“Right,” Valeria said. “Now or never.”
“Good luck.”
Those words—good luck—echoed in Valeria’s mind long after she had taken Maple from the stables and headed out toward the cliffs to the east of the compound. Two hours later, when her back ached, her legs felt like pins and needles had settled into her bloodstream, and her stomach cramped, she still thought about those words.
Maple never slowed.
The darkness turned black.
Valeria thought about those words.
Good luck.
Luck hadn’t found her yet.
And while she could taste the promise of freedom with every gallop of Maple’s hooves against the ground, it still felt temporary.
How long could she run?
How long would it be before Jorge found her?
2.
Seven years later ...
For a man like Christopher Guzzi, comfort came easy. Usually. He was most comfortable when surrounded by people he trusted—or better, those he loved. His family, for starters. When it was just them, his brothers and father or mother, and him, then Chris didn’t put on his mask.
The one all Guzzi sons wore.
The Don’s child.
A made man.
A proper Guzzi.
It never failed to amaze him that from the outside looking in, people had a perspective of his family that they shaped and perfected over the years. Untouchable. Vastly wealthy. Dangerous. They needed to be that way to everyone else, a formidable wall of a mafia Don and his army of sons lined up to protect their organization and legacy.
Because otherwise, they all realized what would happen. If someone couldn’t have what they had, then they needed to be what they were. Famiglias like theirs didn’t stay on top being weak, and God knew the Guzzis were anything but that.
Unless they were all alone, the doors closed, and it was just a father and his sons in private, the rules shifted. The masks left, and the walls dropped. Chris, at only twenty-three years old, enjoyed his position as a young made man in his father’s Cosa Nostra, no doubt about it.
He also liked this.
Easy conversation with his father about anything but business. His oldest brother, Marcus, laughing where he sat on the corner of their father’s oak desk—because fuck, it was rare for Marcus to let loose anymore, not when he was too busy being their father’s understudy.
Sometimes it seemed like the Mafia took over every aspect of their lives, controlling how they needed to behave even with each other, and blurring the lines between business, and blood. And then there were moments like these when they were all brought back down to earth, reminded of why they were all here.
They were family.
And this was when they were at their best.
God save the soul who thought to ruin it.
Gian’s—his father—laughter faded at the joke Marcus told before his gaze turned on Chris at the other side of the desk. “Have you talked to your brother?”
Chris had four brothers, and yet, when someone asked him a question like that, it meant they were asking about his identical twin, Corrado. Out of all his brothers, his twin had been the only one who decided not to join the family business. Not that Corrado headed straight in his life when it came to the law—he still very much worked on the illegal side of their life, but it wasn’t within their mafia rankings.
“I did, he was just catching his flight to New York,” Chris said. “He didn’t say too much, distracted, possibly.”
Marcus chuckled. “I bet.”
Chris shot his brother a look.
Marcus only shrugged.
“Now, now,” Gian murmured.
“I’m still trying to figure out how that works, is all.”
“As long as it works for them, then that’s what matters,” Chris returned to Marcus.
“I don’t share well,” Marcus noted. “Not sure that would work for me.”
Chris thought about that one.
“Yeah, me either,” he muttered.
Somehow, his twin found himself in love and in a relationship with two people. Alessio, and Ginevra. Knowing how his brother’s sexual preferences followed Corrado through most of his life, haunting him because he never seemed like he fit in with the rest of his family or their life, Chris was happy he found the people with whom he belonged. What else needed to be said?
Did he understand how that three-person relationship worked?
No.
Did he want to?
Again, no.
It wasn’t his life, his home, or his bed.
Simple as that.
And he didn’t want other people discussing it where Corrado, Alessio, or Ginevra weren’t around to be a part of the discussion. Good manners, and all.
Right?
“Besides, if there’s something you want to ask Corrado,” Chris told Marcus, “then you could, oh, ask him. Or Les—he’s pretty open to talk.”
Marcus blinked. “Probably not.”
“Then, don’t speculate.”
“That’s fair,” Gian said, jumping into the discussion as the phone on his desk rang. He gave his two sons a look, pointing a finger at both, a silent quiet, before he picked up the call, and put the phone to his ear. “Bonjour, ciao, Gian here.”
It took Gian just long enough to hear who was on the other line before he reached over, hit the speaker button on the phone, and set it back down to the cradle. The voice that filled the office was one Chris hadn’t heard in a while, and he still wasn’t sure how he felt when he heard it.
A mixture of things, he supposed.
Only a couple of them any good.
“Do you have a minute to chat, Gian?” Dare asked.
“A few—two of the boys are here.”
“Which ones?”
“Marcus, and Chris. What can we do for you?”
Chris never asked for details about how his father came in to contact or all the finer details of Gian’s business with Dare—no one seemed to be aware of his last name—but somehow, he had. Gian ended up as one investor who fronted a lot of cash to finance a business venture Dare and his partner now controlled.
They called it The League.
An organization which trained assassins, like his brother, Corrado, and then sold them at an auction to the highest bidder. Sure, The League also had their own teams of assassins that worked only for The League, and independent contractors, again, like Chris’s twin, and one of Corrado’s lovers, Alessio.
But mostly, they made real money in the auctions. Selling skilled individuals who could kill someone in a hundred different ways on demand.
Chris had been one of those people once—he trained with Corrado because fuck, he couldn’t imagine leaving his twin to something like The League without someone there to watch his back. He’d always looked after his twin.
The League wasn’t for him, and he realized that rather quickly, but he stuck out his contract. He did the one-year training, stayed for another year to work on a team with his brother and the others they had placed him with, and then he came back home at nineteen.
He wasn’t like them.
Chris wanted to be a made man.
And so, he did.
“I have an issue,” Dare said, “and I thought getting your opinion on what I should do about it might help to clear up my thoughts, Gian.”
“Do tell.”