Property of the Outlaw (Iron Shadows MC #6)

Prologue

My room is quiet. It’s always quiet. I make sure of that.

No noise. No distractions. No reminders of the chaos I spend my life controlling. In here, everything is exactly where it should be. Clean. Ordered. Untouched.

Safe.

I sit on the edge of the bed, sleeves rolled, my phone heavy in my hand. It weighs more than it should.

It always does when I bring myself to watch the videos.

For a long moment, I just stare at the screen.

Then I press play and laughter fills the room.

Small. Bright. Alive.

It hits me in the chest harder than any bullet ever could.

My daughter, my precious girl, stands on a chair at the kitchen counter, a mixing bowl nearly as big as she is clutched in her tiny arms. Flour dusts her cheeks, streaked across her skin like war paint.

“Mamma, I’m doing it!”

“You are doing it,” her mother says, laughing softly. “But maybe a little slower, sì? We don’t need the whole kitchen covered tonight.”

“We do!” she argues.

I almost smile.

My wife looks toward me… toward the camera… and her expression softens.

“Are you just going to stand there and watch, or are you going to help, amore?”

I remember this.

I remember standing there, leaning against the counter, watching them like it was the only thing in the world that mattered.

Maybe it was.

“Papa!” my daughter calls, looking straight at me through the screen. “We’re making pancakes! For dinner!”

Pancakes.

Not pasta. Not anything that makes sense in this Italian household.

Just pancakes.

Every Saturday.

I told her it was wrong. That we were Italian. That pancakes weren’t dinner.

She told me I was wrong.

She knew this without a shadow of doubt because she was five and always right.

My chest tightens as I watch the scene unfold.

My daughter’s laughter. My wife’s voice. The sound of something I can’t have anymore, filling a room that was never meant to hold it.

When it ends, the silence comes back.

It’s louder than the video ever was.

“I miss you, amori miei,” I tell the frozen image of my wife and daughter as they smile back at me through the phone. “I love you both to the moon and back.”

I toss my phone aside and lie back on the bed, not bothering to undress.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of my wife and daughter’s deaths.

Their murder.

The word sits heavy in my chest, sharp and unforgiving.

Everything in me wants to go out into the world and wreak havoc on the men responsible for taking them from me.

But I already have.

I made sure they paid.

There’s no one left to take my anger out on.

And if I’m being completely honest with myself, there isn’t much anger left.

Just brokenness. Loneliness.

Emptiness.

That thought alone makes me feel guilty, but I’m a reasonable man. I know there’s nothing to be guilty about.

My wife and daughter never came second to the family business. They were always first in my life.

I have no regrets in how I treated them. How I loved them.

My only regret is that I’m the reason they were killed.

It was done to make me lose control. To leave my growing business vulnerable.

I smile at the memory of the blood that seeped into the grounds of my estate in Sicily.

Yes, I may have lost control of my emotions when those bastards killed my family, but it sure as hell didn’t leave any weaknesses in my walls.

If anything, it made me stronger.

It took months to capture the man who followed my family to the store and shot them dead. Three more months to break him and get a name.

Years to find the man who gave the order.

Lorenzo DeLuca.

The man who thought that if he weakened me enough, he could take me out and take over as Don to The Moretti Family Mafia.

His ultimate mistake was going after my twin brother, Stefano.

I knew DeLuca would target my only other weakness, so I made sure my brother was protected every moment of his life.

Much to his annoyance.

DeLuca got desperate one day and put a hit out on Stefano.

Catching the hitman was easy.

I had eyes on Stefano and his home at all times. The sniper didn’t even get the chance to find a place to set up before my men had him contained.

Breaking him was easier.

It only took hours.

DeLuca had hired him through the black market, but I have men who know how to follow money and blood. It didn’t take long to trace it back to the hole the coward was hiding in.

Once I had him in my basement… I took my time.

Five years of torture.

One year for every year my precious daughter lived.

Her five years were short.

DeLuca’s were not.

So my family has been avenged. The anger is gone, but the heartache isn’t.

I moved from Sicily to New York fifteen years ago, effectively bringing the Moretti Mafia into the United States.

What was once a small family operation has grown into an empire of thousands.

The Moretti name is respected by some… and feared by most.

Ten years ago, men in my organization began reaching out, asking for a safe haven. Somewhere their families could live outside the constant reach of danger.

I understood that need.

I wanted it too.

A place where I could exist without the weight of being Don. Even if only for a few days each month.

So I created one.

Palm Springs, California.

A desert that hides more than it reveals.

A place of quiet. Of distance.

Of something that almost feels like home.

I built an estate here…Italian in design but far removed from everything I came from. And when I’m here, I put distance between myself and the title I carry.

Not because I don’t want to be Don, but because even a man like me cannot carry everything forever.

We run too many operations, both legitimate and otherwise, for one man to control it all.

So I adapted.

I placed ten of my most trusted men in charge of our largest factions across the world, giving them authority where mine once stood alone.

And for the first time in years…I stepped back.

I met the Iron Shadows MC that first year in Palm Springs.

I didn’t tell them who I was. I wanted to live a normal life while I was here.

I kept that secret for years… until I had no other choice but to reveal who I was so we could take down a common enemy.

I’m grateful the brotherhood didn’t turn their backs on me after that.

Sure, they were shocked.

But the shock wore off, and not much has changed in how they treat me.

Except Skip.

He likes to use my name to strike fear into anyone who pisses him off… and he takes full advantage of my jet privileges.

I smile.

Crazy man.

I adore them all.

Even with thoughts of my family…both Moretti and Shadows…filling my mind, my heart still aches with loneliness.

Especially when I hear the donne telling the children to stop screaming because il Don is trying to sleep.

I smile...but the knowledge that none of those giggles or the patter of bare feet belong to my own daughter cuts deeper than I care to admit.

“All is well,” I call out, not wanting their play to stop.

“He’s awake,” a child whispers excitedly. “Maybe he wants to play.”

My estate houses five families in the main house and another ten in the homes we’ve built across the property.

The main estate is where schooling and dinners take place.

So it’s never quiet here.

Between those fifteen families, there are thirty-nine children of varying ages.

There are also three more young ones whose families were killed in the Los Fantasmas attack a couple of years ago.

This estate is the most protected location I have because of the number of precious lives under my roof.

New York is the largest base of my empire, and just as heavily protected.

One reason is that my twin runs it.

His safety is my highest priority there.

The second… is deception.

It’s where the world believes I reside…thanks to my brother’s handsome face.

It wouldn’t take much digging to uncover that I have a twin, but most of the men I do business with aren’t nearly as clever as they think they are.

As much as he hates being part of this life, it was Stefano’s idea to take New York.

To stand in my place.

To wear my face.

Because when it comes to the Moretti Mafia’s enemies… I’m always the target.

And just like before, they know the easiest way to get to me is through my family.

So my brother keeps our face visible in New York when I’m not there, letting the world believe I never leave.

Los Fantasmas already attacked my estate once.

They killed some of my people.

That wasn’t personal, though. It was a cartel trying to claim territory they wanted to exploit.

I may not have my wife and daughter anymore, but I learned exactly what it costs to lose them.

I won’t be paying that price twice.