Convenient Mafia Wife: Prequel (Syndicate Rules Book 1)

New York City, New York

Five Families

SEVERU

‘We were supposed to kidnap her.’ The Albanian screams as Angelo tightens the clamp around his balls.

Blood is already pooled on the steel floor beneath where he sits tied to a metal chair.

‘Her, not them?’ I ask.

The would-be kidnapper looks at me, fear registering. Considering his predicament, it is odd that he’s more afraid to answer me than deal with Angelo’s methods of extracting information.

Then it hits me. ‘You were supposed to kidnap my fiancée.’ The man doesn’t answer, but I don’t need him too. He already has. ‘What about her sister, what were you supposed to do with her?’

He tries to shrug but his broken clavicle makes the move disjointed and causes his face to twist in a rictus of pain. ‘We were supposed to leave her, I guess.’

‘Why don’t I believe you?’ I ask, inexplicable fury roiling in my gut.

I don’t let it show. I am not ruled by my emotions.

Angelo takes one of the man’s fingers and slides it into the tool he uses to remove them. If he presses the handles together a strong, sharp blade will slide up and cut right through the flesh and bone.

‘Don’t. Please,’ the man begs. He’s already lost two. ‘I am not lying. Our instructions were to let her go and only take the sister.’

‘And was that your plan?’ Miceli asks from where he is leaning against the wall, looking bored.

The expression that crosses the Albanian’s face is all the answer I need. His crew had no intention of letting Catalina go. They planned to take her too, probably to sell her.

New York Cosa Nostra stays out of human trafficking, but there are plenty of gangs and cartels that operate in and around the city who don’t observe those limits. Including the Albanians – who don’t just work with the Irish, but are in bed with fucking Russian bratva.

‘What were you going to do with her before you sold her?’ I ask in a deadly quiet voice.

‘Nothing.’

The sound of his finger being severed is followed by another scream and more blood spilling onto the floor. Angelo cauterizes the wound so the Albanian doesn’t bleed out before we’re ready for him to die.

The smell of burning flesh assaults my nostrils, but I don’t react. That would be weak and a don never shows weakness.

‘I don’t believe you,’ I tell the now crying man and wait to see if he answers.

‘We were going to take turns with her,’ he admits. ‘You got to break them before they’re any use in a brothel.’

Fuck that shit. The idea of the surprisingly fierce woman being touched by this piece of garbage and his buddies makes my vision go red with rage. I punch him in the face so hard, his head snaps back and we have to use smelling salts to wake him up again.

‘Who hired you?’ Angelo demands as soon as he wakes.

‘I don’t know,’ the man says. Again. His accent has gotten thicker the longer he is tortured. ‘It was anonymous through the web.’

I know his crew makes money as hired muscle, usually for organizations that don’t want a direct connection whatever is going down. Like kidnapping a don’s fiancée.

We continue the interrogation but get nothing else of use out of him. The closer he gets to death, the more he slips into Albanian. Not one of the six languages I speak, but Miceli is familiar enough with it to shake his head, indicating nothing said is useful.

When we are done, I walk behind him, grab his head and twist until the bones of his neck crack, the break killing him.

We drop him into the pit under the floor and leave the box.

Back in my office, thirty-two floors above the box, Miceli asks me, ‘Is it true that Catalina killed one of the kidnappers?’

I nod. ‘Her uncle taught her how to shoot a gun.’

‘That’s pretty badass. Maybe you should have picked the older sister,’ Miceli jokes.

I don’t smile. I’ve thought the same thing, but ultimately, it’s better this way. I want a wife who will not interfere with my life. Catalina calls to something inside me that feels too much like a heart.

She is dangerous. Carlotta is not. The younger sister is demur with no hidden depths like her sister, nothing to spark a passion I do not want to feel.

I am don. I do not indulge in emotions better left to others.

CATALINA

Carlotta is inconsolable tonight and insists I sleep with her. I don’t mind really. We have less than three months together before her marriage. Before I leave New York for good.

I’ve been researching places to live. According to my sources, Mississippi has the lowest cost of living, so my nest egg would last the longest. However, Colorado and Massachusetts have the strongest job market.

I wouldn’t even know to look into these things if it weren’t for the online seminar I watched on setting goals and making plans to achieve them. It seemed like an infomercial for the woman’s book at first, but she gave some pretty good tips.

I even read her book. On my ereader, of course. I don’t need anyone in the family seeing a book like that lying around in my room.

I’ve read everything I can about living economically because that is not something even Zio Giovi is going to teach me. No one in my family ever has to worry about money.

Although Washington state is down the list for both affordable cost of living and job opportunities, it is still in the top ten and has the added benefit of being on the other side of the country.

My chances of disappearing are better if I go to a large city with which we have no familial or business ties. Like Seattle. There’s mafia in Seattle, but they are Camorra and there’s no chance I’ll be recognized by someone I know there.

‘Are you asleep?’ Carlotta asks in the semi-dark. She insists on having a night light on tonight.

I would prefer the peace of complete darkness, but it’s her room.

Turning to face her, I say. ‘No.’

‘Will my life always be like today?’ she asks, her eyes growing shiny with tears.

Having just got her calmed down less than hour ago, I nearly groan, but I hold it in and force a smile. ‘No. Today was an anomaly.’

