Page 2 of Twisted Trust (Mafia Lords of Sin #10)

LEVI

“ I t’s Las Vegas! You’re telling me we flew all the way out here and we’re not going to stop anywhere for the fun of it?”

Chip, my best friend and bodyguard, dramatically throws his hands in the air and presses his knuckles against the roof of the car as we weave through the flooded streets of the Las Vegas strip.

“Yes,” I reply, casting my eye out the window and watching as the sparkling lights, glittering signs, and glowing adverts pass us by like a neon sea. “We’re not here for pleasure.”

“We never go anywhere for pleasure,” Chip mutters from the back seat. “It wouldn’t kill you to live a little.”

“He’s not wrong,” adds Donald, my driver, as he glances at me. “We’re only here for a couple of days and most of that is going to be checking up on Antony, right? So what are we going to do for the rest of the time?”

“Mope,” Chip replies. “Mope that fucking Antony Marino is going to be our next Don.”

“That’s not decided.” Donald’s eyes flit to the rearview mirror, meeting Chip’s gaze. “There’s still time. The vote isn’t for a while.”

“Is it even a vote at this point?” I cut in quietly. “It’s a done deal for Antony. We all know that.”

“Doesn’t have to be.” Donald wrinkles his nose. “You’ve got just as much claim as he does, more so even. He’s just your cousin. You are Elio’s son. That holds a lot of weight for a lot of people.”

“Maybe five years ago. But not now.”

The car falls quiet and Chip groans. “No one remembers what happened five years ago.”

A lie we all tell ourselves but deep down, we all know the truth.

Five years ago, my claim to Don of the Gallo family, following in my father’s footsteps, ended in one of the bloodiest catastrophes we’ve ever experienced.

I’ve spent the past five years clawing myself back from reputational suicide, but just when I thought I was getting somewhere, my cousin Antony reared his head with a flashy enough deal that I’m old news.

“That’s why we’re here, though, right?” Donald looks at me and takes one hand off the wheel to point at me. “Antony talks a big game, but we’re here to make sure he’s walking one too. One single toe out of line and it’s over for him.”

“Donald’s right.” Chip relaxes back. “Elio wouldn’t have sent you here if he thought everything was going smoothly.”

I study Chip in the rearview mirror as he turns his attention outside and drums his fingers rapidly on his thigh.

He’s been my friend and bodyguard for as long as I can remember. To most, he seems like an uninterested playboy with the attention span of a newborn puppy, but he’s the most loyal man I have ever met.

Donald comes in a close second.

“Plus, if you think about it…” Donald chuckles. “We could just kill him and pin it on?—”

“Look out!”

I see the child stumble out into the middle of the road just as Donald glances at me.

Panic lances up my spine like the hot slice of a blade and I lunge forward, grabbing the steering wheel.

As soon as the leather hits my palm, I wrench the wheel to the right and divert the screeching car from the road and onto the sidewalk.

Donald slams on the brakes and we all surge forward, then snap back as our seatbelts lock in place to protect us.

Pain smarts up and down my chest while Donald wrestles with the car and something thumps against us as we come to a short, sharp stop a few feet away.

Holy fucking shit.

Did we hit that kid?

The seatbelt refuses to come undone at the first press of the button and it takes me several presses before it finally clicks free and I’m able to throw myself from the car.

As soon as I’m out on the road, panting heavily, I spot the child sitting in the middle of the street wailing loudly.

Relief surges through me like the rush of a deflating balloon. We didn’t hit the kid. Thank fuck.

My relief is short-lived as the rest of the drivers on the road seem infinitely less concerned about hitting a child.

Those who do spot him only swerve to the side to avoid him. Some blast their horns and one yells at me in a language I barely catch as I sprint toward the sobbing child.

“Levi!” Chip’s yell carries in the wind after me, but I ignore it until I reach the distressed child and scoop them up into my arms.

I narrowly avoid a car screeching its horn so loudly that my head aches briefly, then I sprint toward the sidewalk near where our car is awkwardly parked on the pavement.

“Fucking hell!” Chip is by my side in an instant with his gun unholstered and clutched in one hand. “You take years off my life every time you run off like that,” he pants.

“Oh God…” Donald is a few feet away with his hand over his chest. “I almost hit a kid. Fuck. Fuck!”

My attention locks onto the screaming child who’s crying so hard he can barely breathe.

His tiny fists latch onto the lapels of my suit jacket and his mouth opens wide in a noiseless sob.

“Who the fuck just abandons their kid out here?” Chip’s gaze is up and scanning the perimeter for any kind of threat, likely suspecting that this kid is some kind of ruse.

