Santo (Bianchi Mafia Daddies #1)

PROLOGUE

A Week Ago

SANTO

Alone in the Bianchi Construction offices, reviewing assistant applications because nobody could do their fucking job, nobody could follow a simple fucking instruction anymore, I stared from the top floor office window, slumped in my father’s old leather office chair.

The dark harbor below was a reminder of my first kill.

Rain streaked the windows, showing lights as orange blobs, pulling the focus of my drunken eyes.

I clenched my fingers around my glass of scotch, nursing it warm in my hands.

“I’m going to show the world how to get shit done,” I growled, sipping and letting the liquid melt on my tongue. It was the only thing that brought me joy right now—besides the fact my father was dead.

My father, the previous head of the Bianchi family, died two months ago.

It was a slow death, prostate cancer that got into his blood and bones.

The man was blasted with all types of therapies, transforming him from a bitter old man into someone who apologized and wanted to live.

It didn’t matter to me. I’d played favorite, but I hated his fucking guts.

He was homophobic, and the core memory I had of him was him striking me down when he saw me making eyes at a boy in middle school.

The man thought he’d beat that shit out of me.

I told him he had. I fucking lied. He died from cancer of an organ I played with on every twink and twunk who crossed my path.

I laughed—more of a cackle. It was sick of me, I know, but I laughed. The irony of it.

In my eyes—and my two brothers’ eyes—he died of hate.

And the three of us were now free.

I raised my glass to the man as I looked out at the harbor.

It’s where we’d thrown his ashes. Half were in an urn my mom kept by her bed, and the other half were supposed to be here in this fucking office.

That bullshit wasn’t going to fly, though.

The ashes didn’t even see these four walls.

We threw them in the harbor as soon as we could.

Rocco spat in them too. His fingers had been twitching for a knife, but our dad was already ash, so spit was the next best thing.

I turned in the office chair to see a stack of applications on my desk. That new assistant role needed filling. I’d been through the stack once already, trying to find someone I liked the look of, and I liked the look of them all—but Daddy’s little harem was out of the question.

My brothers told me to hire a woman, someone I wasn’t going to fuck . . . someone I wouldn’t push into the mold of a partner I wanted. I was an HR disaster waiting to happen—if this wasn’t a fucking criminal enterprise where my cousin Camille was HR.

I had the pick of Boston’s twink litter. There was power in that. Or safety. Protection too. Control was the only thing that never betrayed me. I’d been through four assistants already, and picking a new one was tough. They were only going to last a week or two under my regime and protocol.

Batting a hand at the files, they went flying across the floor, fanning themselves out.

One file remained on the desk.

I downed the scotch with force, and most of it dribbled down my chin. Ever since quitting smoking, I was drinking more, alongside the boys who came by for work, my vices were becoming slimmer.

My hand dropped, slamming the glass onto the file, and I peered through the glass at the magnified headshot below. He was . . . cute, with an eager smile and lips I knew that would love overtime.

“Yeah.” Isaiah King. “You’ll do,” I said with a snort of accomplishment.