Wicked Mafia Beast (Red Letter Syndicate #4)

Chapter 1

One

Onyx

The study smells like cigars, old leather, and betrayal.

I breathe through my mouth, shallow and silent, pressing myself deeper into the gap between the heavy curtains and the cold window glass.

I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be in my room, playing the dutiful daughter, pretending I moved to Chicago to grieve my mother and stay close to family.

Instead, I've spent six months building a case that will destroy every last filthy Malone living. Starting with my father and his snake of a brother.

And now I'm trapped behind a thick, dusty curtain. My heart slams against my ribs, cold sweat slides down my spine and it’s hard to breathe as I listen to my uncle and father discuss my fate like I'm livestock.

"She's a liability." Seamus's voice slithers through the room. Low. Unhurried. The voice of a man who never has to raise it because people obey him the second his lips start moving. It’s that or you're dead and he replaces you with the next dirty gun-for-hire. I know because I’ve witnessed the depth of his depravity up close and personal.

Wiping blood off silk is impossible in case you are wondering.

"Your daughter has been investigating us, Declan. Building files and asking questions that will draw the wrong people’s attention. I told you to leave the bitch in New York," he continues.

My stomach drops so fast my knees almost buckle.

Sweat prickles along my hairline, cold like tiny needles. For the hundredth time today I wish I would stop forgetting to grab a clip for my hair.

How does he know? I've been so careful. I’ve stuck to using burner phones, encrypted emails. Damn, I’m so paranoid I only meet sources in coffee shops three towns over.

"That's not possible." My father's voice is weaker. It's always weaker. The man hasn't won an argument with his brother since before I learned to walk. Maybe longer. Hell, maybe never.

"Onyx wouldn't—" he tries again with a fraction more steel to his tone, but my uncle just steamrolls right over him.

"Wouldn't what? Betray her family?" Seamus laughs, and the sound scrapes down my spine like a razor on bone.

I've heard that laugh before. Right before he broke a man's fingers one by one at a dinner party.

The man apologized for bumping into him, but Seamus only laughed and it sounded just like this.

"She's been doing exactly that for six months. One of the editors she contacted owed me a favor. He sent me everything she submitted."

My entire body flushes with heat only to have ice chase it until my fingers start trembling.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

I knew the risks. I knew someone might talk. Journalists get burned by sources every day. But I was so close. Three more weeks. Three more weeks and I would have had enough evidence to drag every filthy Malone secret into the light and watch this empire burn to ash on the six o'clock news.

My palms turn slick against the curtain fabric. I wipe them on my jeans, one at a time, terrified of making even the smallest sound.

"What do you want me to do?" My father sounds tired. Defeated. The way he's sounded since Mom died. If I could see his face, I know I would find him looking at the floor while he’s rubbing at the wedding band on his finger.

He sounded just as defeated before she died as he does now. Only back then I didn't want to see it.

"I've already made arrangements." Seamus moves across the room.

I track his footsteps the way a rabbit tracks a hawk's shadow, mapping his position by sound alone. Closer to the desk now. Farther from me. Not far enough. I’d love for him to walk himself into a six foot hole, but wishful thinking never really comes true.

Seamus clears his throat like what he is about to say chokes even a cold-hearted bastard like himself up. Ha. Not likely. Rat bastard is probably choking back a laugh instead of tears.

"Society 69 is holding an auction Saturday night. Virgin lots fetch premium prices, and Onyx's... purity... has been verified. It should earn me enough to buy a few more expensive favors I’ve had my eye on."

The words hit me like a fist to the chest. The air leaves my lungs. My knees threaten to buckle and I lock them hard, digging my nails into my palms until pain keeps me upright.

Virgin auction. He's planning to sell me at a virgin auction. Like cattle. Like furniture. Like I'm not his blood, his brother's daughter, the girl who used to sit on his knee at Christmas and believe he was just a strict businessman.

My brain hit overdrive on all the low down scammy and scummy ways my uncle has cursed my life just by being related.

Like the time he eliminated the competition at a race track where his race horse was sure to win.

Yeah, the horse won. But only after my uncle secured the win by having me feed the horse a poisoned carrot.

I was eight at the time. Not so fun times after I learned the truth.

I know where at least two bodies are buried and I know my father knows even more.

