The walls were lined with expensive art, each piece chosen to show wealth and power.
My father’s wealth and power, which he wielded like a sword against everyone around him at all times.
I had my own blade raised, readying for a fight.
I adjusted my cuffs, glancing over at Alexei, who was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his usual unreadable stonyexpression on his face. He was always inhumanly calm before a fight.
Devin, on the other hand, was pacing back and forth, a storm brewing inside the hard set of his broad shoulders.
Of the three of us, he was always the one most willing to voice his concerns.
"What the hell could his motive have possibly been to give us Frankie?” Devin muttered, not even bothering to hide the tension in his voice.
I shook my head, fingers gripping the back of the leather chair I was standing beside. “I don’t know. But we have to play this carefully. My father doesn’t like being questioned, as you well know.”
Devin scoffed. “Yeah, understatement of the fucking century. But we deserve to ask questions with the shit he’s throwing at us. All of it. That auction. The girl. I’m so sure this is part of the game he’s playing with Ferrara, I just don’t know how Frankie connects.” He stopped pacing, turning to face me. “Do you know anything?”
I clenched my jaw. “You’d know if I did.” That’s how things worked in our world—loyalty, family, power. We all answered to my father, but we worked together for a shared goal. Even if the cost was our own souls.
Hell, as the only blood Butera of the three of us, I might not have been born with a soul in the first place. If I had one, it was already irreparably tarnished after I’d taken so much pleasure from Frankie’s body last night.
I sensed my father’s presence before he even stepped into the room, and we were all standing up straighter, turning toward him as he made his grand entrance.
Anthony Butera strode in like a man who owned the world. And, for all intents and purposes, he did.
The tailored suit, the perfectly combed silver hair, the rough-edged charisma that demanded respect—he was everything a mafia don should be.
There was no warmth in his eyes, no kindness in his smile. Just cold, calculating power. The same dear old Dad I’d grown up fearing.
“Gentlemen,” he greeted us, the word smooth as honey, but the undercurrent of command was unmistakable. “I trust you’re all well?”
No one answered immediately, and he didn’t seem to care.
“Let’s get down to it,” he continued, plopping himself down in his chair at the head of the long, polished conference table. He motioned for us to sit, and I could already feel my blood starting to boil. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to face him, not now, not with everything that had gone down the night before.
“I heard you won the bidding, as I instructed,” my father said, settling back into his chair as if this were all just business as usual. He looked at each of us, his eyes lingering on me for a moment longer. “So, all three of you took the girl’s virginity, I trust?”
My throat tightened.Fuck. Part of me hoped that hadn’t been part of his plan. It wouldn’t make last night any less, well, anything, but maybe it’d be easier to stomach.
Devin and Alexei exchanged a look. I could feel rather than see the guilt in their eyes. We all nodded, even though I could feel the shame crawling up the back of my neck.
“Yes,” Alexei said, his voice quiet but firm, “We did.”
Bastard that he was, my father laughed. A low, rich chuckle that seemed to echo off the walls. “I have to admit,” he said, leaning forward, his eyes gleaming with something dark, “I’m proud of you boys. You’re all learning how to play the game.”
As if we hadn’t been playing it flawlessly for years—decades, in my case. I wasn’t sure whether to feel disgusted or enraged. I couldn’t decide which part of it bothered me more—the fact that he was proud of us for exploiting a woman, or that he thought of it as some kind of game.
“What the hell was the goal here?” Devin’s voice was sharp, like a knife, and for a second, I thought he might lash out. “And what was the point in leaving us in the dark?”
Anthony waved a hand dismissively. Swatting Devin down like a bug, which was more like poking a bear. “It’s not your place to question me, and you know that. But as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, every move we’re making right now, as a family, is about counteracting that son-of-a-bitch Ferrara’s scheming. He thinks he can encroach on my territory?Thisis the message we send.”
I frowned, trying to connect the dots. Frankie was so innocent—before all the deflowering, of course, but even now. After. She was sweet and pure enough that even our bloodied hands couldn’t sully her.
No way in hell she was connected, at least intentionally, to the man who aspired to usurp my father.
Ferrara had a reputation for having fewer scruples and far more mercurial moods.
“The girl, Francesca,” my father started to explain, smirking. “She’s Robert Ferrara’s only daughter.”
