Savage Enemy (Savage Syndicate #2)

Prologue

VAL

BEFORE

I wondered about the corpse in my wedding gown while I watched my father’s black sedan teetering over the edge of the bridge. Her name. Where she came from. How she really died.

Who had loved her?

For what felt like an eternity, the damn car didn’t fall into the river. But it would—because it had to.

My freedom depended on it. My life did too.

Drop, for God’s sake.

For mine.

At the last moment, the car tipped forward and plunged into the blue-green water, stunning the crowd into silence.

I let out the breath I’d been holding.

The wake rocked the ferry from where I stood, and the woman beside me let out a piercing shriek.

We both grabbed the guardrail.

The water settled. It was over.

Emergency sirens wailed through the streets.

In the days that followed, headlines would read, “Valentina Moscatelli, 18, Drowns in Chicago River on Wedding Day.”

I doubted my fiancé would bother to pretend to mourn for even a minute. He would have a new bride within a week.

Friends and family would believe I drowned in my wedding dress, trapped in the submerged car, surrounded by floating layers of white lace.

All of them—all but my nonna .

After learning my father had sold me to Chicago’s infamous forty-something Russian sociopath, Nonna planned my escape, managing every detail. She gave me a fighting chance to stay alive and to have the kind of life my mother never had before my father killed her.

Nonna saved me from the Mafia before Vladimir Klimov could marry me and imprison me in Bratva territory, where I would have disappeared forever. The sick bastard killed his wives when he got tired of them, usually within the first year.

My father knew this as well as anyone, but he never loved me enough to care whether I lived or died.

Only the business deal I secured for him mattered.

Calling me his little princess didn’t fool anyone.

“This is Valentina, mia piccola principessa ,” he would say whenever introducing me to potential business partners.

Most people saw through his motives and his false affection for me. His cold expressions and the way he never looked at me or touched me gave him away.

I was property.

My father believed he owned me. Like a rancher selling off a prized heifer to the highest bidder seeking prime breeding stock.

Thanks to Nonna, I had a chance to escape the depraved bastard. The life she’d planned for me offered a chance to live outside the Mafia. And maybe even marry a good, honest man with a steady job.

It didn’t matter if my future husband and I lived on modest salaries. I only ever wanted a safe home with someone who wouldn’t hurt me, and a warm house filled with the laughter of our children.

Nonna had arranged for a friend from the old country to put me up in her place in Brooklyn. The woman had promised Nonna she would love me like a granddaughter and help me start my new life as Valerie Salera.

Clouds drifted past the skyline, and sunlight warmed my cheeks, shoulders, arms, and my soul, burning away the shadows of my former life.

Face tilted toward the sky, I sighed.

As far as anyone knew, I was dead.

A soon-to-be distant memory.

The clock started ticking the moment the paid truck driver crashed into my father’s car. I had to move fast, stay on track, getting out of Chicago before my family found me. My father had connections everywhere. Associates in every corner of the world, so it seemed.

All except one.

New York.

A formal treaty between Chicago and New York kept the families from crossing into each other’s territory.

No business. No bloodshed. And no visits to say hello or fuck you.

Those who broke the treaty faced severe punishments—if they made it back alive.

Valentina Moscatelli could be taken captive in New York, enslaved, or sent back to my father, but Valerie Salera? She was no one. Just a poor Italian girl trying to put food on her table and a roof over her head.

I slid my hand into my bag and gripped the train ticket until my knuckles turned white. A one-way ticket from Union Station to Penn Station in Manhattan.

Sunlight slipped through the bag’s opening and glinted off the small pistol I’d stolen from my big brother Marco’s closet.

The ferry’s arrival whistle blew, startling me, and I slammed my bag shut to hide the gun.

With my head down beneath a dark blue Cubs cap and my hair falling like a curtain around my face, I stepped onto the dock with the crowd and headed west toward the train station.

Sweat trickled down my back, and my pulse pounded in my ears. I kept checking over my shoulder during the entire thirty-five-minute walk, expecting to see my father’s men trailing me.

Or worse—my twin brother Aris.

If he found me, I wouldn’t go back. I’d throw myself in front of a bus before I let that sadist touch me again.

His bruises and scars marked my body, a testament to years of cruelty. I could only imagine what he would do now that I’d jeopardized the family’s multimillion-dollar deal with the Russians.

I had no doubt.

Aris would hurt me. And our father would let him.

The evil bastard wouldn’t just beat me. He would force our little brother Santo to watch. A sweet nine-year-old, still untouched by the realities of our life. Aris would kill Santo’s soul in front of me, because he knew how much I loved my baby brother.

I stepped into Chicago’s iconic train station.

With my head down and eyes up, I scanned the great hall and found a spot to press my back against the cool marble wall and watch for familiar faces while keeping mine hidden.

A man nearby sat on a bench, talking into his phone.

“Such a shame,” he said. “Pretty young thing. But her father’s a monster.

Everyone knows Moscatelli’s no better than a common criminal.

Lives in that mansion on the Gold Coast, pretending he’s legit.

I swear, the city would be better off without him.

He’s probably the reason there are so many guns on the street. ”

The stranger wasn’t wrong.

If anything, he underestimated my father.

Saul “The Pianist” Moscatelli ran a lot more than guns. He profited from half of the heroin in Chicago, and he also had no problem dealing death. He also had city officials on his payroll or in his debt—including the mayor and the police chief.

The mayor might have meant to be a good man. He campaigned on taking down the city’s crime lords. But then my family got their hands on his daughter. My father let Aris do unspeakable things, and threatened worse, including releasing a video. My father took what he wanted by force.

God help anyone who got in his way. Friend, family, enemy.

The stranger on the bench let out an awkward laugh and scanned the area, his eyes flitting past me, then back again. His brows lowered like if he was trying to place me.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

I ducked my head and let my hair fall forward.

And I prayed.

The man jumped up and grabbed his briefcase.

His train must’ve been called.

Fuck. He headed for the same track as mine.

Heart pounding, I raced to the sleeper car and hurried down the narrow corridor to my private room.

I slammed the door and yanked the curtain shut.

Peeking through a small slit, I watched the man pass.

Had he recognized me?

Was he following me? Looking for me?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I didn’t know what to do.

I doubled checked the lock—unlocking it and relocking it three times to satisfy my paranoia.

For the next twenty hours, curled up on the worn faux-leather two-seater, I stared at that stupid metal door with the dirty red curtain.

I didn’t sleep.

I refused food every time the attendant knocked.

When the train finally pulled into Penn Station, I closed my eyes for just a minute.

I took in a long, deep breath.

My first breath as a free girl who’d escaped death by faking her death.

I’d escaped the Mafia.

And the Bratva.

God, I hoped it would last.