Page 16 of Savage Rule

Francesco Gianni, Giuseppe Tadesco, Sergio Ramos, Clive Maxton, Bryan McKenzie and Sean Murphy. In 2009, those six heads of some of the most powerful crime families in the Eastern United States came together to take out a common enemy. Gideon’s father, Stephen Black.

Stephen hadn’t done anything wrong, mind you. At least not where the underworld is concerned. Here, in this place of corruption, money, drugs, sex, violence, everything is about power. Everyone wants more of it.

He craved power just like the rest of them. His sin was that he knew how to get it far better than most.

Had Stephen been left unchecked, he’d be ruling the entire eastern coast by now. No doubt. All those families, the Giannis, Tadescos, Ramos, Maxtons, McKenzies, and yes, even the Sinacores, would have fallen under his control. And Gideon would have inherited it all.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s not the only reason he’s so obsessed with revenge. This desire to bring them all to heel, is it because he loved his father, or because he lost his inheritance? It’s hard to figure with a man like Gideon.

Stephen wasn’t a kind man. In fact, if he’d found out about me he would have killed me. His son wasn’t allowed pets, and that’s what I was in the beginning. A cute mutt he rescued and kept hidden in his bedroom.

No, Stephen wasn’t a nice man, but Gideon respected him, and yeah, maybe he did love him.

The reasons behind it all don’t matter anyway. All that matters is that I swore my loyalty to him, and whatever he asks of me, I will do.

It took six men to take out Stephen Black. My job is to ensure that those six men don’t have legacies. It was why Gideon had me trained so well.

The list started out simple enough, though shit got complicated quickly. Out of the six original names, two were crossed off before I even began my hunt. Francesco Gianni and Sean Murphy had both died already.

That made Giuseppe Tadesco, the Don over Chicago, the first of my hits. It had been him that started the war against Gideon’s father, so it seemed fitting. He was in Jersey running some shady business right under the Gianni’s noses. All I had to do was pretend to be the prostitute he called for.

I’ve killed many men before, but there are only few that I remember as well as Giuseppe Tadesco. The older man might have been respected as the godfather of a powerful organization, but on the human scale, I’d say he was not much above scum.

The first thing I saw after passing his security team’s inspection and walked into his room, was the girl he’d called in before me. She was huddled in a corner holding the tattered pieces of her tight black dress over her chest. Her hair was a mess and bruises covered her arms.

When she heard my footsteps, she glanced up, but it was clear by her overly dilated pupils that she was high as fuck and couldn’t fully register who I was. She wiped a hand across herswollen lip and turned from me, pressing herself against the wall as if she wanted to disappear into it.

“Is she okay?” I asked Giuseppe, fighting the urge to go to her.

He was standing by a bar cart set across from the king size bed. “Don’t know. That’s how she showed up. Unprofessional whores don’t do it for me. That’s why I called you. You will be better, won’t you?”

My gaze flicked to his freshly cut knuckles as he poured two shots of whiskey. When he handed me one, I smiled. “I take my job very seriously.”

“Good girl. Now let me take out the trash before we get started.”

I said nothing as he practically tossed her out on her ass and called her names. I said nothing because it was best for her if the guards saw him still living when she left.

Five minutes later, Giuseppe lay on the bed naked and gutted with his own knife.

Bryan McKenzie of Boston was my next target, and when his brother James took over the family, he met the same fate. Like I said, my job is to ensure there is no legacy. No boss. No one to run their business.

Then it was Joaquin Gianni, the short slimeball that took over New Jersey after his father, Francesco, was killed in a suspicious car accident. It gave me almost as much pleasure to dispose of him as it did Giuseppe. But when his brother, Renzo, took over, I didn’t have to lift a finger because one of their own took care of it for me.

There was also Clive Maxton, the once king of the Philadelphia underworld. I don’t remember him. Don’t know what he looked like when I shot him because I was too focused on Maisie. Her screams of horror when she witnessed his death at my hands.

They’re not all dead, however. Because of their alliance with Luca Sinacore, some have been a little harder to take out.

First, there’s Arran Maxton, Clive’s son, and Noah Esposito, who is now over New Jersey and closest to the Sinacores.

Then we have the members of the alliance who have been purposely spared.

Rowan Kane, Bryan and James McKenzie’s nephew, but to our benefit also Gideon’s half-brother. And most recently, Gavin Alexander, Sean Murphy’s younger sibling who sought Gideon’s help to retake his Las Vegas casino after Marco Tadesco betrayed him.

Like I said, it’s become a complicated list that seems to have taken on a life of its own. A fucking family tree that continuously sprouts new branches, and it’s up to me to trim them.

Today, that branch happens to be Sergio Ramos.

He’s the last of what I like to call the originals. Also, the quietest of the bunch. He’s barricaded himself in his Miami mansion and left all of the talking to his cousin, Jorge Ruiz. Any negotiations have all been done through him, yet Sergio has refused to officially pass on the torch.

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