His Savage Vow (Savage Vows Duet #1)

Chapter 1

“I used to worry about you growing up in a world like this… then you turned into the kind of woman who could handle anything it throws at her.”

— ROBERT MONROE

Constance Monroe

The rain starts to fall as soon as the funeral home begins lowering my father into the ground.

It’s not a soft drizzle like the tears of the gathered mourners. It’s a downpour that washes out the opening of the grave and leaves muddy rivulets pouring down onto the coffin as it’s lowered into the earth. The storm is loud and angry, fitting for the day and my mood.

Standing beneath a borrowed black umbrella, I try to listen while a priest I’ve never met speaks platitudes about a man he didn’t know.

I can’t hear his mumbled words over the thunder and rain.

I don’t have to hear him to know he’s probably talking about my father being in a better place, finding peace, eternal rest, that it’s all part of God’s plan, blah, blah, blah.

If this is God’s plan, then I don’t want anything to do with him.

There’s no peace to be found when a loved one is murdered so cruelly and painfully.

Since the night of the fire, every time I close my eyes, my mind fills with my father’s screams of anguish. I want to believe that he didn’t suffer, that he died from smoke inhalation before burning alive. Even if that were true, it provides little comfort.

My father never believed in heaven or hell or put any faith in gods. What he believed in was taking care of his family and the people who worked for him, earning enough money to pay his bills on time, and minding his own business. He believed in quiet dignity and respected every soul he met.

He also believed that the Luciani family, the mobsters he gave ten percent of his profits to, would protect him from evil bastards like the ones who set him and his restaurant on fire.

They didn’t.

The umbrella does little to keep me dry when the rain begins to blow sideways.

It soaks through my clothes and sends a chill through me that I feel in my bones.

I don’t care. I’m already drowning emotionally.

I may as well stand here and drown literally now that both of my parents are gone.

There’s no one left to love me the way only a mother or father can love.

“Constance.” My best friend Melissa gently calls my name. She holds out a single red rose to me, which I absently take without looking at her. I don’t want to see the pity in her eyes. I don’t want to see her tears washing away in the rain, or the sadness on her face.

I am so over the cold, wet grief.

I want a blazing fucking fire. Not like the one that burned down my father’s restaurant and took his life. I want one of my own making. I want to rage. I want to howl like this storm, to scream until my throat grows raw. As if that will do any good.

For the first time in my life, I want to hit someone, to hurt them the way I’m hurting.

But Melissa doesn’t deserve my wrath. She’s done nothing wrong. “Give me a moment,” I say to her, my voice husky from crying for days on end as I twirl the long, thornless stem between my fingers.

My friend hesitates but finally backs away, leaving me alone beside my father’s grave while everyone else runs toward their cars.

I can’t help but notice a black SUV idling across the cemetery road with dark windows. No one gets out. No one comes to mourn. It just sits there while someone inside watches me.

Since I have a feeling about who it is, I flip him the middle finger before turning back to the final resting place for my father.

There wasn’t enough of him left for a casket, but I know he would want to be buried next to my mother.

The funeral home asked me what I wanted to put on his headstone. I had no fucking clue. I’d never thought to ask my father what he wanted etched into the stone that marks his final resting place.

I finally decided to mimic what he put on my mother’s when she died eleven years ago from a hit and run.

Robert Monroe. Beloved Father and Husband. 1967–2026.

It doesn’t do him justice. He was so much more, but how do you fit a lifetime of memories onto a granite memorial?

My father was a good man. A good man who made some bad business decisions to make ends meet. Decisions that were meant to give me a better life. Decisions that cost him his life.

He was too kind, too honest for this city. And so loyal that he died doing the dirty work for a mobster.

I crouch beside the grave, ignoring the way the mud clings to my heels, to toss my rose onto his coffin before it’s covered up.

“I told you,” I whisper. “I told you not to trust him.”

Dad never listened to me. He believed in seeing the best in people and always giving them a chance. I wasn’t that na?ve.

Maximo Luciani walked into my father’s restaurant in person for the first time six years ago. He was so charming in his fancy suit, offering my father a deal to make a little extra money on the side and promising protection by the Luciani family if there was ever any trouble.

