Chapter 3

3

Creed

T he Vault is packed, which means there are plenty of fish in the sea for Tristan to pick tonight’s lucky — or unlucky — lady from the dance floor. While Dre may be the smartest and most ruthless, Tristan is definitely the most depraved.

“What’s the plan?” Carmine shouts over the thumping music.

“Let’s find somewhere we can all meet down here,” I tell the guys. “Jasper’s office is too quiet for this conversation.” I don’t take any chances with people recording meetings.

“Agreed. I’ll clear an area,” Lorenzo says before he leaves us.

“I’ll go find Jasper and bring him down,” Dre says to us before he disappears into the crowd and up the spiral stairs to Jasper’s office.

“I’ll go find out who’s down to scream for me tonight,” Tristan tells us with a smirk before he stalks onto the dance floor in search of his next victim .

Tristan breaks bones and knocks teeth out of men for a living. He enjoys inflicting pain not just to keep assholes in line but to get off on the sense of well-deserved justice. I’m not entirely sure why he thinks women deserve his wrath.

While Dre can be just as heartless, he doesn’t do things to intentionally hurt people. My oldest cousin, a shrewd attorney, is logical nearly to a fault. If someone needs to be put down to protect the family, he’ll be the first one to pull out his gun.

“Let’s get a drink while we wait,” I tell Carmine. When we approach the bar, men and women alike take one look at us, at me, and scatter like mice fleeing a hungry lion.

Accabadore.

I swear I can vaguely hear the word being whispered repeatedly, even over the pounding music.

“Don’t pout,” Carmine says with a chuckle. “At least now there’s no line.”

“Right.” My brother can always find the silver-lining in anything.

Danny, the bartender sees us and asks, “Good to see you, Mr. Ferraro. Would you like your usual bottle of Dalmore tonight?”

“That would be great, thanks. Six glasses,” I tell him.

“Coming right up,” he agrees.

Glancing around at the ten feet buffer zone everyone is giving us, despite the fact that the place is slam packed.

“They’re trying to be respectful of you in your bar,” he remarks.

“Yeah, well, I’m sick of being treated like a walking STD.”

Carmine chuckles. “You’re actually worse than an STD. A quick death is a whole lot scarier than an itchy dick rash. Nobody wants to make the mistake of getting too close and insulting you in your own club.”

“I’ve never killed anyone for brushing up against me or making me wait for a drink.”

“By now, you should be used to the downside of being the most-feared man in the city of eight million. I don’t envy you. It’s bad enough that we look so much alike I’m constantly getting mistaken for you.”

“How about we just trade places for a day? Hell, I’d be happy with one night.”

“No fucking way.”

The truth is, it’s me who is envious of Carmine. My younger brother has never had to feel the weight of responsibility for our people on his shoulders.

And his bed isn’t nearly as lonely as mine.

“Do you think I should take Emilio up on his offer?” I ask him, since now seems as good a time as any while we wait for our twenty-five-year-old, single malt bottle of whisky.

Carmine blinks at me silently for several long seconds. “You’re not seriously considering that shit, are you?”

“I told him no…but maybe I should give it more thought. It’s what our father wanted — an alliance with the Rovinas.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Nope.”

“You really want to try and wrangle that vicious viper? You two would probably kill each other before your first anniversary!”

“I’m almost forty and not getting any younger,” I remind him. “And it’s not like I have any prospects lining up for a ring.”

“You’re thirty-six! That’s not ‘almost forty.’”

“Close enough. Our father wanted us to both marry strong, Italian woman and have a few heirs — a Ferraro-Rovina heir specifically.”

“I don’t know, Creed. Do you really want to get into bed with Emilio Rovina? He’s a greedy man who is always going to want more. And that more is getting his hands on a piece of our empire.”

“He was our father’s best friend. They rebuilt entire neighborhoods together.”

“Our father is dead. Let his plans for us die too. You can do better than trying to survive a marriage with Stella Rovina.” Carmine shakes his head. “Where the hell is that bartender? Changing his pants you made him piss?”

My brother doesn’t get it. My lack of prospective lovers isn’t my choice. I’m not going through a drought. It’s a full-blown famine between my sheets. It’s been at least a year, hell, maybe longer, since I last had sex.

To run the city and oversee all the bosses, I have to be feared, making me the nightmare mothers and fathers caution their children about. The boys they tell to steer clear to avoid becoming indoctrinated as one of my foot soldiers, and the girls, well they warn girls to stay away from me and my brother because we’ll take their innocence, or even worse, they’ll be the next victim of the Ferraro family curse.

The truth is, there are plenty of men in this city who would do absolutely anything to become a member of the Ferraro family, so we’ve never had to recruit.

And more importantly, I don’t get off on being feared by women.

