Chapter 2
Dante
The room was small, with a single bulb lamp hanging from the ceiling.
Under its beam was a man, beaten and bloody, tied to a chair with a balled-up handkerchief stuffed in his mouth.
He looked up as I entered, flanked by two other men.
His eyes went wide with fear. He knew seeing a Valenti in person meant he’d fucked up big time.
“Mr. Benson,” I said, putting on a warm smile. “It’s good to see you again.”
Mr. Benson looked anything but happy to see me.
I pulled up a chair from the corner and dragged it across the concrete floor, letting the legs scrape loud enough to make him flinch. The sound echoed in the small space. I positioned it backwards in front of him and straddled it, resting my arms across the back.
“You can take that out,” I said to Marco, one of my men. He stepped forward and yanked the handkerchief from Benson’s mouth. The man gasped, spitting blood onto the floor between us.
“Mr. Valenti, I can explain—”
“I’m sure you can.” I kept my voice pleasant and conversational.
I learned a long time ago that you didn’t need to yell to make a point.
In fact, the quieter you were, the more they feared what was coming.
“But before you do, let me tell you what I already know. Three days ago, you met with Detective Caruso at that diner on Mulberry Street. The one with the good cannoli. You had coffee. He had a Danish. You talked for forty-seven minutes.”
The color drained from what was left of Benson’s face.
“Now, what I don’t know yet,” I continued, leaning forward slightly, “is what exactly you told him. So why don’t you help me fill in those blanks?”
“Nothing,” he stammered. “I swear to God, Mr. Valenti, I didn’t tell him nothing. He was fishing, that’s all. I gave him nothing.”
I sighed, disappointed. “Mr. Benson. Do I look stupid to you?”
“No, sir, I—”
“Because when you lie to me, it suggests you think I’m stupid. That I don’t have eyes everywhere. That I don’t know exactly what you’ve been doing.” I stood up, the chair clattering backward. “And that offends me.”
I nodded to Marco. He moved fast, his fist connecting with Benson’s ribs. The crack was audible. Benson’s scream filled the small room.
“Let’s try this again,” I said, picking up the chair and setting it right. I sat back down, casual, as if we were discussing the weather. “What did you tell Detective Caruso?”
Benson was gasping now, tears streaming down his face. “Just... just about the shipment. The one last month. That’s all, I swear. He already knew about it anyway, I just confirmed—”
“What else?”
“Nothing! I swear on my mother’s grave—”
Another nod. Another punch. This time to the face. Blood sprayed across the concrete.
“Mr. Benson, we can do this all night. I’ve got time. Do you?” I pulled out my phone, checking the hour. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. I have a plane to catch in a few hours. Montana. Ever been there before?”
He stared at me through swollen eyes, confused by the sudden shift.
“Beautiful country, from what I hear. Wide open spaces. Clean air. Cattle.” I smiled. “My father’s expanding operations out west. I’m handling the acquisition personally. So you see, I really do need to wrap this up.”
“Please,” Benson whispered. “Please, Mr. Valenti. I got a family—”
“And yet you still chose to talk to the cops. Funny how that works.” I stood again, brushing off my pants. “One more time. What else did you tell him?”
The dam broke. It always did, eventually.
“The warehouse,” he sobbed. “The one in Newark. And... and the route. The trucking route through Pennsylvania. That’s it, I swear to Christ that’s everything.
He was gonna arrest my son, Mr. Valenti.
My boy, he got mixed up in some shit, and Caruso said he’d make it go away if I just gave him something. Anything. I didn’t have a choice!”
There it was. The truth, finally.
I looked at Marco and his partner, Angelo. “You boys got all that?”
“Every word, boss,” Marco confirmed.
“Good.” I turned back to Benson one last time. “See? That wasn’t so hard. You should’ve just led with the truth. Would’ve saved us all a lot of time.”
Hope flickered on his ruined face. Pathetic.
“As for your son,” I continued, “don’t worry. We’ll make sure he’s taken care of too.”
The hope died. He understood.
“Mr. Valenti, please, he’s just a kid—”
“So was I, once. Didn’t stop my father from teaching me how this world works.” I headed for the door, done with this conversation. “Marco, Angelo—take care of Mr. Benson and his family. Make it clean. I don’t want any complications while I’m away.”
“You got it, boss.”
Benson’s screams followed me out into the hallway, but I’d already moved on. I had a plane to catch and a ranch to acquire. One way or another, the Valenti family was heading west, and nothing—not cops, not rats, not some broke Montana rancher—was going to stop that from happening.
My phone buzzed. A text from my father.
Him: Stop by the house before you go to the airport. We need to talk.
Me: On my way now.
I let out a long sigh as I stuffed my phone back into my pocket.
I was happy to take over the western expansion.
After all, it had been my idea to begin with.
But being the youngest of four boys, it was difficult to talk my father into letting me take the lead on the project.
Thankfully, the other three were already married and far too busy running other aspects of the business to have much time for new ideas.
The move into Montana represented a more…
legitimate side of the family business. Crime paid well.
Damn well, actually. But between the feds and the cops, many men in the Valenti family spent more time in court or prison than they did enjoying the fruits of their labors.
And that wasn’t the kind of life I wanted to lead.
Even though I was only twenty-nine, I’d been working for my father in some capacity or another for over fifteen years.
I wanted to slow down a bit and enjoy my life instead of always interrogating or laundering or fencing.
And running a Montana cattle ranch seemed like a good place to build that slower life I craved.
Plus, with my contacts, I could have the place filled with livestock and profitable within six months.
