Chapter 1

Aurelio~

It was three in the morning, and I was just barely getting home, though that was hardly anything new. Since I'd first been assigned as Nero Sartori's personal bodyguard fifteen years ago, I couldn't remember ever sleeping a solid eight hours if I hadn't been up for three days prior. I'd only been twenty when I'd been assigned to guard the eldest Sartori son, and I'd known that even the smallest mistake would be my life.

The Sartori Crime Family was the largest crime family in Port Townsend, Maryland, and they owned the entire coastline, making our import/export endeavors very successful ones. Once upon a time, Port Townsend had been divided by five families, but the city was now controlled by only three organizations, and our power had reached all corners of the state, making Maryland ours entirely.

Last year, Nero had killed Emil Shultz and every member of his syndicate for kidnapping and shooting his wife, and though the Germans hadn't controlled much being boxed in by us and the Irish as they'd been, Emil had still had enough to divide what'd been left between us, the Irish, and the Russians. The only other family that'd had skin in the game had been the Milanos, but when Nero had married Kasen, that union had united the families, making our numbers larger than any other syndicate by almost a thousand.

The Russians were the second largest family, but only outnumbering the Irish by a couple of hundred, which could easily be sacrificed on a bad night. While we had the entire coastline and half the southern state, the Irish had the northern part of Maryland, though some of their territory bled into the westside of the state. The Russians had the rest, mostly the central territories and what was left of the southern border that we didn't own. Right now, everyone was behaving rather civilly, but that could be because everyone was still leery about Nero having killed an entire bloodline. At only thirty-two, he'd shown everyone exactly what he was capable of, and for the moment, everyone was paying attention.

Granted, all anyone had to do was the math to recognize that things were fine just as they were. Since the Russians outnumbered the Irish, the Irish would never get into bed with them. Not only would we still outnumber both syndicates, if by some miracle they could eradicate us, Avgust Kotov would turn on Declan O'Brien, and Declan knew that.

There was also the fact that Declan O'Brien, the head of the Irish, had a thing for Kasen. While it wasn't a romantic interest-or he'd be dead already-The O'Brien held the Sartori wife in very high regard, and whatever respect that he had for her, it was genuine, much to Nero's irritation.

Even before the bloodbath that had taken out the Schultz family, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that hadn't been or wasn't impressed by Nero Sartori. The man was in a different league than those around him, and as much as it bothered Marco Sartori, even he couldn't deny the truth about his eldest son. I could see it when I'd first been assigned to Nero, and there was no mistaking it now.

Nevertheless, I still owed some thanks to Marco Sartori for the life that I had now. I'd been living on the streets for about three years when five guys had tried to jump me for the nothingness that I'd had in my pockets, and though it'd been five on one, I had ended up killing every last one of those sonsofbitches. While not ideal, I'd had the perfect setup for self-defense, but it hadn't come to that. As chance would have it, Marco had been doing some business in the same back alley, and he'd been so impressed that he had made the bodies disappear, then had recruited me to become a part of the Sartori family.

Now, while I'd known who he was, it'd been a no-brainer. My parents had been junkies, and I had run away from home at the age of thirteen because the dangers on the streets had been no less damaging than what'd been going on in my parents' house. Arturo and Anna Provenza hadn't ever had any business having kids, and I could only thank God that they'd stopped with me. Well, that I knew of. The day that I had taken off, I had hit the pavement running and had never looked back. If they weren't already dead, they were still dead to me and that was good enough as far as I was concerned.

Luckily for me, I'd always been a big kid, so lots of people had left me alone during those early years. It hadn't been until I'd joined Marco Sartori that I had learned how to hone my talents, and it wasn't bragging when it was the truth, and the truth was simple; I was the best shot in the entire Sartori Syndicate. Not only was I built like a warrior with the stamina of a racehorse, but I knew guns better than most military experts. I was the perfect killing machine, and I'd been enhancing each of my skills for five years before Marco had assigned me to Nero as Nero's eighteenth birthday present. It'd meant that Nero could finally get his hands bloodier than normal, and the rest was history.

