Prologue(2)

RAPHAEL, THE DON

“What sort of terms?” Luc asked, his bright blue eyes staring into me with keen interest.

“The Rossi’s go way back, and this has always been a family business. I never had a son to carry on my name, and as you know, my brother and his son died several years ago. That left me in sole charge, and I’m willing to pass up on the Rossi name, but not on the tradition of keeping the business in the family.”

At my words, Luc looked unnerved. Marcus looked upset, likely having realized where I was going with this conversation.

“And how do you propose we do that?” Marcus asked.

It was a challenge, but his tone was kept under control, unlike when Claudius lost his temper.

“Amelia.” As her name left my lips, a piece of me crumbled. I’d done everything I could to keep her out of this life.

“She wants nothing to do with us,” Marcus replied, voice tense.

“She may have had a change of heart.” I nodded firmly, despite knowing my statement was bullshit.

Amelia wanted nothing to do with us indeed—nothing to do with me—but that didn’t change anything. She needed to snap out of her hatred and disregard for our way of life.

“Amelia? Who is Amelia?” Luc asked.

My heart squeezed at his question. God, I’d done such a good job of hiding my child, no one even knew she existed.

Back in the day, when she was my little girl, I’d kept her and her mother out of the business. Only the closest men to me knew I had them.

The first thing my father told me when he passed the torch was to protect the people you love the most and keep them unseen from your enemies.

The reason for that was simple. Us Rossi’s were powerful men, but our weaknesses were the people we loved, our women and our children. That was where our enemies would strike, and I had taken that advice to the next level.

I pulled in a deep breath and looked at both Luc and Claudius. This part was one I knew I could trust them with, but I still needed to exert my dominance over them because of the seriousness of what I was about to declare.

“What is discussed in this room stays here. Do you understand?”

Marcus looked offended at the request and glowered at me. I deserved the look because the man would keep my secrets to the death, and so would his boys.

My boys.

“Understood,” Claudius replied.

Luc gave me that curt nod again. It was enough.

“Amelia is my daughter.”

“Didn’t know you had a daughter, boss.” Luc held my gaze and tried not to look surprised.

“I do.”

Luc tensed. It looked like he was beginning to see where I was going with my request.

Marcus and his family had lived in Chicago during the time Amelia was still here, but Luc had never met her. Marcus moved his family to LA for many years and returned to Chicago a year after Amelia left.

Luc was five years older than her and a lot more compatible in temperament than Claudius. I had taken that into consideration, but above that, I knew he would keep her safe.

If what I thought was happening was indeed happening, I needed to know my girl was safe. I didn’t care by what means, or if she hated me for it. I needed to make sure my last act in this world with my God-given right as a father was making sure my child was safe.

My girl was 28 years old now, not the little girl who used to run around in the garden with her mother and saw me as the best thing in the world. Still, she was my child, and Luc was the best man to take care of her and do what he saw fit with the business.

“So, what plans do you have, Raphael?” Luc asked.

I really liked this guy. I liked him for the way he chose to be different and call me Raphael while everyone else either called me boss or Raphe. I liked that he had the ability to adapt to my ever-changing emotions and not piss me off like his brother always did. I wished this meeting were taking place under better circumstances.

“Luc, in order to be leader and take over our cherished family business, of which you have been a part for the last fifteen years, you will have to marry my daughter.”

That was the plan, my plan, my task.

Luc narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together.

“I have to marry Amelia in order to take over from you.”

I opened my mouth to speak but started coughing, and at the same time, a bout of pain rushed through me, making me double over.

Marcus rushed to the mini fridge and grabbed me a bottle of water. I sipped at it immediately and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Something red dripped on the table.

Blood.

Shit.

That had started the previous day. I’d thought I’d bit my tongue or the inside of my cheek but quickly realized that wasn’t the case.

It was from the cancer and the weakness it was causing all over my body.

While Claudius watched me try to find a tissue, Luc got the box of them from the bookshelf and handed it to me. He didn’t look like he relished in my demise. In fact, he looked sad for me.

“I have to marry Amelia in order to take over from you?” It was a question this time.

“Yes, those are my terms. Do you accept?”

Luc again held my gaze with those bright blue eyes and nodded. “I accept.”

Good.

It was time for action.

***

LUC

I had to hand it to him.

Raphael was one powerful son of a bitch—powerful enough to get a guy like me to go to fucking LA, a city I’d sworn I’d never return to.

