Massimo


    I stare after Manni, my head guard, as he takes Emelia away. If I were finished up here, I’d take her to the house myself. Not him.


    I already feel my blood boiling watching him touch her. Watching him touch what’s mine. The Balesteri Princess, a woman deemed to be prized.


    She’s the princess locked away in the tower. I just moved her from one tower to another. The difference about this story is, there will be no prince to save her. No one wille to give her freedom. She is the spoils of war. The trophy I came to collect.


    If I were a better man, I’d feel sorry for her. She’s a victim, a piece on the chess board who now belongs to me.


    “It’s done,” thewyer, that fucktard Marzetti, says. I return my focus to them as he applies the Balesteri family seal to the contract.


    “Good,” Pa says, taking back the lead on this visit of ours.


    Although I can feel Rardo’s heated gaze on me, I watch Marzetti as he gathers the contract and the other documents with our offer and starts cing them in an envelope.


    He’s what I call a ‘yes man’. An irritating, spineless piece of shit who does what he’s told. That’s what he does. Vermin who worked for Rardo way back when. I stare the asshole down and wonder if he remembers me as a boy. I’m sure he does. He’s been looking at me like he remembers me just fine.


    As he and hispany of fuckers came to throw my family out of our home, I stared him down just like I am now. Back then, heughed at me and called me a foolish child. I was ten years old. Now I’m twenty-nine, and I’m about to take over my father’s empire. An empire he built from the nothingness we had.


    With the handover of leadership, the repayment of the debt wille to me.


    Unlike the foolish child I was called, I now own Emelia and close to sixty percent of all Balesteri assets. The rest wille when turns twenty-one.


    Power is a beautiful thing. It’s so much better when you can taste it and feel it coursing through your veins.


    Marzetti is notughing now. He’s shit scared, the same as that devil Rardo.


    Pa and I are here before him, and we are so far from powerless, useless, or helpless. Unlike that day at the cemetery, there’s not a damn thing anybody would be able to do if we killed every motherfucker in this house.


    “May I go now?” Marzetti asks when he’s finished. I almostugh. He looks like he’s ready to shit himself.


    Rardo looks even worse for the fact that his belovedwyer had to ask us permission to leave.From N?velDrama.Org.


    “You may,” Pa answers. We don’t need awyer for what happens next.


    It’s Syndicate business and as such will be handled between us. It will be interesting to watch. I continue to stare at Marzetti, who hurries out of here, scurrying away like the rat he is.


    “Leave us,” Rardo tells his men, and they follow.


    It’s just the three of us now. Rardo takes his chair. I walk back to mine.


    “Back to business,” Pa says with a well-earned smug smile.


    We’re not finished with Rardo yet. Taking Emelia was just the first act. This n of ours was well thought out. It’s what you call the true art of war-knowing when to get your enemy exactly where you want him to be and striking not at the point where he’s injured, but when you know he walks the line between life and death and only a miracle will save him. That is where Rardo is right now, and the fucker knows it.


    “You can’t just take my voting rights,” Rardo says, trying to keep his tone under control. “They are what tie me to the syndicate. What kind of member would I be without my rights to vote and make decisions?”


    “That is not my concern. I want your voting rights, or the deal is off,” Pa answers.


    My father is here with me to secure the veryst thing this asshole owns: His voting rights in the syndicate, the Brotherhood. Like Rardo, my father is one of the Syndicate leaders. Voting rights equal power and control. They give control and take away control. This is my father’s final act as boss. His final gift to me before he hands over the D’Agostino empire.


    Our demand for Rardo’s voting right was the shocker we dealt just before Emelia walked in. It was why he behaved the way he did with her. Shock and desperation consumed him. Shock that we had so much power and discovered his secrets. Desperation from being wedged in a corner.


    We came here to kill him for the money he owes. Or offer him a way out that would equally destroy his ass. The offer was this: his beloved daughter and the new set of luxury apartments he bought at the start of the year for the debt, plus his voting rights in exchange for our silence on his crimes to the Syndicate from breaking the creed.


