I stood in the doorway to my bedroom, the moonlight shining in through the large floor to ceiling windows lighting up her flawless skin and outlining every curve of her body. With each breath she took, a few stray hairs fluttered against her lips. I wanted to walk over and move them away from her face, but I was scared I might wake her, and if she woke I knew she would realize I was leaving.

She would want to come with me, but it was clear at this point, she wasn’t ready to see the depths that I was willing to take in order to find Tobia and Dom, and make them regret their decision to come back here and go after my family.

I was going to take Benny’s tip and head across the city to the apartment he said Dom had been staying in.

Samuele and Carlos would be staying here to watch Emerson while I took the rest of my boys to hunt down Dom. Though I ached the most to get my hands around Tobia’s throat, this was the only lead we had right now. These two were like fucking ghosts. Finding anything on them had been like pulling teeth. Even with all the power that Anthony held within the city, it was like no one had any idea where the hell they were located, and every lead so far had come up empty.

It wasn’t normal. There was something going on, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Andre stepped into the elevator beside me. He didn’t question me, he didn’t ask where we were going. He just knew.

My men knew me well.

While I worked for Anthony DePalma, one of the largest and most powerful Mafia bosses in the country, I had my own team of men who took orders only from me. The title I held showed my loyalty and sacrifice to the family.

Being a Capo, meant I reported directly to the boss on matters concerning business and had a team of soldiers under me who helped to carry out my duties. My men were handpicked by me. They were loyal to a fault, in the hopes that one day they too would climb the ranks in the family.

The Mafia was built much like a company would be.

Each captain ran a different part of the DePalma territory. We took care of Anthony’s business and took a cut of the money that was earned. That wasn’t to say that Anthony sat back and watched on. He’d made a name for himself earlier on.

While Anthony was born into the family, his father had never given his sons special treatment. It was all about proving your worth and your commitment, and about giving your life to put the family first.

Anthony earned his place as Boss, and people both feared and respected him because of what he’d done in order to get there.

While I wasn’t born into the DePalma family, they’d taken me in young and shown me more love than I’d ever received from my own father. Essentially, they’d saved me. And in my heart, I knew I’d repay that favor until the day I died.

The cold city air blew in through the open window as Andre drove us across town, keeping me awake and refreshed. I desperately needed it in order to be on my game. I was already struggling to fight the little part of my brain that was telling me to turn the fuck around and climb back into bed with Emerson. Her body called to me, and I was already rock hard thinking about that smart mouth and how badly I wanted to fill it with my cock.

Now that I’d had her, I knew in my fucking gut that I wasn’t going to be able to let her walk away. It was one thing to have a woman who would lay down and do as she was told. They were happy to let their man rule, to stay at home and play housewife and raise children. It was another thing to have a woman with a strong heart who knew how to hold her ground, but also when to soften. Emerson was a perfect balance of everything I needed in a woman. She would face me head on and challenge me, but in the end, I knew that within my hands, the fierce lioness would allow me to make her purr.

There was something fucking erotic about taking a strong woman and watching her get on her knees in front of you. I wanted a woman who could hold her head high, speak her mind. But that at the end of the day would give herself wholly to me.

The life I lived was dangerous. I had blood on my hands and in some ways, a fucked up version of reality. I knew there were so many out there who would give their lives to take me down. I wasn’t walking out the door to a nine to five job every other day. I was walking into dangerous situations where I had to rely on the men behind me to have my back. I lived my life based on the loyalty of my men, but it would only take one of them to decide that they would get more respect from taking me out than standing by my side.

And then it would be over.

It was hard for me to think about putting Emerson in a position where I could be the one to destroy her all over again if, for some reason, someone came for me. It could make her a target just like Anthony’s wife, Jasmine.

How do you choose to put someone you care about in that kind of position?

I could already feel how much she was relying on me to keep her afloat. I wanted to push her to her limits, and see her turn into this powerful woman that I knew she could be, and a part of me liked the idea of her needing me. But I had to remember that my life was far from guaranteed, and then she would fall to pieces all over again.

I clenched my teeth causing my jaw to click from the pressure.

Anthony would kill me.

He was already going to kill me for going anywhere near Emerson.

He may have not played a huge part in their lives, but blood was blood to Anthony. If you had it running through your veins, he considered you family.

In my case, I got lucky.

“You sure Benny knew what he was talking about?” Andre asked as we drove through the darkened streets of The Bronx. “Seemed like he was the kind of idiot who couldn’t even tell his ass from his face.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I answered simply. “It’s the only lead we’ve come up with. If this is dead, we’ll have to start getting creative.”

“I don’t fucking like this,” he said, his voice a soft growl as he pulled the car to the side of the street and threw it into park. I met Andre’s eyes in the rear vision mirror. “That’s it up there. It doesn’t even look like a place where someone lives.”

He was still young, but I knew in my gut that this kid was an old soul. He’d been with me for almost three years after a recommendation from another family and had had my back through fucking thick and thin. He was a sweet kid, and I knew that Emerson had taken a shine to him and the way he treated her. But one day she was going to realize that beneath the calm and jovial exterior he seemed to create—Andre was not someone who messed around when it came to doing what he had to do.

And that’s why he was my top man, and that’s why I valued his opinion.

He was right, the large orange brick building looked like it wouldn’t even house a family of cockroaches. Trash was piled up along the sidewalk, and there were a handful of homeless men tucked up underneath thick sleeping bags.

“You got any cash on you?” Andre asked, causing me to frown.

“Yeah,” I replied warily, pulling fifty dollars out of my pocket.

He plucked it from my fingers and turned off the car before leaping out and walking straight for the run down building.

