Wicked Rivals (Savage Syndicate #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

STEFANO

I should have fucked her again.

And again, until she carried my baby inside her. I should have stopped her from leaving me. I should’ve gone back and forced her to marry me, but I allowed her to stay in her innocent little world for too long, so I let her go.

My second-in-command cleared his throat for my attention.

I stood, leaned over the top of my desk, my hands pressed flat on the wood surface, and glared at him.

Fear flashed in Tony’s eyes. He’d crossed the line.

And yet he repeated his question.

“I said, are you taking the wrong bride, boss?”

I’d been asking myself the same question for weeks, but that didn’t mean I would tolerate being questioned about it by Tony or anyone else in my organization.

“Excuse me?” I asked, the edge in my tone making it clear he would get only one chance to explain.

“It’s just that, well, the Capaldo girl… she…”

I turned to the French doors and watched the landscapers preparing the courtyard below for my wedding celebration.

“She what, Tony?”

“She isn’t right for you, Stef,” he said to my back.

“You’re wrong. Benedetta was bred for a man like me. She’ll know her place as my wife and do what she’s told. And she comes with a fortune, her father’s empire as well as her mother’s family business.”

It had taken some work, but I made sure she became the only remaining heir to those two tri-state area families. Our marriage would triple the number of men under my control and make me the most powerful mafia boss in not only the tri-state area but on the entire East Coast.

“But…” Then Tony’s words fell silent again.

“But what? You wanted to speak, so fucking speak. You’ve gone too far to take it back now, so make your point and be done with it.”

“She’s a kitten. You need a lioness by your side. Your plans are ambitious and dangerous. Yes, boss, Benedetta’s gorgeous, but she can’t be the other half you need. You need a stronger woman to raise the sons you’ll have to carry on your line.”

“That’s enough,” I snapped.

I forced myself not to turn and look my second in the eye.

Talking about heirs was pointless because I would never have one. I wasn’t building an empire meant to last. I wanted an empire capable of waging war to get my revenge. And after that, I would burn it all to the ground myself.

Telling a man his life would culminate in a suicide mission was considered unwise. Tony didn’t need to know my plan. He just needed to follow my orders.

It seemed he might, but then he opened his mouth again.

“It’s just that?—”

“No woman is strong enough to stand by me,” I said.

My own lie tasted bitter.

I moved my gaze from the window to a polished wooden box on the mantel above the fireplace. That box contained my truth, the real truth, and it mocked me and my lies even now.

My heart belonged to a woman who could have stood beside me, but she’d walked away long ago.

A man’s heart held his weaknesses, and I’d never give anyone that kind of power over me. Benedetta was no Valerie Salera, and she never would be, so she could never have my heart.

Our marriage wouldn’t carry any risk in that regard, and that was precisely what I needed. No emotional attachment.

I turned my back on the box.

“It’s happening. Benedetta’s exactly what I need, and you better get on board with it.”

“Yes, sir…”

He stopped just short of the door and stood there without saying anything more, keeping his back to me.

“Is there something else, Tony, or do you just enjoy wasting my time?”

Someone knocked on the door before he could come up with the right answer.

“Enter,” I said.

One of my enforcers came in, clasping his hands together.

“Sir, the rat. We got him chained up downstairs waiting for your judgment.”

“Good. Then let’s go to the cellar and get to work.”

After taking off my jacket and draping it over the back of the leather chair, I left the comfort of my office for the less-than-luxurious underground level of my estate house.

The stark difference between the upper levels of the house and the basement had always struck me as poetic.

The perfect representation of mafia life.

On the surface, nothing but old-world glamour and luxury, while below the stairs an entirely different world existed.

A world of pain and blood so thick the stains would never wash away. All hidden by thick slabs of Italian marble paid for by death.

A few hours later, the bloody mess chained to the brick wall in front of me could hardly be called a man anymore.

I had cracked his nose, given him two black eyes, even knocked out a few teeth, and still he hadn’t broken. I hated to admit it, but the bastard’s resolve impressed me.

He probably would’ve been a good soldier. Too bad he preferred spying on me.

Empty threats wouldn’t scare the man now. Not after the beating he’d taken without uttering a word. Maybe an unexpected show of civility. With bottom feeders like this one, that usually threw them off enough to give me what I wanted.

“This can end for you right now, Mark,” I said. “You know that. Just tell me what I’m waiting to hear, and I’ll put an end to all your suffering.”