Now, I wasn't sure when we'd gone from bodyguard and charge to best friends, but we'd had, and my loyalty to Nero superseded everything else, including my loyalty to his father. By all accounts, Marco was owed that level of dedication, but Nero had more integrity than Marco did, and that mattered in the world that we lived in. Trust was everything, and Marco was too self-absorbed and vain to be trusted to that degree. Elio was a lot like him, but thankfully, Nero hadn't let any of that shit rub off on him.

Nonetheless, despite our friendship, in public, I treated Nero with the respect that he deserved and had earned. I spoke to him like he was the Sartori Boss, and I only got flippant when we were in private. In private, I could speak to Nero however I wanted, and he appreciated my honesty enough to allow that kind of leeway. Whenever I called him Boss, it was usually to knock him down a peg or two when he was getting stubborn. Granted, the only thing that he was ever unreasonable about was his wife, but still.

I started undressing as I thought about this past year. Nero marrying Kasen had changed a lot of things, and when she'd gotten pregnant, that had really turned things upside down. Her sister, Fia, had moved to Italy to help get over a miscarriage and lost love, and being their mother's favorite, Sonya Milano had gone with her, and they were still there, which Renzo Milano didn't mind. Kasen was his favorite, and he'd never hid that fact from any of the other women in his family. Still, it was rumored that Fia had met someone and was healing, and considering that she'd wanted to kill Nero at one point for costing her the love of her life, I'd say that her finally moving on was a good thing.

There was also the fact that Elio had gotten married out of duty, and just like the spoiled brat that he was, he didn't bother with his wife much. Yeah, he'd grown some as far as the family business was concerned, but he was still young minded and entitled, and it showed. As far as I knew, only two months into their marriage, Elio and his wife, Condie, pretty much stayed out of each other's way. I'd even seen Elio with some redhead at The Den two weeks ago.

After I was done undressing, I got in the shower, then turned the water on to damn near scalding. It was a bad habit that I hadn't been able to shake, even though I'd been off the streets since I was fifteen. However, those three years of homelessness were never far from my mind. I knew what it felt like to have nothing, and that's why Nero said I didn't fear death, and he wasn't necessarily wrong. I mean, when a man didn't have anything to lose, what was there to be afraid of?

At any rate, hot showers were my guilty pleasures. I'd never forgotten what it'd felt like to go days without bathing, brushing my teeth, or even combing my hair. It was one thing to feel hunger, but it was quite another to feel dirty. As despicable as my parents had been, we'd still had running water, electricity, and heat. It'd never been a secret how they'd been able to pay for those luxuries, but they'd had, and anyone that didn't believe that water, electricity, and heat were luxuries was a stupid sonofabitch. When your wellbeing was at the mercy of your parents, you'd be surprised at how much in life really was a luxury versus a necessity.

Once I felt clean enough, I dried off, then walked into my bedroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. I lived in an upscale condominium building with the entire top floor all mine. The building was a Sartori building, and only members of the family were allowed to live here. The structure was ten-stories high, and only Marco, Elio, Nero, Kasen, and I knew that the nineth story held a private arsenal. The rest of the place had four condos on each floor, the first floor being the lobby and mailboxes. However, you needed a code to get past the first floor, and the first floor was littered with cameras everywhere. In fact, every Sartori building had massive amounts of security, and even though I didn't sleep much when I did, it was still good to know that my home was protected as much as possible.

Heading towards the dresser, there was no denying that the tenth floor was too big for just one person, but the penthouse had been designed around my personal tastes and business needs. Nero and I were also the only ones that knew about the secret staircase that led to an underground tunnel that came out a block away on Acer Street. While it could be argued that the contractors also knew of the tunnel, they knew better than to say anything about it.

Putting on some black joggers, I walked over to the bed, wearing clothes to sleep my only regret in life. While I preferred to sleep in the buff, that wasn't pragmatic in my line of work. The last thing that I wanted to do was engage in any kind of fight or ambush with my dick hanging out.

I checked my phone one last time before getting comfortable, knowing that I was going to be awake within a few hours. When my head hit the pillow, I stared up at the ceiling, refusing to close my eyes until I no longer had a choice. However, as soon as I did, there was her face.

Like fucking always.