Chapter Two
Knife clutched in my hand, I followed the sounds of terror to the ballroom, staying close to the wall in case I had to duck for cover. When I arrived at the door and peered inside, my heart sank at the sight that greeted me.
My father knelt on the ground beside my bleeding and motionless uncle.
Several bullet wounds littered his torso.
My father’s and uncle’s loyal men lay dead on the ground around them, and the rats who’d betrayed him stood beside Achille Lamorgese.
That fucking traitor. Behind them with a glass of red wine in his hand, Benedetto Falcone surveilled the scene with sadistic eagerness.
Whatever hope I had left slid out of me.
If the Capo approved of the coup, then the chances of my father’s survival were low at best, and mine were hardly better.
Fuck, would I die on my birthday? The fingers around the knife handle tightened further.
I wouldn’t go down without a fight. I’d take as many of these traitorous bastards down with me as I could.
I squashed the embers of fear blazing up in me.
My father had spent most of my life preparing me for this, for a life of violence, though I doubted even his paranoid mind had seen this coming.
Benedetto Falcone was notorious for killing off his men whenever he felt like they might pose a risk to his reign or simply when he felt like it, period.
I couldn’t see Niccolo anywhere. I had to hope that he’d managed to escape and would be clever enough to hide until Benedetto Falcone was dead.
His eldest son was rumored to be as insane as his father, but I had never met Remo Falcone or his brothers.
They had spent the past few years in a boarding school in England.
I took a deep breath. A hand clamped down on my shoulder.
I whirled around to kill whoever restrained me but stopped myself when I came face-to-face with my bodyguard, Eduardo.
A tiny piece of quail egg had gotten stuck in his gray-streaked beard.
“Don’t be stupid, Nestore. Inside this room, only death awaits.
You can’t save your father. Save yourself so one day you can return and get revenge. ”
He was right. If I stormed the ballroom, I’d die. My father wasn’t a good man and deserved to die. But so did most of the people in my life. I should let him die for everything he’d done to our family, but some twisted part of me couldn’t abandon him for the simple fact that he was my father. Fuck.
I slowly shook my head. “I won’t run.”
Eduardo sighed, the lines in his tanned, weathered face deepening. “You are too loyal to someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
Shock sliced through me. Eduardo had never talked about my father like that. He wouldn’t have lived to see the next day.
“I implore you to leave.”
I ripped away from his hold. “This is my home, my territory, and I won’t run.” I stormed into the ballroom. I would take down as many as I could. All eyes in the room latched onto me, and Benedetto actually laughed and raised his glass as if to mock toast me. Rage bubbled up inside me.
My father watched without a flicker of emotion. He had resigned himself to whatever was to come.
Lamorgese sneered at me as if I were not worth his attention.
I switched the knife from my right hand to my left, gripping the blade, feeling the familiar burn of it against my skin.
Then I threw it at Lamorgese. He hadn’t expected the throw, nor had the men by his side.
The blade impaled itself in his left side, below his rib cage.
The distance had been too great, and the switch to my left, slightly less skilled hand, had been a mistake.
This injury would hurt but not kill him.
He gasped, clasping the knife. Two men came to hold him up as his legs were about to buckle.
An arm clamped around my throat, jerking me to a stop. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes began to water.
“Should I kill him?”
I froze and twisted my head until I could peer over my shoulder at my attacker. Eduardo. The man who had just been imploring me not to enter the room. Bile filled my mouth. Was that the taste of betrayal? I’d never tasted anything more vile. I glared up at him with all the hatred I could muster.
He looked away and focused on Lamorgese, who was still busy breathing through the pain. I had hit him hard. I would have smiled if lack of oxygen hadn’t made my vision turn dark at the edges.
“It’s the Capo’s decision,” he pressed out as a doctor rushed his way. My knees grew weak, and I would have toppled over if Eduardo’s iron grip hadn’t kept me upright.
“Death would be too easy, don’t you think?” Falcone drawled. He took a sip of his wine, then hit me with a cruel smile.
Eduardo loosened his hold enough so I could breathe, but not enough that I could escape.
After the doctor had given him an injection, Lamorgese straightened and pushed the doctor away, his eyes full of feverish hatred as they settled on me.
