Divine Empire (The Moretti Empire #4)

Prologue

Matteo

Almost Three Years Ago

Being woken up out of a dead sleep is never fun. Being woken up by Apollo of all people fucking blows. The asshole just lifted one side of my mattress clear off the frame and forced me to roll out of my comfortable slumber onto the cold hard ground.

“Son of a bitch,” I bite out, groaning against the marble tile. Never in my life have I wanted a carpeted bedroom more. As I look up at my brother through groggy eyes, I gripe, “What the hell was that for?”

“We’re having a meeting,” he replies in that aggravating, authoritative tone of his. It’s rare that he sounds like anything other than a stern father, and he is not my dad, no matter how often he pretends to be. “Get up, everyone needs to be in Dad’s office in two minutes.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” I complain, stumbling to get up on my feet. I might feel the need to worry or put my guard up if he hadn’t just thrown me out of bed. In the event of immediate danger, there would already be a gun in my hand and a vest secured over my chest.

Apollo ignores me, leading the way out of the room. His broad shoulders are straight back as he walks down the hall, hair still perfectly in place like he never went to bed. He probably didn’t, the fucking vampire.

“You didn’t need to throw me on the floor to get me out of bed,” I grumble, padding behind him with cold bare feet and my eyes still adjusting.

“Boo-hoo.”

Prick.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nope.”

Double prick.

Our father’s office isn’t far from my room, but by the time we show up, it’s packed to the brim with my brothers.

All in various stages of dress. Most in sweats or sleep pants, but some in rumbled day clothes, too.

Apollo is still in half a suit; I swear the pompous ass sleeps in them.

Or he doesn’t sleep at all. Like I said, he could be a vampire, if you ask me.

Stiff, brooding, acts like everyone should be afraid of him. It fits.

Scanning the room, I’m a little surprised to find that Uncle Cesar is also here. He’s at our house a lot of the time, of course. But in the middle of the night on a random weekday? That definitely qualifies as odd.

“Were you asleep?” my brother Armani asks as I take the open space by him to stand.

His long brown hair is pulled back into a messy bun, and his tattoos are out on full display in his weird excuse for a shirt.

It’s a navy-blue silky Versace thing that he barely has buttoned at all, and a sure sign that he’s come home from clubbing somewhere to be here.

“You’re so bad at being eighteen, my friend. You could have come out.”

I roll my eyes. “And watch you get hammered with models? No thanks.”

He grins, white teeth flashing. “Jealous?”

“Not even a little bit.”

I prefer my debauchery to be on my terms, and my terms never include being out in the middle of the night when I could be enjoying the comfort of my bed. If I want to party, I finish at midnight. A man needs his beauty sleep, after all.

“Boring,” Armani tsks.

I pin him with a look that says really?

We both know I’m not one of the boring Moretti siblings. Not even close.

He cracks a smile and laughs silently, amusement shining in his crystal blue eyes.

My crystal blue eyes, really. Almost all of us have them.

Out of nine sons, Dante Moretti only produced two with brown eyes.

Emilio and Elio are the only set of identical twins, and I guess that wasn’t enough to make them unique.

They had to go and have deep brown irises to set them apart too.

I was kind of jealous of it as a kid. I always thought I would look nice with Elio’s eyes. His muscles, too, but I ended up getting those on my own.

A throat clears suddenly, wordlessly commanding attention. Standing in a line behind his desk, our father, Uncle Cesar, and Apollo face the rest of us. Feeling the weight of their stares, any and all chatter has come to a sharp end.

“There’s been an attack on the west coast,” Dad begins slowly, studying us with an unreadable expression. “Anton Morozov’s daughter was just admitted to the hospital, half dead.”

What the fuck? My stomach drops, and my brain immediately scrambles to wake up and flip through information.

I admittedly don’t know much about the Morozovs.

We’re neutral toward them. Not allies, not enemies.

We’re on entirely different sides of the country, and we don’t typically cross paths when doing business.

But the Morozov Bratva is big. As big and powerful as we are, if not more.

Anton is the Pakhan, and if his daughter was attacked… something has seriously gone wrong.

