Prologue
“I want it. That’s the bottom line. I don’t give a flying fuck who else is interested in that real estate. It’s mine. I’ve waited as you have advised me to, Garcia. Now you’re fucking telling me there could be a problem? That some dick gangster whose family monopolizes the city wants in on that same real estate? Fuck him, and the rest of those assholes. We’ve got connections, too. You think I won’t call in your uncle or the others on this? Think fucking again.”
“Calm down, I’m just warning you of the potential problems. The Fiorre family and their partners in this deal have moved forward and are in contact with the state attorneys for Mr. Porter. There are some legal things we can do to give the Fiorre family trouble, maybe make them back off a bit.”
“Good. Do whatever is necessary. Find me some scumbag lawyer who is looking to fill his pockets and knows the legal system and get him to manipulate this deal in my favor along with you.”
“It’s going to be difficult and completely illegal. This could get ugly, and keeping your family name out of it can prove to be impossible.”
“Perhaps that will be a card to play along the way. Once they hear the name and remember who my family is.”
“This is the Fiorre family, and I found out who their partners are. It makes matters worse, I’m afraid.”
“How so? Who are Fedarro and Collin Fiorre working with as partners for this deal?”
“Lenox, Roman, Cobra, and Ziek, the men responsible for killing your brothers,” Garcia told him.
He was silent. His heart pounded inside of his chest. His need for revenge suddenly came out from under the wall he put up. In an instant, nothing else seemed to matter. Not the money he would make owning that block in the city. Not the deals that would take place in the numerous businesses. He couldn’t think of a damn thing but revenge.
“Get on it. I want a low life weasel we can use and then eliminate once the deal is accomplished.”
“Are you okay?”
“Just do whatever is necessary to stop them from taking over this deal. I want my offer first. My information in the spotlight to Mr. Porter’s family. Someone in there will want to focus on dollar signs. Get to them. Weasel your way in and make this deal happen for us.”
“I’m on it. I’ll call you with a time to meet the lawyer and discuss the deal.”
He disconnected the call and leaned back in his leather chair at the desk in his penthouse. He looked around the room. He was filthy rich. His family was all millionaires, and their connections spread in so many directions. Out of all the fucking buildings for sale in the city, a whole block of opportunity and money waiting to be made and those fucks wanted it, too? Lenox, Ziek, and those two psycho fucks Cobra and Roman want it, too? How the fuck could this be happening? He tapped the pen against the desk and thought about this. Sure, he would love to kill them, but was it worth it? There would be so many families on his ass, never mind the Russians now that Dmitri Sanclare was fucking the Fiorres’s cousin.
Garcia had his family connections with the Russians, too, but he supposed it could cause a blood war of sorts. He wanted revenge, though. This could be a good means of getting it somewhat cleanly, and without shedding blood. His hatred for those men ran deep. So fucking deep he thought of hurting them physically and making them suffer. His two brothers were dead. Why? They got involved with shit they never should have been involved in. Shit that double crossed the Fiorres, Collin, Fedarro, Major, and Mateus, and when they tried to fight against the Fiorre soldiers, they lost. Lenox, Roman, Cobra, and Ziek were warriors. Beyond typical soldiers of the organized crime. They had mean spirits, no souls, and no weaknesses. His brothers didn’t stand a chance. Roberto Simi would get his revenge. Someway, somehow, and as a business man, not monsters like they are.
* * * *
Alessa Preston threw down the multiple envelopes of bills. Bills, bills, and more bills. Her life had become so monotonous. Every day it was the same thing. Wake up early to go to work at the upscale restaurant, Marchianno’s, and every now and then she would sub in as a baker at the local bakery and work from midnight until ten in the morning. A year ago, she thought it was temporary. A means to perfect her art of baking, cooking, and mastering the ability to create culinary masterpieces, hell, make money to pay for her dream. But now she was making a name for herself. Her desserts, her own recipes, perfected and now requested. Alessa was stuck in a rut, and it didn’t help that her parents went back on their promise of helping her pay for law school. She finished as they commanded her to. She even passed the Bar exam, which she didn’t tell them about or they would have forced her into the profession they wanted for her, not the one she wanted.
Michelangelo, her boss at the restaurant, knew her uncle who had been his lawyer for years until he passed away. He gave her the opportunity to show her stuff at his restaurant, but he wasn’t a friend, someone she trusted. He was a means to get her foot in the door, or so she thought, but back to that whole stuck in a rut thing. She was definitely at a standstill.