“Go to hell,” he said, blood spattering from his mouth onto my white shirt.

I sighed. “Suit yourself, Mark.”

Turning to the small wooden table beside me, I studied the tools laid out before me.

The Beretta M9 was new, but I preferred the power of the Colt forty-five next to it. A bullet would shut him up, not make him talk.

I could deliver a hell of a lot more pain with the Bowie knife or one of the other tactical blades, but I hadn’t gone down there just to cut him up. Mark would only focus on not dying rather than on opening his mouth.

Dead men kept their secrets, and I wanted to hear those secrets before I let him go.

A man who still drew breath could still be broken.

No, this called for maximum pain with minimal damage, so when I slipped the set of polished brass knuckles on my fingers, it felt right.

The situation would get messy, yes, and it would take a little more effort on my part to get what I wanted, but using the brass didn’t run the risk of hitting an artery or slipping between a few ribs if I got a little overzealous.

After all, this kind of work was for patient men. While I rarely had an issue with patience, that morning had made me question how much I could spare.

This specific set of shiny brass had been made for my dead older brother, the man born to lead this family. But at some point, I had grown into them, and now they fit me perfectly.

My mother would have gone on about it if she were still alive and could see me now, some bullshit about it being a sign I had grown into my fate.

She would say it proved that running the family business was the life I was meant to lead, that it was God’s plan all along for me to stay and fulfill my destiny as the head of the family.

Instead of leaving it all behind as I had planned.

I tried not to listen to her voice as it echoed through my head, because her words no longer mattered.

When I conducted interrogations and worked in the cellar, I lost my humanity, left it waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

Any thoughts about the life I had wanted, about the woman who left me, about the family taken from me—it all disappeared in the cellar.

Only the monster remained.

Rolling back my shoulders, I stepped in closer to Mark and his mess of a face.

“You sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

“Go to hell,” he repeated.

I bet he thought he was brave. He wasn’t. He was stupid.

I nodded. “I’ll see you there in due time.”

Then I threw an uppercut into his ribs, followed by a striking jab into the exact same spot. The chains rattled, his body sagged, and he coughed up more blood than the last time.

“What happens next is up to you,” I said, stepping back to collect my breath. “Just a few of the right words, Mark, and then your pain will end.”

“If I tell you anything,” he panted, “they’ll kill me.”

A stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

I let out a low, dark chuckle—a pale imitation of my father.

“I think you know you’re dead either way. We both know what happens after this, Mark, and it doesn’t include you walking out of here. If I were you, I would put more thought into how fucking painful you want your last minutes to be.

“And it will be painful if I don’t get what I want. Or you can accept what you can control and finish this with at least a little dignity. So what do you say, Mark?”

The man glared at me through his swollen lids.

“I say if I’m dead either way, why tell you a damn thing?”

I stepped in again, looming close enough to smell the hot stink of his breath, grabbed a fistful of his sweat-drenched hair and jerked his head back, giving him no choice but to look me in the eye.

“Because if you tell me what I want to know, I won’t hunt down your family and kill them too,” I said.

His eyes got wider.

“I… I don’t have a family.”

“Really? Because when I found out you were spying on me and lying to my men, I didn’t only have them drag you down here. You should know better than that.

“No, I had them follow you for a week. And now I know about your girl living in Queens. I know about her child, the one with your dark curls and your brown eyes.”

“No, please…” he begged. “Please don’t hurt them.”

I shrugged, let go of his hair, and then landed one more solid punch on his body before turning my back to him.

“Start talking, Mark, and I’ll have no reason to harm them.”

Bile rose to the back of my throat, burning it. I swallowed it back down. Threatening a man’s family turned even my stomach, but if that was what it took, then it had to be done.

No doubt I had become a monster. Same as my father.

That didn’t mean I liked it or liked what my ambitions forced me to do. But if I slipped up now and went soft on the guy, I would lose the power I’d already worked so hard to gain.

Not power over Mark, he was nobody.

The power of my reputation.

No man in this business respected a don who went easy on anyone, not even with a nobody like Mark.

Respect, more than anything else, became the one precious commodity among men with enough drive and steel to fight their way to the top. Men like me.

I had already come so far, earning the respect, the reputation, and by the end of the week… hell, by the end of the day, I would be the most powerful man in New York.

So no matter how distasteful I found my work or how much I reminded myself of my father in those moments, the option for choosing a different path didn’t exist for me.