I glance around the bar, trying to meet the eye of at least one brave woman, but there’s no such luck tonight.

While I don’t have any problem with other men paying willing women or men for sex, it’s just not for me. I want to fuck someone who wants me without the payday or without me hiding who I am, even if that shit happens rarer than a monsoon in the desert.

As the mafia king of New York City, I’m looking for a fearsome queen, not a doe-eyed, twenty-something gold-digger who bolts at the first gunshot. But no respectable woman in the Family wants to risk their lives by being chained to me. No amount of money can bring someone back from the dead.

Occasionally, I will go home with a willing woman. The sex will be decent, but the next morning, she’ll see the invisible blood on my hands, remember that I’m a man who isn’t worth the risk, and never be seen or heard from again.

While Stella Rovina may be willing to stick around as my wife, it sure as shit won’t be for love. No, the marriage will be more of a business arrangement. A hostile business merger that I may not survive.

“You’re right,” I tell my brother. “I don’t want to deal with all the strings that come with Emilio and Stella Rovina.”

“Thank fuck,” he mutters. “She would only make you even more miserable. And there’s no reason to give up on marrying for love just yet. In fact, it looks like you actually have a daring admirer tonight.”

“Bullshit.”

Carmine lifts his phone and snaps a photo. “Pretty girl, but I think she’s more my type than yours,” he teases with a grin before he finally shows the image to me.

He’s wrong. The woman in the miniscule green dress isn’t simply pretty. She’s beautiful, tall and thick with long, wild auburn curls. And she’s looking right at his camera. At us.

I lift my eyes from the phone and search the general direction of where my brother’s phone was aimed.

It only takes a moment to spot her. She stares back at me, her gaze unwavering. And the image doesn’t do her justice.

She’s hands down the most gorgeous woman in the city, and she’s…crooking her finger at me?

I can’t say I’m not tempted to go over and talk to her.

But I’m not a dog to be summoned by anyone.

“Well? Aren’t you going to go talk to her?” Carmine asks as if he’s so certain she’s interested in me and not himself.

“I haven’t decided yet. I don’t appreciate being ordered around by a woman I don’t even know yet.”

Instead of caving, I nod my head to the empty stool next to me at the bar as a counteroffer .

She shakes her unruly head of tight spirals and purses her pretty pink lips together. Shoving her fingers through her hair to toss it out of her face, her eyes dart around the crowded club before she tips her chin up stubbornly as if to say, get your ass over here right now .

“Either she doesn’t know who you are, or she’s got some big brass balls in her panties.”

“No shit,” I agree with a frown, not a fan of my brother imagining anything in her panties.

When I don’t make a move, her gaze scans the club, and she looks exasperated. Once our eye contact is broken, her gaze lowers to the phone in her hands, her thumbs typing away to someone.

I wait for her to lift her head again, but she doesn’t, too engrossed with her device.

Carmine shoves his elbow against mine. “You should hurry over before someone tells her who you are and scares her off.” When I hesitate, he adds, “Or maybe I’ll just go talk to her.”

“ Vaffanculo ,” I snap while straightening and buttoning my suit jacket. Realizing exactly why he said that shit. “Well played.”

He laughs. “I expect you to thank me profusely in your wedding toast for not taking her home with me tonight.”

As I reluctantly begin to make my way toward her, I flip him off without glancing back until the woman’s eyes widen when she looks up and sees me approaching her.

Rather than giving my brother the middle finger, I should’ve been thinking of what the hell I’m going to say to her. First words are important, and I can’t seem to come up with any to negate who and what I am.

Before I have a chance to say a single word, she sucks in a deep breath that lifts her shoulders and then blurts out loud enough to be heard clearly over the thumping music, “You and your friends should leave right now, Mr. Ferraro. ”

Okay, so she knows exactly who I am. And she still called me over? That’s…interesting.

Moving in closer, I study the trail of freckles that start between her auburn eyebrows and sweep down her nose before locking eyes with her again.

Eyes that sparkle like light shining through green glass.

“You called me over here, and before I have a chance to even tell you how gorgeous you are, you’re telling me to…leave?”

“No. I mean, yes!” She says as she adjusts one of the thin straps of her tiny dress that matches her eyes. “Go!” She points her finger toward the entrance, as if I’m an idiot who can’t find my way out. With those parting words, she turns toward the bar, in a clear dismissal of me, which is pretty damn infuriating.

Refusing to let this baffling and infuriating woman slip through my fingers so soon, I grab her bare forearm to stop her. “Wait a second. You’re not even going to tell me your name?”

“I can’t,” she replies just before chaos erupts around us.

