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Prologue
Nico Vitale was standingnear the bar in the conference room when Farrell Black finally walked in. He dwarfed even the big double doors, his shoulders taking up most of the space afforded by the threshold. It was good that they had become allies. Farrell made for a powerful friend, but he would have made an even more powerful adversary.
“Nice of you to join us,” Nico said.
Farrell shrugged without apology.
There was a time when the gesture would have made Nico’s blood boil. But that was when the New York territory was his alone, when he’d been the favored protege of Raneiro Donati, head of the worldwide Syndicate. That Syndicate had been reborn with Raneiro’s death, and Nico let his eyes travel the room, landing on each of the men who had helped him take down Donati.
There was Farrell, once head of the London division, now an equal partner with Nico and the other men in the room. Two years ago it would have been difficult for anyone to believe Farrell was Oxford educated. The scar that ran down the left side of his face was proof that he was a bruiser, a street fighter, a man who welcomed violence. His reunion with Jenna Carver had changed him, although most of those changes would go unnoticed by anyone who didn’t know him well. He was still a massive and imposing presence, the violence in his blood turned down to a simmer from a raging boil.
In front of the giant windows overlooking New York City, Christophe Marchand was deep in conversation with Luca Cassano. Christophe’s home base was in Paris, his old territory under Raneiro. It was Christophe's conflict with his brother — who had been working with Donati to oust the rest of them — that had brought their conflict with Raneiro to an end on a dark street in New York.
That and a bullet to Donati’s head.
Now Christophe traveled between Paris and Corsica, the seat of his family’s old estate. His wife, Charlotte, was a curator helping to restore the old house that had been in Christophe’s family since the 1800s. They kept largely to themselves, seemingly content to be alone, but little by little Nico was beginning to feel like Christophe was a friend in addition to being a business partner.
Nico’s gaze landed on Luca, listening thoughtfully to something Christophe was saying. Of all the men now running the Syndicate, Luca had come the furthest. Nico had brought him into the Vitale family when he was nothing more than a street-smart kid with too much tenderness for his own good. He’d risen to the rank of Nico’s Underboss before the fall of the original Syndicate, had been by Nico’s side while Nico fought for Angel Rossi, love of his life, mother of his daughter, Stella. He had defied even Raneiro Donati out of loyalty for Nico.
Luca was his oldest friend in the group, and if Nico had any regret, it was only that they were all so scattered now, trying to rebuild the Syndicate from their various corners of the world.
That included Luca, who ran the Miami territory after meeting Isabel Fuentes there. Luca had gotten her out of a dangerous situation with her drug lord brother and had stepped up to take care of her and her little sister, Sophia.
“You going to stand there looking at us all doe-eyed?” The words, spoken in Farrell’s clipped British accent, broke into Nico’s thoughts. “Or are we starting this meeting?”
“We were waiting on you, brother. By all means, let’s get started.”
Four years ago he would have told Farrell to fuck off. He was obviously getting soft.
Farrell freshened his drink while Luca and Christophe made their way to the conference table that dominated the room. When they were settled, Nico took his place at the head of the table.
It was purely symbolic. After the fall of Raneiro Donati, they’d all agreed the authority of the Syndicate was best wielded through a consortium of individuals. It was too easy for one man to be carried away by money and power.
And too risky as well.
They’d all come to it reluctantly. Nico had become accustomed to his quiet life with Angel and Stella in Thailand. Farrell had always preferred to work alone. Christophe had only joined the Syndicate as a means to an end, a way to restore the once-royal Marchand name and its estate. Luca had washed his hands of the whole mess after Nico left the country with Angel, although Nico had pulled him back in when Raneiro reappeared after striking a plea that got him an early release from prison.
When it was all said and done they’d agreed that if someone was going to take the reigns of organized crime cells around the world — and someone always would — they would rather it be them. They had an honor code at least. Had rules against the more unseemly revenue streams. Pushing drugs to kids, human trafficking, kiddie porn… they were all off-limits in the new Syndicate, and while they were rules Nico had tried to institute when he first took over New York, this was the first time he had total buy-in from everyone at the top. In the past year, they’d established an organizational structure that worked, with Nico taking over Raneiro’s old territory in Rome, Farrell maintaining control of London, Christophe continuing his management of Paris, and Luca returning to Miami to build a new organization there.
But that meant New York was still under the control of the various factions who’d taken advantage of the vacuum created by Raneiro’s death.
Which was why they were all here.
Farrell finally lowered himself into the seat at Nico’s right, and Nico tapped the keyboard on his laptop. A graph appeared on the screen at the front of the room.
“Violent crime in the city skyrocketed after Raneiro’s imprisonment three years ago,” Nico said. “And it’s gotten worse every month since his death.”
“Not like it was great before,” Luca said.
Nico had been in charge of the New York territory before his falling out with Raneiro. There had still been violence in the city — that was human nature — but Nico had been trying to institute a business plan that put more emphasis on cyber crime, corporate espionage, and other nonviolent streams of income. They were changes not embraced by Raneiro and the other old school mobsters in the Syndicate, one of many reasons they’d turned on Nico in the end.
“True, but it's escalating,” Nico said. “We need to bring New York under control before we work on the other territories.”
Word had gotten out fast about Raneiro’s imprisonment and eventual death. Nico didn’t regret leaving the country with Angel — it was what she’d needed.
What they had both needed.
But there was no denying the New York territory had descended into chaos in the absence of an organizational hierarchy. More than one thug fancied themselves a crime lord, and most of them were not suited to the job of making money without getting innocent people killed along the way.
