CHAPTER ONE

TROUBLE

CATCH

To be the cousin of the bodyguard who let the Don’s woman slip through his fingers wasn’t an ideal place to be. But he was my cousin. My flesh and blood. I’d defend him in the depths of turmoil. Ritchie took his job seriously. As the bodyguard to the most notorious underworld bosses in New Jersey, you had to be on top of your fucking game.

Most of the bodyguards wouldn’t have traded places with Ritchie. Guarding the boss’s most prized possession was hard work.

However, my cousin performed his job thoroughly. And enjoyed his position. He and Lexis had a special bond. He helped her discard a woman’s body. The woman was obsessed with Lexis’s boyfriend. So you see, she had to go.

The day all hell broke loose, Lexis walked out the front door of her father’s house. Lexis waved goodbye to a security camera, cementing the fact that she left Luca Esposito. This was a bodyguard gray area. The woman wasn’t kidnapped. She plotted and planned to leave the boss. Perhaps he should’ve been in the house. But Ritchie guarded her for so many years, he didn’t think she’d leave the boss. Hell, none of us did.

Anyone in the mafia or watched a mafia movie knew the only way out of the mafia was death. I often wondered if the boss would have her killed.

I kept that thought to myself. For now.

In recent days, after Lexis fled, Ritchie acted strange. He took time off. Something my cousin never did.

I took it upon myself to search him out before the bosses Luca and his brother Marco, who I worked for, asked questions.

I talked to Kagan, Marco, and Luca’s cousin. He was a computer genius. Kagan was a self-taught fucking prodigy. The man knew how to manipulate a computer. I admired him for his ability to use the computer and the wide-open web as his bitch.

As soon as Kagan found him, I sought Ritchie out.

He was held up in a three-star hotel.What the fuck?With the type of money we had, he didn’t have to stay in less than a five-star hotel.

When I found my cousin, I couldn’t believe what had happened. He got tangled up in some tough shit. Ritchie Toscano was at risk of going to war alone over a woman.

My cousin didn’t do women. He fucked them, but that was it. No pillow talk. No, ‘I’ll call you again.’ Or ‘we can become fuck buddies.’ None of that bullshit.

His dick and heart were totally two separate entities. In our line of work, that was probably best.

I loved to have play time with multiple women. I had sex parties on my weekends off. I dipped out of town where no one knew me and fuck four or five women on the same night.

My bodyguard role was different from Ritchie’s. I sometimes laid on rooftops staring out of sniper scopes for long periods of time.

Before I became a bodyguard, I wanted to see the world. So how did I do that? Joined the marines and became a bad ass sniper. Because my family was rich, that wasn’t the way theythought I should see the world. They said, “Travel for a year. See the world.” Like go backpacking across Europe or some shit.

Not me. I chose to blow shit up legally for the United States Government. To this day, they still called on me to do odd jobs. I was getting ahead of myself. That we’d discuss later.

After sitting in the hotel room with my cousin and learning about his stent of trouble. It was time to call in reinforcement. We had the upper hand on Man-Man. We knew the best bodyguards in the business who loved to go to war. So I called on my buddies. Asked them to be on standby. I even called our cousin Nickulas Pitucco. Everyone in the family called him Nicky. If an enemy made the mistake of calling him Nicky, they’d be dead.

Anyway, I brought Nicky up to speed just in case we needed more back up. Ritchie and I couldn’t let our bosses Luca and Marco know what was going on. Luca would’ve dragged Lexis back home against her will. Ritchie didn’t want that. He chose to watch over her as long as it took.

In the meantime, Ritchie needed to return to Jersey to show the boss he was still a strong soldier. I agreed to remain in Chicago and watch over the woman who had my cousin by the fucking balls.

When I arrived at Tori’s house, I didn’t expect to have a run in with the little terror.

A petite woman swung the door open. “We don’t want whatever you’re selling?”

Did the khakis and green polo shirt give off salesman vibes? Probably.Shit.

“Hello.” I smirked as my eyes moved over her curvy body. She was fucking beautiful. But that mouth was going to get her in trouble. “I’m not selling anything. Is Tori here?”

Her eyes widened. “She is.”

“Can you ask her to come to the door?”