Alessa exhaled and put her feet up on the chair. She was so tired. Her dream of one day owning her own little pastry shop was slipping from her grasp. She didn’t want to leave for work. She wished she hit the lotto or something. She thought about asking Gisella for some guidance. Maybe get an idea of how much it would truly cost to rent or buy the building Alessa had her eyes on. How much did she need to put away? Were her figures correct in what Alessa thought she needed? She didn’t want to ask Gisella for fear that she would insist on fronting the money for Alessa. Most of her friends could now, with or without the men they kept. She was being stubborn, and in the back of her mind she remembered her parents’ put-downs and negative strikes against her friends. She was losing hope, drive, with each day that passed. She couldn’t even go out with her friends to try and lift her spirits. Too many fears there now. More barriers in the way of success. She was feeling defeated.
She was twenty-six years old, had her law degree, her certification in culinary and baking credentials, she needed opportunity and money. Going out with friends didn’t cost her anything because the guys always paid for their drinks. The perks to knowing club owners. Yet, she hadn’t gone out since that night she was drugged. Too scared to enjoy life because of the men who drugged her and nearly took her that night at the club. Alessa knew she had her friends to keep her safe, but being around them meant being around the made men. Specifically, Lenox, Roman, Cobra, and Ziek.
Oh boy, she didn’t know why she was so attracted to each man. They were hard, scary, older, and, oh God, so sexy that she got tongue-tied around them. She was so inexperienced and fearful of men in general. Her experiences were limited to one guy, one lover ever, and it was a mess of a situation she still was trying to recover from. Maybe because she gave all her heart and Calvin used her.
She felt like some schoolgirl with a crush on the older, more experienced men. Boy, did they seem experienced. To think of the many times she was at the clubs over the past year and watched as women flaunted their assets, offered their bodies without a care, and how many times did one of those men walk away with one of those women? She would be stupid to think that the men were just being stubborn and resistant to an attraction to her as Alda’s men had been. Things changed quickly.
Alessa was inexperienced, yet knowledgeable of the pain and heartache men caused. The less human, or perhaps, more desensitized they were to life itself, the more damage they could do to a woman.
She exhaled and played with one of the envelopes containing a bill from the university. She wouldn’t have this right now if she followed her parents’ orders. She knew she wouldn’t be happy, but was she happy now, either way? Over a hundred thousand dollars in college loans all because she wouldn’t do what her parents wanted her to do. Become a lawyer like her brothers and cousins. Be part of the firm. Stick to your own kind. Remain amongst the elite friends and snobs who made hundreds of thousands or more a year. Stay away from those slutty friends that engage in ménage relationships. Worse? Her mother’s words to her when Calvin left Alessa.
“He wants a woman of class, sophistication, professionalism, not some low life baker who works in the back kitchen with minimum wage losers.”
“No, Mom, Calvin wants a slave, a piece of ass, and a woman he can control, have look good on his arm but remain behind him and not equal or, God forbid, better than him.”
She exhaled in annoyance. Alessa was smarter then Calvin, better in the courtroom and had better grades, received awards, and he didn’t. Calvin was jealous of Alessa, and of course, already came from a wealthy family so he felt he didn’t have to work hard for anything, and that he deserved it. Alessa had tried so hard to please everyone, including Calvin, until the moment she walked in on Calvin with two women in their bed. In “their bed,” in the apartment, surrounded by things they decorated and purchased together.
How could he?
Her heart ached still as she recalled the sight. She had been so hurt, broken hearted, betrayed, and especially because she was working extra hours to learn the trade while doing the required work to achieve her degree. While Calvin fucked around with bimbos. No, that life wasn’t what she wanted. Maybe her mother, her sisters-in-law, and aunts were fine with their men having mistresses, just as long as they could shop and throw parties, but that wasn’t Alessa. She had always been the black sheep, the one who strayed from the norm and questioned. Oh Lord, did she question. How many times had her father sent her to her room? How many times had Calvin grabbed her arm, her face, and shook her? Threatened to beat her? How many? The sleepless nights wanting to leave him but worrying about her family’s reaction, and their demands, their ideas of what future she would have and what man she would marry.
