AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never let them know your next move.
Rowan
There should not be a woman tied up in my basement.
There should never be a woman tied up in my basement.
Scrubbing a hand down my face, I make a mental, color-coded note to teach my consigliere, Corbin, that when he says I have a surprise, generally that refers to something good. Like a fifteen minute break between meetings, during which I can reassess all my life choices.
Ever since some syndicate called the Maxim Project made my parents disappear three months ago, I’ve had two options: take over their job and become Boss of the Veleno family, or get the heck out of here.
For reasons I still can’t explain, I took up the bloody mantle of my birthright and forged ahead as though it doesn’t weigh a thousand pounds. I’ve spent grueling hours ignoring migraines in order to redefine our methods, map new laws, and create laminated posters for the meeting room walls.
Not a day goes by where I don’t at least mildly regret not changing my name and skipping the country.
All this is to say: if Corbin thinks this is a joke—after everything we’ve been through—it is not funny.
If it’s not a joke, having a woman tied up in my basement breaks every guideline I painstakingly alphabetized and compiled into a personal handbook for all capos and leading officers.
It took me seven sleepless nights to make that stupid handbook, and Corbin proofread it, so I would love to assume that since we do happen to be working day and night to get rid of trafficking in the area, my few trusted family members wouldn’t organize this kind of surprise as a joke.
Alas. Evidence speaks otherwise.
I’m going to be pissed if I need to make another informational poster.
As it stands, I’m running out of wall space.
Not to mention I have more important things to do than doubt my knowledge of color theory and what fonts pair well together.
The bitter scent of stale iron scrapes down the back of my throat as I approach the small woman strapped to the rough chair in the center of this cement room.
The thuds of my boots reverberate in the space, and the single, dim bulb overhead highlights her swallow.
She’s blindfolded, the cloth tied against her straight, short dark hair. Tousled, the sharp cut of her bob follows the lines of her jaw and pierces toward her pointed chin on either side of her freckled face. Full lips. Petite nose. Cute.
She is cute.
But Corbin should know better.
It goes against everything I thought we stood for.
After the Maxim Project overturned the hierarchy in Veleno, I’ve been exhausted, stressed, gripping the fraying strands of this family together. Even if there’s no love lost between me and Veleno’s old leadership, there are many in my ranks who preferred my parents’ methods to mine.
Particularly because mine don’t deal in humans. And humans will always be the source of the most money.
Shutting down the rackets that sold organs and sex, one by one, while maintaining enough authority to keep a bullet out of my skull has been a delicate process.
About as delicate as the little twenty-something sitting pretty in the cold cavern of my parents’ favorite place to make examples of people. For the past few months, I’ve neglected this dank, concrete space. I had intended to continue doing so for as long as possible.
Nothing short of serial offense would get me back down here.
And…Corbin has to know that.
There’s no way he’d think I want a young woman in a frilly sky-blue dress tied up anywhere near me—much less here. If he does, we need to have a talk that results in one of us going to therapy, because clearly he’s demented or he’s picked up on something I should not be putting down.
