Devil’s Reign (Bratva Empire #1)

Prologue

MELANI

“Get your hands off my wife or I’ll—”

The slam of a door yanks me from the book I’ve been lost in, and right when it was about to get good. I frown, my eyes reluctantly leaving the page to fix on my bedroom door.

Who’s coming in this late? It’s long past midnight, but still too early for Mamma to be back from work. It must be Luciano. Unless…

My throat tightens, that old, familiar dread crawling up the back of my neck. No. No way the Cosa Nostra found us here. They couldn’t have. Right?

I lower my book and instinctively dog-ear the page.

Then I ease open my bedside drawer to take out the small pocket knife I always keep there.

But even as my clammy fingers curl around the smooth handle, I’m keenly aware that if this is the Cosa Nostra, this pathetic little blade will only succeed in pissing them off more.

With my heart pounding an unsteady staccato, I creep towards my bedroom door and crack it open just enough to peer through.

A guy is rummaging through our kitchen cabinets. The sight sends fear skidding through me, until he glances up and I recognize him. The relief hits so hard I have to lean against my doorframe. It’s just Luciano.

He studies me with a puzzled frown before returning to the cabinets.

“You scared the shit out of me! What are you doing?” I ask my little brother, my pulse still racing as if unaware the danger has passed. “Why are you back so late?”

“Do you know where Mamma keeps the first aid kit?” he asks instead, which sets off alarm bells in my head. Why does he need the first aid kit?

I push off the doorframe. “Luciano, what—”

He turns to face me fully, and that’s when I see it: the way his left arm is tucked close to his body.

A dark stain spreading across the dish towel wrapped around his wrist. It’s blood.

So much blood. A sharp gasp tears out of me, the knife slipping from my fingers and clattering to the floor as I rush to his side.

“What happened to you?”

He tries to turn away, but I catch his arm and peel the towel back. My stomach drops at the deep gash beneath it, still bleeding steadily. “Chistu è ’u minchia?!” What the fuck is this?

He jerks free, his jaw tightening. “Don’t make a fuss, Mel. Mamma will worry.”

Before I can respond, he’s crouching, rifling through the lower cabinets one-handed.

A second later, the battered first aid kit thumps onto the floor, and with a low grunt, he picks it up.

The kit barely weighs anything—we’ve never been able to keep it fully stocked—so that sound tells me everything I need to know about how much his wrist hurts.

“Good thing Mamma’s not home, then,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest as he gets back up and makes his way to the coffee table. “Now tell me. What. Happened?”

“Nothing.” That dimpled grin appears, the one that usually melts my resolve on the spot. “Just a business hazard, that’s all.” He’s trying to charm his way out of answering the question, which is definitely not happening.

Uncrossing my arms, I trail after him with a frown. “Business hazard? Luciano, you don’t even have a job.”

“I do now, Soredda.”

My frown deepens as dread churns in my stomach. The little shit only calls me dear sister when he’s trying to butter me up… or throw me off his scent.

“And what job is that?” This ought to be good, he doesn’t even have a high school diploma like I do.

We left Sicily during his junior year, and enrolling here wasn’t exactly an option without proper documentation.

Instead, he’s been studying for his GED, preparing for the day our immigrant status becomes legal.

He fumbles with his wrist, awkwardly trying to clean it with his right—his non-dominant—hand, glancing up at me as he does. I mutter a curse and step in, pushing his hand aside before taking over. The gauze he added is already soaked through, so I strip it away and replace it with fresh layers.

“It’s better if you don’t know what job it is.”

I shoot him a glare but focus back on his wrist. I’ll interrogate him later. Right now, I need to stop the bleeding.

I elevate his wrist above his heart and, after a few tense, silent minutes, I gently remove the gauze.

The bleeding has slowed to a thin trickle.

Thank God. I grab the small bottle of saline solution from the kit and start rinsing away the blood, careful but thorough, until the wound finally comes into view.

I freeze at the sight of it, my lips part as I gasp in shock. I blink once, twice, three times, desperate to convince myself I’m seeing it wrong.

This isn’t a slash from broken glass or a kitchen knife or any of the other excuses I was halfway ready to accept. This damage was intentional. The wound is shaped like a letter — a P.

We’ve only been in New York for two years, but in that time we’ve kept our heads down, avoiding cops and gangsters alike. But that doesn’t matter. In Lower Manhattan, everyone knows what a mark like that means.

“Luciano,” I breathe. “Tell me you didn’t.”

He pulls his wrist from my hands and rewraps it himself, his movements rushed and unsteady. Seconds later, he’s on his feet, towering over me—already so much taller despite being two years younger—and his expression has hardened into a look I’ve only ever seen on the men we ran from.

“As the man of this family, I need to protect you and Mamma and do what’s best for us.”

My eyes widen in horror at the words coming out of his mouth, my heart breaking that he thinks he has to do this for us.

“I don’t want you working with the Petrov family.” My voice fractures halfway through. I don’t bother pretending it isn’t a plea. “Please, Luciano… Please, they’re—”

“Powerful,” he interrupts. “They own this city. They can keep us safe, Mel.”

“They’re barbaric, Luci. They carve the family initial into every recruit, marking them like livestock so the whole city knows who owns them!” A P for Petrov is slashed into the skin of every soldier they claim, and here it is on my own little brother's skin.

“Have you forgotten we still have a target on our backs? Just because we’re in New York doesn’t mean the Cosa Nostra won’t find us. But if we join the Bratva, we have a chance.”

“No. No, Luciano. No, no, no, no.” I shake my head over and over, refusing to believe this is my sweet little brother talking.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Our innocence was stolen when we had to flee our country, our home, in the middle of the night like criminals just so we could live. I understand what he’s trying to do. I do. Still, my stomach twists so violently I think I’m going to be sick.

“Well, Melani,” he bites out my full name, “you don’t get to control who I work or don’t work with. I’m an adult, so it’s my decision.”

An adult, that’s a laugh. He’s barely nineteen.

“It’s for your own safety, damn it! Do you even know what happens to low-level soldiers who work with the mafioso?”

He rolls his eyes like I’m being dramatic. “Don’t start—”

“They’re collateral damage!” I exclaim, unable to contain the emotion cracking my voice. “And no one gives a shit what happens to them. Case in point, that damn gash in your wrist.”

“I don’t have time for this,” he mutters and brushes past me, heading for the front door.

“Luciano, wait—”

The door slams behind him before I can finish. I stay where I am, useless and shaking, tears spilling freely as my mind circles every word I should have said and every way I might have stopped him.

I can’t lose him to these monsters. They’ve already taken so much from me. My home. My father. My mamma’s smile. And now they’re taking Luciano?

I won’t let them.

But I did let them.

Because that became our last conversation.

In the days that followed, he avoided me. He would come home late, leave early, he barely looked at me at all, and I let it happen because I was angry and scared and stupid enough to think we’d have time to fix this later.

Except there was no ‘later’.

Exactly two weeks after that argument, he went missing, he simply vanished into thin air.

I had told him no one gives a shit what happens to mafia soldiers, but I give a shit about what happens to him. I love my little brother with everything in me, and I will tear this city apart to find out what happened to him and bring whoever’s responsible to justice.

Even if it means I end up being collateral damage.