Chapter 1 #2
“I’m here just like you wanted! I got your bullshit note and saw you hiding in your car at the cemetery!” I shout, my voice cracking through the cavernous foyer. “So where are you, you son of a bitch?”
A voice answers from above, smooth and deadly.
“If you disrespect my mother again,” the man at the top of the grand staircase says, “you’ll fucking regret it.”
Maximo Luciani grips the handrail like he’s deciding whether to rip it off. He’s just as intimidating as I remember, tall, at least a few inches over six feet, and the shoulders of his suit jacket are taut with the muscles underneath, his black hair too neatly parted.
He doesn’t look surprised to see me. He does look annoyed. Violently so.
“Constance Monroe,” he says by way of greeting. “I’ll forgive your insolence this time since I know you’re still grieving. Your father was a good man—”
“And now he’s dead, thanks to you!” I interrupt him before walking up the stairs, each heel-click echoing like a countdown as I stalk towards him.
His jaw flexes once, subtly. “You blame me?”
“Of course I blame you!” I reply. “I know my dad died…he died during what was supposed to be one of your deliveries.” He frowns at me, as if shocked by my words or my audacity of showing up in his house to call him out to his face.
I climb up the last few steps separating us.
I don’t like having to look up at him, as if he’s somehow superior to me.
“You may not have set the fire,” I say, then stab my index finger into his chest while staring him right in his deep-set, dark eyes. “But you let my father die.”
Metal clicks echo from below and above us, the sound of what I’m certain are guns being cocked.
“Stand down,” Maximo grits out. It takes me a second to realize that he’s not talking to me.
From the corner of my eye, his army of men in dark suits lower their weapons, some of which are the biggest guns I’ve ever seen.
“Leave us,” he orders, and they instantly obey, returning to wherever they were hiding before.
“What do you want from me, Ms. Monroe? An apology won’t bring your father back.”
“I want some fucking answers!”
“And you think I don’t?” he mutters.
“What?” I ask in confusion.
“Let’s sit down and talk. And maybe find you a goddamn towel so you’re not dripping rainwater all over me.”
He glances down, and I do the same, seeing the water droplets on his leather loafers. My father is dead, and he’s worried about his expensive shoes?
It may be childish, but screw him. Pulling all my hair around one side of my shoulder, I wring it out in my fists, letting it pour onto his shoes while holding his gaze.
Before the last drop falls, he moves.
One second, I’m standing smugly in front of him, and the next, my hair is wrapped in his fist, and my back is arched over the staircase railing. The world tilts upside down. I grab the handrail in a white-knuckle grip while staring at the marble floor far below.
Dropped from this height onto my head may or may not kill me. I don’t really want to find out.
“This is your final warning, Ms. Monroe,” he says, voice disturbingly calm.
“Oh, fuck you! They’re just shoes! You can buy a dozen more pairs. My father is dead!”
There’s a dangerous beat of silence, then, “Your father never missed a payment or caused any problems with my shipments. He was respectful, profitable. I liked him.”
“Too bad that respect and profit wasn’t fireproof.”
“Do you want to join him on the other side now?” he asks in a cold whisper, gripping the waistband of my pants as if to finally toss me over the rail.
“What I want,” I blurt out, blood pounding in my ears, “are the heads of all the men who set the fire or gave the order! Can you give me that or not?”
The world snaps upright so fast I get whiplash. My knees buckle, and I have to catch myself on the railing.
“Maybe,” Maximo says.
“Maybe?” I whisper, still struggling to catch my breath and calm my racing heart.
Maximo tilts his head, studying me. “Do you actually think you could do it? Watch the men who killed your father die?”
“Help me find them,” I say through clenched teeth, “and I’ll kill them myself.”
“Brave words, Ms. Monroe. But revenge is an empty endeavor. You want to inflict pain on someone else to end the pain you’re feeling. It doesn’t work that way.”
I huff out a bark of laughter. “Don’t lecture me on revenge when you run an empire built on retaliation.
My father is dead. The only home I’ve ever known has been burned to the ground.
All I have left to look forward to now is finding the people responsible and making them pay.
I stupidly thought you would want the same since he was under your protection. My father deserved better.”
“I know he did,” Maximo replies. His voice loses all warmth, smoothing into something cold and absolute. “That’s why I won’t stop until I find who is to blame and make them regret moving against one of my own.”
It’s a relief to hear his promise, to know that we’ve found a common ground that leaves me feeling a little less alone than I’ve felt in days.
“Here’s a detail that not many people know: I believe there’s a traitor in my crew,” Maximo admits quietly. “Your father’s restaurant drop dates and times weren’t common knowledge. Someone sold him out. I’m working to find out who and why.”
My breath whooshes out of my lungs as if I’ve been punched. It’s not an easy truth to hear, but at least it’s a starting point.
“This isn’t going to be an easy road to go down, Ms. Monroe. And there’s no turning back once you do. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes,” I answer without hesitation. But something heavy and cold immediately lands on my chest, as if a part of me knows I should think this through a little longer.
“Fine. Get your revenge. But understand something, Ms. Monroe.” He leans in, his body radiating heat, his gaze cutting into me. “Your disrespectful behavior today is unacceptable going forward. My word is law in this house. Do you think you can follow my orders without losing your temper again?”
I swallow hard, considering his warning for a long moment. “I can’t live with what’s been done,” I reply. “If you can help me get justice for my father, then I’ll do whatever you say.”
He holds out his hand. “Then we have a deal. You’ll stay here until this is through.”
Stay here, in this mansion, with him? I open my mouth to refuse, but my options are fairly limited.
That’s why I swallow my objection and place my hand in his.
Maximo’s grip is firm. Too firm. Not a handshake, but a claim.
He calls it a deal, but I know better.
Nothing in his world comes without a price.
And as I pull my hand free from his bruising grip, a chill settles beneath my skin, the kind that whispers I’ve just traded something I’ll never get back.
I’ve made a revenge pact with a mob boss.
And some part of me already knows it won’t just change my life.
It’ll change me.