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Prologue: Alessandro
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO
Respect, security, and power come at a price. Sometimes that price is blood and innocence. Other times, it’s tradition.
I lost my innocence a long time ago. My papà and mamma weren’t pure, nor were my brothers. And neither is my eldest son. At eighteen, he already has blood on his hands. It’s hard to be any other way in this life.
It demands so much wickedness from you, it can consume you if you’re not careful.
Currently, the price of my position is time. I wasted the whole day with Artyom Popov, the Pakhan of the Russian Yedinstvo in New York. Bella, my wife, and I are entertaining his family for Sunday dinner, which is usually a private affair. Unfortunately, there are times when work is unavoidable, and this is one of them.
Popov is making risky moves within the city that will disrupt the calm we’ve had for the past decade–peace that I, the Irish, and the other major crime families have worked so hard to achieve. Keeping that peace is paramount to not only my family’s security, but the city’s. It’s in everyone’s best interest if the Russians stick to the script, or else the other families will hook them off the stage.
I’ll have no choice but to go against him. A war between us would paint the streets so red, blood banks would look sparse.
Popov and I sit at a table that overlooks the gardens.
“Artyom, I’m not sure what the purpose of your request is. We’re already allied. We share business. Our wives are friends. What’s the point in arranging a marriage for our children?” I ask him. It’s not happening. I won’t link my empire, or my precious daughter, to such a volatile organization.
“Because family is the strongest alliance of all, isn’t it?” he replies, sipping his vodka as he turns his gaze to our children. The younger ones are playing in the garden with their mothers, whereas my three eldest sons and his middle son sit at a nearby table playing cards. “Your girl already gets along so well with my Dmitri.”
Maddalena, named after my mother, stands with her twin brother Maximo and Popov’s youngest son Dmitri. She looks like she’s up to something. Of my five children, she and her brother are the biggest handful. They came out of the womb searching for trouble, and they made it their life’s mission to find it. Much to her dislike, she and Maximo are wearing matching outfits. She has a light blue dress on, with matching shoes. Her hair is in French braids, and she has on little white frilly socks that are smudged with green stains from the grass. Maximo has the same color shirt and khakis. He refuses to let anyone cut his curly hair, which almost hits his shoulders. My wife insisted they match for the occasion.
The three of them are focused on her doll, which is propped against a flower bush. I can hear her making her closing argument–the one she’s been practicing all day–as to why this particular doll is guilty of crimes against the Doll Dominion.
My bambina has a vivid imagination.
“Ms. Flowers let information leak to outside sources, including the rest of the Doll Dominion, and should thus be punished. She betrayed her family, and snitches get stitches,” she argues.
“Yeah, traitors get totaled,” Maximo echoes.
They may look for trouble together, but make no mistake, Maddie is the one who leads the crusade.
“Franco, what’s your final decision?” she asks her eldest brother.
After lowering his cards face-down, he swings his attention her way. His icy blue eyes warm for her, and he smiles. That stubborn ass really only smiles when she or her mother are concerned. I doubt he’s been listening to a word she’s said, but he rubs his clean shaven face, pretending to think about it. Something I always strived to instill in him is a sense of family. He’ll inherit this empire when I die, but his siblings all play an integral part, too. Even his baby sister.
“GUILTY!” he declares.
“Off with her head!” she exclaims, bouncing on her feet with glee as she grabs her doll. She decisively twists its head off and throws it in the air with a flourish. “Morte ai ratti!”
“Death to rats!” Maximo, Franco, and my other sons shout.
“Maddie!” Bella shouts. She is so loud, the staff can hear her from the kitchen inside. “I’m sick of buying you new dolls. Stop executing them or find out how to fix them.”
Popov’s wife flinches at the noise. She’s skittish, and it makes me sad to think of why. My wife told me she wears a heavy amount of makeup, and worries there’s a nefarious reason for it. Given where my wife comes from, there’s no use in lying to her. She may not be mafia raised, but she still grew up in the life. MCs are basically mafias where they ride motorcycles—her words, not mine. She’s smart enough that I wouldn’t insult her by trying to lie. She knows his wife wears so much cosmetics to cover bruising.
The Yedinstvo call themselves a brotherhood, and tout a message of unity. Although the famiglia shares that value, our organizations differ. They ascribe to the old ways. Their men reign as kings, and their women are treated like trophies on a shelf, seen and not heard. They don’t play a part in the organization, unless they’re used to form alliances or birth children.
I love my bambina. She’s my favorite of all my children and probably tied with Franco as the smartest. When I think of her, my inner demons are quelled. She’s the light in the darkest parts of my soul–or what remains of my soul. Our world is dangerous, and I may not be able to protect her from every evil in the world, but I’ll never put her directly into the path of the Popovs.
I teach my men to respect their wives and families. That’s why we call ourselves famiglia, because we’re a family, whether we are connected by blood or our service to Nuova Notte.
Maddie will become a plaything for the Russians over my dead fucking body. She’s going to be an intelligent, beautiful ball-buster, just like her mother. She’ll make her own path.
As I watch my wife fiddle with the bun in her hair, trying to pin back a stray piece in the front, my heart melts. I didn’t want her in the beginning and hated my father for forcing me to marry an MC brat. I thought she was going to be trailer trash, complete with daisy dukes, a neck tat, and missing teeth.
How wrong I was. I fell for my brash, unapologetic woman at first sight.
