Owned by the mafia boss

VINN

COSTA FAMILY DON KILLED BY LEGION MC.

Headlines everywhere blazed with the lie. The killer had strolled through Nico’s gated community and shot him while he picked up the newspaper. Authorities found him in his bathrobe, sprawled on the pavement. A tip from the police department informed me that there hadn’t been signs of forced entry, so the killer had access to Mob Row, Nico’s coveted cul-de-sac of connected gangsters. Within hours, leaked photos of his corpse flashed over the dark web, posted by a biker claiming responsibility for the murder.

A robust PR campaign rolled over social media, blasting Legion MC. Somebody with lots of cash tied up the crime in a fucking bow.

We sat outside in folded chairs under a troubled sky. The cemetery echoed with the quiet sobbing of his mistress, a girl about Liana’s age. She was probably upset that she’d get jack shit from his dead ass. No way he’d leave her any money. Michael stared daggers at me as his five-year-old son yanked on his tie. He’d finally noticed the rings on our fingers, and he wasn’t happy we’d eloped.

Deal with it, buddy.

Liana palmed my chest. “Vinny, you okay?”

Her hair glistened like polished wood, and it tumbled down her back. Soft color slicked her mouth. The black velvet of her dress seemed to highlight her firm tits.

Damn, she was beautiful. It stirred something inside me.

“I’m still recovering from my botched honeymoon, but I’ll be fine.”

She glared at me.

“What? Am I not allowed to mope at a funeral?”

“Not about yourself.”

I buried the smile fighting for release as pink patches burned high on her cheeks. I couldn’t help but feel light. If our brief trip was any indication, I’d have my hands full satisfying my kinky wife.

I counted down the minutes to Nico’s service, which ended with an anticlimactic thud. As his coffin lowered into the ground, his mistress let out a hysterical cry, and I fought not to roll my eyes.

Alessio lingered the longest. His mouth twisted as he stormed off, kicking over empty seats. Michael barely glanced at the grave. He paid his respects and zoomed to his car with his family-thank god he hadn’t asked about my wedding ring.

As the cemetery emptied of people, I stayed put. I was replacing a man I’d admired my whole life. Heaviness weighed my chest as I mused on a memory of Uncle Nico loading up my backpack with Anthony’s old toys.

Li rubbed warmth into my hands as the sun dipped behind clouds, throwing us into a chill. The sky had darkened to a dim blue when a man in a suit trudged up the hill. My gaze skipped over him, but not the two bikers flanking him.

“Rage Machine,” I growled, reaching for my gun.

“What the hell are they doing here?”

“No idea.”

I dragged Li upright, heart pounding. My soldiers headed off the group. Vitale halted mid-stride, gaping at the man. “Tony?”

Liana staggered. “Is that Anthony?”

No fucking way. He couldn’t be here.

Anthony Costa was thousands of miles away, shackled to a wall, trapped in servitude, not strolling to his father’s grave. The man in slacks and a black sweater passed me without a flicker of recognition and stopped at the hole in the ground.

It was him.

Anthony had packed on what seemed like thirty pounds of muscle since his disappearance. He had tanned to a rich bronze. He might’ve just immigrated from Sicily. His demeanor had changed, too. Anthony had a magnetic personality when he wasn’t loaded on drugs, but the healthy complexion hinted otherwise. This grim-faced, Anthony imposter could’ve blended in a subway of people.

I approached him, my skin tingling. “Hey.”

He stared at the grave as though he wanted to fall inside. He blinked, stepped back, and raked his hair.

“Hey, Vinn.”

My mind reeled. “Sorry for your loss.”

Anthony didn’t respond, but gloom stoked in his gaze. Something spoke to me from his eyes. They seemed tortured, enraged, and calm, shifting from one extreme to the next. A deep fracture had split him open. He was like a poorly healed wound. His nodded at Liana.

“You and Michael’s sister,” he commented mildly. “Never saw that coming. Congrats.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Anthony, what’s going on? How did you get here?”

Anthony fished a cigarette from his pocket, the flame eating the darkness. Then he slowly walked down the hill.

Was he ignoring me?

Liana’s moon-like face reflected my bewilderment.

I followed him. “Anthony, wait. We need to talk.”

“Let’s do this another time.”

What the hell?

The abrupt dismissal almost pulled my lips into a smile. “Anthony, you were missing for fifteen months. You can’t expect me to let it go.”

“Thirteen. I’ve been home for a while.”

My guts clenched. “I don’t understand.”

Anthony stopped his descent. “It’s a long story.”

I waited, but he never elaborated. “Where have you been?”

“In a loft downtown.”

“In a loft,” I echoed. “Downtown.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why didn’t you go to your dad?” I wiped my face as he fell into silence, my temptation to strangle him rising. “You know how many people are looking for you? Do you have any idea what we’ve been through because of you?”

He folded his arms. “Keep telling me how bad it has been for you.”

“Fuck you, Anthony. Your dad was riding my ass, threatening me, aching to kill me because he thought it was my fault you were kidnapped. You’ve been here for months?”

He stood there mutely, like a soldier at attention. “It hasn’t been a picnic for me, kid.”

Who the fuck was he calling kid?

“What happened?”

His hollowed gaze cut at me. “Nothing I want to talk about.”

“Did they make you a slave?” Liana elbowed me hard, and a twinge of remorse nagged at me. “Sorry.”

“No, I wasn’t a fucking slave.” His lips pulled into a hard, cold-eyed smile. “I’m back. I’m alive. It was a learning experience. And it’s also none of your goddamned business.”

Liana gasped.

My insides squirmed as I wrestled with a feeling I’d never experienced with Anthony-sympathy.

I glared at the bikers standing behind him. “And you’re with them because?”

Anthony motioned at his goons hanging around him. “Give us some space.”

“Sure thing, Tony.”

They trudged down the hill like obedient lapdogs. Rage Machine doing the bidding of Anthony, a man who couldn’t get to his sobriety meetings on time, stunned me more than anything.

Suddenly, a missing puzzled piece clicked in my head.

He was working with them.

“I’m using them to kill Legion,” he said, shooting me a dead-eyed look. “I’ve been funding the war against them. I’m killing the MCs, starting with the biggest one in Boston.”

My mind exploded. “You’re why Boston’s a fucking war zone?”

“It’s not just me,” he rasped in that toneless voice. “There are others.”

Was I witnessing a man’s mental breakdown?

“Anthony, go to rehab-”

“I’m stone-cold sober.”

I had plenty of reason to doubt him based on the thousands of times he’d repeated those words.

“Your father died,” I reasoned. “Maybe you should take it easy.”

“I’m done being your charity case, V. All you need to worry about is the new direction I’m taking the Family.”

My insides flipped. “Since when do I follow your fucking orders?”

“You don’t have a choice. Daddy left me everything. It’s all in his will. I’ll send you a copy. He gave me the empire, so I will do whatever the fuck I want. And I’m killing every last scumbag on a bike.”

“You think you can walk in and take my fucking job?”

“I’m not interested in being boss.” He flicked his cigarette at my shoes, the spark dying in the wet grass. “I have something much better.”