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“For the family. Always,” I grit out, taking a deep breath when my father steps back, and pride emulates from his sparkling eyes. He looks back at the other men behind him, nodding.
“Loyalty. Direction. Discretion. Obedience. And sacrifice,” the men lined up behind Gabriel say in unison, eerily monotone.
“Through the years, you boys have been raised together and in this life. You’ve only seen the surface of what we do. You’ve trained hard and gone to all our camps, focusing your energies in the right areas. Today, you boys become men within the Viotto family.” His grin fills every molecule of my body with tension at the mere sight of him. In his eyes, he has us right where he wants us. The boys he’s cultivated from the moment we were born. He knew exactly what our roles would be—this. The murderers. The soldiers doing every single one of his orders.
Jokes on him, though. We’re not the men he molded us to be. We’re far superior.
“Now,” he begins, holding the red-stained sword dripping with our mixed blood at his side. “We begin the next step of your initiation.” His eyes darken with pleasure as we await the next step—blood out.
This is where our loyalty gets tested and proved. Where our lives change forever.
Dread builds in the depths of my gut as he steps forward, wiping off the blood dripping from his palm. Gabriel has something up his sleeve, and I can tell I won’t like it. I look at Arrow and Shepp out of the corner of my eye, raising my brows when Shepp shrugs. Arrow looks on in anticipation, eager to get his hands on the person they’re about to bring in.
Every initiation ends in blood and death. Whether it’s from a traitor or some bum off the street that crossed my father wrong. They always have to be interrogated and killed.
I’ve seen blood, death, and mayhem my entire life. Hell, we trained for it in our camps during high school. Nothing ever prepares me to sink so low as to take another life. No matter what they did. My father sees me as a cold-blooded murderer, taking out the masses when need be. And I do. It’s what I’ve trained for. But it doesn’t necessarily excite me like it does Arrow. Nor does it scare me like it does Shepp.
“Bring her in,” Gabriel says, waving a hand toward the steps behind us.
Tilting his head, he soaks in the screams emanating from the stairwell beyond and seeping through the thick stone walls. I stiffen as the wails get closer and closer, and then, the door swings open in a flurry of movement. Two men, dressed in the same black attire as the men in the room, step through the doorway with a woman thrashing between them. Her blonde hair shakes around as she tries to remove herself from their grips, with little success.
“NO!” a woman’s cry echoes through the room like a whip, snapping all our spines straight.
“Welcome, Veronica. So happy to have you joining us. It was hell finding you,” Gabriel says with a chuckle. “Restrain him,” he growls as the men behind him do the same to a boss in the middle, forcing him to his knees between them.
“Veronica!” he shouts with urgency, earning a punch to the gut. “Fucking bastards! Let her go!” he growls, attempting to climb to his feet again, but fails when the three of them hold him in place.
“Seems there’s been a traitor among us. And you know what we do to traitors, don’t you, boys?” he chuckles, looking down at the masked man lying on the floor, before ripping his mask off and revealing his identity.
Kent Thomas.
His loud curses fill the stone room, and he grunts when Gabriel puts his foot directly onto his neck, blocking out the air.
“You, Thomas, have been a bad, bad boy, haven’t you?”
I blink rapidly, watching the scene unfold with my fists curled at my sides. We dare not move from our kneeled position in front of them. We’re still awaiting our instructions. A boss—Thomas. He’s been a long-time player, working his way up at Gabriel’s side, helping him grow his unruly kingdom. He worked with Shepp’s father, too. Side by side, day by day, they worked hand in hand together, greasing their elbows with one another.
Just another slimy cog in the mafia machine. I say, good riddance.
“So, what do you have to say for yourself now that you’ve been caught red-handed?” Gabriel sneers, reaching into his robes and pulling out what looks like pictures. Ah, yes. My father never condemns a powerful man without proof. At least, he has that going for him.
Picture after picture falls from Gabe’s hand, displaying Thomas shaking hands with a man with a blue spider on his hand. My lip curls. Fucking Elias White. Of fucking course. That’s why he’s been hanging around Jenni. Seems they were up to no good together.
A video plays against the stone wall, where his deep voice leaks through, agreeing to the distribution of the drugs and the terms of the deal, including cutting Gabriel out of the action.
“He has nothing to do with this. We clear?” Thomas’s voice rings out with certainty.
“Sure, man. Just us,” the other man’s cocky voice rings out just before the shake on it.
“Then Jenni is yours to do with as you please,” Thomas says with certainty.
“Wise choice,” the other man says with a chuckle just as the video cuts out with a hiss.
“Fuck you,” Thomas hisses from between clenched teeth from his kneeled position. “Fuck you all! You’re going to let this piece of shit town fall under because you can’t bring these alliances in!”
“Oh, no. I don’t think so,” Gabriel says with a grin, stepping forward. Bending at the waist, he looks deep into the eyes of the man staring back at him. “This was a you decision. This was something you knew would benefit you, sneaking in another man’s product right under our noses so you could make an extra buck.” He stands tall, shaking his head with a look of disgust twisting his evil face. “Now, you’ll pay for your indiscretions. You thought we’d never find out. Well...” he chuckles at the thought of someone attempting to pull something over on him. Something he doesn’t think will happen.
“How about you, Veronica?” he asks, meandering toward the woman squirming on her knees with a gag now in her mouth. “Were you in on it, too?” Not likely. Jenni’s mother never hung around for more than a day, traveling more than her father.
