The Mafia Lord And His Spy Lover

ADONIS

Nine years ago

I had killed a man an hour ago, only to become something I had never imagined—the boss of the most powerful crime family in the New York Cosa Nostra. The Capo of the Vitale Crime Empire.

Everyone was expecting me to give a speech about this uplifting experience, to tell them of the plans I had for the future of this syndicate. To say I had any would have been a lie. Everything about this was sudden, a catastrophe I could not put a stop to.

However, lucky for me, the moment I stepped on the stage, a courier arrived in my name—a box wrapped in colourful papers and adorned with ribbons like a fucking Christmas gift—stopping me from giving a speech I had not even prepared.

“Open the box,” dozens of suited men now under my reign yelled, curiosity piquing in their voices.

I had no choice but to oblige.

I had not received a present in ages, at least not in boxes unless they were dead bodies of traitors and liabilities, or expensive drugs, weapons and liquors. This box looked too tacky to be one of those.

And the contents were even fishier.

A disk was encased inside with the words ‘Happy Initiation’ written on it with a marker and italicised calligraphy as if it were for a christening ceremony. I wondered which Mafioso had time for shit like this.

“Where do I play it?” I asked and looked around. I couldn’t remember the names of half the people present in the room, yet I pretended as though I did.

The former capo and my uncle, David, had warned me about this. “Be discreet and have a keen eye, Adonis. Know those around you and watch their every step.” Throughout my life, he had said many things, but I hadn’t imagined those words to become the key to my survival.

Many envied the position I held. Many would try to kill me for it like they had done the one this position rightfully belonged to.

I was only a surrogate, who from now on would have to carry the title and pass this burden onto the generations to come. The generations of Vitales.

 “There’s a telly in the main room, Capo,” one of the soldiers said.

I had to blink twice at the man who had stepped forward to make sure he was looking at me and not my uncle, who was standing in one corner of the stage. I had uttered the word Capo many times but had never been called it. The feeling was strange, yet the sense of power thrilled me.

We moved to the main room, all impatient about the disk, but none more than me. The soldier quickly plugged it in, and handed me the remote. I turned it on.

The first thing to appear on the screen was a naked woman. Not just any woman. My little sister Amara. Except, the people around me didn’t know that. For good reasons. For them, this was just another whore.

She lay sprawled out on a canopy bed with blood-red sheets and drapes, her hands handcuffed to the headrest and legs parted with a splitter.

A thousand knives pierced my organs, shame prickling through my skin and heat marring my temples. All remnants of my emotions shattered into pieces. I wanted to look away, wanted to gouge everyone’s eyes out. Yet I couldn’t move. The shock overwhelmed me.

A man walked toward the bed, his back turned to the screen. I didn’t need to see his face to know who he was. His dark hair, tall frame and charred skin on his left shoulder blade gave it out.

Guilt rampaged inside me like a storm. My hands and feet were searing with the anger bridling in my chest.

“If you go through with the initiation, there will be consequences, Vitale,” he had said to me through a note. Through a fucking note.

He wanted nothing more than to hurt me, kill me, even. But using a woman, whose love for him was pure and innocent, was beyond cruel.

I doubted Amara had any idea about how he had turned her into an essential pawn in the game, as he had done with every damn person in his life, even his own blood. I had no weaknesses—none that I had been aware of until now. He knew the truth. He knew he could break me through her.

He climbed onto the bed, dipped his head between her legs, and kissed her inner thighs.

I hurtled toward the television, my rage out of bounds. The monster the world knew me as lurched out to the surface. With all my strength, I pushed it off the stand. The DVD player was next. I picked it up and tossed it to the ground, breaking it into parts.

Everyone stepped back in horror. I seldom reacted out of anger, given my role in this family, where hundreds of eyes watched me for my last name. But whenever I did, the ruins were beyond repair.

He fucking won because I was too blind to his loyalty. He had started the war and trapped my sister in it as a weapon to his advantage, and he would have to pay heavily for it. I would butcher him, forgetting every moment of friendship we’d had.

“No one says a word about this to anyone,” I yelled, my voice booming in the room—my first order as the capo. “None of you saw this. Understood?”

***