Preliminary investigation suggests a gas leak. The main line must have ruptured and ignited.” He shakes his head. “These old buildings, sometimes the infrastructure just gives out without warning.”

But that’s wrong. That’s completely wrong, and the knowledge sits in my stomach like a stone.

“Chief Rodriguez,” I say carefully, “the gas lines to this building were shut off this morning for maintenance. I watched the utility crew do it.”

His bushy eyebrows draw together. “You sure about that?”

“Positive. They marked the lines as inactive before I left for lunch.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “This wasn’t an accident.”

Rodriguez studies me for a long moment, and I can see him mentally shifting from consolation mode to investigation mode. “Ma’am, are you saying you think someone did this deliberately?”

Before I can answer, my phone rings. Unknown number.

Ugh, seriously? Spam callers at this hour?

I almost decline the call, but something makes me hesitate.

With everything that’s happened, maybe it’s someone who saw the fire and has information.

I bring the phone to my ear, heart hammering. “Hello?”

Silence. Then a mechanical voice, processed through some kind of distortion device, “Have you talked to your father recently, Dr. Conti?”

Time seems to slow down and my heart seizes. “W-Who is this?” I demand, ignoring Rodriguez’s puzzled look. “What do you want?”

“You should check on him,” the voice continues. “Family is so important, don’t you think? Especially when they’re…alone.”

The line goes dead.

My blood turns to ice as I slowly lower the phone. I can barely hear the fire chief calling my name.

Dad.

I fumble for his contact, pressing call with trembling fingers that won’t seem to work properly.

Straight to voicemail.

No.

“Dad,” I say, hating how my voice trembles. “‘Please pick up. Something’s happened. Call me back right now.”

I try again. And again. The same recorded message in his tired voice asking me to leave my name and number.

Behind me, sirens wail in the distance, getting closer. I should stay.

I should wait for the fire department, for the police, for someone with authority and weapons and training to handle whatever this is.

“Dr. Conti?” Chief Rodriguez’s voice breaks through my thoughts and I turn to him. He’s staring at me with barely concealed concern. “Is everything alright?”

No, everything is not alright. I stare at him, unable to think of anything except the cloying fear that Dad hasn’t answered his phone and I’m terribly afraid something horrible has happened to him

“I–I have to go,” I finally say. “Please call me when you hear anything.”

Ignoring the chief’s shouts, I run to my Honda, my hands shaking so badly it takes four tries to get the key in the ignition.

The engine turns over with a reluctant wheeze, and I peel out of the parking lot, leaving rubber on asphalt and the burning ruins of my life in the rearview mirror.

Chicago’s streets blur past me. I weave through late night traffic like a madwoman, running two red lights and taking corners fast enough to make my tires scream.

Every second that ticks by on the dashboard clock feels like a countdown to something horrible and irreversible.

“Come on, come on,” I mutter to myself as I turn down his street. My body feels jittery, like I’ve just consumed too much caffeine. I just need to make sure Dad is okay.

This is probably just a stupid prank some idiot teenager is playing.

I know that when I reach Dad’s apartment, he’ll open the door and all my anxiety will have been for nothing.

Dad’s apartment building comes into view—a run-down three-story walkup in a neighborhood that’s seen better decades.

I barely throw the car into park before I’m rushing inside.

I take the stairs three at a time, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat.

His door is standing open.

Not just unlocked. Open, like someone walked through it and couldn’t be bothered to close it behind them.

What I see makes me want to scream.

The hallway light spills into his living room, illuminating overturned furniture and scattered papers.

Family photos lie smashed on the hardwood floor, glass crunching under my feet as I step inside.

“D-dad?” My voice comes out as a croak as I gingerly move forward. “Dad, are you here?”

The kitchen table is overturned, one leg snapped clean off.

Cereal bowls and coffee mugs lie in pieces across the linoleum, and there’s a dark stain spread across the white cabinets that looks suspiciously like—

“Oh god.” I press my hand to my mouth, bile rising in my throat. Blood. It’s blood, spattered across the walls like some kind of abstract painting created by a lunatic.

A single black business card sits in the center of the destroyed kitchen table, pristine and untouched among the chaos.

I pick it up with trembling fingers.

No name, no phone number, no logo. Just an address in the warehouse district and a time: midnight.

I glance at the microwave clock. 11:47 p.m. Thirteen minutes.

I should call 911 and report a break-in, a kidnapping, whatever this is.

But something about the precision of the destruction stops me. This isn’t random violence.

This is a message, delivered by people who know exactly what they’re doing.

People who probably have connections, influence, ways of making problems disappear.

People who might kill my father if I involve the authorities.

The voice on my phone seems less like a prank now.

The drive to the warehouse district seems to pass too slowly, one eye glued to the clock while the other keeps an eye on the road. Please let him be alive.

Please let this be about money, or gambling debts, or something that can be fixed with negotiation instead of violence.

Dad’s always been weak, but he’s not evil.

Whatever he’s done, whatever trouble he’s gotten himself into this time, it can’t be worth dying for.

The address leads me to a massive industrial building that looks like it’s been abandoned since the Clinton administration.