For Christ’s sake, she was in the top of her law school class, a very intelligent, bright woman, yet she shuddered and feared them and Calvin for so long. Where would she be right now if she stayed with him? They would have wound up divorced eventually, even if her mother forbid the action because it would slander the family name.
“Prestons don’t get divorced. Prestons become lawyers and surround themselves with only the best. Prestons don’t complain. Prestons this and Prestons that.” She growled with frustration.
She exhaled, feeling that tightness in her chest and the anger toward her mother. Calvin had even smacked Alessa that night and threatened her, hitting her with his belt several times across the back and her ass as Alessa cowered on the rug. Her view of men, wealthy or otherwise, was forever tainted. That type of action caused her distrust in men, and so hanging with her friends, making no commitments and blowing off men of all kinds, became habitual. And here she was fantasizing about the four worst possible men to have a crush on. Heavies, soldiers, made men with capabilities she was scared to even think about. The damage those men could do to her. Jesus, Cobra, and Roman were fierce in their expressions at all times. All four men were intense to say the least, and the way they looked all the time, so untrusting, ready to fight in battle, and everyone around them feared them.
She couldn’t change men like Lenox, Cobra, Ziek, and Roman. Men like that would do worse to her, and not just taint her name but make it so she was nothing but used goods, a woman who slept with four men who then left her as if she were trash. Her parents and Calvin made her feel like trash enough, she sure didn’t need more negativity and drama in her life.
Where did I go wrong? What did I do to make Calvin cheat?
Alessa had been a good girlfriend, a supportive girlfriend to Calvin in every way. She sacrificed for Calvin and he didn’t reciprocate it. She confided in him about her desires to be a prestigious baker, preparing gourmet desserts and unique cupcakes and other things, and he laughed at her. Told her he would be okay if she wanted to bake things for him when he came home from work, but he expected her to not get fat, and be at his beck and call the moment he arrived home at night. Her dream began to become a fantasy, until she caught him cheating on her. Then came her parents’ insistence that she forgive Calvin. That it was her fault for talking about quitting law school and baking instead of working.
They thought she had lost her mind. She chuckled at the memory. No one would believe her, that her own family betrayed her, minimized her broken heart, her emotions, and took a stranger’s side because he would make the family look better. The wedge between Alessa and her family was permanent. They just didn’t get it. She was okay with that. Even now, when she feared it would only be a matter of time before she struggled to make ends meet if she remained focused on this dream of hers. She could wind up being a pastry chef for a restaurant like Marchianno’s forever. It made her gut clench and feelings of disappointment, failure, and disgust fill her heart.
Her entire family turned on her, and then to top it off, they bad-mouthed her friends, the people she loved, and when she had been drugged and her cousins came to see her, her parents and brothers reprimanded her more so and told her she should stay away from criminals and whores. Alessa’s friends were her family. She couldn’t have survived Calvin cheating on her or not having her friends supporting her while she studied and took the Bar exam despite not wanting to and passed. Alessa didn’t even tell her parents. No, she would use that one at a later date to shock them.
She looked at the envelope. Her funds were getting low. She could maintain the small apartment and her lifestyle just fine, but putting away more money to save for her own business was becoming difficult to keep up with. She needed more money. She was tired, too. The Sunday job was a killer, but it was her means to make more cash for the dream fund.
Alessa tapped the envelope against her lip and then glanced at the clock. It was time to head to the restaurant. God, she was tired and she didn’t even go to work yet. What she would do for a day off to just sleep and not have a care in the world, but that wasn’t an option. At night she struggled to sleep, her mind on bills, on ways to get more money, and then as she drifted off in exhaustion came the nightmares. Being taken, drugged, and having men touch her, forcing themselves on her, filled her nightmares. Meanwhile, nothing ever happened. Her friends, Alda, and the men had saved her in time, but it was the not knowing, the way her mind processed it all as more failures on her part kept the demons in her head. If she got a few hours of sleep a night it was decent.
She sat up and glanced at the newspaper and the numerous highlighted and circled ads about buildings for sale. Small ones in decent neighborhoods she felt she could make it in. She needed big money to open up in a better, high traffic area, but she couldn’t afford that.
She exhaled.
A pipe dream. Maybe it was just a pipe dream and now it was time to move on to reality. She thought about that as she grabbed her purse, the backpack, and her pastry chef attire. No. I’m not giving up. I will have that place one day and I will finally feel good about myself, and not like some loser like my family thinks I am.