I took a second to recover my resolve.

With that last blow to Mark’s battered body, I knew something in him had snapped, physically and mentally. Even so, I turned to face him again, ready to get back to it, because I still meant business.

And business was fucking business.

But I didn’t have to hit him again…

He slumped forward, hanging by the chains, hardly able to lift his chin and make eye contact with me as he gave in.

“Okay, okay,” he gasped. “Fine.”

“What’s fine, Mark?”

I grabbed a white towel from the table with my tools and used it to start casually cleaning up the brass on my fist.

He panted and grunted.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“The Commission knows you’re marrying the Capaldo girl. They know you killed her brothers too. And they’re…”—he coughed up more blood—“they’re looking at you for the disappearance of her uncles.”

“Hm. I’m not seeing the value in your information, Mark. Don Capaldo broke with the Commission years ago. Everyone knows that.”

Although my statement was true, and I had delivered it in a dead-even tone, my thoughts raced.

What he’d said wasn’t all that wrong.

In two days, I would marry Benedict’s daughter, Benedetta Capaldo. And I had her brothers killed. Her uncles too, but no one should’ve noticed they were missing. Not yet, not until after the wedding.

I tossed the cloth and headed back over to Mark.

“I still need you to make this worthwhile for me to end your pain. So…”

“So they know you want more than just her father’s men,” he blurted. “They know you want to wipe out the Capaldos and the Maltas. Absorb ’em into the Vignali empire. They don’t want that to happen.”

I couldn’t help but smirk.

“Ah, and here I thought weddings were supposed to be celebrations. You know, families bonding with families.”

Mark shook his head with the last bit of his energy.

“Makes you too strong, Vignali. Threatens the balance.”

I froze.

Balance? The Commission didn’t want balance between the families. No, those fuckers wanted control of everything, control of the families. And that was something I didn’t want to happen.

I flexed my fist and tightened it around the brass knuckles.

Tony banged through the door then, panting heavily.

“Hey boss, there’s a large envelope upstairs that requires your immediate attention.”

“Not now,” I snapped, noting Mark’s desperate expression. “I'm in the middle of something here with Mark.”

“Yeah, boss, I know, but you'll want to see this right away.”

A bitter laugh came from Mark as he stupidly taunted me.

“Better go find out who else dug up your secrets… capo .”

Narrowing my eyes, I moved my gaze from the living sack of meat chained to the wall to get a good look at Tony. My second’s lips had set in a grim line, eyes darkened, and he dipped his head toward me. That look hadn’t been on his face since the last raid hit my organization.

I nodded at him and slipped off the brass, clunking it down on the wood table. Within seconds, I had the smooth grip of the forty-five in my hand. I raised the gun, sighted it on Mark, and fired two clean shots into the lying bastard’s head.

He had given me what I needed. Probably not everything he had, but enough for me to honor my word and end his pain. Enough to earn his death. And while I wouldn’t protect his family from the others he might have betrayed, I wouldn't target them either.

I put the Colt on the table with the other neatly placed tools. One of my soldiers would clean it. Then I looked at Tony.

“What's so fucking important about this envelope?”

“It came by courier, and you’re going to want to see this before you do anything else.”

I nodded. “Bring it to my office in five.”

Before he could acknowledge my command, I’d already hit the staircase.

“Be right there,” he called out.

I took the stairs two at a time.

Tony was a decent man and a better soldier, but there were things even a don’s second-in-command didn’t get to see. My confusion, for one, which I wouldn’t be able to hide unless I had a minute alone in my office.

What kind of package would make Tony look at me like we were on the verge of a battle with one of our enemies?

Packages and envelopes came often enough, especially with the wedding so close. The families enjoyed outshining each other with the flashiest gifts and stacks of cash, all in a show of respect.

Not enough to warrant interrupting me in the cellar.

If the cops had been sniffing around one of my properties, Tony would have just said so.

No, this had to be something truly unexpected.

First thing, after stepping into my office, I stripped off my white Ralph Lauren shirt and dropped it into the trash can behind my desk. The crimson stains remained hidden from plain sight as long as no one rifled through my trash.

The office had been mine for a decade, but sometimes I still felt like a kid sneaking into my father's domain the way I did back when everything belonged to him.

Part of me expected my mother or nanny to come scurrying in and drag me out of my father’s office while scolding me.

Both women were dead now.

Everyone was dead.

