The Don, Salvatore, rules with calculated violence. The enforcer, Raffaele, rules with fists and rage. The apprentice, Elio, is learning both. And then there’s our eldest, Shadow—who handles the things no one ever speaks of.
As for me?
I make sure none of it can be touched.
Every dollar that moves through the Vitale network runs through me. Every business, every asset, every legitimate front that keeps the FBI at arm’s length—mine. Salvatore may wear the crown. But I decide what the kingdom is worth.
At thirty-four, I’m worth more than all my brothers combined. A billionaire before thirty. Forbes would put me on their list if they knew where the money actually came from… but we can’t have that now, can we? Instead, I’m the reclusive philanthropist. The financial genius who sits on the boards of hospitals and museums.
I’ve perfected the art of being invisible while being everywhere.
I prefer the elegance of financial ruin over a bullet to the head. Why kill a man when you can dismantle everything he loves first? His business. His reputation. His family’s future. Watch him crumble piece by piece, knowing exactly who’s responsible but unable to prove it, unable to stop it, unable to do anything but watch it all burn.
That’s the difference between Raffaele and me.
He breaks bones. I break balance sheets.
At least, that was the plan.
Then I got word that a prosecutor was building a case against my empire. Not just any prosecutor, my new sister-in-law’s best friend. Twenty-nine. Columbia Law, top ten percent. Conviction rate of ninety-three percent. Thorough, relentless, unwilling to plea bargain.
Clean record. No leverage points. No obvious pressure.
The only thing more inconvenient than her file was her face.
I’ve been watching her for months. Surveillance photos show a woman who doesn’t know how to quit. She stands in the rain outside my buildings like she can will the truth out of concrete.She follows me to meetings. Stakes out my properties. She’s documented three of my legitimate business acquisitions and flagged two that are less so.
She thinks she’s hunting something.
She’s not. She’s walking straight into me.
Every account she’s traced? I let her find it. Every lead? Placed. Every trail? Designed. She’s been running through a maze I built, believing she’s the one who found the door.
I’ve completed my due diligence. I know her pressure points. Her blind spots. The gap between what she believes and what she wants. I know which threads, if pulled, will unravel her—and I know exactly how long it will take.
I’ve taken apart companies. I’ve dismantled men who had armies. I have stripped senators down to their sins and handed them back the bill.
Lindsay Beaumont doesn’t scare me.
What I didn’t plan for was wanting her. Not the tactical kind of wanting. The kind that sits beneath your ribs and refuses to be categorized. The kind that makes a man who hasn’t made a mistake in years give away his queen on a chessboard while thinking about the color of someone’s eyes.
That’s not in the playbook.
I built my life around predictability. Numbers. Systems. Outcomes.
Then Lindsay Beaumont looked at me like I was something worth condemning instead of fearing… and suddenly I understood how men ruin empires for women.
But I’ve always been excellent at adapting.
I saw her at Salvatore’s wedding, blue dress, fury in her spine, heartbreak she thought she was hiding. I took her phone. Not roughly. Just enough to remind her who held the terms. Her chin lifted. Defiant. Stunning. She raised her middle finger asshe walked away and I watched every step of it, thinking:She has no idea.
No idea that I’d already run the numbers. Modeled the scenarios. Identified every variable.
No idea that in my world, the moment I start watching someone—reallywatching them—the outcome is already decided.
She thinks this is about justice. About saving her friend. About bringing down a criminal empire.
She’s wrong.
