Convenient Mafia Wife: Prequel (Syndicate Rules Book 1)

New York City, New York

Five Families

SEVERU

Fucking Irish.

I kick the body on the floor.

Even his own mother wouldn’t recognize him now. It’s not the missing fingers, or the broken legs. His face is a mass of cuts and bruises, eyes swollen shut. He’s missing teeth. His hair is so matted with his own blood, it looks black.

My Head enforcer, Angelo, and I do damn fine work together.

My consigliere disapproves of me taking a personal role in interrogation. He wants me to leave it to the enforcers. Fuck that. If Pietro Russo had taken a more active role in his mafia business, the Irish and Russians could have never moved in on him in Detroit.

‘Open it,’ I bark.

Miceli, my brother and my underboss, places his palm over the biometric reader on the wall. The steel plate in the center of the floor drops eight inches and slides to one side, creating a man size hole.

I shove the body with my foot until it tumbles through the opening. A soft splash sounds. The scent of chemicals mix with the metallic scent of blood in the chilled room.

We don’t fucking dump bodies with cement shoes in the Hudson River like our grandfathers. We dispose of them without a trace.

Our chemist created a solution that dissolves all organic tissue in a matter of hours. No stray bits of fiber. No bones to be found for forensic analysis. No fingerprints for identification and no goddamned DNA. Not his. Not ours.

Any metal in the body, including bullets, gets strained out and put in the smelter. No medical device serial numbers. No ballistics.

‘Fucking Irish,’ I say out loud this time. ‘They aren’t moving in on my territory like they did Russo’s.’

That was a bloodbath and five years later, the mob and their bratva allies still control Russo’s clubs and warehouses in Detroit. The supply routes through all of Wayne County are under their jurisdiction now too.

I am Don of the Genovese, the strongest of the Five Families in the New York Cosa Nostra.

My grandfather and father fought like hell to rebuild the Genovese family, to make us what we are today. I’m not giving up so much as a goddamned laundromat to the Irish or anyone else. Much less a whole fucking county’s supply routes.

We operate under an uneasy truce, not an alliance, with the New York Irish mob and the other organized crime factions in the city. We have our boroughs and businesses we control; they have theirs.

Someone’s always trying to push against the boundaries we’ve been protecting for the last hundred years and rebuilt over the past decades. When they do, we push back. Hard. And they learn to mind their manners.

What the Irish did in Detroit? That was fucked. And it’s not happening in my territory.

‘Someone’s feeding them information,’ Miceli says, brown eyes just like mine filled with fury. ‘Too many shipments compromised. One of our safe houses burned.’

Cold rage surges through me making my teeth grind and my muscles clench. ‘If it is famiglia, they will die slowly and in more pain than they have ever known.’

‘It could be an outsider.’ Angelo finishes cleaning and putting away his tools.

He keeps them in a titanium lined briefcase, which goes with the dark suits he wears. He wouldn’t look out of place on Wall Street but he’s a bigger predator than any of those jackholes ever could be.

He snaps the briefcase shut. ‘Too many people working for us that aren’t family.’

It’s an old complaint.

And I’m not in the mood for it today. ‘You got a problem with how I run things?’ I ask, stepping toward my head enforcer.

‘No, boss.’ Angelo’s tone is even, his expression stoic like it always is.

He’s loyal. He wouldn’t be in this room otherwise. I’m still not taking any shit from him.

Miceli, who is both my brother and my underboss, says, ‘We have too many businesses to keep them staffed at the lower levels with made men.’

Success has its downside.

Like any of us needs that reminder. But he knows how close I am to snapping and this is his way of keeping the peace.

‘You think an outsider knows our business that well, even one who works for us?’ I ask Angelo.

The Irish scum we’d just interrogated had been told what warehouse to hit and where to place the incendiary devices in order to make the fire look like a combination of faulty wiring and unlucky product placement.

Too bad for him, whoever gave him that information hadn’t known about the security measures we added to all our facilities after a shipment got stolen from another location.

Measures only the men in this room and my chief of security are aware of.

‘Fuck if I know,’ Angelo says. Which means he still thinks it’s possible.

No matter how pissed off the idea makes me, I have to consider it. Just like I can’t rule out one of my own as the informant.

‘Either his instructions were a hella coincidence, or—’

‘Someone arranged the merchandise to be arranged the way it was,’ I interrupt Miceli.

Warehouse logistics are handled by either the warehouse manager or the inventory coordinator. The managers are usually higher ranking and older made men, but the inventory coordinator could be a foot soldier. The forklift drivers, on the other hand, might not be Cosa Nostra at all.

They don’t know the true contents of the boxes and crates though.

‘It could be a compromised location,’ Miceli says with a frown.

‘You think somebody bugged us?’ We have better anti surveillance equipment and protocols than the military.

Miceli shrugs. ‘Unlikely, but not impossible.’

‘New surveillance shit is getting developed all the time,’ Angelo adds.

Miceli closes the floor again, so it looks like the steel sheets are welded together.

‘Fucking Irish.’ This time it’s Miceli who says it.

He presses the button that will send powerful jets of chemically treated water across the floor, the metal chair and table we use for detainees, and over the walls. Leave no trace. We have thirty seconds to exit before it starts.

Angelo and Miceli go first, to clear the room on the other side before I follow.

~ ~ ~

The next morning, I call a meeting with my consigliere, Francesco Jilani, Angelo, and my brother. They come to my office on the 35th floor of the high-rise that belongs to la famiglia’s legit business front, Oscuro Enterprises.

I sit behind my desk, answering the never-ending stream of emails I get as CEO, while my assistant ushers the three men in. Miceli and Francesco sit in the two chairs facing my desk. Angelo remains standing. He could pull another chair over, but I know he won’t. Miceli lounges, but his casual demeanor is an act. He’s relaxed like I am. Never. Aware of everything around him.