I shrugged on a fresh shirt from the armoire and went out onto the balcony, working at the shirt buttons while leaning over to inspect the yard work. The lawn had been perfectly manicured for the wedding reception.

Not a large wedding. But enough celebration to make it legal with the right witnesses, then no one could contest my right when Benedetta’s father retired—or died—and I took control of his empire.

For this reason, marrying Benedetta Capaldo made sense. She came with everything a man like me needed. The picture of absolute perfection.

But I could only conjure up cold disinterest for her.

Yes, she was beautiful, smart, elegant, knew when to speak up, when to use her wit, and when to laugh at a joke.

She would have made an excellent mother.

That might have been us… in another life.

In the life we had, we wouldn’t bring children into the world to carry on the Vignali name.

Any children of mine would be forced to be part of the mafia without an escape, and I refused to create that situation.

In families like mine, fathers groomed their eldest son to take over the business. Daughters became bargaining chips to strengthen ties, and it didn’t matter in which order they were born or what they wanted for themselves.

Second sons like me, or even third sons, well, no guarantee existed that we would have the opportunity or the means to design our own destinies.

I knew this all too well.

I should have left the family business. I’d had dreams of my own, so many plans, and I wanted more than this. But the Commission snuffed out my options the minute they decided they no longer wanted my father’s involvement and stripped us of everything.

My entire family, all gone within twenty-four hours.

My father and my older brother, bound and beaten like animals, forced to their knees, executed with a bullet to the back of their heads. My mother, begging me to swear I would avenge them before she then took her own life.

In that one afternoon, I had gone from being a lovesick boy chasing the career of an English teacher while trying to woo the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen to the new head of my family.

The Vignali crime family of New York.

Only I could make things right by playing the long game.

And for fuck’s sake, I would never do to another child what was done to me.

So yeah, there would be no Vignali heirs.

The creak of my office door opening made me turn around, and Tony came in waving a large yellow envelope.

“Here it is, boss. At first, I thought it was a fucking joke, but… well, see for yourself.”

I took the envelope and dumped the contents onto the surface of the solid executive desk where my father, his father, and his father before him once conducted their own business.

Words in all caps stretched across the first page.

CALL OFF THE WEDDING OR ELSE

No signature. No real threat. Just a vague “or else” in what looked like the writing of a second or third grade child.

“Is this supposed to scare me?” I asked.

“Look at the rest of it before I answer that,” Tony said.

The page whispered as I flipped it to find a series of photos beneath it. I immediately recognized the girl in the first photo.

The one I had tried so hard to forget.

She looked the same as she had ten years before, with the same striking pale blue eyes. The same beautiful dark hair. The same perfectly pouty lips.

Her face had become a little more angular, and she’d lost some of the youth in her cheeks, but she didn't look too different. Not even older, just less innocent.

The girl who walked out on me.

The one I would never forgive.

She appeared in the second photo as well, this time walking down the street in Brooklyn. The same street I’d walked down a million times during college. The same street she’d taken to work at that little café where I first met her.

The next photo showed one gut-wrenching difference. She wasn't walking alone. No, in that picture, she held a young boy’s hand. The hand of a child with painfully familiar eyes and my mother's caramel hair.

“So this boy is supposed to be mine,” I said.

“I believe that’s the sender’s message, yeah. More than fifty pictures there, Stef. Her and the boy. Different places, different distances, but all pretty much like that one. And a hair sample.”

“A hair sample?” I snapped.

“Yes, sir. I had one of the boys run it to our guys at the lab. DNA test is the only way to know for sure. It’ll take a few days. Probably no results until after your wedding.”

I jerked my fingers away from the stack of photographs as if the glossy papers with her face and his on them had suddenly caught fire and burned me.

“He’s not mine. It’s impossible. She would have told me.”

My mind reeled, and as I turned away from those goddamn pictures, I fumbled with the top button of my shirt.

When unfastening the first two buttons didn’t relieve the stifling heat rushing over me, I gave up.

It wasn’t the shirt suffocating me or even the temperature in my office. The open balcony door still flooded the room with an icy chill, even if I couldn’t feel it.

No, the situation itself burned me up from the inside out.

She did that.

“What do you want to do?” Tony asked.

I lifted my gaze and scowled.

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Whatever it takes to find out what the fuck is going on and put an end to it.”

I yanked at my shirt collar again.

“We’re going to pay this girl a visit right fucking now.”