Even if it is, the child himself isn’t to blame.

“Hey,” I snap sharply, trying to get the child's attention. “Hey, kid, enough with the crying, okay?”

The child’s golden eyes are positively swimming with tears, his cheeks are bright red and raw, saliva drools down his chin, and his dark brown hair sticks up in all directions.

“Mamaaaa!” he wails so desperately that an unexpected pain tugs at my heart.

“Your mom?” I ask. “Where is your mom? Did she leave you?”

“We can’t stay here,” Chip says and his hand lands on my shoulder.

“I’m not dumping the kid,” I snap.

“I’m not saying that.” Chip fixes me with a hard look. “We can’t stay in the open like this.”

I know his concerns and usually, I’d support them, but each heartbroken cry from this kid is flaying me piece by piece.

“My m–mom.” The kid trips desperately over his words as his lower lip shakes violently.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to soften my voice despite the gravel gained from years of smoking. “Where’s your mom, kid?”

“She–She!” He coughs and cries harder. “Help her!”

I stand abruptly, bringing the kid with me in my arms. Chip starts to circle me and Donald approaches while nervously running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he gasps repeatedly, somewhat still in shock.

“Help her how? Come on, kid, use your words.”

Chip scoffs. “He’s a baby, he barely knows words.”

“She’s f–f–fighting a bad man!” he wails, trembling in my arms as if he’s about to break apart. “I ran. She t–told me to run and I ran.”

“Where?” I feel Chip tensing behind me. “Where was your mom fighting?—”

A single gunshot cuts through the air like a lash of a whip, slicing right through the noise of traffic and music blaring from nearby buildings.

All three of our heads snap toward an alley leading to a parking lot.

Chip moves first. With his gun raised against his chest, he jogs to the mouth of the alley. Donald follows with his own weapon unsheathed, and I take up the rear with the crying child.

His screams have dulled since the gunshot, and now he just whimpers and sobs in my arms.

“Is your mum down here?” I ask quietly, unsure if we’re about to walk in on something completely unrelated.

As we step out from the other side of the alley into a parking lot, a body lies slumped on the ground a few feet away.

Chip briefly scans the surroundings and then sprints toward the slumped form with Donald hot on his heels. I follow, but at a slower pace, and as soon as I see long brown hair spread out on the ground, I immediately hide the child's face against my chest.

“Holy shit,” Chip breathes and he stumbles slightly, then looks up at me with a strange look on his face.

“Is she alive?” Donald pushes him out of the way and in doing so, I glimpse the face of a woman.

The bruises and split skin do nothing to mask the familiar features that have haunted me every day for five years.

My chest tightens and for a moment, I can’t breathe.

There’s no way.

This isn’t possible.

“She’s alive!” Donald exclaims and he fumbles through his pockets for a phone. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

Chip’s hand shoots out to stop him and Donald grunts in alarm.

Keeping the kid’s face against me, I take a single step closer and then I meet Chip’s eyes.

Suddenly, the strange look on his face makes sense. He recognizes her as well.

After all, he was the one keeping watch while I spent every sane moment buried in her arms.

Until she betrayed me.

For five years, I’ve fantasized about all the ways I’d want to kill her if I ever saw her again and suddenly, she’s unconscious at my feet like a perfect opportunity wrapped up in a bow.

I’m so distracted by the rush of memories about Maeve Jackson that my grip on the child relaxes a fraction.

His head turns and then a desperate, heartbreaking wail escapes him.

“Mommy!”

In an instant, the kid becomes almost impossible to maintain a grip on without hurting him, but I do my best as I turn away from her beaten unconscious form.

“Levi?” Chip’s voice cuts through my haze.

I cradle the child as he resumes screaming. “Call the ambulance.”

“We can’t stay here.”

Chip hovers at my elbow as I stand, half-leaning out of an open window of the fourth floor of the hospital. Smoke curls past my lips and I tap my cigarette on the window frame, then lift it to my lips. “Why not?”

“You know why,” Chip mutters, leaning in close. “You’re seriously going to pretend like you’re not thinking about what I know you’re thinking about?”

I drag deeply on my cig. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit,” Chip snaps and he leans closer. “That’s Maeve. I know it and you know it.”

“Hard to tell under all that blood.”

“Don’t fuck with me.” Chip nudges me with his shoulder.

“Look, you know I have your back no matter what, but the longer you stay here, the more chance there is of you giving in to your murderous desires and killing her. I know how badly you want to after everything that happened, but we’re in a hospital and there are too many witnesses. ”