My dad didn’t want to use his deliveries to smuggle street drugs. But he also didn’t want to get on the gangster’s shit list. Everyone on our block knows that when the mob asks for something, it’s not really a request. It’s a demand, one that you can’t refuse.

So, my father agreed. He signed a deal in writing, and then even after paying a cut of his profits every month, he began earning his own little slice. The proceeds from his shady side business paid for our kitchen upgrades and put me through school.

He did everything Luciani asked, and what did he get for his final reward? Someone chaining up the exits and setting fire to him, his life’s work, and to my entire world.

My father is gone, but Maximo is still alive and well, sitting in his SUV because he refuses to let a drop of water ruin his designer suit, before returning to his mansion where he’ll indulge in caviar and smoke rare cigars.

Or whatever rich pricks do while destroying the lives of those beneath them.

Well, he’s about to have a disruption to his perfect gangster world.

I turn from the grave and head for my car, annoyed the SUV has already left before I could have a word with the bastard inside. When I get behind the wheel, my hair is plastered to my forehead and cheeks, and my black pantsuit is dripping onto the floorboard.

A towel or hot shower would be nice right now, but I can’t exactly go home. My father and I shared an apartment above the restaurant. It was the only home I had ever known, and now it’s nothing but ashes in the wind.

I’ve spent the last few nights in a nearby hotel while making arrangements for the funeral. I checked out this morning after I found a letter slipped under my door.

“My sincere condolences,” it read. “I wish to speak to you personally. Make an appointment to come see me at your earliest convenience. — M. Luciani” He included his card, jet black inlaid with gold lettering, with only his name and a phone number printed on the front.

It felt less like an invitation and more like a summons.

“Oh, you’re going to hear from me, you son of a bitch,” I promise as I put the car into gear.

I drive north until the houses get larger and farther apart as the income gap increases.

A sign indicates where the suburb of Scarsdale begins.

I follow the directions on my phone until I arrive at what looks like a well-kept garden.

A set of iron gates blocks the floral path, and as I drive closer, my GPS chimes to let me know I’ve reached my destination.

I can feel my blood boiling and my cheeks flush as I pull up to the gate and the small guard station by the driver side of my car.

I found this address so easily online that I had half expected it to lead me to an empty lot or an abandoned warehouse.

What kind of cocky motherfucker would run the mob and have their home address listed as public information?

A guard steps out of the small booth, eyes sharp and focused directly on me, his gun clearly visible on his hip like a warning.

He doesn’t have an umbrella, and water drips from his hat as he leans down to look inside at me just as another guard comes out behind him and walks around my car with a wand.

I roll down my window, and the first guard says, “Can I help you, miss?”

“My name is Constance Monroe. I want to see Maximo.”

The guard looks me over, taking in the wet clothes that cling to me like a second skin. He hesitates, as if he can’t decide if I’m potentially dangerous or just a drenched crazy woman.

“Wait here,” he finally says with a shake of his head, unable to make a decision.

I roll my window up and watch him walk back to the booth where he picks up a telephone and begins speaking with someone. When I glance up, I notice at least two security cameras swivel toward my car.

After a few minutes have passed, the delay pissing me off, the guard finally nods his head. The gates groan open before me, and he waves me through without another word.

As I drive through the archway, I’m struck by the immense size of the estate. The grounds are immaculate; the lawn is so perfect it appears as if someone trims every individual blade.

Despite the elegance, it doesn’t feel like someone’s home.

It feels like a kingdom, one that I’m trespassing on.

To my impoverished eye, it’s an impressive symbol. A mighty castle for the strongman who sits inside on a throne built on the sweat and blood of better men. Men like my father.

The armed guards standing out front on the covered porch barely spare me a glance. I climb out of my car and walk right up the steps and through the front door, dripping rainwater in a puddle on the marble floors like an abandoned mutt someone took pity on and brought inside to get warm.

A man steps into the hallway, freezing when he sees me, glowering at my drenched clothes before disappearing just as quickly as he appeared.