It was a sure winner. And once I was familiar with the area, I would alert my father of other opportunities to lend money to needy ranchers that were easily driven under by bad market prices. After that, acquisition would be easy.
The drive to my father’s estate took twenty minutes through familiar streets.
Newark at night was nothing but neon reflecting off wet pavement and the distant wail of sirens.
It was the kind of urban decay that had been part of the landscape my whole life.
I’d grown up in these streets, learned the family business in back rooms and warehouses just like the one I’d left Benson screaming in.
My father’s house sat behind iron gates in a neighborhood where cops didn’t patrol unless they were on our payroll. Old money and mob money were the same thing in this part of Jersey. The gate guard waved me through without a word.
I found my father in his study, as always. Enzo Valenti, seventy-two years old and still sharp as a knife. He sat behind his massive oak desk, a tumbler of whiskey in one hand, reading glasses perched on his nose as he reviewed some documents. He didn’t look up when I entered.
“Close the door,” he said.
I did, then took the seat across from him without being invited. One of the few privileges of being his son was that I didn’t have to wait for permission.
He finally looked up, studying me over his glasses. “Benson talk?”
“Eventually. Gave up the warehouse and the trucking route to Caruso.”
My father’s jaw tightened, but he just nodded. “And?”
“Marco and Angelo are handling it.”
“Good.” He set down his whiskey, removed his glasses, and leaned back in his chair. The leather creaked under his weight. “Now. Montana.”
“My flight leaves at six.”
“I know when your flight leaves.” He waved a hand dismissively. “What I want to know is if you’re prepared for this. This isn’t Newark, Dante. You can’t just walk into some rancher’s home and start breaking fingers.”
I bristled at that. “I know how to conduct business, Pop.”
“Do you?” He leaned forward, his dark eyes—the same ones I saw in the mirror every morning—boring into me.
“Because this needs to be clean. Legitimate. The girl marries you, we get the ranch, and we establish our foothold out west. No bodies, no headlines, no FBI sniffing around because you couldn’t keep your temper in check. ”
“I don’t have a temper.”
He laughed, short and sharp. “You’re a Valenti. Of course you have a temper. The question is whether you can control it long enough to close this deal.”
I bit back my first response, which would’ve proven his point.
Instead, I took a breath. “The Wesleys are desperate. They need this as much as we do. The daughter will agree to the marriage, we’ll make it legal and proper, and in six months we’ll have a legitimate cattle operation generating clean revenue. Just like we discussed.”
“And if she doesn’t agree?”
“Then we take the ranch outright. Either way, we win.”
My father studied me for a long moment, then reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a manila folder. He slid it across the desk to me.
I opened it. Inside were photographs and documents—information on the Wesley family.
The father, stern-faced and weathered. The mother, kind eyes and graying hair.
A daughter, early twenties, long hair, hopeful eyes, and a genuine smile.
But to me, she looked like every other girl my father had tried to marry me off to.
And then I saw him.
Nicholas Wesley. Twenty-six years old, according to the file.
Dark hair, green eyes, and a smile that could charm a rattlesnake.
He was standing next to a horse, one hand on its neck, wearing tight jeans and a flannel shirt.
He was handsome and rugged in all the ways that turned me on.
He was the kind of man I dreamed of alone in my bed each night.
“She’s a good girl,” my father said, watching my reaction. He thought I was looking at the daughter. “No record, no scandals. Works the ranch with her family. Goes to church on Sundays. The kind of girl who’ll give you legitimate children and make you look respectable.”
I stared at the photo, feeling something uncomfortable twist in my gut. She looked happy. Innocent. Nothing like the women I usually dealt with—the ones who knew exactly what the Valenti name meant and didn’t care as long as the money kept flowing.
“When’s the wedding?” I asked, closing the folder.
“That depends on how the meeting goes tomorrow. I want this wrapped up within the month. The sooner we’re established out there, the better.”
I nodded, tucking the folder under my arm as I stood. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” My father’s voice stopped me at the door. “Dante. I know you think this is beneath you. Playing rancher, marrying some farmer’s daughter. But this is important. To me. To the family. We need that ranch to expand, even if we need to get… creative. Don’t fuck it up.”
I met his eyes. “I won’t.”
“Good. Because if you do, you won’t get another chance to prove yourself. Understand?”
The threat was clear. This was my shot at something bigger, at the legitimate life I’d been pushing for. If I screwed it up, I’d be stuck in Newark forever, interrogating rats and dodging indictments until I ended up dead or in prison like half my cousins.
“I understand,” I said. “I’ll get the ranch no matter what.”
He nodded, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. I left the study, the folder feeling heavier than it should under my arm.
Outside, the night air was thick with humidity. I sat in my car for a moment, engine idling, and opened the folder again. Nicholas Wesley stared up at me from the photograph, frozen in that moment of happiness beside his horse.
By this time tomorrow, I’d be sitting across from his family, discussing the terms of our arrangement. My marriage to his sister. A business transaction dressed up in white lace and wedding vows.
I wondered if she’d cry. Most women would, in her position. Forced to marry a stranger to save her family’s ranch. But something about Nicholas made me think he’d put up a fight. He had fire in his eyes. I liked that.
Maybe… Maybe he was my ticket to getting the ranch. After all, what kind of loyal son wouldn’t stand up for his sister? Maybe even take her place?
My father wouldn’t like that. But he said I needed to get the ranch at any cost, even if I had to be… What was it again? Oh yeah, creative.
I stared down at Nicholas Wesley, my plans solidifying into place. A smile crept over my face.
I was going to get very creative with him.