And now I’m getting placed on the auction block.

Fuck. My. Life.

I slowly inhale through my nose and breathe out through the mouth to calm my racing heart and the need to murder one man. It’s not enough to simply go to the cops with this information. NO. Not when all the head honchos are on the Malone payroll.

My backbone tightens along with my resolve to see this family ruin to the point three generations from now everyone will think back on the two men at the helm and shudder with disgust.

I dare a look around the edge of the curtain and sure enough the son-of-a-bitch wears a sickening smile spread across his lips.

"Seamus." My father's voice cracks. "She's my daughter."

Cold silence.

"She's a threat. A threat with considerable market value." He moves out of my limited line of sight. Papers shuffle. A pen clicks. "The Castellanos have already expressed interest. So have the Al-Rashids. Either alliance would strengthen our position significantly."

Another frosty pause.

"You can't—" I hear my father finally say, but it’s a brittle fight and my uncle hears the same thing I do. Weakness.

"I can. I will." Seamus's tone sharpens. "Don't forget what I've done for you, brother. Don't forget what I know."

Silence. Heavy and suffocating.

I know about the leverage Seamus holds over my father.

I don't know the specifics, only that it's something from before I was born.

Something ugly. Something that lives in the spaces between their words and turns my father into a ghost of himself whenever Seamus mentions "that night.

" I've watched him shrink. Watched the blood drain from his face.

Watched him pour three fingers of whiskey with shaking hands and drink it like medicine.

"She's all I have left of Catherine." My father's voice is barely a whisper now.

"Catherine is dead. And unless you want to join her, you'll remember where your loyalties lie."

More silence. I press my hand over my mouth to keep from making a sound. My eyes burn. My chest aches. Every heartbeat thuds so loud in my ears I'm certain they can hear it.

Say no. Please. For once in your miserable life, choose me.

"Fine." The word falls like a stone. "Do what you need to do."

Something inside me cracks. Not breaks. Not yet. But cracks, deep and jagged, in a place I thought scarred over the day we buried my mother.

My father just agrees to let his brother sell me. His only daughter. His only child. The last piece of the woman he supposedly loved.

Sold. Like one of his racehorses. Like the art on his walls.

I bite down hard enough to taste blood. The betrayal coats my tongue, metallic and thick. Twenty-five years of hoping, and he kills it with a single word. Fine.

"Good." Seamus sounds pleased. Satisfied. Like he's closed a business deal and not condemned his niece to auction. "I'll have men collect her the moment they see her and start preparing her for transport. Keep this all to yourself."

"She’s smart and resourceful. Don’t be surprised if she already knows your plan, brother. And if she runs before you can send her to the Society?"

I don't need to see Seamus to know he's giving that lazy one-shouldered shrug. The one that says the answer should be obvious to anyone with a brain. "When have you known me to allow anyone to get away from me, brother?"

From behind the curtain, I track a set of footsteps as they cross the room. It’s my uncle. I recognize the gait of his step as Seamus leaves first, his expensive shoes clicking against the hardwood in the hallway.

My father doesn't move.

I hold my breath. Count the seconds.

One. Two. Three.

Move. Leave. Let me get out of here.

He walks toward the door, but then he stops.

Right in front of the curtains.

I inhale sharply. My heart stops. Restarts. It pounds so hard I feel it in my throat, my temples, and in every fingertip. Sweat drips down my spine. My legs shake with the effort of staying still.

The curtain shifts and a thin sliver of light cuts through the gap.

Our eyes meet.

He sees me.

Oh, shit.

He knows I heard everything.

For one endless moment, we stare at each other. Father and daughter. The man who's supposed to protect me and the girl he just sold. His blue eyes, so like mine, hold something I can't name. Guilt, maybe. Or grief. Or the hollow resignation of a man who stopped fighting years ago.

Say something. Do something. Help me.

His mouth opens. Closes.

I watch the war play out across his face. The flicker of something that might be conscience. The moment where he could choose differently. Choose me.

But he does none of those things. He simply turns away and walks out of the study, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

He saw me.

He saw me, and he left anyway.

The crack inside me splinters wide open, jagged edges shredding something I didn't know I was still protecting. Some stupid, childish hope that my father would choose me. Just once. Just this once.