Page 1 of Vow to Me

Chapter One

Luca

“Tell me something, sunshine. Either you talk or end up with a crowbar in your ass while we carve our initials into your skin,” I say to the piece of shit Colombian strung up like a pig in the middle of the warehouse.

We’ve been here for seven hours, and it’s clear the fucker isn’t gonna talk. So far, he’s lost all his fingers and eight toes. Unfortunately, he was already missing two, so I couldn’t confiscate them like I did the rest. I’ve also shot him in both of his kneecaps and flayed the skin on his right arm.

All he did was glare at me from where he’s tied up, he hasn’t made a fucking sound, and it’s really starting to piss me off.

Our friend Juan here grew up in the foster system, has never married, and doesn’t seem to have a steady girlfriend, so we don’t even have any family members we can threaten. We don’t hurt women or children but it’s always nice to have the threat there to get them talking.

“He’s not giving in, bro,” my younger brother Marco says from where he stands in the corner, casually leaning against the wall eating a bag of chips.

Marco doesn’t enjoy torturing people as much as I do. He isn’t squeamish at all, just doesn’t find the same excitement in chopping off body parts as I do.

Yeah, I’m a sick fucking bastard, but it’s fun!

I sigh, admitting defeat and walk over to the table next to Marco that houses the equipment we use. I pick up a meat cleaver and walk back over, the big fucker knows he’s about to die, and judging by the glare he’s giving me—rather than begging or whimpering like most men would—I’d say he doesn’t really give a shit that his miserable existence is about to come to an end.

I take a deep breath and swing my arm, hitting the spot on his neck just right so I’m left watching as his head drops to the floor at my feet and spraying blood all over the fucking place.

Oops.

“Did you really have to make such a fucking mess?” Marco asks, exasperated.

“I mean, I could have put a bullet between his eyes but where’s the fun in that?” I say while sporting a grin. “Besides, it’s not like you’ll be cleaning the blood off the floor, Marco. Quit your whining.”

“Let’s just shower and change. We better go see Dad and tell him the ugly fuck wouldn’t talk.”

Great, we love our father, but he’s also the Don of the New York Mafia.

Me, being the eldest son, makes me the heir and his second in command. Marco, the middle child, is a capo and technically the ‘spare’ should I get myself fucked up or killed, and our youngestbrother, Enzo, is just a fucking lunatic who likes fucking things up. We tend to send him on missions where we want things blown up or when we want someone to cause some havoc. The kid has a screw loose and enjoys mayhem, so calculated attacks or interrogation aren’t exactly his thing. Fuck, he’d probably give in after ten minutes and start playing with their organs.

After we’ve both showered and changed, I instruct the soldiers placed at the warehouse to clean up the mess inside before we make our way over to the Escalade waiting out front. Normally, I’d drive myself in my Bugatti. However, we’ve been at war with the Cartel and Bratva for the last eight months, and Dad has ordered us to only travel in bulletproof cars with a driver.

The war between us started last May when Alejandro Muñoz, the head of the Colombian Cartel, made a business deal with Dimitri Novikov, the Pakhan of the Russian Bratva. Their deal fucked us over from both sides, leading to us retaliating and blowing up one of their shipments.

Since then, it’s only escalated, and because of their truce, they have the advantage and we’re losing men daily.

The Colombian we just tortured for information was one of Muñoz's top men. In the past month, we’ve had six deals fall through the Bratva and Cartel shouldn’t know about. We know we’ve got a rat; we just don’t know who the fuck it is. And if we keep going the way we are, we’ll all be fucking dead by the time we find them.

The car stopping shakes me from my thoughts, and I realize we’re at the Romano estate, also known as our family home. Me,Marco and Enzo all have our own places now, so it isn’t so much a home but a base of operations. Arriving at the gates, the guard gives us a nod to go through and we pull up to the main entrance.

“How pissed do you think he’s going to be?” Marco asks as we get out of the car.

There’s a stereotype surrounding Mafia Dons, showing them as cold and ruthless towards their family, but our dad is great and always made sure we knew we were loved. He tried his best to give us a real childhood since our mother died while giving birth to Enzo and he became a single parent.

The housekeeper, Beatrice—who’s worked for our family since before I was born—lets us in, giving us both a warm smile before telling us that our father is in his office. I give her a nod, and we walk through the entry way and into the office where he’s waiting for us.

Taking a seat in front of the desk, I look at our dad and give him the run-down of everything that happened with our friend Juan, explaining how the fucker stayed tight lipped isn’t exactly what I enjoy doing considering I’m known as one of the best interrogators in New York, but sometimes some nuts just won’t crack. He sits and listens, hands carefully placed on his lap, his face blank while he takes in the information I’m giving him.

“Well, I hoped you’d have got at least something, but I guess we’ll just have to keep trying until we find someone to talk. I’m also keeping certain information within our close circle and feeding false information to the others to see if we can find our rat,” Dad says with a sigh.

“The other capos don’t know we have a rat. I’m trying to keep it that way. If they start gossiping like a bunch of old ladies, word will get around and then they’re going to end up accusing us of not having a handle on things. That’s the last thing we need with everything already going on. We’ve lost 42 men in the last three months alone, we don’t need a rebellion on our hands as well.”

“I agree, which is why I’ve made a deal with Antonio Bianchi,” he says, his expression grim. I have a feeling I’m not going to like what he has to say.

I wait patiently, not wanting to be the one to ask what exactly this ‘deal’ with the head of the Chicago Mafia is. We’ve had a truce with the Chicago outfit for years, but it's very rare that deals are made between us; we usually just exist peacefully and ignore each other.

---