Silence echoes around the room, though I know a dozen questions are being held back. Half dead is not good. Half dead is code for should be dead. If the girl didn’t have a Pakhan father with endless connections and a team of doctors, she probably wouldn’t have a fighting chance at surviving.

Dad can’t hide his frown, looking deeply uncomfortable as he continues, “You’re likely going to hear rumors about the things that happened to her in the coming days. Not all of the men who did this have been caught, and some of them have big mouths.”

“Which is why we’ve called you all in here,” Uncle Cesar chips in, voice thick with tension.

“We’re all on high alert until the last of them has been hunted down and killed.

Anton hasn’t put an official hit out to try and shed his daughter from this becoming the latest news, but our mutual acquaintances have put us on notice. ”

“We have names and faces,” Dad says, opening a white folder and tossing it across the desk. Nico is the first to snatch it up. “If any of them are spotted in our territory, I expect you all to act accordingly. No questions, no mercy.”

“No mercy,” Cesar emphasizes, echoing his brother in a perfect mimic.

Though my uncle is almost a decade younger than my dad, they’re very similar. Not particularly in looks, but in the way they speak. Dad is more polished while Uncle Cesar is wilder, and still, they’re always a united front when it comes to business and family.

“Is she going to be okay?” I ask, no longer able to bite my tongue.

Apollo pins me with a dark look. “She’s going to live.”

I hate the way that sounds and I hate that I know what he means.

Anya Morozov will continue to breathe today, but she won’t be okay.

She might never be okay again.

“Do we know why this happened?” Elio asks, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort. “Was this about the girl? A targeted attack against the Bratva? Who are these men?”

Uncle Cesar and Dad share a slow, silent glance. And apparently, they come to some kind of agreement in a matter of moments.

Our father opens his mouth to speak first. “Anton’s estranged wife set it up as revenge for being cast out as a traitor. She wanted to hit him where it hurt, and used her daughter’s trust in her to do it. The men are all bottom of the barrel scum who will do anything for a check.”

Uncle Cesar growls, barely waiting for Dad to finish talking. “Including tearing a fifteen-year-old girl open from the inside out.”

She’s only fifteen?

Nausea churns in my gut and my hands feel suddenly clammy.

Any age is too fucking young for what I think we’re talking about, but Jesus Christ. Fifteen?

“Her mother set this up?” Armani asks, sounding as disgusted as I feel.

Uncle Cesar dips his head, curling his lip up in anger. “Set it up, watched, filmed it, and sent it to Anton. She’s also missing. We’ll have a photo of her too, but it’s unlikely that she’ll make her way toward the East Coast. Anton has reason to believe she’s fled the country.”

“Gesù Cristo,” Elio swears under his breath, shaking his head.

“I can set up surveillance alerts for their faces,” Remo offers quietly, taking his turn to flip through the photos. “Facial recognition isn’t perfect, but it could help monitor the areas around us. I could probably set it up for the Morozovs too, if they wanted.”

Our uncle softens just a little bit. He’s always liked all of us, but Remo and Nico especially. “I’ll extend the offer.”

“I get that we’re trying to be tactful given that this involves a fifteen-year-old girl,” Nico starts, actually attempting to lighten his dull tone for once.

“But what are we talking about here? I need to know what they actually did so I can punish them accordingly. Did they torture her? Rape her? More?”

Apollo answers, short and clipped. “Yes.”

Bile burns the back of my throat. I’d already assumed, but everything in me wished that I was wrong.

Dad’s fists flex at his sides and he breathes out harshly. “Three men haven’t been apprehended. Anton and his sons already killed four. Whatever you think happened, I assure you, it was worse.”

Seven men against a fifteen-year-old girl.

Seven men hired by that very same girl’s own mother.

I don’t know what to do with my hands as they start to feel heavy and twitchy. Nothing makes you hate humanity more than hearing about the worst of it. I don’t think I’m going to be able to go back to sleep after this.

I obviously know very little about Anya Morozov.

I know that she’s Anton’s youngest, and that she’s a well-known ballerina in the Russian ballet scene.

I know that she has two older brothers, Dmitri and Ivan.

