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Chapter One
Alessandro
Sitting in the car next to me, my “Uncle” Salvatore Marino runs his fingers through what’s left of his salt-and-pepper hair. “Your father would be so goddamn proud of you, Alessandro. May his soul rest in heaven.” He kisses his fingertips and touches his chest reverently.
My grandfather, Nazzaro Rossi, boss of the family, nods from the passenger seat. “He would, you know. You’re doing your family proud.”
“About a decade too late, mind you,” Sal quips, then backpedals when I don’t react. “Hey, I’m just breaking your balls. You had your own stuff to deal with, I get it. We’re just glad you’re coming back into the fold.”
I grit my teeth. Sal isn’t really my uncle, although he was close enough to my dad when he was still alive. Now he’s mygrandfather’s top-earning captain. And like everyone else, he wants to know why I’ve returned to “the life” after spurning it all those years ago.
“You’ll be good for us, kid,” Sal continues when I stay silent. “Everybody knows you did real solid work as a freelancer. Maybe you can help us take out those Irish potato-fuckers, eh? We need an enforcer like you who doesn’t take any shit.”
Enforcer? Nonnostill hasn’t told him. That means nobody else knows, either.
I stifle a grimace. It’s going to be a long night, and my poker face is already fading.
“Thanks,” I grunt.
“What made you decide to come over? Business running dry? Grass greener on the other side?”
As though I would ever fucking choose this.
My grandfather breaks in before I have the chance to answer. “Alessandro was always going to come back to the family,” he speaks for me in a satisfied tone. “He was just waiting for the right moment. Weren’t you?”
“Yes,” I grind out, staring out the window.
Only he and I know why I really came back.
***
The pin pricks my finger and I smear the drop of blood onto a card bearing the image of a saint. I don’t know or care which one.
“This blood means that we are now one family.” My grandfather gestures to the table in front of me, where two pistols sit next to a human skull. “From now on, you live by the gun and you die by the gun. Your family comes before everything.”
He sets the card alight, and I hold it in my hands as it burns to ash.
“Now repeat after me: as this card burns, so may my soul burn in hell if I ever betray my family.”
I’ve prepared for this moment, and so it’s easy for me to suppress my grimace as I say the words I’ve been dreading. “So may my soul burn in hell if I ever betray my family.”
It’s done. I’ve been “made”—inducted as a full member of the Rossi Mafia family. To the men around me, it’s an enormous badge of honor.
To me, it’s a noose tightening around my neck. It’s the thing I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to escape.
This ceremony marks my final failure.
Satisfaction spreads across my grandfather’s face. He pulls me in for a performative hug. “You’re a man of honor now. Welcome to the family.”
The small group of captains and other made men watching all applaud.
“Good for you, kid,” says Sal, hugging me warmly.
When we break, I see someone in the group I hadn’t noticed before. And for the first time today, I actually feel a glimmer of happiness.
“Dominic,” I say, striding over to him and pulling my old friend into a hug. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“A few years, at least,” he agrees, grinning. “Damn, Alessandro, it’s good to see you.”