It’s how our father trained us and the security team outside my office door doesn’t diminish that awareness one iota.

Francesco, on the other hand, sits straight up, his manner respectful, but about as alert as a sleeping spaniel. The consigliere I inherited from my father when I took over as don five years ago, he’s twenty years my senior and damn complacent for a made man. He trusts his bodyguards and our security team to protect him.

Though we have bodyguards, Miceli and I see them as backup, not the front line. Angelo is the same, if not more paranoid than us. He only sits down when social strictures absolutely require it. Even then, I’ve yet to see him stay in his chair throughout an entire meal.

I shut down my email and close my laptop. ‘We aren’t waiting for those whiskey-soaked assholes to move in on me like they did Russo. We take the fucking war to them.’

Last night, I updated Francesco on the results of the interrogation.

Miceli nods. ‘I’ll call a meeting.’

‘I don’t like that he didn’t name his boss,’ Angelo says.

His words drop into the room like bomb. We all stare at him.

‘He said he got his instructions from the mob,’ Miceli says.

‘But when we asked which boss, he never used Brogan Shaughnessy’s name.’

The poor bastard had been nearly dead at that point, and he’d just kept muttering, ‘My boss. It was my boss.’

We all know who the biggest mob boss in New York City is, but Angelo’s right, the Irishman didn’t name him. ‘You think he was from a different crew?’

Angelo shrugs. He’s not prone to speculation.

‘There are several organizations that would benefit from a war between us and the Irish,’ Francesco says. ‘Waiting to strike back might be prudent as it’s possible that is exactly whoever is behind these recent attacks wants us to do.’

I don’t like waiting. It pisses me off, but that’s why the man is my consigliere. He’s supposed to give me smart counsel and I have to admit he could be right.

‘We need to do some digging. Find out if Shaughnessy is looking to expand his territory.’

‘Domenico told me the I.D. we found on the Irishman is fake,’ I tell them.

It’s not uncommon to carry fake I.D. when on a job. It can obfuscate even better than having no identification at all. But its presence could mean that Francesco’s theory has merit. Angelo thinks something is shady and I trust his gut.

I look at my brother. ‘Get Domenico to run facial recognition on the Irishman.’

Domenico is my capo in charge of online money laundering, but he has tech geniuses on his crew that do a lot of other stuff for the organization too.

‘Talk to your contacts in the mob,’ I say to Francesco. Besides respect for my father, I keep him as consigliere because he has built a lot of connections in his decades as a made man. ‘Maybe they know if their boss is targeting us.’

Francesco’s mouth tightens, but he nods. He doesn’t like taking orders from me. Too bad. I’m don.

I look at Miceli. ‘Order a full sweep for surveillance equipment. Offices, meeting rooms, bars, restaurants. Anywhere our plans could be overheard.’

‘Consider it done.’

I nod. Then I look around the room, meeting each man’s eyes before I say, ‘It’s not the Irish stirring up shit with my capos.’

There has been grumbling about lost revenue from the hit shipments, about stability in la famiglia. Like I fucked up. Like I’m weak.noveldrama

Francesco crosses his legs, trying to look more relaxed, so I know whatever coming out of his mouth isn’t going to be something I like.

‘What?’ I growl.

A Don has to have patience, not just power. But mine is on a knife edge ready to gut someone.

‘You need to get married.’

It’s not the fact that Francesco says it that pisses me off so much. It’s that Miceli nods his agreement. Angelo’s expression doesn’t change.

Again with this shit? ‘Now is not the time.’

‘You’re the youngest don in the last four generations,’ Francesco says.

Like I don’t know. ‘I am aware.’

‘Even so, you are thirty-five.’

‘So?’

‘You are don. You were born when your father was 30 and still an underboss.’

‘I’ve got time.’ We’re facing war with Irish mob and he wants me to worry about finding a wife?

‘Like Papà had time?’ Miceli asks.

Fuck.

‘He was only sixty and if he’d waited to have you until he was in his forties,’ Miceli says, ‘You would not have become boss after him.’

‘You sure about that?’ I demand, but I don’t let the rage I feel at being questioned like this, even by my brother, show on my face.

A don does not show emotion, even anger, unless it is strategic to do so. I learned that before I learned to read.

‘No, but it would have taken a lot more bloodshed. We would have lost strong capos.’

He was right. Even at 30, some of the capos had not wanted to follow me as their Don. I hadn’t been forced to kill anyone we were better off keeping, though.

Hell. Francesco is right. So is my brother. I don’t want a wife, but I am The Genovese and I owe la famiglia security. ‘After I settle this shit with the Irish, I’ll find a wife.’

‘I don’t think you should wait.’

‘Noted,’ I say to Francesco, ice in my tone.

Angelo’s raspy voice sounds from his place against the wall. ‘I agree.’

My gaze snaps to him. ‘Why?’

‘Timing.’ Even for Angelo, that’s a short answer.

‘He’s right,’ Miceli says. ‘This Irish thing might be more complicated than we thought. Who the hell knows when we’ll get it sorted. And when we do, it might lead to war.’

‘A wedding for their don will give la famiglia something to celebrate, especially if we start losing soldiers.’ Francesco clears his throat. ‘It’s about doing what’s best for the la famiglia. Being a don your capos can trust, not just to kill for them, but to provide security and continuity into the future.’

Every word out of my consigliere‘s mouth increases my fury, but I rein it in. Because damned if he doesn’t have a point. I don’t want a wife, but it’s not about what I want.

‘Fucking hell.’

The other men in my office can take that for the concession it is.