    “You will give it to me, or I won’t hesitate to inform the the Brotherhood of your gross errors. I doubt you want that on your hands.”


    Terror makes beads of sweat form on Rardo’s upper lip. Bastardo. He’s an idiot for thinking we, of all people, will let him reason with us. He’s lucky. That’s what he is. Lucky that we only want to destroy him instead of just killing his ass. The motherfucker did the one thing you shouldn’t do in our world: underestimate. He never thought anybody would discover his secret that he’s on the edge of being broke. And that he’s a thief.


    “You are loving this, aren’t you?” Rardo sneers.


    “Yes, I am,” Pa answers, short, sweet, and sinct, knowing that Rardo doesn’t want the Syndicate on his ass. I bite back a grin as I watch a smile of victory dance across my father’s lips.


    He thought he was untouchable, but everybody loses sometimes. That’s what happened to him. He took a big gamble when he started working with Cartel members and ying with syndicate money. He lost it all and had to turn to us for help. Us, his enemies. He came to us because he knew he couldn’t go to anybody else. Maybe he thought he could prey on the lost friendship he and my father once shared. Then the worst thing happened to him when he couldn’t pay us back. I knew that would happen though. He yed right into the trap.


    “Gio, you took my daughter,” Rardo reminds Pa.


    “We’re not going over this again, Rardo,” Pa answers, mimicking his tone.


    “It’s a serious matter.”


    “This is not up for discussion,” Pa adds, cutting through the tense silence that’s be so thick in the air it feels tangible. Like I could take out my pocketknife and cut through it.


    “I don’t see how you think it’s right to do this to me.”


    “I don’t care what you think is right or wrong. This is the way it’s going to be. Decide now. We don’t have all fucking night. Shall I make the call now to the Brotherhood? Or will you be handing me what I ask?”


    Rardo stares back, fury brimming in his eyes along with fear.


    Apart from us, the Brotherhood of the Syndicate is made up of two other powerful Italian crime families and two Bratva families. They will not be pleased to hear how Rardo has been benefitting from their investments for thest ten years and how much he’s stole.


    He knows they’ll kill him. They’ll deal death exactly the way he threatened at my mother’s funeral. It would start with him, then they’d kill his daughter, his family and friends. Everyone he knows.


    The Syndicate is a secret society of crime families set up to protect wealth and allow its members to flourish in more wealth. Cross them and break the creed, and it means death to all you know. There is no way out.


    This selfish fucker, however, is just worried about himself. I know it. He knows we’ll kill him too, and we’d be able to without retaliation for all he’s done.


    Death, however, is too good for him. He did exactly what we wanted. We wanted to watch the asshole fall and crumble. To see his face as he loses everything. It’s interesting though. I thought his daughter might have been his one good thing, but she isn’t. Rardo Balesteri values his money and power. The one good thing in his life was his voting rights in the syndicate. The man makes me sick. He’s more aggrieved to lose that than selling his daughter.


    “What’s it going to be, Rardo?” Pa asks and holds out another contract to him. That one would have the same wording as the one Emelia signed. But it needs to be signed in blood.


    “You bastard. You had to take everything,” Ricardo says and looks from Pa to me.


    I’ve sat back and minded my ce, allowing my father to talk. It’s my turn now.


    “Be fucking grateful we left you with the roof over your head and the clothes on your back,” I answer, and he cuts me a sharp nce.


    He won’t say anything to me. I can tell he’s still shaken from the way I grabbed his hand earlier. I was going to break it. Payback for the stunt he pulled on me at Ma’s funeral. I would have made payback the sure bitch she is and break his fucking hand in several ces. I’ve been waiting for a long time to find a way to get him, and while I’ve seen this man several times since my mother’s funeral, I’ve held back.


    What stopped me was her. Emelia. My cold, dead heart awoke somewhat, and I took pity on the princess. It was how she looked when she pleaded for her dreams and her art that got me. Watching me break her father’s hand would have been too much for her. It would have added to the bomb we dropped on the evening.


