who raised you, the man who pledged his entire life to the Family was a traitorous piece of shit who had betrayed us.
Betrayed me.
There were days when I still couldn’t believe it. Vincenzo Marchetti was the boss’ right-hand man. His brother and confidant…
And he’d screwed us over.
But it was worse than that.
So much worse.
My father had killed my aunt. When she’d discovered proof of his betrayal, he’d killed Aunt Lucia, leaving Uncle Toni a widow, and my cousins, Nicco and Alessia, motherless. He’d made it look like she had up and left because she couldn’t handle being in this life.
Motherfucker.
I flicked the end of my smoke and dragged my boot across it.
“Better?” Matteo asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think you need to find a better way to relax than with your fists.” His eyes dropped to my tender knuckles, but I barely felt the sting. “There’s that party at The Diamond. We could swing by and check it out?”
Pushing off the wall, I pulled the collar on my leather jacket up and headed for Matteo’s truck. “Let’s go,” I said.
Liquor and pussy?
I didn’t need asking twice.
The Diamond was a popular place on the edge of La Riva and Romany Square. One of our guys, Jonah, owned it, and always threw invite-only New Year’s Eve parties for the Family’s most trusted associates, and a few non-associates if the line of barely-dressed women lining the street was anything to go by.
“Jonah sure knows where to find them.” Matteo let out a low whistle.
“See something you like?” I taunted.
“Fuck off.” He flipped me off. “I’m just saying, that’s a lot of skin on display for winter. I’m pretty sure my balls have crawled back into my body.”
He wasn’t wrong. The wind had an icy bite that was like a thousand tiny blades over my face as we approached the entrance.
“Enzo, my man,” the security guy extended his fist. “Wondered if you’d stop by. Matteo.” He nodded at my cousin. “Jonah is inside, already draped in pussy.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less.” I smirked. Jonah was always down for a good time.
“Hey, you good?” He pressed a hand to my chest, his eyes going to my tender knuckles.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” It came out tight. Giving me a stiff nod, he dropped his hand. “Enjoy your night. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” His gruff laughter followed me inside.
The heat instantly hit me, and I shucked out of my jacket and handed it to the attendant in exchange for a ticket. Matteo did the same, rolling up the sleeves on his fitted black shirt.
“It feels weird without Nicco,” he said.
“Yeah.”
Nicco wasn’t only our cousin, he was our best friend, and our capo. Usually where he went, we followed, but we couldn’t exactly follow him and his wife—fuck me, we were too young to be wifed up—to New York on their honeymoon.
“Are you… pouting?” Matteo snickered.
“Fuck off. I don’t pout.”
“Cous, that’s a pout if ever I saw one.” He grabbed my cheeks and smushed them together. “You’re missing him, aren’t you?”
“I’m not… oh, fuck off.” Shirking him off, I made a beeline for the bar. Sleek, black, and chrome, the counter ran along one length of the room. I dropped onto a stool at the end and rapped my knuckles on the counter.
“Enzo, my man,” the bartender said. “What’ll it be?”
“The strongest thing you’ve got.”
“Shit, man. Bad day?”
“Try bad fucking year.”
“I’ll make it a double.” He chuckled. “Matteo?”
“I’ll take a beer, thanks.”
“You should probably wrap those.” Matt motioned to my hand.
“Nah, I like the pain.”
“Of course you do,” he mumbled. “You know, I wasn’t trying to be a jerk back there.”
“I know.” My jaw clenched, remembering how good it had felt to put my fists through that asshole’s face. “What did you do with him?”
“Called clean up and told them to turn him over to the cops.”
“Shit, Matt, that isn’t—”
“He’s not going to talk, not to us. But he might if he thinks he’s going to spend the next six years getting ass raped in the State Pen. Dante and Craddick will work him over.”
Dante and Craddick were two of the local police officers in our pocket.
“Someone tried to move in on our territory, we need to find out who.” My hand trembled as I made a tight fist.
Morello’s was one of the Family’s businesses up in Providence. It had been broken into last week and trashed. They hadn’t gotten the contents of the safe, but they had left a nice little message in the way of a barely