AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 1
ENZO
The alley reeks of piss and desperation, the stench as familiar to me as the weight of the gun in my hand. I keep to the shadows, a predator in an impeccably tailored suit, as I stalk my prey. He stumbles ahead of me, oblivious to his imminent demise, too focused on trying to keep his guts from spilling out through the ragged hole in his stomach.
I put that hole there, a reminder of what happens when you cross Dante Vitale. What happens when you cross me.
The rat fink reaches the mouth of the alley, his blood-slick fingers grasping desperately at the brick wall as he tries to keep himself upright. I could let him go, let him shamble out into the street and leave a macabre breadcrumb trail for the cops to follow. It would be a slow, agonizing death, befitting the magnitude of his betrayal.
But my uncle wants a message sent. And when Dante Vitale gives an order, you don't disappoint.
I raise my gun, the silencer already screwed securely into place. The rat's sobs echo off the alley walls, grating on my nerves. I hate it when they cry. You'd think a lifetime in this business would've taught them to face death with something resembling dignity. But they're all the same in the end - spineless and sniveling, pleading for a mercy they know damn well doesn't exist in our world.
My finger tightens on the trigger, the pressure as familiar as a lover's caress. One tug, one muted pop, and it'll all be over. Just another body to dispose of, another mess to clean up. All in a night's work for Enzo Vitale, mafia underboss and cold-blooded killer.
"Pl-please," the rat whimpers, the word wet and thick. "I got... a family..."
I feel my lip curl in disgust. As if he gave a single fuck about his wife and snot-nosed brats when he was singing like a canary to the Feds. No, he only cares about saving his own pathetic hide. They always do.
"You should've thought about them before you turned rat," I tell him coldly.
The words are pointless, I know. He's not really listening, too caught up in his own impending doom. But I say them anyway, a final "fuck you" to punctuate his miserable existence. My finger starts to depress the trigger, ready to paint the alley wall with the contents of his skull.
And that's when I hear it. A sharp, startled intake of breath, out of place in the foul shadows of the alley. My gaze darts to the source of the sound, my gun never wavering from its target. There, half-concealed behind a stack of rotting wooden pallets, is a man. Not one of mine, that's for damn sure. He's too clean, too soft-looking to be mafia. Dressed in a white t-shirt and well-worn jeans, with a head of curly brown hair that practically screams "civilian".
But it's his eyes that snare me, wide and green and utterly horrified as they lock onto the macabre scene unfolding before him. Those eyes don't belong in this filthy backstreet, this world of casual brutality and spilled blood. They're too innocent, too fucking pure.
They're the eyes of a witness.
In that split second of distraction, the rat makes his move. He lurches sideways, throwing himself towards the mouth of the alley in a last-ditch effort to escape. I snap my attention back to him, cursing my own carelessness. I squeeze the trigger, the gun bucking almost soundlessly in my grip.
The rat's skull bursts like a rotten melon, spraying the brick wall with gore. He crumples to the ground, his body still twitching as the life bleeds out of him. I watch dispassionately, making sure he's well and truly dead before I turn my attention back to the witness.
He's still there, frozen in place, those damning eyes locked on the pooling ruin of the rat's head. His face has gone chalk-white, his full lips parted in mute horror. He looks like he's about to either scream or vomit. Possibly both.
I take a step towards him, my gun still clutched loosely at my side. He startles at my movement, his gaze flying up to meet mine. In the sputtering glow of the alley's single light bulb, I can see the exact moment the truth crashes over him. He knows what I am, what I've done. What I'm going to do to him.
His throat works as he swallows convulsively, terror replacing revulsion in those expressive eyes. He takes a faltering step back, his sneakered feet scuffing against the alley's grime-encrusted cement.
"Wait..." he says, his voice hoarse and shaking. He holds up a trembling hand, as if that could ward off the bullet with his name on it. "I didn't... I w-won't..."
I level my gun at him, aiming directly between those fear-bright eyes. His words cut off in a choked gasp, his whole body going rigid. I know I should pull the trigger, put him down quick and clean like the liability he is. One twitch of my finger, and those eyes will never look at anything again.
But I hesitate. There's something about him, some flicker of emotion that dances across his face too fast for me to catch. Not just terror, but something else. Something that roots me in place, my finger frozen on the trigger guard.
In all my years of spilling blood for the Family, I've never once faltered. Killing is as natural to me as breathing, a necessity of the life I was born into. I am Enzo fucking Vitale, nephew of the most powerful mafia don in Chicago. Ruthless, unshakeable, a fucking machine.
And yet.
And yet here I stand, my gun trained on a trembling civilian with eyes like summer leaves, and I can't fucking do it. Can't snuff out the light in those eyes, can't paint the alley with the insides of his skull. Some long-atrophied scrap of my soul rebels at the thought.
Sirens wail in the distance, shattering the charged silence. Someone must have heard the shot, civilian-grade hardware with no silencer to muffle the echoing report. The smart thing to do would be to double-tap the witness and bug out, leaving two cooling corpses for the badges to scratch their heads over.
But I'm already moving, closing the distance between us in three long strides. The man stumbles away from me, raising his hands in a futile attempt to shield himself. I snake out one arm and snag him by the collar of his t-shirt, ignoring his startled yelp as I yank him flush against my chest.
"You scream, you die," I tell him, my voice a low rasp. I dig the barrel of my gun into the soft underside of his jaw, feeling his panicked pulse flutter against the cold steel. "Nod if you understand."
His eyes are huge in his pale face, the green of them startlingly vivid up close. He nods jerkily, sweat beading on his upper lip. The faint scent of vanilla clings to him, incongruously sweet in the fetid air of the alley.
