AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There was also the fact that Declan O’Brien, the head of the Irish, had a thing for Kasen. While it wasn’t a romantic interest-or he’d be dead already-The O’Brien held the Sartori wife in very high regard, and whatever respect that he had for her, it was genuine, much to Nero’s irritation.
Even before the bloodbath that had taken out the Schultz family, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that hadn’t been or wasn’t impressed by Nero Sartori. The man was in a different league than those around him, and as much as it bothered Marco Sartori, even he couldn’t deny the truth about his eldest son. I could see it when I’d first been assigned to Nero, and there was no mistaking it now.
Nevertheless, I still owed some thanks to Marco Sartori for the life that I had now. I’d been living on the streets for about three years when five guys had tried to jump me for the nothingness that I’d had in my pockets, and though it’d been five on one, I had ended up killing every last one of those sonsofbitches. While not ideal, I’d had the perfect setup for self-defense, but it hadn’t come to that. As chance would have it, Marco had been doing some business in the same back alley, and he’d been so impressed that he had made the bodies disappear, then had recruited me to become a part of the Sartori family.
Now, while I’d known who he was, it’d been a no-brainer. My parents had been junkies, and I had run away from home at the age of thirteen because the dangers on the streets had been no less damaging than what’d been going on in my parents’ house. Arturo and Anna Provenza hadn’t ever had any business having kids, and I could only thank God that they’d stopped with me. Well, that I knew of. The day that I had taken off, I had hit the pavement running and had never looked back. If they weren’t already dead, they were still dead to me and that was good enough as far as I was concerned.
Luckily for me, I’d always been a big kid, so lots of people had left me alone during those early years. It hadn’t been until I’d joined Marco Sartori that I had learned how to hone my talents, and it wasn’t bragging when it was the truth, and the truth was simple; I was the best shot in the entire Sartori Syndicate. Not only was I built like a warrior with the stamina of a racehorse, but I knew guns better than most military experts. I was the perfect killing machine, and I’d been enhancing each of my skills for five years before Marco had assigned me to Nero as Nero’s eighteenth birthday present. It’d meant that Nero could finally get his hands bloodier than normal, and the rest was history.
Now, I wasn’t sure when we’d gone from bodyguard and charge to best friends, but we’d had, and my loyalty to Nero superseded everything else, including my loyalty to his father. By all accounts, Marco was owed that level of dedication, but Nero had more integrity than Marco did, and that mattered in the world that we lived in. Trust was everything, and Marco was too self-absorbed and vain to be trusted to that degree. Elio was a lot like him, but thankfully, Nero hadn’t let any of that shit rub off on him.
Nonetheless, despite our friendship, in public, I treated Nero with the respect that he deserved and had earned. I spoke to him like he was the Sartori Boss, and I only got flippant when we were in private. In private, I could speak to Nero however I wanted, and he appreciated my honesty enough to allow that kind of leeway. Whenever I called him Boss, it was usually to knock him down a peg or two when he was getting stubborn. Granted, the only thing that he was ever unreasonable about was his wife, but still.
I started undressing as I thought about this past year. Nero marrying Kasen had changed a lot of things, and when she’d gotten pregnant, that had really turned things upside down. Her sister, Fia, had moved to Italy to help get over a miscarriage and lost love, and being their mother’s favorite, Sonya Milano had gone with her, and they were still there, which Renzo Milano didn’t mind. Kasen was his favorite, and he’d never hid that fact from any of the other women in his family. Still, it was rumored that Fia had met someone and was healing, and considering that she’d wanted to kill Nero at one point for costing her the love of her life, I’d say that her finally moving on was a good thing.
There was also the fact that Elio had gotten married out of duty, and just like the spoiled brat that he was, he didn’t bother with his wife much. Yeah, he’d grown some as far as the family business was concerned, but he was still young minded and entitled, and it showed. As far as I knew, only two months into their marriage, Elio and his wife, Condie, pretty much stayed out of each other’s way. I’d even seen Elio with some redhead at The Den two weeks ago.
After I was done undressing, I got in the shower, then turned the water on to damn near scalding. It was a bad habit that I hadn’t been able to shake, even though I’d been off the streets since I was fifteen. However, those three years of homelessness were never far from my mind. I knew what it felt like to have nothing, and that’s why Nero said I didn’t fear death, and he wasn’t necessarily wrong. I mean, when a man didn’t have anything to lose, what was there to be afraid of?
At any rate, hot showers were my guilty pleasures. I’d never forgotten what it’d felt like to go days without bathing, brushing my teeth, or even combing my hair. It was one thing to feel hunger, but it was quite another to feel dirty. As despicable as my parents had been, we’d still had running water, electricity, and heat. It’d never been a secret how they’d been able to pay for those luxuries, but they’d had, and anyone that didn’t believe that water, electricity, and heat were luxuries was a stupid sonofabitch. When your wellbeing was at the mercy of your parents, you’d be surprised at how much in life really was a luxury versus a necessity.
