Page 6 of Wicked Rivals

The office had been mine for a decade, but sometimes I still felt like a kid sneaking into my father's domain the way I did back when everything belonged to him.

Part of me expected my mother or nanny to come scurrying in and drag me out of my father’s office while scolding me.

Both women were dead now.

Everyone was dead.

I shrugged on a fresh shirt from the armoire and went out onto the balcony, working at the shirt buttons while leaning over to inspect the yard work. The lawn had been perfectly manicured for the wedding reception.

Not a large wedding. But enough celebration to make it legal with the right witnesses, then no one could contest my right when Benedetta’s father retired—or died—and I took control of his empire.

For this reason, marrying Benedetta Capaldo made sense. She came with everything a man like me needed. The picture of absolute perfection.

But I could only conjure up cold disinterest for her.

Yes, she was beautiful, smart, elegant, knew when to speak up, when to use her wit, and when to laugh at a joke.

She would have made an excellent mother.

That might have been us… in another life.

In the life we had, we wouldn’t bring children into the world to carry on the Vignali name.

Any children of mine would be forced to be part of the mafia without an escape, and I refused to create that situation.

In families like mine, fathers groomed their eldest son to take over the business. Daughters became bargaining chips to strengthen ties, and it didn’t matter in which order they were born or what they wanted for themselves.

Second sons like me, or even third sons, well, no guarantee existed that we would have the opportunity or the means to design our own destinies.

I knew this all too well.

I should have left the family business. I’d had dreams of my own, so many plans, and I wanted more than this. But the Commission snuffed out my options the minute they decided they no longer wanted my father’s involvement and stripped us of everything.

My entire family, all gone within twenty-four hours.

My father and my older brother, bound and beaten like animals, forced to their knees, executed with a bullet to the back of their heads. My mother, begging me to swear I would avenge them before she then took her own life.

In that one afternoon, I had gone from being a lovesick boy chasing the career of an English teacher while trying to woo the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen to the new head of my family.

The Vignali crime family of New York.

Only I could make things right by playing the long game.

And for fuck’s sake, I would never do to another child what was done to me.

So yeah, there would be no Vignali heirs.

The creak of my office door opening made me turn around, and Tony came in waving a large yellow envelope.

“Here it is, boss. At first, I thought it was a fucking joke, but… well, see for yourself.”

I took the envelope and dumped the contents onto the surface of the solid executive desk where my father, his father, and his father before him once conducted their own business.

Words in all caps stretched across the first page.

CALL OFF THE WEDDING OR ELSE

No signature. No real threat. Just a vague “or else” in what looked like the writing of a second or third grade child.

---