Before I know what’s happening, he pulls back just enough to slap me. My head tries to swing to the side with the impact, but he’s still holding me in place by my hair, which pulls at the root like a threat.
I cry out but quickly bite down on my bottom lip. Romeo likes the sound of women in pain. He gets off on it.
My lip stings where I’m biting it and I know he’s split it. Again. I can taste my own blood on my tongue and Romeo’s eyes light up as he looks me over.
He taps his chin like he’s thinking. “Should I make you mine for the night? Would you like that?”
“Whatever you’d like,” I murmur the words and hope he can’t hear the disgust in my voice.
I hate this man. With everything in me, I hate him. I’ve thought about how it would feel to slide a blade across his neck so many times I can almost feel the warm spray of his blood on my face.
Yet, he’s still alive. And he has me cornered. Right where he wants me.
“Oh, I fucking know I can do whatever I like, bitch,” he sneers the words while his eyes flash with malice. “You’d love to be my personal sex doll, wouldn’t you?”
There’s no right answer here. I’ve learned that the hard way. The only thing to do is keep my mouth shut and hope he loses interest quickly.
I was right earlier; Christmas miracles aren’t for people like me. They never were.
CHAPTER 2
ANGELO
I run my fingers through my hair as I step out of my car and look toward Second Circle. It shouldn’t exist, but it does. That is what power gives you—a brothel that shouldn’t exist which is patronized by people who need the discretion of the Amato family to be stronger than the desire to blackmail.
The majority of my life exists within that same gray area. It’s where I thrive.
And I didn’t have a say in it at all.
It was decided for me, and I had no other choice but to live up to it. Even though I accepted the mantle of being the head of my family and can’t imagine my life being different than it is now, doesn’t mean the weight of it isn’t heavy.
I’m just strong enough to carry it.
Romeo, my younger brother, would buckle under the expectations of being the head of the family. He thinks he wants the responsibility and believes he would be able to do a better job than I am. I know the truth though.
He would ruin this family.
He would put everyone in danger.
He would bankrupt our businesses.
He would make us look weak to both our allies and our enemies.
Romeo and his big ideas would pull us deeper into the shadows and farther from the grey area where it’s better for us to exist. He was always more interested in the violence that comes along with this life instead of looking at the organization as a business first. His ego has always been wrapped up in the Amato name and the fear it can evoke.
That’s him.
It was never me.
Which is why, even if he was older than me, I know our father would have left running things to me. Romeo isn’t built for it. He never has been.
The fact that I have to run down my brother to Second Circle, the brothel the family runs, to have a conversation proves my point completely.
Romeo was put in charge of this business by our father right before he handed the family over to me. He’s always looked at it like a consolation prize instead of an opportunity.
And in the months since the last of the cockroaches—otherwise known as the last of the Morozov Bratva—were fully exterminated, Second Circle should have been seeing a boon. But it’s been business as usual.
Romeo never understood what Second Circle represents. He views the women who work for us as less than. They’re not. He’s never respected our family’s history.
