Children of Ambition (Children of Vice 2)

Someone as sweet, kind, and innocent as you…he had said. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little to myself as I twisted the paper flower between my fingers. Closing my eyes and blowing on it, even though I knew it wouldn’t fly away, and made my childhood wishes all over again.

“Dandelion. Dandelion. As you float up beautifully dying. Grant these wishes from my throat. Give me the King’s coat. Give me the Queen’s Ring. Chop the Princelings to their knees. Send a swarm of killer bees to those who try to hurt me. And oh yes! Let it always be spring.”

I couldn’t help but grin, looking up from the paper flower at the distorted mirror of the elevator doors opened on my floor. I stepped out, wondering what Tobias, or any of them would do, if they knew my wishes back then were only sweet to me and neither kind nor innocent to others.

Pushing the handle down and entering my room, I moved towards my soft pink and cream-colored circular bed, dropping the paper flower on top of it and picking up the remote control. After entering my passcode, my bed spun around to face wooden wall that split open from the middle, revealing my brother’s former master bedroom…now my closet.

Inside, I paused at the first mirror, fixing the strap of my silk emerald jumpsuit before moving to the second one near my bags, pressing my whole palm to the glass.

“Access granted,” it said before the glass slid down, inside each of my guns and knives were displayed like fine china. I lifted the gold-engraved pistol, pressing the wood panel underneath it, taking out the old flip-phone, dialing quickly before lifting it to my ear. It rang once before she answered. She didn’t speak, but I knew she was there.

“A boy named Marco Forte was killed today. Find out by who and why, Jackal, and find out fast. I need to know how deep this goes and how many people need to die.”

Her reply was to hang up immediately, and I knew that meant I'd have an answer within forty-eight hours.

Flipping the phone closed, I put it back in its place, the wood panel clicking closed. The glass of the mirror slid back up, showing my own reflection, my green eyes staring right back at me.

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. But remember… To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill…this is The Art of War,” I said to my own reflection, a small smirk appearing on my lips. I hadn’t put the gun away.

Walking from the mirror, I wondered if I should feel insulted or grateful that my enemy, whoever it was, thought I was so stupid…

What was the fastest way to take power from my family?

It wasn’t money… Anyone with half a brain knew my family had more than enough hidden all over the world to get by for generations, if not longer. My father had taught us all The Callahan Family Rules, and the moment I’d heard Marco say he wanted to work with me, I knew that he saw Ethan as Irish. I knew something wasn’t right in that, which is why I remembered Rule 28: “Remember that it is the clan that gives us our power.”

The fastest way to take power from my family…was to destroy the clan.

In the Art of War, the greatest test of skill was to subdue the enemy without fighting… What better way to do that than to pit the Irish and the Italians against each other… To restart the blood feuds between them.

“It’s exactly what I would do…” I whispered to myself as I took a seat in my leopard-print chair, placing my gun on the side table, before reaching for the bottle of Pink Moscato at the bottom it. I filled a glass and turned the television screen to the cameras Ethan had secretly placed in the home of the man he hated so much, he had fucked his daughter just to spite him.

“I’m sure you remember the old blood feuds, Savino Moretti,” I said, bringing the glass to my lips as I watched as Moretti screw yet another woman that was far too young for him in his office… Ethan and Ivy had killed his daughter, Klarrisa Moretti, only days ago and this was apparently how he mourned.

“To each their own,” I whispered, drinking. Wine made everything, even this gag-worthy performance, bearable.

Soon—the moment I knew for sure it was him—I’d leave holes in him for the worms to fuck.

DONATELLA - 23 DAYS AGO

“Your screams are for the many and mine for the one. So, I am alien to you and you are alien to me.” I typed on my laptop from inside the gazebo overlooking the koi pond at the edge of our private property.

“Your tea, ma’am.” One of the maids filled my glass for me. However, I didn’t look up. My fingers were trying to keep up with the words racing through my mind, when all of sudden a tablet was thrust in my face. I stared at the machine for a moment before looking up at the hand holding it there; when I finally got to his face, he was smiling down at me.

“I was waiting for you to get to a break but knowing you, that could be hours,” Toby said.

“This about Marco?” I asked, lifting my hands from the keys, and taking the tablet from him.

“It is and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that it’s not what you thought.” He sighed, reaching over to press play. “There wasn’t a camera in the alley but there was one across the street.”

I watched as the blond-haired Declan, running as quickly as possible out of the alley across the street, tried to wipe the blood on his hands onto his jacket, checking behind and in front of him, panicked.

“He later ditched his clothes,” Toby explained, showing me the next video, which was a little grainier, but I could still see him as he threw his jacket into a dumpster behind a restaurant.

“No one else has these videos?” I asked him.

He nodded. “I bought it off the owners. What they’ll say to others, though, is beyond me.”

“Nothing should be beyond you,” I corrected, handing him back the tablet. “Where is he now?”