Mark Vitali paced back and forth across a well-appointed, impeccably decorated room. Its aesthetic did not match the man terribly well. Mark was not a gold filigree sort of guy. He was an Ikea DIY sort of guy living in a world where furniture was more likely to be carved from a solid piece of timber than held together with innovative Swedish thingamajigs.

It had been a year since Angelo Vitali had pulled his wounded body off a hotel floor, saved his life and then destroyed it. Back then he had been an FBI rookie, and he’d looked and dressed like one.

A year had changed him. He was broader and stronger. Being a wanted man had given him incentive to stay in peak physical condition. He had been in great shape when he was a rookie. Now he was in phenomenal form. The changes weren’t just physical. They were mental too. Where he had been an anxious mess, perpetually uncertain, there was no longer even a faint look of confusion in his eyes. His blue gaze was piercing and direct, his stance dominant even in this moment of tension.

Mark had always been a good looking guy, but he had been a slave to military fashion, which was to say, a total lack of fashion and grooming. Angelo had not tolerated that whatsoever. His hard face and bright blue eyes were framed with well-shaped brows and a cut which let his hair hang in a stylish sweep above his eyes. He wore a trimmed, short beard. With his shirt off, he looked rough as hell. Fully clad in a bespoke blue suit, the beard gave him a veneer of respectability. His newfound confidence brought out his naturally latent dominance.

There was impatience in his every motion, and those ice blue eyes shot toward the door several times over. He was waiting for the other piece of the Vitali puzzle. The most troublesome piece which never seemed to quite fit, and yet without which the whole thing fell apart.

Half an hour after being summoned urgently, Bobby Vitali sauntered in, hands in his pockets, his dark hair slightly falling into his eyes. He tossed it back and put his ever-present vape to his lips. “Sup?”

Bobby, full name, Robert Vitali, was a handsome young man. He had very pale skin from his Polish ancestry, and the sort of lithe yet stocky build which would have suited a peasant, but with a few finer elements about his head and hands which indicated better breeding. To Mark’s eyes, he was the adorable if ever petulant twink whose ass he never got tired of reaming - in all senses of the word.

“Where the hell have you been?” Mark sounded a bit like Bobby’s father, not that he was old enough to have that role. He was only five years older than the youngest Vitali, but he made those years count. His twenty-nine to Bobby’s twenty-four. Bobby had practically been a baby when Angelo took him - just twenty-two years old. Even back then he’d been a vicious little thing with a talent for leadership and a cruel streak which made the old school New York operators quake. Angelo hadn’t blinked though. Angelo had taken Bobby in and made him a Vitali. He’d done the same to Mark, though under vastly different circumstances.

Mark had been an FBI agent sent to take Angelo down. The only one who ended up going down was Mark. Now he was one of the most wanted men in the continental United States. He and Bobby both had their reasons to hate Angelo. The man had taken what lives they had and utterly destroyed them for his own purposes - but he’d also replaced them with something greater.

Mark, Bobby and Angelo were a family. Not a normal family, but a family none the less.

As Mark glared at Bobby, the younger man shrugged. “Doing stuff. Why?”

“Someone has Angelo.”

Bobby let out a long stream of vape smoke. “What?”

“He calls me every day after court. Updates me on what happened, lets me know what needs to be done. But he didn’t call today.”

“Okay, so?” Bobby shrugged. “Angelo does what he wants. If he doesn’t need anything from you, he won’t call.”

That wasn’t true. Or at least, Mark didn’t want it to be true. Being separated from Angelo had made life very strange over the last few weeks. Angelo had been a constant presence in both Mark and Bobby’s lives for as long as they’d been in his world, without him in the house, there was something of a power vacuum. Mark had stepped into it, but Bobby was stepping out of line every damn chance he got.

“He had a car waiting, but he never made it to the car. He disappeared from the courthouse, and he’s not answering his phone.”

Bobby shrugged again, and took another hissing drag of the vape.

“You think they arrested him? The FBI are pretty pissed. Maybe they just took him off the street.”

“No,” Mark said. “If that were the case, his lawyer would have called. I think it’s underworld related.”

“Underworld,” Bobby snorted. “Nobody would dare touch Angelo.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s Angelo,” Bobby said, his tone dropping to indicate Mark might be a bit simple.

“That’s the best reason to take him. The man makes enemies like most people draw breath,” Mark said, putting his hands in his pockets to still them.

Bobby still didn’t look convinced. The little shit had red eyes and Mark was fairly certain he’d been smoking something else before he broke out the vape. Angelo didn’t approve of weed. He said it dulled the senses, but Bobby liked to sneak around and do it anyway, probably just because Angelo didn’t like it. Brutal psychopath or not, underneath it all Bobby was a boy who liked to disobey his daddy.

“Well,” Bobby puffed away. “I guess we gotta go get him.”

“Do we?” Mark raised a brow. “If Angelo doesn’t come back, then…”

“Then all this is ours,” Bobby said with a smirk. “I’ll shiv you for it.”

Mark made an impatient sound under his breath. “You would too, you little shit. Angelo might find your constant attempts to kill him funny, but try that shit with me and I’ll flay your ass.”

He bent down to growl directly into Bobby’s face, lecturing the younger man with real intensity. Bobby was the sort of guy who had to be told explicitly that there would be consequences if he tried to kill you, otherwise he’d murder you for the fun of it. Bobby had less of a genuine quarrel with Angelo than Mark did. At least Bobby had already been in real trouble when they’d met. Mark, on the other hand, had been establishing himself as a rookie agent when Angelo took it upon himself to destroy his world. It had been just over a year since Mark became a Vitali, and he was in no way settled to accepting his fate.

He should be pleased right now. He should be thrilled that karma was finally coming for Angelo. Instead, he was just kind of pissed off. Mark had never wanted the Vitali name, but he had been forced to embrace it. The disrespect shown in messing with Angelo could not be forgiven, and if there was someone out there coming for the house of Vitali, he wanted to know who, and he wanted to know why.

“Maybe nobody took him,” Bobby said. “Maybe he’s just doing something he hasn’t told us about. Maybe he’s fucking someone.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Of course you don’t, new boy,” Bobby sneered mockingly.

“I’m not that new,” Mark reminded him. Bobby liked to lord the fact that he had been with Angelo for twelve months before Mark came into the picture as if it gave him some kind of authority. Truth be told, he had no authority at all. Being older, ex-military and damn near twice his size, Mark held all the power between them.

“Reach out to your contacts,” Mark told Bobby. “See if there’s some chatter we missed.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to not kick your ass,” Mark growled. “Get to it. Now.”

Bobby gave him a resentful look, but went to do as he was told. As much as Bobby hated being told what to do, he thrived when he was being dominated. He was reckless, vicious, and incredibly dangerous, but once you got him on a leash he knew how to be a good boy.

Mark resumed his pacing. He had a few irons in the fire, but thanks to his hardy legal status in the outside world, he couldn’t just go running into the city. For all he knew, this was a trap to catch him.

Betraying the FBI hadn’t been his choice, but it had been his mistake - and it was a mistake he was probably going to have to pay for, for the rest of his life.