“You’ll spend the rest of your miserable life regretting this.
” He motioned at the knife sticking out of his side.
He turned to my father, who scowled up at him.
“There’s a special place in hell for traitors,” my father spat.
Lamorgese cackled, then winced and held his side, his skin turning ashen.
“We all go to hell, Romano. You’ll be happy to know I’ll make sure your son’s life is pure hell so he comes prepared for what comes after.
I don’t have time to extend the same courtesy to you.
A king has to die so a new one can take his place.
” Two men jerked my father to his feet, and Lamorgese sliced him open with a gleaming blade from sternum to his pubic bone.
For a moment, nothing happened, and my father simply stared in confusion.
Then he arched forward, and his bowels tumbled to the floor with a resounding splash.
Bile flooded my mouth in a wave, but I swallowed it down, even as my eyes began to burn fiercely. I wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction of seeing me break, but I couldn’t stop useless tears from filling my eyes. I wasn’t even sure why. My father had never been good.
A shriek sounded. I turned toward the sound in time to see Amelia bent forward and throwing up my expensive birthday dinner on the hardwood floor.
She looked stricken and on the verge of a mental breakdown.
She retched again and heaved up bile. Tears streamed down her face as she glanced from the bowels to her father, then to me.
Her dress was bloodred, and I was sure Lamorgese had chosen the color intentionally.
I held her gaze.
Had she known about this? Had she overheard her father whisper about the conspiracy? Had she looked into my eyes knowing I’d die tonight?
I’d enjoyed talking to her. She had seemed like one of the few people I knew who wasn’t fake. Her smile had felt honest, kind even.
“Kill the rest. Everyone who’s loyal to Romano, except for the boy,” Benedetto Falcone ordered. “Someone needs to torture the rebellious glint out of him.”
Several traitors grabbed the captives, jerked their heads back, and sliced their throats.
They killed my uncle, my pregnant stepmother, my aunt, my cousins, and the people I considered allies and friends in that fashion until the gurgling of their blood-filled throats echoed in the ballroom.
My only consolation was that I didn’t see Niccolo among the dead.
Amelia sank to her knees. She kept her eyes on me as the last gurgles of the dying filled the room, as their bowels covered the floor, and their blood snaked toward us like tentacles.
Eventually, the red liquid reached my shoes.
Amelia shoved to her feet before the blood could touch her fingers.
Her eyes held compassion and horror. I wanted to believe that she was innocent in this, that one person was still alive who hadn’t betrayed my family or me.
Eduardo dragged me down into the basement of my home.
I had only recently been allowed to set foot into this part of the house.
My father had a panic room, a room for questioning, and a vast chamber with several cells down there.
The few times I had been allowed to visit the basement, the cells had been empty.
When Eduardo shoved me into one of the cells, my legs caved, and my knees collided with the bare stone floor. Immediately, the stench of old blood, urine, and sweat wafted into my nose. The stench of fear and misery.
I whirled around to face Eduardo and glared up at him. “You filthy traitor.”
“I told you to run. I didn’t want it to end like this, Nestore. Your father, yes, but not you.” He backed out of the cage and closed the door with a clang, then locked it with a key. “There’s nothing I can do for you now.”
“One day, I’ll come for you,” I growled, focusing on the anger simmering in my veins instead of the fear bubbling in my stomach.
I wasn’t a stranger to pain. My father was quick to snap and had tried to harden me for a future as Underboss, but deep down, I knew what Lamorgese had planned for me would be far worse.
Eduardo’s sympathetic expression only increased my rage. He nodded as if in farewell. “I hope it ends quickly. Good luck, Nestore. The name Romano will die with you.”
I stumbled to my feet, then toward the bars, clasping them in a tight grip. “What about Niccolo?”
Eduardo glanced over his shoulder at me. “Worry about yourself, not your cousin.” He left, leaving the question hanging between us.
I hung my head, my forehead pressed up against the cool bars.
What a birthday.
A choked laugh erupted from my mouth. I closed my eyes, trying not to lose it completely. I had to figure out a way out of here. I knew every corner of this house. I had to outsmart my guards and Lamorgese.
Or I’d die in agony.