Once I felt clean enough, I dried off, then walked into my bedroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. I lived in an upscale condominium building with the entire top floor all mine. The building was a Sartori building, and only members of the family were allowed to live here. The structure was ten-stories high, and only Marco, Elio, Nero, Kasen, and I knew that the nineth story held a private arsenal. The rest of the place had four condos on each floor, the first floor being the lobby and mailboxes. However, you needed a code to get past the first floor, and the first floor was littered with cameras everywhere. In fact, every Sartori building had massive amounts of security, and even though I didn’t sleep much when I did, it was still good to know that my home was protected as much as possible.
Heading towards the dresser, there was no denying that the tenth floor was too big for just one person, but the penthouse had been designed around my personal tastes and business needs. Nero and I were also the only ones that knew about the secret staircase that led to an underground tunnel that came out a block away on Acer Street. While it could be argued that the contractors also knew of the tunnel, they knew better than to say anything about it.
Putting on some black joggers, I walked over to the bed, wearing clothes to sleep my only regret in life. While I preferred to sleep in the buff, that wasn’t pragmatic in my line of work. The last thing that I wanted to do was engage in any kind of fight or ambush with my dick hanging out.
I checked my phone one last time before getting comfortable, knowing that I was going to be awake within a few hours. When my head hit the pillow, I stared up at the ceiling, refusing to close my eyes until I no longer had a choice. However, as soon as I did, there was her face.
Like fucking always.
Chapter 2
Savina~
When your life felt out of control, you ended up obsessing over the things that you could control, and it didn’t take years of therapy to understand why. Because of that, anyone looking at my office would think that I had my shit together, but I didn’t.
I really didn’t.
At thirty-four, I was a successful real estate agent, and if you were on the outside looking in, you’d think that I had it made. I had a lucrative career, amazing home, devoted boyfriend, glamorous online presence, and I was even in good health, considering. My smile was plastered all over the place, so why would anyone think differently?
However, in truth, the life that I lived now was a far cry from the life that I’d led less than five years ago. I’d gone from one world to a completely different one, and I’d been naïve in believing that the grass was going to be greener on the other side.
Living in Port Townsend, I’d been raised around organized crime from as far back as I could remember. The city used to be divided by five families, though it was run by only three now. As an Italian, I’d been raised around the Calvettis, Milanos, and the Sartoris, knowing to keep my hands and feet out of the O’Brien, Shultz, and Kotov territories. Despite the Italians having always had higher numbers, no one had wanted to be the cause of a war because they’d been too stupid to know better.
At any rate, my mother and father had done their best to make sure that I’d always known where my place was. My father, Paolo Valentine, was a Sartori Capo, and my mother, Carla Valentine, was your quintessential Mafia wife. I wasn’t sure why I’d been an only child when it was well known that most Italians usually had a gaggle of children, but my parents had never had any more kids, which made what they’d done a year ago make more sense.
All my life, I’d been raised to respect what it really meant to be in the Mafia, but that still hadn’t stopped me from wanting something different. While I had nothing against tradition, change didn’t always have to be a bad thing. Nothing felt more hopeless than not feeling comfortable in your own skin, and I hadn’t wanted to become another mindless Mafia wife, my opinions and ambitions snuffed out before they could even be ignited. Though being a mother and wife were important roles, I hadn’t wanted to be only a wife and mother. I’d wanted to contribute in a lot of different ways, and it really was crazy how one decision could continue to impact all your other future decisions until you couldn’t even trust yourself to make any right decisions at all.
Nonetheless, against my parents’ wishes, I had started online classes to get my realtor’s license, and it’d felt exciting and worthwhile. I’d been immediately fascinated with the statistics and the economics of it all. I’d learned about the housing market, inflation, the stock market, and had even learned a bit about construction and what square footage really meant along with knowing how to capitalize on that knowledge. I had even learned about housing laws pertaining to Maryland and had even delved into the horrible nightmares that were HOAs. I had researched everything in my quest for a different life.
Though it’d taken me a lot longer than most because I’d had to sneak around, in less than a year, I’d finally gotten my real estate license, and it’d been the first thing that had felt like mine. Up until then, my parents had paid all my bills, and having a financial collar tied tightly around your neck hadn’t been fun. Of course, the plan had been to hand me over to my future husband soon enough, but that had all come to an end when I’d left home, never to return.
Well, almost never.
Flying under the radar, I had moved up north, dipping my toes into O’Brien territory, but I’d kept to myself enough that no one had noticed or had taken an interest in me. I had taken all the money that I’d saved, had rented an apartment, then had applied to every real estate office in the area. Within a couple of months, I had landed my first job ever, and the satisfaction of finally accomplishing something had felt like a reward long overdue.
With no one overly worried about my last name, I’d started making a name for myself in the real estate world a little over a year later, and that’s when I had ended up meeting Ashton Oliver, son of Congressman Oliver. They’d been looking for a property for Stewart Oliver’s newest campaign run, and I’d been the lucky realtor tasked with finding them the perfect office space. The entire thing had felt intimidating at first, but after spending more and more time with the Olivers, it’d been easy to see why Stewart Oliver was so popular with his constituents. The man had a charismatic way about him, and it’d also been easy to see that his sons had inherited that special gift.
