1
Vin
Idon’t want to be here.
There are too many fucking people crammed into this glorified tinder box we are generously calling a safe house, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder. Even the house itself is a tactical nightmare waiting to happen. Built into the side of a hill overlooking the city, there are so many unmanned exits it makes my skin crawl.
To make everything mother fucking worse, most of my guys are half-wasted, stumbling around like they’ve got the boss’ permission to be completely useless.
Mypermission. But they don’t fucking have it.
This wasn’t my idea: stuffing 50 people into a shitty safe house with unlimited alcohol, dragging my brothers’ pregnant women out into the middle of a goddamn war zone, pretending everything’s normal when it’s most certainly mother fucking not.
Nothing’s been normal for months. Not since my father, Aurelio, slid into hiding after a series of catastrophically fucked choices that put targets on the backs of me and my brothers. His sons. His own fucking blood.
My brother Matti’s head of security, Grit, walks by with that stone-faced expression he always wears like armor. At least somebody’s still doing his fucking job. He tilts his chin up at me in greeting. “Boss.”
I return the nod and turn back to Matti, sprawled next to me, beer in hand. His fiancée, Siena, occupies the other end of the couch, legs draped across his lap in that possessive way of hers. Every time our eyes meet, she serves me a look that could curdle milk. She’s pregnant, so I let most of her bullshit slide, but it’s because of her fucking whining that I’m trapped at this shit show in the first place.
Siena and Giovanna have been on a relentless mission to pretend life is normal despite the war exploding around us. Giovanna is with Tommy, my younger brother, and she’s also pregnant, also oblivious. She sits curled in Tommy’s lap, fingers tangled in his hair, the two of them staring at each other like no one else exists, murmuring intimate shit that makes my teeth grind.
The girls are so fucking focused on playing house with my brothers, baking cookies and picking out baby names, that they can’t see the bigger picture threatening to pop their little bubble: the Demonio family is shattered. Until we find my father, Aurelio, and put him in the ground, everything is at risk, including their picture perfect little fucking families.
The biggest contract on the agenda is managing the ports with the Irish. My brother, Tommy, the politician, has been working on this for years at this point, laying groundwork, building trust, shaking hands. All we need is me officially in the big seat, and we’ll have port access that will crack open globaltrade routes and finally put the Demonio Brotherhood on the map.
The Demonio Brotherhood.
I fucking love the sound of that. Me and my brothers finally in charge. Me as boss, Tommy as myconsigliere, and Matti as my underboss. The Demonio family is dead, rotting in its grave.
Long live the Demonio Brotherhood.
But that can’t happen until we find Aurelio and eliminate him before one of his loyal minions gets to us first. It’s a race. The clock is ticking. And we’re sitting here drinking and shooting the shit like it’s not.
Another guy strolls past, giving me the obligatory chin lift and that reverent “Boss” greeting that still sounds foreign as fuck. On his arm, a brunette with big tits spilling out of her tiny orange dress like an invitation catches my eye, then grimaces and looks away like she doesn’t know me.
I laugh and nudge Matti, gesturing in her direction with my beer bottle. “Remember her? I fucked that one in the ass a couple months back.”
“Was she the chick in the green dress at the Edge?”
“Nah, but I ass fucked her too. That one there is the one who was wearing the red dress at that bar opening we went to.”
Matti laughs. “The bar opening we were only at for like 15 minutes because you were so paranoid?”
I shrug. “I was stressed out. I needed a release.”
“She looks pissed. What did you do to her in 15 minutes that she’s still mad months later?” Matti asks and drains the rest of his beer.
I think back for a minute, trying to remember. “I came in her hair.” I smirk at Siena who’s rolling her eyes in disgust. “She didn’t like that.”
Siena’s voice drips with sarcasm. “Strange how all these women you fuck end up mad at you. Does that tell you anything, Vin?”
“Only that I’m doing it right, princess.” I finish my beer and put down the bottle, waving off the fresh beer one of my guys holds out to me like he’s been waiting for the opportunity. “I have zero interest in mixing fucking with feelings.”
“And zero interest in getting the women off, it sounds like.”
Matti bites back a grin and looks down at her legs, running his hands over her thighs in slow, possessive strokes.
“Not my primary concern. If they get off from getting fucked in the ass or the mouth, great. If not?” I shrug. “Not losing sleep over it.”
