Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
MASSIO
The Jennings residence is in a lavish gated community in West Falls on the east side of New Jersey. Its large wooden gates have a keypad entrance but are open as I approach, something I’m not used to.
Security is always at the forefront of the Mafia’s mind, so to have such little awareness of it is, frankly, bizarre.
Vinny has always lived in a fortress, and now his heir Rafael lives there, commanding the Marino dynasty as his father taught him.
Here, the security leaves little to be desired. Hell, there isn’t even a guard on the gate, and that needs to change.
Why the hell Ford Jennings deems it necessary for his little pampered princess to receive an armed bodyguard while their home security is so shoddy makes no sense to me whatsoever. Still, who am I to question the old prick’s mindset?
I continue up the cobbled driveway, expecting someone to stop me, to ask who the hell I am and what I’m doing on the premises, but nothing, not a damn thing.
When I reach the front door, I come to a stop and park. The whole setup feels off, as if they welcome strangers onto the premises without considering the consequences.
Sure, Ford isn’t part of La Familia, per se, but he is used as one of their go-to lawyers. A hotshot lawyer, actually, and the number one reason my ex, Veronica, found her way into bed with him, then a ring on her finger while she was still married to me.
Yeah, the bitch was engaged to another man while I was attempting to play happy family with her.
No sooner had the ink on our wedding certificate dried had she obtained an annulment because something flashier and more lucrative had come along.
I was willing to turn my back on La Familia to create a stable homelife with her, and all the bitch saw was dollar signs, and in the process, she destroyed me and everything I’d worked so hard to achieve for us.
She made a laughingstock out of me, turning me into the hardened man I am today, the man I never wanted to be.
I was a nondescript Mafia soldier, a high school dropout whose parents had been killed when I was a young boy, and while she fell for the bad-boy persona, she loved the money more. Then she married someone old enough to be her grandfather and got knocked up in their first year of marriage.
I’d never seen Veronica as the maternal type, so I wasn’t worried about any accidental pregnancy. In all honesty, she’d shied away from settling down. It was me who had his head in the clouds, wanting to create something I never received as a child—a stable home with both loving parents present.
After my parents were killed, my Uncle Sal took me in, and while I called him uncle as a child, I was aware he isn’t my blood uncle.
More of a mutual friend of my father’s, one who happened to take in strays like collectibles.
I was grateful for his approach and even more grateful for the kids, who, like me, were lost souls wanting nothing more than a warm bed and food in their stomachs.
I quickly became brothers with the boys Sal called his own, and our uncle became the only father figure we ever needed.
Still, I’ve longed for the family life I’ve witnessed others achieve. Even Vinny fucking Marino, Sal’s older brother, has become the true definition of a family man. Something I admire and detest all in one.
I step out of my SUV and stretch my neck from side to side. As I glance over my shoulder at the mansion, a smile creeps over my face, no doubt making me look villainous to the outside world.
If only they knew.
Veronica Jennings is about to become everything she never expected and everything she will hate—a grandmother to my baby.