Page 8 of Wrong Pawn. Right Capo.

“Indeed. My name is Zeus,” he smirks.

Chapter two

Adriano

Present day

They say time heals everything. I say time is a fucked-up bitch waiting patiently for moments of weakness to dredge up painful memories.

And fuck if I have any good ones left.

The only memory residing in my heart now is that of the massacre five years ago; my father staring blankly into the ceiling, his own blood pooling around him. My mother on his lap, blood trickling from between her eyes.

The scent comes back first. Iron-heavy. Hot. Thick enough to choke on. It’ll never leave me. It lives in my ribs, pressed against my lungs, reminding me that breathing is a privilege those men stole from my family.

My sibling was butchered right before our eyes, along with all my father’s men. Several of their limbs were scattered around the house.

I force myself to block out the details, because remembering the whole thing would rip me apart all over again.

I caught five bullets myself, bleeding out onto the Persian rug my mother loved. The rug had been hers, carefully chosen by my father when she turned sixty. She’d scolded anyone who wore shoes on it. And there I was, bleeding all over it, turning something she cherished into a grave marker… with her lifeless body a few feet from me.

And for what? Power? Wealth? Protection?

My jaw grinds mercilessly against my teeth as the entire scenario replays in my head, making my blood boil.

Hatred simmers best when left undisturbed. It sharpens… learns patience, which is why I’ve been waiting every day since that day.

I’ve been waiting for the moment I can make everything the Rossis have built come crashing down to rubble. And after that, I’ll take every person he cares about, tie them to four wild horses, and watch them get torn limb from limb.

I have no mercy to show, nor do I crave closure for what he did. I want him to feel loss the way it was handed to me—slowly, methodically, and without escape.

The Rossi job keeps me busy enough that I rarely allow myself to reflect. Tonight is an exception.

The guest bathroom gleams with obscene luxury as I step into it. White marble floors, gold faucets, and polished mirrors. My mother always said looking into a mirror at night brought bad luck. I never used to believe in that stuff, but seeing as I’ll be needing a lot of luck today, I steer my eyes away from it.

Cupping some water under the faucet, I splash it over my face.

That bastard, Enzo Marcini, wants me to go around the world attending to the needs of his brat like a fucking errand boy. But perhaps, becoming her personal bodyguard could actually be a blessing in disguise.

Straightening slowly, I adjust my cuffs, slicking my stubborn strands back into position. Men like Enzo Marcini and his then-boss, Dean Rossi, deserve a gruesome death and an eternity in hell. Thankfully, the big Rossi has already landed there.

Every movement I make is controlled and deliberate, as appearance matters in a house built on paranoia.

I’ve spent the last four years strategizing on how to repay Enzo for what he and Dean Rossi—my father’s fucking friend—did to my father. That’s when I decided to take the bull by the horns, opting to become a member of the Rossi Mafia.

I figured infiltration is quieter than revenge fantasies. It requires restraint, which most men, including the almighty Enzo, could never figure out.

That restraint is what’s kept me alive, what’s kept him ignorant. The clueless, conspiring bastard. Now that the motherfucker trusts me for taking a bullet for him, I’ve climbed up the Rossi Mafia ladder quickly in the four years that I’ve been here.

As planned, I’m now close enough to hear everything valuable and see weaknesses that I could work to my own advantage.

But then she came along.

My hands slip into my hair again, pushing back into place the rebellious strand. Her existence is a disruption I never accounted for, a variable that refuses to stay in line.

Elena Rossi hadn’t been a fixation; she’d simply been an angle of possibility. Since Enzo loves her blindly, I figured it’d be to my advantage to include her in my playbook of… leverage. And I’ve been keeping an eye on her since I found my way into Enzo’s security from a low-level guard.

The day she arrived at the mansion, Enzo sent me and some of the men on a covert operation abroad. All I knew before I left was that the unmarried twin daughter of Dean Rossi was returning to the Rossi mansion because of death threats.