And now I know the worst thing that has happened and probably will ever happen to her.

It’s so messed up that it makes my head spin.

Mafia princesses being hurt is such a tough subject for so many.

Some families find it shameful, or embarrassing.

Some deal with it openly in the name of revenge, and some never speak of it to give her the illusion of privacy.

And for Anya, I know that means years of pitying looks and unwelcome sympathies.

The mafia world is wide and yet somehow incredibly small.

Everyone hears everything that happens at any given time.

I usually know much more than just everyone’s names, because I make it a priority to do so.

But I don’t look into neutral parties as heavily as I would look into an enemy or even an ally.

“Do we think any of these sick fucks are heading in our direction?” The sound of Leon’s voice startles me out of my thoughts.

My second eldest brother’s question is projected through a tablet that I didn’t realize Remo has been holding. As an underboss, he lives a couple hours away—toward the edge of our territory—and therefore wasn’t available to be thrown out of bed at 3:00 a.m. like the rest of us.

At least he was awake to be conferenced in.

Emilio is probably passed the fuck out with his wife, none the wiser to the awful news we’re all absorbing.

Since he’s our family’s version of a representative to the civilian world, he isn’t often involved in the criminal side of things.

So being a part of a meeting where we’re being told to kill on sight isn’t exactly his place, anyway.

“At least two have East Coast ties,” Apollo answers, speaking up to make sure Leon can hear him. “We’ve given their faces to all our men with a made-up reason. If anyone asks why you’re looking, they’ve been accused of looking to traffic more than just drugs in our territory.”

Human trafficking is a big fucking no-no. It’s a good way to get the men fired up and looking without giving up the real reason. Probably Apollo’s idea. He’s a stiff, domineering jerk most of the time, but he’s always been clever. Him, Leon, and Cassio especially.

“Don’t talk to too many people,” Uncle warns with a grunt. “We don’t want the wrong ears listening in and tipping them off that they’re being looked for before we can locate them.”

A few mumbles and sounds of agreement echo around me.

“Any more questions?”

So many, and yet none at all. I feel like I’m intruding just knowing the things we’ve all learned. It’s for a good reason, yes, but it still feels wrong all the same. I wouldn’t want a bunch of strangers knowing my greatest trauma, and I certainly wouldn’t want them asking extra questions about it.

Dad nods at our lack of response. “We’ll let you know if we get any more updates in the morning. Get some sleep, if you still can. And it goes without saying, that this information doesn’t leave this room.”

All my brothers voice their agreement and begin to file out of the office. I follow the group, almost feeling dizzy as I do. A knot of tension is still sitting heavily in my gut as I overhear Nico and Remo in front of me.

“I need those files digitized.”

“I figured you would.”

“Tonight, Remo.”

“I gathered that, Nico. It’ll only take me two minutes.”

“Good.”

“Nico?” I call quietly, quickly jogging to catch up with the twins.

He stops walking and gestures for Remo to go on without him.

“What?” His reply isn’t as frosty as it can be.

Nico is our future enforcer, learning under Uncle Cesar. He’s technically a sociopath, I think. Anti-social personality disorder without a diagnosis. He likes torturing and killing more than I like dessert, and that’s saying a lot.

“Why do you want the files digitized?”

He looks at me like that’s the dumbest question I could have asked, face pinched. “I want them on my phone.”

I hold back a sigh. “Obviously. But why?”

“Because, I’m going to hunt them down and kill them. Obviously.”

Suddenly, that knot of tension begins to feel less heavy. “You are?”

“Yeah,” he says, almost scoffing the word. “Why would I wait around to see if I happen to stumble upon them? I’ll find them and take my time squeezing every last bit of life out of them. One by one, until there’s nothing left but pieces to send to Anton.”

Normally, my brother’s obviously psychotic tendencies and his love for bloodshed wouldn’t appeal to me. It doesn’t really freak me out, either. I can kill people too, and I have. Doing it for sport just isn’t my thing.

But tonight? I can’t help but feeling drawn to it.

And before I know it, I’ve said something I’ve never said to Nico before.

“Can I join you?”