    “We don’t have all night, Rardo,” Pa states in a menacing voice.


    Grudgingly, Rardo takes the contract, looks it over, and retrieves a pen knife from his drawer. A smile dances on my lips when he cuts the tip of his thumb and blood drips on to the dotted line.


    “There. You have it all now.” He looks at me. “You have it all.”


    “I do, and you have nothing,” I answer. “It will be most interesting to see what happens next. Definitely interesting to see what happens when I marry your daughter, ruining your damn ns.”


    Boy, did this bastard ever have his fair share of ns. At Easter, he disyed his daughter to the underground at the charity ball. We all saw her for the first time. Unbeknown to her, that event was what we call a Viewing, a signal to start bidding. He disyed her like a piece of meat for sale, and as she’s been the talk of the underground since then, I can just imagine how many bids he must have gotten. The minute I saw her, I knew the fucker wanted to marry her off and secure some business arrangement with the marriage.


    Then we found out what he was up to with the Syndicate and the trouble he was in as a result of all the money he lost. I knew exactly how to strike then.


    “You will not get away with this,” he warns. I’m amazed he has the balls to say that to me.


    I lean forward and hold his gaze. “I think I already did.” I reach for the contract and hand it to Pa, who takes it dly. I continue to give this bastard before me a hardened stare. Looking at him the way I’ve wanted to look at him for years.


    I wonder if his daughter knows how truly evil he is. She only just saw the tip of her father’s wrath. I get the feeling she doesn’t know anything.


    As I look at this devil before me, I think back to the day at the cemetery when I vowed vengeance. This is only the start.


    Pa clears his throat and stands. I do too.


    “Pleasure doing business with you, Rardo,” Pa says. “I will contact the Brotherhood and make them aware of what’s happening in terms of your rights.”


    Ricardo stares back knowing he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.


    We walk out, leaving him to his thoughts. Right where we want him.


    He knows it only goes downhill from here.


    The men follow us, and Pa and I stop on the steps when we get outside.


    I look over the grounds of the mansion. It’s beautiful and worth millions with the design and thend surrounding it.


    “We should have taken the property as well,” I state.


    “No, we have to leave him with a base so we can watch his next moves,” Pa answers. “Home is where the heart is, even for those with dark souls. He’ll be plotting his next moves right here.”


    “Yes, I imagine so,” I agree. I just wanted to truly leave him in the shit, put him on the roadside with a paper bag if I could. It still wouldn’t be enough.


    “He will try things. We’ve crippled him in a big way, but don’t underestimate him.”


    “I won’t.”


    He rests a hand on my shoulder. Pride swells his eyes. To see that in a man like him for me is a massive aplishment. My father is the kind of man who went through hell and back. He rules with an iron fist that shows the extent of his power. I’ve seen him at his lowest, cut down like grass, and at his highest. That is where he is now, and I’m honored to fill his shoes. The fact that he picked me over Andreas is an honor I will take to my grave, bad as I feel about being picked to lead the famiglia over my older brother.


    “You’re ready to be boss. You acted like one today.”


    I dip my head in reverence at his words. “My thanks to you, Father.”


    “I’ll finish the asset transferter today in prep for the ceremony. Then there’s the Syndicate meetings. I will initiate you and spend the next few months training you. Then that will be it.”


    That will be it. And I will form a new leadership with my brothers.


    “Thank you.”


    Pa rests his hand on my shoulder and nods. “Let’s leave this ce, Massimo. Do not keep your woman waiting.”


    “No, I won’t.”


    His face hardens, and I know he has nopassion when ites to Emelia.


    “Make sure she knows who is boss now. Make sure she knows who she belongs to.”


    Ruthless. That’s what he wants me to be. I have no problem with that.


    I have no problem with showing her who she belongs to. My fucking cock has been hard for her since I first saw her at the stupid ball.


    I’ll have no problem breaking my new toy in.