Page 3 of Matteo
“I want what my pa gives to Mama.”
I didn’t get to ask what that was because he pulled me into a bear hug. I gasped, my eyes widening in surprise, and my next breath was stolen when Matteo’s mouth pressed against mine.
I didn’t think. I just reacted.
My knee jerked upward, and he groaned in pain. Then my hand flew through the air, connecting with his nose.
Crunch.
It worked just the way my daddy said it would.
Matteo’s hand flew to his bloodied nose. For a second, I wondered if I should feel scared of what might happen next. But then he grunted, “My papa always says my mama might be the death of him.” My brows scrunched, but I didn’t get the chance to ask him what he meant because he added, “Maybe you’ll be the death of me?”
Neither one of us could know what those words might one day mean.
CHAPTER TWO
MATTEO, 24 YEARS OLD
Six Weeks Earlier
Iwas born to reign over my father’s criminal empire.
No questions asked.
It was the reason I found myself parked at the library of St. Jean D’Arc School. D’Arc was unique, founded by four very determined women to help mafia children—especially daughters—find their footing in the world. But in the end, this school became so much more than they imagined.
Initially, the plan was to establish a boarding school for high school–aged kids, but there weren’t many families eager to send their children away from home so soon. Therefore, it was swiftly updated into a university with undergraduate and graduate classes, allowing students to earn the same degrees that most colleges offered.
But D’Arc went a step further, offering extra-curricular activities that weren’t taught at a normal university. After all, this school was founded by members of powerful crime families with illegally obtained money and was run and funded by families with connections to criminal empires. It was open tochildren of organized crime families, but also served as a chance to offer girls and women born to these families a fighting chance in an increasingly dark and scary world.
Many of us here at this school attended online classes for prestigious universities like Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, and Harvard while using St. Jean D’Arc’s top-of-the-line tech and its campus as a home base.
I’d been working on my final business and economics thesis that my Harvard advisor expected first thing tomorrow, a paper that would conclude my graduate studies, when my phone screen flashed with a text message nobody ever wanted to see.
Shooter At Yale University
The message flashing across the top of my lock screen brought the rhythm of my heart to a screeching halt before it resumed beating so hard it almost stole my breath.
“You okay, man?” Nikola’s voice yanked me out of my spiraling emotions and I shot to my feet, the screeching echo of the metal chair against the hardwood flooring filling the library.
“Hey, slow the fuck down,” he grunted behind me as I rushed through Jean D’Arc’s narrow halls. “What’s going on?”
“Shooter at Yale.” Three words I never thought I’d say. “Francesca and Ari are there on campus.”
Why in the fuck didn’t I press them to continue their studies at St. Jean D’Arc where I could keep an eye on them? Francesca was working on finishing her undergrad and Arianna her graduate degree, and both wanted to experience anormalcollege life for their last year.
So much for that, and now because I hadn’t insisted, they might die on that fucking campus.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Isn’t it odd that this is happening during summer months when not too many kids are on campus?” Nikola’s question made sense, but I didn’t have any answers. “Almost as if it was… targeted.”
I started running, plowing through oblivious students as I rushed out of the building I’d been in and across the parking lot to get to my car. Nikola’s footsteps pounded behind me, and I knew there was nothing I could say to make him stay.
That was what made him and other legacies, the next generation, good friends. The best of friends in fact. Most of us had ties to the mafia in one way or another, and it was common for kids who grew up in similar circles to be grouped in the same housing. If you could call a four-story, fully armed, marble-and-stone mansion “housing.”
“You have your weapons?” he asked from behind me.
