Prologue 2
Prologue 2
RAFE
TWO DAYS BEFORE THE ATTACK ON THE ROSSI ESTATE
I’m heading to the garage, taking the back hallway to avoid the foyer and the men stationed there. I’m about to pass the living room, and I stop dead in my tracks when I hear Keane and Jax talking. As discreetly as possible, I peer around the corner and notice their backs are to me, so they never notice I’m blatantly eavesdropping.
The two of them have been having a lot of these hushed, private conversations; ones that I’m not included in. Secrets never stay secret for long. I should know. Mine will soon blow up in my face.
“I think you need this more than I do,” Jax states, an unlit joint dangling from his lips.
Keane walks over to him and takes the whiskey glass that Jax is holding, tipping it back in one go. Then he grabs the joint from Jax’s mouth and takes a drag. They know not to smoke shit in front of me because of what happened to my mom. I know it’s stupid and irrational, but they never had to watch their own mothers waste away year after year and then overdose right before their eyes.
Blowing out a ring of smoke, Keane says, “You know Max would shit a brick if he saw us smoking inside the house.”
“Fuck him,” Jax replies.
“Rafe, too.”
“Fuck him more,” Jax mumbles.
My fists curl at my sides. Jax and I haven’t been on the best of terms lately, and the cause of our discord is the violet-eyed woman upstairs.
Taking one last hit, Keane passes the joint back to Jax. “I’m assuming you came to find me for a reason.”
“You know she has a death wish, right?” Jax says from around toking his joint.
Keane releases a humorless huff of exasperation. “Don’t we all.”
My girl has always been a fighter. Defiant, headstrong. An absolute force to be reckoned with. I love every single angry, stubborn part of her. But those qualities that I admire are also the ones that will bury her if I don’t do something about it. Kellan fucking lied to all of us. I know his biggest secret now and damn him for forcing my hand. There is no way I’m going to allow my father or my brother to ever lay a hand on Andie. I’ll make deals with the devil first before I let that happen.
Keane and Jax pass the joint back and forth to one another.
“I meant it literally,” Jax tells him, referring to Andie. He pinches off the end of his blunt and pockets the remainder. “We have a snitch,” he says, suddenly changing the subject.
Every part of me becomes alert at Jax’s observation.
“Who?”
“Working on it,” Jax replies. “But that’s not all.”
Groaning, Keane drops into a nearby armchair. “Of course, it fucking isn’t.”
“Levine has a kid.”
Oh shit .
“From your tone, I’m assuming this kid isn’t a kid, but an adult. How did we not know this?” Keane asks him, none too happy to be thrown this new curveball.
“Whoever it is, he or she is a ghost. No online presence, no pictures, nothing. Levine definitely knows how to keep his shit secret.”
Keane grabs the half-empty whiskey and drinks it straight from the bottle. “I think I know exactly who we should ask about it.”
With that, they both walk out. I know where they’re heading. The room in the basement used for extracting information from our enemies in the most gruesome way possible. It’s the room with the cage. The one Andie told us about. The one I’m all too familiar with.
Deciding I’ve wasted enough time, I slip like a shadow down the hallway and into the garage, moving past the cars and bikes. The point of all this is to get off the property without being detected. Which means by foot. I know the blind spots where the cameras are useless, and I know where the guards are stationed or patrolling and at what times. It’s going to suck traipsing through the woods, climbing over the wall, and getting into the city, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Using night as my cloak, it takes me about a half hour before I’m far enough away from the Rossi estate where I feel comfortable enough to use my burner phone to call up a taxi service. One of the shadier ones I know that keeps things off the record if you slip the driver enough cash.
Another twenty minutes and I’m sitting in the back of a dingy yellow cab that smells like old vomit and stale smoke. A not so lovely smell made even worse by the cheap pine tree air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. No words are spoken between me and the driver until we get a few blocks from my destination.
“Stop here,” I tell him, handing him a wad of twenties. “You’ll get double that if you park the car and wait. Thirty minutes, tops,” I say, getting out.
Everything in this fucking city is gray. Gray concrete buildings. Gray sidewalks. Gray smog that obscures the sky and chokes your lungs. It’s depressing as shit.
Keeping my head down and hidden underneath the hood of my sweatshirt, I make sure no one is following me, then take a right into a back alleyway. Once I walk out the other side onto a parallel street, I head over to a nondescript, black sedan that is parked along the curb next to a parking meter.
The back passenger door opens, and I slip inside, pulling the hood from my head and looking at the man seated next to me. For a long second, I reconsider what the hell I’m doing here.
You’re doing it for her .
The driver turns in his seat and hands me a thin, plastic rectangular case. I open it to see a pre-filled syringe secured in foam padding. Jesus fucking Christ.
Taking a deep breath, I close it and shove it in the middle pocket of my hoodie. Then I get out of the vehicle, not looking back. I walk away, deciding on a different route than the one I took to get here.
Maximillian Rossi—the man I work for, the don of the Rossi syndicate, and father to my dead, best friend and the only girl I have ever loved—may be a monster, but I just sold my soul to the devil. There is no coming back from this.