When I hear the familiar pop-pop-pop sound, rather than reach for my gun in my holster to shoot back, I tackle the woman to the ground, shielding her body with my own, even though I have no idea which direction the bullets are flying from.

Over the sounds of gunfire and people screaming, she clutches my arms and blinks up at me in shock. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know…I didn’t know…”

There’s no time for me to ask her what the fuck she’s talking about as a flood of men in all-black uniforms, complete with riot helmets, pour in from the front door. All of them point their big ass guns at the room of patrons.

This is too organized to be some random shooting. It’s the fucking cops, and for some unknown reason, they’re apparently raiding my fucking club.

Either the cops on my payroll had no idea or they decided to fuck me over .

The place is clean. I know better than to stash any drugs, guns, or money here on a busy night.

“HANDS UP WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!” the cops yell. “GET YOUR HANDS UP!”

I push my weight off the woman and glance over my shoulder at the bar to make sure Carmine got down.

He’s one of the few people in the club still standing. Staggering actually, as he reaches for the bar as if to keep himself upright.

Two officers storm over to me, blocking my view and pointing his weapon right at my face.

“EVERYONE GET ON THE GROUND! HANDS IN THE AIR!” someone shouts.

I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I can’t shake the feeling that these sons of bitches are out for blood.

“Get off her! Nose to the ground,” an officer says to me as he and his buddy pull me off the woman and shove me facedown to the ground.

“GET ON THE GROUND!” is yelled yet again.

As I’m being felt up for weapons, my fury growing with every second, I lift my head to find my brother still standing at the bar.

What the fuck is he doing?

“Carmine, get down!” I shout at him. He turns towards my voice which is when I see the gun in his right hand. One of my guns.

“DROP YOUR WEAPON!” a voice orders and is immediately followed by another round of pop-pop-pop.

“No!” I scream. Carmine drops to his knees and starts to fall forward onto his face.

I’m instantly on my feet and shoving the officers off me to run toward him, but I know I won’t make it in time to catch him.

From what sounds like a million miles away, someone says, “HOLD YOUR FUCKING FIRE!”

“Carmine!” I grab his shoulders to lift and roll him over. The front of his white dress shirt and dark suit jacket are so fucking bloody I can’t even tell how many times those sons of bitches shot him.

They fucking shot him!

I press my palms to where the bleeding is the heaviest.

My brother’s blue eyes are frantic as they blink up at me. He parts his lips, as if trying to speak, but only a trickle of blood slips from the corner.

I lie when I tell him, “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Cazzo!

I search the room full of people for help. Most are still face down. “He needs help! We’ve got to get him to the hospital!” I yell when none of the cops move an inch. They just stand there, watching through their helmets with guns raised. “Someone help me get him up!” I don’t know whether to try to haul him off the floor or keep applying pressure to slow the bleeding. I’ve seen plenty of gunshot wounds before, but I’ve never seen anyone with this many chest and stomach wounds live.

No. No, no, no.

This can’t be happening. It can’t. Only seconds ago, Carmine was joking with me and giving me hell like usual.

In slow motion, his eyes dull as they sweep over me once like he’s checking me over for injuries before they roll back in his head.

“Fuck!” I press down harder on his chest and stomach. “Hang on, Carmine. Just hang on until we can get you out of here,” I tell him right before I’m tackled to the floor by what feels like several large bodies.

My head and back slam to the stone ground, and then I’m looking up at a SWAT member who presses the muzzle of his gun to my forehead. I can’t see the face behind the helmet, but I warn him through gritted teeth, “Get the fuck off me and get my brother to a hospital right fucking now!”

The cop doesn’t flinch .

“Don’t do it, Hurley,” a voice says from behind him. “Too many witnesses now.”

“He’s resisting,” the cop above me says.

“Bullshit! I’m trying to help my brother!”

Behind him, Dre, Lorenzo, and Tristan all approach and point their guns at the cop’s back, even though they’re surrounded.

“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!” a cop shouts.

They ignore him.

“Put your guns down!” I command them before they get shot too.

The cop above me scoffs. “You don’t fucking give me orders!”

“I was talking to the three men behind you about to blow your head off.”

That finally has him pulling his gun back and climbing off me.

As soon as he moves, his less hostile comrade slaps cold metal handcuffs on my wrists, then slips my gun from my shoulder holster. “Creed Ferraro, you’re under arrest.”

“Where the hell is EMS? Are you just going to let my brother bleed out on the goddamn floor?” I gesture with my restrained hands toward Carmine’s unmoving, prone form.

Another cop comes over and places his gloved fingertips to the side of my brother’s neck for several seconds before he says, “Too late now.”

“ Vaffanculo !”

The asshole has to be lying, because it can’t be too fucking late…

I lunge for my brother. Several hands not only hold me back but start dragging me away from him.