“Fucking Christ,” I cursed, leaping out of the car and jogging to catch up with him. “You know, I thought I fucking ran this crew for some strange reason.” It was a casual warning but one I knew he would understand. I appreciated that my boys were smart, and the fact that they could use their common sense and figure out shit for themselves without requiring me to hold their hands, but they also needed to know not to disrespect me by thinking they knew better.

The rest of my men stayed in the car parked behind us, as Andre approached the group of homeless men trying to sleep on the sidewalk. “Hey,” he called, stirring a couple of them. “Anybody want to earn fifty bucks?”

That lit a fire under their asses, and three of them scrambled quickly to their feet while the other two seemed to really struggle to get their bearings. I didn’t fucking like it.

“You guys know anything about a man living in this building?” I asked, stepping forward as they seemed to round themselves up.

One scrubbed at his beard. “Ain’t no guy living here, man. It’s been abandoned for years after a fire ripped through it.” He cleared his throat, it was raspy and worn from who knew how many months or years living outside on the streets, and from the smell of his breath surviving on alcohol. “There was one kid around here a few days or so ago, though. He got in by climbing up the ladder around the side there and going in through the roof access.”

I frowned, arching my neck to get a good look at the building. Even in the dim street lights, I could tell there were clearly windows on the bottom floor that he could’ve used, and there had to have been a door at ground level somewhere.

“We can’t go in there,” Andre said, looking at me with what I’m sure was the same expression as the one I had on my face.

We smelled a rat.

Shoving my hand into my back pocket, I withdrew two more fifty dollar bills and waved them in the air. The homeless man with the beard licked his lips as he eyed the cash hungrily.

I wasn’t opposed to using others if it meant protecting my men or my family.

“One hundred and fifty dollars with your name on it. I break the window, you climb inside and tell me what’s in there,” I bargained, giving the money an extra flick before tucking it back in my pocket.

“You got yourself a deal.” He nodded enthusiastically before turning and making his way down the side of the building, toward the corner of the street. He shuffled along slowly, his clothes rustling and his hand braced on the wall for support. “Here,” he said as we turned the corner. There was a large window with wooden boards nailed across it so you couldn’t see inside.

“There’s a door around the side in the other alley, but you’ll never get through it, they welded it shut after the fire so people like us couldn’t sleep inside. Too dangerous. Surprised the other kid managed to walk around up there without falling through the floor…” He was rambling and I was getting fucking impatient.

Stepping under the street light, I motioned for my boys in the other car to bring it around.

As it pulled up to the curb, Andre went straight to the trunk and pulled out a familiar looking crowbar. I smirked as he handed it to me with a grin.

Hooking the board with the bar, I tugged it forward, pulling it down with ease. After removing them all, I soon realized the window hadn’t just been boarded, it had been blacked out with spray paint. So we had no idea what was waiting for us inside.

I looked to Andre and he frowned, shaking his head, and letting me know that he also didn’t have a great feeling about what was about to greet us. Handing the homeless man the crowbar, and pulling my gun from its holster, I took a few steps back out of the way of anything that might come flying out through the fucking window.

He shrugged, struggled to lift it, and then took a swing. The window smashed into a thousand tiny pieces, and my trigger finger twitched as I stepped a little closer, attempting to see through the dirty, dusty darkness. I could make out a few shapes, one was a staircase, a doorway—its door hanging limply from the frame, and maybe a few pieces of charcoaled furniture.

The homeless man, a lot less cautious, stuck his head inside and peered around. “I don’t se—”

A loud boom resonated in the darkness of the night, echoing off the buildings and vibrating into the distance. The sound alone was like a punch in the stomach, stealing the breath from my lungs, and at the same time, it felt like someone had stabbed me in the ears with a fork.

It was deafening and powerful.

When I finally got my bearings, I ducked back behind the car, fighting to catch my breath and prepare myself for a possible onslaught. Andre leaped through the air, his back hitting the passenger’s side door of the car. My eyes were wide as I watched the homeless man droop, his body half way through the smashed window, tiny spots of blood and body tissue sprinkled across the sidewalk.

“Fuck,” Andre cursed, keeping his head low as he made his way over to the body and pressing his back against the brick wall beside the window. With one sharp tug on the man’s shirt, he fell backward and crashed onto the concrete.

“He’s got no fucking head,” one of my other boys murmured in horror. I could barely hear him, the ringing in my ears having not subsided yet.

He wasn’t far from the truth.

His skull had been completely blown to shreds, there wasn’t one hole. He’d been shot point blank with a fucking high powered shotgun.

The sound of cackling laughter coming from the interior of the building had my hackles up and my anger building.

That was meant for me.

“If you’re listening to this then you’re still alive… unfortunately,” a voice tormented from inside. A deep frown appeared on Andre’s face, and he took a quick peek through the window before turning to me with a furious expression on his face.

“It’s a fucking recording,” he hissed. “How the hell did he get the gun to go off?”

I moved in closer, leaning down and tugging off the dead man’s shoe. “Get back,” I warned my boys, using the wall as protection before tossing the dirty, worn shoe through the space.

BANG.

This time, I was sure I felt the building shake.

“Motion detectors,” I hissed, a part of me impressed with the creativity, part of me barely containing the fury that was building in my gut.

“Bet you’re wondering how I set this up aren’t you,” the voice laughed.

Already figured that out, fuckhead.

“I have two things to tell you,” he continued. “One… I’m going to kill every damn person associated with the DePalmas.”

I held back a scoff, and Andre clenched his fists, his eyes narrowed on the dead man at our feet.

“And two…” my gut tightened, hearing the amusement in his voice, “… you should never leave a woman you care about alone with no one to protect her.”

Andre’s eyes flicked up and met mine. Instantly, the two of us took off down the street running toward the car, Tobia’s laughter filling the cold night air behind us.

Emerson.