Ruthless Prince (Dark Syndicate 1)

“Fool, if you could, you would have done it already. But… you know you can’t. You know the moment you do, you’re dead. Your boys are dead. Your father is dead. Your family in Italia is dead. Everybody you know will be dead. The creed of the Brotherhood protects me and mine.”

Pa seethes. Defeat enters his eyes. The same defeated look he’s carried for the last few years as one bad thing happened after another.

“Leave us,” Pa replies.

“That’s right. I thought so. You know you can’t do shit to me. You’re powerless and useless, helpless as shit,” Riccardo continues to taunt. “You lost everything. She was the last good thing you had left.”

He looks at the grave. Through my tears I catch the first glimpse of sadness in his eyes. He releases me and steps back, lowering his gun.

“Leave us, Riccardo. Go away. Go the fuck away,” Pa says.

“Came to pay my respect to the angel you should never have had. That’s all,” Riccardo answers. “And maybe to see your face. That look on your face as you accept you’ve truly lost everything.”

With a crude, sardonic laugh, Riccardo turns and walks away.

Pa lowers his guns, puts them back in his holsters, and takes hold of me, pulling me in for a hug.

“Massimo,” he breathes against my ear. “Are you hurt?”

I swallow hard. “No,” I answer. He pulls back to look me over. Sees the rose on the ground and picks it up.

We stare at each other. The sadness in his eyes grips me so bad it hurts.

“I’m sorry, my boy… I’m sorry for everything,” he says.

“Why does he hate us so much?” I ask, my lips trembling.

Pa shakes his head. “Don’t worry about him. Don’t, my boy. Today is not about him.” He straightens and holds the rose out to me. “Massimo…give your mother the rose. It’s time. Time to say goodbye. We will get through this. We will. Please… never think your mother didn’t love you. She did with all her heart.”

I know it’s true, but part of me wants to ask him why she would leave me without saying goodbye. Except I know the answer. Life became too hard after Riccardo took everything from us. That’s why.

“Give your mother your rose, amore mio,” Pa repeats, pushing the rose closer to me.

I take it and then those steps I dreaded. My legs grow heavier with each one. I stop right by the opening to the grave and release the flower from my grasp. As it falls, my heart breaks all over again.

Riccardo was right. Ma was the last good thing we had left. She was truly an angel.

I gaze off into the distance and see the vague outline of him walking down the path leading back to the car park.

He called my father powerless, useless, helpless. He blamed Pa for my mother wanting death, but it’s not his fault. Everything that’s happened to us is Riccardo’s fault. All of it.

In the moment this thought strikes me, I vow vengeance. As I watch his retreating back, I promise myself that I will fix this. No matter how long it takes me, I will spend the rest of my life if I have to, helping my father rebuild. And I will make Riccardo Balesteri pay for everything.

Right now, we might be powerless, useless, helpless, but we will not be that forever.

It doesn’t matter how long it takes.

He will lose everything too.

Chapter One

Emelia

Present Day

“It’s going to be our last night here for a while,” Jacob states, looking around our little booth in the diner.

We’ve been coming here for so long that the place has become a second home.