Mastered by Malone (Haven, Texas 6)

“I know it makes no sense, but I still do it. I had a fucked-up youth. Like, really messed up. I did things, so many things I’m not proud of. I didn’t really want to do any of them, but I still did them. Because if I didn’t, I knew Marceras would hurt my brothers. Love makes you do things for people. Love makes you weak. I didn’t want them pulled down into the dark with me, though. So I did what he wanted. And still nearly took one of my brothers from me anyway.”

“Who is Marceras?” She could scarcely believe he was telling her any of this.

“Tony Marceras. Head of the Marceras family. Ran a crime syndicate in Detroit. My father was his numbers man. Dad was an accountant with a taste for gambling. He got in deep, too deep to get out and so Tony offered him a way out. He started working for the Marceras family, which suited him fine. They provided him with what he needed to be happy. Women, booze, and drugs. And he cooked their books. He hid their money, laundered it. When I turned sixteen, Tony pulled me into his office. He told me it was time I started giving back to “the family.” You know, since they’d given so much to me. I told him no. I thought he might threaten me, have me beaten. Instead he dragged Beau in from another room and he cut off his finger. Right in front of me. Told me he’d keep hurting him until I agreed. That I had plenty of brothers for him to move onto once Beau was dead.”

“Oh, Alec.” She couldn’t even imagine. It was so horrific. She ran her hand over his chest, trying to comfort him the only way she knew how.

“I told him I’d do it. I started by pushing drugs, worked my way up the food chain. I knew if I wanted to keep my brothers safe, I had to become indispensable to the family, so I could keep them out of it as much as possible. Didn’t exactly work. Especially when West fell in love with Marceras’s oldest daughter.”

“What?” she breathed out. It was like something out of a novel.

“Lana. She was gorgeous. And so sweet, especially considering where she’d come from. Marceras saw West’s interest in her, used it to lure him into the family business. West went willingly, even though I tried to reach him he wouldn’t listen. He was blinded by her.”

“What happened?”

“Marceras married her off to one of his enforcers. A sick son of a bitch who beat her. Who raped her. Who ended up killing her.”

“Oh no.” She placed her hand over her mouth.

“Yeah,” Alec said grimly. “West went crazy. I’ve never seen him so out of it. He stormed off and I couldn’t find him. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I only knew that whatever happened wouldn’t be pretty.”

Her heart beat fast. She couldn’t even imagine West’s pain. “What happened?”

“Well, West couldn’t go after the enforcer, because Marceras had killed the bastard. Apparently, the beatings and rapes were okay, but killing her went too far.”

“Jesus. Jesus.” She’d thought she’d known evil but to do that to your own daughter . . . it made her feel sick.

“So, West went after the only person left for him to punish.”

“Marceras?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What did he do?” she whispered.

“He killed him.”

“Oh, God. Oh, God. How . . . I mean . . . how is West not dead?” Or in jail? Would the Marceras family not have retaliated?

“Because I’d been working against Tony in the background. His oldest son, Mateo wasn’t happy with the way the old man ran things and he wanted to take over. But he couldn’t do it without my help. By then I was practically the old man’s right-hand man.”

He let out a shuddering sigh. “Shit. Can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

“You don’t have to,” she whispered, even though she was dying to know.

“I made a bargain with Mateo,” he whispered back. “Basically, I’d kill his father if he let my brothers go. Free and clear of the family.”

“What about you?” she asked.

He had grown rigid. “Figured I wasn’t going to make it out. But at least they would.”

“Oh, Alec.”

He had been prepared to sacrifice himself for his brothers.

“You’re a good man.”

He barked out a laugh. “Baby, I was going to kill a man.”