‘An anomaly we’ve trained for since we were children.’

I can’t deny that. ‘It’s the life in the mafia.’

‘I don’t want this life.’

‘You mean life in the mafia?’ I’ve thought about taking Carlotta with me when I leave.

Only, as much as I love my sister, I don’t think she is capable of living economically. She’s too used to having what she wants when she wants it. The don can give her that.

‘Not exactly. I love my family and friends,’ she says. ‘It’s restricting being a mafia princess though. I don’t want to be the don’s wife.’

‘Are you sure about that? As his wife, you’ll be the queen bee in the family. You’ll be able to set fashion trends and live in a home even bigger than this one. You’ll be able to go to plays and nightclubs.’

‘You think he’s going to take me to nightclubs?’ Carlotta demands, ignoring the rest because she knows it’s true and the indecision on her face says she wants those things.

‘Maybe not, but he’ll let you make friends and as long as you don’t do anything you shouldn’t, I bet he’ll let you go to clubs with them.’

‘I already have friends in the city,’ she says petulantly.

I smile encouragingly. ‘There you go then.’

‘I like the idea of being queen bee and all the rest,’ she admits and then bites her lip. ‘But I don’t want to have to marry Severu to get it.’noveldrama

Part of me wants to be patient and understanding. This is my little sister and she’s understandably nervous about the future. But part of me simply can’t comprehend how blind she is to what a sexy and dynamic man it is she’s marrying.

‘You don’t get one without the other,’ I say as consolingly as I can.

‘But today, we could have died. That never happened before I was engaged to him.’

‘I’ve never heard of it happening to his mom, or his sister, either.’

‘Just because we’ve never heard of it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I’m sure no one except immediate family will ever hear of what happened to us today either.’ Carlotta flops onto her back and glares at the ceiling.

‘But they’ve never actually been kidnapped or harmed, right?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because they are both living peacefully in their homes,’ I point out.

Carlotta harrumphs, clearly unconvinced.

‘Would you run away if you could?’ I ask reluctantly.

I don’t want to take her with me. She’ll make everything harder, and our father will never stop searching for her, which will put my own freedom at risk. If we are caught, I have no doubt my father will kill me after torturing me.

But if she says yes, I can’t leave my sister behind to pay the price that makes my own escape from Papà’s house possible.

Carlotta laughs a little hysterically. ‘Right? Like I know how to function in the real world. Papà has made sure we are totally unequipped to take care of ourselves.’

I know she’s younger than me, but Carlotta has been out of school for a year. She could have spent time learning about how to navigate life outside the mafia if she’d wanted to. Like I have. No, I haven’t left yet, but I didn’t want to leave my sister until I had to. Or my aunt and uncle. They love me, even if my father doesn’t.

‘I will talk to Aria about convincing Don De Luca to get you cooking classes,’ I offer, hoping that will assuage my sister.

She turns back to me, her face glowing with excitement. ‘You will? There’s a bunch of amazing culinary institutes in the city. I don’t care which one I go to. I mean I have my favorite of course, but attending any of them would be a dream come true.’

‘What’s your favorite?’ I ask, wanting to keep this positive attitude going.

‘Oh, you wouldn’t know it,’ she says vaguely. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, I’d go to any of them. When I graduate, maybe I’ll be able to create new dishes for some of the mafia owned restaurants.’

That sounds like a teenager’s dream, not set in any kind of reality, but I smile anyway. She’ll learn more than cooking techniques if she gets to attend culinary school. She’ll learn the hierarchy in the kitchen.

I watch a lot of cooking shows with my sister. From what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure Carlotta would have to work her way up to creating dishes. It’s not surprising that she hasn’t drawn the same conclusion.

In Carlotta’s world, she can have and do what she wants. Except pick her own husband.

‘I don’t think it will be safe for a don’s wife to work in a kitchen, even in one our restaurants.’

‘Oh, I don’t want to work. Not like full-time, or anything. I want to experiment with food and preparation techniques.’

She’ll be able to do that in her own home. The don can refurbish his kitchen to restaurant standards and I’m sure he won’t mind doing so. I get the feeling that he wants to do whatever he needs to in order to keep my sister occupied and happy.

And out of his hair.

Even though I don’t like thinking of her in that kind of passionless marriage, my worry for her future dissipates a little.

‘If only I knew him better. I don’t think the prospect of marrying him would be so scary.’ Carlotta sighs. ‘Though nothing is going to change that he’s old enough to be my father.’

‘Only if he was a precocious teen.’ The don is sixteen years older than her, not twenty. Stifling the little voice in my head that says the age difference between the don and myself is less daunting, I say, ‘You’ll get to know him before the wedding. Isn’t that what the weekly dinners in his home are for?’

Carlotta has been to one dinner with the De Lucas and was supposed to go with our father again tomorrow. Will that still happen?

Carlotta snorts. ‘He and Papà spent the whole time last week talking business and it will be the same at the next one.’

I want to grind my teeth in frustration. These dinners are for Carlotta to get to know her future husband, and Papà is commandeering them with his usual self-serving attitude, oblivious to anyone else’s needs. Even those of his favorite daughter.

I’ll be talking to Aria about more than Carlotta going to culinary school.