Page 1 of Brutal Devil
Chapter 1
LUNA
Club Venere is a graveyard.
It’s Saturday afternoon, and the place is dark, closed, and quiet.
This club isn’t just my father’s moneymaker. It’s the window dressing for his crime empire. A front for money laundering, an underground sex club, and God knows what else.
I’ve never asked. When you grow up the way I did, you know when to keep your mouth shut. When to ask questions, when to look the other way.
When to run.
But here’s the thing about Club Venere. It’sneverdead. It’s never without people—hundreds of twentysomethings crowded together, tanned, beautiful, elite, and horny. A line around the block, a velvet rope, bouncers at the doors who turn almost everyone away. It’s been one of the city’s most exclusive clubs for more years than I’ve been alive, open seven days a week for a pick-your-poison corruption fest.
Not today.
Today, there’s no music thumping with so much bass you can feel it in your chest like a second heartbeat. There are nowrithing bodies. There’s no bar flowing with top-shelf cocktails. No rooftop parties. No strobing lights.
There are only a handful of people here now, and none of them are paying customers. But that’s not what makes the blood in my veins freeze into ice or my stomach flip like I’m going to puke my guts out right here on the polished floor.
It’swhothey are—the top members of the Andriani crew, all brothers, all hot as hell, and all psychotic bastards.
It’s the way they’re looking at me, like bloodthirsty hunters who just watched an innocent doe wander in front of their scopes. Their trigger fingers are itching, waiting for the perfect moment to shoot.
To kill.
One of them in particular gets to me more than the others.
The tallest one, who’s dressed head to toe in black except for a dazzling white shirt, his suit clinging to his well-muscled body in ways that should be illegal, hair as dark as his soul. I haven’t seen him in years, but there’s no forgetting who he is. Matteo Andriani, better known as Priest because of his role in the family. No one’s better than Priest Andriani at getting a man to confess his sins just before he dies a painful death.
“Luna, sweetheart.” My father’s voice is booming, his familiar accent more pronounced than usual. “I’ve missed you,bella.”
Too loud, just like his smile. It’s fake, all for show.Bellais the nickname he gave me all through my charmed childhood, before I realized the life I was living was a complete lie, just like the mistaken belief that he loved me was.
He opens his arms like he wants a hug. I don’t move, not bothering to initiate. There’s a line of demarcation between us, and he’s standing on the side of the Andriani brothers. This is one of those moments in my life when I wish I’d tried harder to be the daughter of a Mafia don. When I wish I not only knew howto shoot a piece, but that I had one of my own. Because if I did, I’d pull it now and aim between Priest’s cerulean eyes. I’d pull the trigger without a second’s hesitation.
Those eyes are still on me. Studying me. Seeing me. That’s what he does. He looks through you.Intoyou. And then he crushes you, in one way or another. He tortures. He kills. It’s what his family did to my brother, and I hate him for it.
“Papa.” I stare at my father, imploring.
What the hell is going on?I ask the question without words, using my eyes, and I know he understands from the way the corner of his mouth kicks up higher, with a slight tremor. Just one side—the right. It’s always the same side, his tell. And it’s always when he’s hiding something.
He knows what I’m asking.
He begged me to come home, leaving the last year of my MFA, telling me he had cancer. That he needed to see me. He doesn’t do video—strictly in person. But it’s looking like he brought me home so that I could have a face-to-face with my brother’s killers.
And fuck that.
Fuck this.
Fuckthem.
A hurricane is brewing in me, ready to rage.
My father ignores my unspoken question. “Come and have a seat. We’ll talk,bella.”
“No.”
