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Vito Marino is on my shit list. The smug tilt of his lips as he sits across from me at Mamma Lucia’s has me eyeing his men standing guard. There are three of them. Big guys with guns they’re not afraid to use. Then there’s the kitchen staff. Mamma L’s is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that’s always busy and impossible to get a table at. Unless you’re a Marino.
Lucia Marino was Vito’s great-great-grandma, and when she started the restaurant in the 1940s with her husband, no one expected that the Sicilian chef would become the head of one of the five families, but crazier things have happened. Now, the restaurant is one of the longest standing in the neighborhood and a veritable stronghold.
There are guns everywhere. Some of the line cooks double as hitmen. I’m outmanned and outgunned. I clench my fist under the table, stifling the urge to slam it into Vito’s face.
“My sisters aren’t made for this world.”
He nods at the server who stops by with a silver tray that holds a prepared cigar. “Thanks, sweetheart.” He takes the cigar and lighter. “We all start the same. Babies, innocence yet corrupted,” he tells me, eyebrows lifting. “You weren’t born with the killer instincts of a wolf. You were made that way. With the right hand, your sisters can be made into mafia wives.” Vito flicks the lighter, the flame flaring to life, and starts the slow process of lighting his cigar.
Clenching my jaw, I shake my head. “They’re not up for negotiation, and if Darius told you any different, he’s wrong.”
“You know what I think?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, rotating the cigar around to warmit over the flame. “Families like yours think they’re better than mine.” His accent gets heavier with his irritation. “Families like yours arrange marriages all the time. What’s the problem with a pretty little Astor becoming a Marino princess, huh?”
I’m toeing a dangerous line. Offending the mafia is almost as bad as stealing from them. “Like I told Darius, my sisters aren’t being forced intoanymarriages. Not to a Marino, not to anyone else.”
“What if I don’t like that answer?” he asks with a vicious grin.
I wouldn’t put it past the asshole to try to kidnap my sisters to make his point. A deadly calm comes over me as I inch closer to taking my chances of putting this fucking mafioso in his place—the ground.
“Do we have a problem?” The question comes out between gritted teeth.
His men shift, hands moving toward their guns, but Vito shakes his head. “Now, now, boys. The Wolf is going to make us a lot of money tonight.” His gaze roams over my face, the tight set of my jaw, and the promise of violence if he even thinks about taking my sisters against their will. “I’ve seen that look before, but it came from a guy we call the Butcher. You know the name?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him.” The man is a myth, a supposed son of a Marino capo who became the youngest mafia button man, but when they found out he preferred knives, he became the family’s first butcher. No one has ever seen any pictures of the Butcher of Manhattan, and no one knows his real name.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told him.” Vito drops the lighter and the flame snuffs out as the metal clacks against the table. He leans toward me, menace lacing his features. “Keep looking at me with murder in your eyes, and you’llfind out why I’m the boss. Your pretty sisters might look just as good painted in red.”
The threat chills my blood. He’d do it, too. Kill innocent women because I fucked around and looked at him the wrong way. I swallow my anger, reining myself in until he sits back with a nod, eyes flicking to the door.
“Now, get the fuck out of my restaurant.”
The confrontation with Vito, my inability to find an easy way out of this fucking mess my dad got our family into, and the fact that I’m in this fucking warehouse again all these years later carves into me, forming a hollow that quickly fills and overflows with disgust and rage. Disgust with myself for not sending my sisters away sooner. Rage at my dad for everything he’s done.
The shoddy locker room does nothing to dull the growing roar of the crowd, their impatient chants filling the room. I glare at the door. How many times have I been here? Forced to fight and kill for entertainment. It wasn’t always fighting to the death. Slowly, the spectators got bored, and things evolved. I’ve won fights to save my sisters, but the sins are stains upon my soul. Years of repressed anger greedily swallow up the rage from today. Fresh fuel for the fire. Resignation fills my chest, and with a shallow breath, I drop into that dark, familiar place, the one that doesn’t know happiness. That’s never seen light or joy or anything worth living for. Sounds fade away the same way they did the first time I killed a boy in this very warehouse.
All that’s left is a faint ringing in my ears, a siren warning of impending danger.
My heartbeat steadies, and I rise from the bench, achilling resolve sliding over me. The crowd parts when I approach. Sounds reverberate, but I can’t hear anything over the voice whispering inside my head.If you die, who’s going to protect them?Kill or be killed.
As my cheek stings with a phantom slap from my dad’s palm, I shake my head, dispelling the sensation and the accompanying memories from the first night he brought me here, worried if they invade my mind, I’ll get lost in the past and fail my family.
Some guy enters the ring, and my attention moves to him. I blink away the haze dimming the edges of my vision. The man announcing the fight grabs my wrist and holds my hand above my head. My eyes roam over the crowd. The faces are all blurry and hard to make out. I blink hard, forcing my mind to clear.
Kill or be killed. The voice in my mind is sharper this time. My fingers clench, searching for a neck to strangle.
The announcer’s words cut through. “Maccon, The Wolf, Astoooooor!”
Businessmen rub elbows with made men, drug dealers, skin dealers, and everything in between. The rich and the fucking powerful. This place isn’t for soft hearts. It’s a sanctum for the worst humanity has to offer. It’s been years since I’ve been in this ring, but nothing’s changed. Cash trades hands, bets made and fates settled, and an almost feral desire for blood awakens, all of them practically foaming at the mouth for what’s to come. Fueled by cocaine and corruption.
I block it all out, a deafening silence filling my head. The voice is nowhere to be found, though I already know what needs to be done. Turning, I watch as my opponents enter the ring, and vague recognition flashes through my mind. I can’t place where or how I know them. Theannouncer makes a show of introducing them. I shake out my arms, bouncing from foot to foot, rolling out my neck, ensuring my body stays primed and ready.
The two big guys stare me down. One of them smirks, baring gold canines. My eyes narrow. There’s only one fucker I’ve heard of with gold fangs, and he and his brother are known for brutally raping the wives of men they’re sent to kill. The very thought of them touching Cassia sends a riot of rage through me.
Darius is trying to make a point. My gaze cuts to him, sitting on the platform constructed to overlook the ring, far away from the crowd and the blood splatter. He leans forward, resting his arms on his legs, and smirks.
He’s trying to throw me off my game. Taking a deep breath, I shove all emotions aside and drag that cold, animalistic resolve back to the surface, letting morals and humanity bleed from me until I’m the very creature he turned me into.
A predator.