Ruins (Sovereigns #1)

1. Santo

Chapter 1

Santo

Twelve Years Ago

I t was my mother’s hand.

Over a week ago, my father, brother, and I all received pieces of my mother’s mutilated body.

I received her hand.

The one that held mine for seventeen years, that scuffled my hair when I was happy and wiped my tears when I scraped a knee. There it laid, severed from her body, with her wedding ring still glittering on her finger.

My father gave it to her when he proposed and declared that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Their love, in this kind of life, belonged in the books I read growing up, a love fit for fairytales rather than the nightmare it has become.

I spend the night hacking every surveillance camera in the area for an inkling of which one of our enemies did this to her.

That’s my job now.

It’s my time to join Cosa Nostra, work for my father, the Don, and find my mother’s murderer.

My stomach threatens to push up bile as I envision the torture she must have gone through, the fear she must have felt.

The computer pings, I found it.

I found surveillance from a traffic camera of the men in question; I send off the footage to my father’s email and I continue to search for anything closer to her home.

Her home.

That was his biggest mistake.

If the great Marcello Amato made any mistake in his life, it was separating my mother, from our family home. In his fear for her safety, he did the one thing that caused her demise.

Another ping thrills through the computer as it pulls up footage from the broken camera I salvaged from the front of her estate, but I can’t watch it.

I won’t watch it.

I refuse to watch as they take my mother from the front steps of her home.

Instead, I send the footage to my father.

I blow up their images from the traffic camera and put them through the facial recognition software I created last year.

Grabbing what’s left of my energy drink, I chug it down as I wait.

I should start Stanford next week; I graduated high school early and I’m ready to get away from this shit. I don’t want to be a consigliere, or an underboss, or a soldier. I want to invent; I want to make my genius ideas tangible and help people. I don’t want to kill, fight, steal or maim.

I want to be me. I want to read; I want to build. I want to be the son that makes my mother proud whether or not she’s here.

The computer pings.

I got a hit.

The screen pulls up two photos of the men who took her. Their names… they’re Armenian.

That doesn’t make sense.

As far as I know, Vartan Sarkisian, head of the Armenian mob, doesn’t have an issue with us. We aren’t friendly, but we aren’t enemies. His men wouldn’t do this unprovoked. I send over the photos and intel to my father’s email, and I finally leave my computer, throw myself on my bed and rest.

***

With a jolt, I am ripped from sleep by the forceful hands of my older brother. His grip is tight and urgent, sending waves of adrenaline coursing through my body. He thrusts a pair of rumpled jeans at me from my closet, his face twisted in determination.

“We have to get ready,” Angelo seethes, his normally smooth voice rough and strained. “We found those fuckers.”

My mind struggles to catch up with his intense energy. “Where are we going? Who is Dad sending?”

Angelo’s jaw clenches, the muscles jumping beneath his skin. “Who is he sending ? He’s sending us!” He bellows, spittle flying from his lips. “We are spearheading this shit, it’s about our mother. You want anyone else avenging her death?”

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I run a shaky hand through my hair. “Angelo, I don’t want to do this.”

He shoves me roughly, grabbing the collar of my shirt and lifting me until our faces are inches apart. “You don’t want to?” he scoffs. “You don’t have a choice, little brother.” He pushes me back onto the bed forcefully.

I bounce slightly but steady myself, bracing for a punch that never comes. “I can’t do it, Angelo. I’m not like you.”

He turns away quickly, but then whirls back around to throw a shirt at me before getting in my face again. “Like me ?” He locks his darkened gaze onto mine, his voice filled with venom and self-loathing. “A monster like me, you mean?”

I shake my head and try to speak, but he cuts me off.

“No, you think that don’t you? Because you were sheltered under mommy’s protection while I had to struggle and fight for Dad’s approval.”

He sneers at me. “While you buried your nose in books and hid away with your little trinkets, building foolish gadgets like a child, I was getting my hands dirty and preparing for a battle like this.”

He swings his arms around in a wild gesture. “And this, little brother, is the biggest fight of our lives. So, you’re going to have to pull your head out of the clouds, close your fairy tale books, and get your ass up because tonight will be your first kill.”

His words hang in the air, heavy with tension and the weight of our family’s vendetta.

My heart races even faster, thumping against my chest like a wild animal trying to escape its cage. My breaths come in sharp gasps, each one harder to catch than the last. The room feels smaller; the walls closing in on me as I struggle to breathe.

“Angelo, please,” I plead, my voice trembling with fear and desperation. “I can’t do it.”

“You can!” he shouts, grabbing me by the shoulders, his fingers dig in painfully. “When we spar, you- you get angry and strong. Use whatever you feel then to your advantage now.”

“That’s just adrenaline, Angelo,” I try to reason, but he shakes me forcefully.

“Then use it!” he insists, his eyes blazing with a ferocity I’ve never seen before. “Remember how you felt when you found Mom’s hand in that box? Or think about her being tortured and begging for someone to save her? And no one did! Use that anger,” he grits, pushing me away as my vision blackens around the edges.

As my vision clears, I find myself standing over a sniveling man - the same man from the photos I sent my father.

He is one of the men who took my mother.

In one trembling hand, I hold a sharp knife, while in the other, a pair of plyers clamps down on a severed tongue. My heart is pounding so hard it feels as if it will burst out of my chest. The man before me sobs uncontrollably, blood spilling from his mouth in a constant stream. There's another man tied to a chair being mercilessly pummeled by Angelo.

The sickening sound of knuckles meeting bone echoes in my ears, mixing with Angelo’s heavy breaths. Suddenly, a deafening ringing overtakes all other sounds until it’s the only thing left.

The knife is still in my hand. My fingers won’t let go.

The man isn’t screaming anymore. Blood drips from my grip, warm and thick.

I don’t know if I want to throw up or if I feel nothing at all.

Then—darkness.

When my vision returns, I’m standing in the foyer of my father’s home. The weight of his hand hitting my shoulder feels like a heavy boulder pushing me under waves. My shirt is stiff with dried blood, the metallic tang still clinging to my skin. My muscles ache— how long have I been running on adrenaline? The sudden stillness of the house feels foreign, like I’ve stepped into a place I no longer belong.

“I’m proud of you; we got them,” he says with a beaming smile. “You’ve made names for yourselves, Scythe and Sinner. Your mother would be proud.”

My gaze falls on my brother, noticing how worn he looks. How long has it been since I last saw him? His eyes meet mine and he places a heavy arm on my shoulder, leading me up the stairs.

“We did it, Scythe,” he says with a sense of triumph in his voice. “We avenged her.”

“Scythe?” I question, confused by the use of this nickname.

He chuckles darkly.

“We did good,” he repeats, emphasizing each word. “It was a long and difficult month, but we did it.”

My mind reels trying to piece together what happened.

A month?

Memories flood back to me in disjointed fragments, bringing with them a whirlwind of emotions - relief, grief, dread. It all feels like a distant dream now that we’ve achieved our goal, but at what cost?