He had the power, though, and he made sure we knew it, kept us on a leash. You either played by his rules, or you died. I got it, understood his ways, but that didn’t make me like the idea of becoming the man’s son-in-law.

Wanting to keep the business in the family was understandable, but this here request was a damn good case of special, and me…I was the idiot who fell for it—not that I would have ever said no. Taking over from Raphael was something my father had prepared me for. He’d prepared Claudius, too, giving us an equal chance, but I’d always known I was better cut out for leadership than him.

That said, I had my job cut out for me big time.

I was shocked as shit to find out dear old Raphael had a daughter. I’d assumed he’d had his women but had never actually asked. I’d never seen anything that resembled a family in the man’s life, and honestly, I couldn’t see him with one.

We knew not to ask questions, knew to just take orders and get shit done, but this order was something that would keep me in a state of flux for a long time to come. My gut told me there was more at work here, more than what met my eyes on the surface.

Amelia Rossi.

That was her name, my future wife. Fuck. The word sounded foreign to me and completely unnatural, just like the situation.

Raphael expected me to go to LA and win his daughter over just like that. Oh, and there was more—Miss Amelia Rossi had not only left her life in Chicago behind, she’d become a cop.

A cop.

A fucking cop—those creatures I loathed more than anything. They got in the way and were bad news for a man like me.

It was like throwing me into the lion’s den. I was a criminal, and the list of misdemeanors on me had to be rather lengthy, despite whatever Raphael could sort out to make the officials turn a blind eye.

The business itself was based on a smooth, streamlined system of money laundering. Raphael had gotten everything nearly perfected to the point where the money became clean well before anyone could ever guess what was going on. Of course, there were suspicions, mainly from the feds, but since they couldn’t prove anything, they left us alone.

That part of the business was taken care of by Raphael and my father, the infamous duo, and Claudius and I were bookies. We paid off bets, mostly for football and basketball events. Living in the home state of the legendary Chicago Bulls had been good for us, and when our debtors couldn’t pay off what they owed, money would quadruple.

Your money or your life. That was Claudius’s favorite saying. Me, on the other hand, I just gave a look and people knew not to fuck with me. I didn’t kill unless I had to, but I doubted that would work to my credit if the cops ever got a hold of all the crimes I was truly guilty of.

I could have laughed at my situation. It was indeed ridiculous. How was I supposed to convince this woman to not only marry me, but to come over to the dark side?

Here I was though, in grand old Los Angeles, the city of my birth, ready to do it and not about to fail. I wanted to take over the business, wanted it badly, and I would do anything to get the job. That’s why I’d never questioned the task. Marry Raphael’s daughter? Sure, no problem.

I’d do it if it got me what I wanted.

I sat in a private booth at the Atalas, a contemporary restaurant suited to a man of my taste. I was going over my file on Amelia. Raphael had been kind enough to give me ‘the manual’.

I was given the file and told the woman who would be sitting at table six, the one near the chocolate fountain, would be her. There were no pictures of Amelia, nothing to show she’d ever existed.

Suspicious? Very, and I had questions.

Why would Raphael take what I would call drastic measures to make sure no one except my father knew he had a daughter?

Why was she hidden? Why had she left?

Like his men, he kept tabs on her, but they didn’t speak—why?

He hadn’t seen or heard from her in ten years. That was a long time. It was all suspicious as hell, but he knew me. Raphael knew I would think this way, so again, the question was why.

The waitress came over to me with my order of a medium rare steak and spring vegetables. I took it and gave her a smile that made her blush.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked in that all-too-willing manner most women used with me.

“Bottle of your finest wine.” I loved wine, loved the best of everything and had a taste for the most expensive. It wasn’t that I loved to show off or anything like that. I just liked what it represented—wealth.

“I can do that.” She nodded her blonde head and sauntered away.

When she returned with the bottle, I smiled, pleased that this woman knew what I meant by the finest wine. She’d brought back a Meursault, the best thing I’d seen since I’d landed at LAX a few hours earlier. It was the highlight of my night.

“Special occasion?” she asked with keen interest as she poured me the first glass and flashed me a pearly white smile that dazzled, reaching all the way to her bright brown eyes.

“Nope, I just love my wine.” It was the truth. Why lie? There was nothing special or wonderful about the task that lay ahead of me.

“That’s nice. Well, enjoy, and call me if you need me…for anything.” Long thick lashes fluttered, casting a shadow over her high cheekbones.

“I’ll do that.” A curt nod was all I could offer her, even though I would have loved to do much more.