Page 3 of Savage King

"You sure you don't want to play poker?" He rolls down the passenger window. Smiling, I decline. I turn to the door, and my brow creases when I don't see Fred.

"Hey, can you—" I try to ask the driver to wait until I’m inside, but the window is up, and he is already speeding away. Damn.

I don't know why, but a weird sensation spreads through my stomach. Fred is always at the door. And if not him, then Ruttgar, another guy who looks like a bouncer. But tonight, neither one of them is there. Instead, I see a man with a hat pulled low over his face. He gives me the heebie-jeebies. I lick my lips and contemplate going over to the twenty-four-hour café and waiting for Fred to return, but then I call myself silly. This is Manhattan, not the Bronx. Determined, I stride to the door; using my phone to unlock it, I step into the foyer.

A man is holding the elevator door open, and I walk faster to catch a ride. I walk by the concierge's desk and realize it, too, is empty. There is no Sam, who does the night duty. The unsettling sensation in my stomach intensifies. A shadow moves over me, and when I turn, I see the man who stood outside the door. But now he's inside.

"What—" Once again, I don't finish my sentence as he pounces on me; my scream is cut short by a gloved hand pressing down on my mouth. The man who had been halfway in the elevator is instantly at my side, grabbing me around the waist and lifting me into the air. Shock courses through me. Instinctively, my hands reach for my new assailant's arms. I try to pull them off, but he is not only a head taller than me but also much stronger. He plucks me off the ground, holding me in a death grip while he and the other guy switch hands over my mouth. Then he carries me toward the front door while my feet kick uselessly into the air.

Some small, rational part of my brain realizes that I can't pry his arms off me, so I try to reach for anything to hold on to. But the entrance is large, and Sam's desk near the sitting area seems a mile away. There is nothing between the elevator and the door, which the first man is currently pulling open. I wiggle and kick, and my foot connects with Assailant One’s side. He snarls at the one holding me, "Control that damn bitch, you fucking idiot."

He moves a few steps back, and for the umpteenth time in my life, I curse my five-foot-three frame because he is now out of the reach of my feet. My feet!

I'm still wearing the six-inch stilettos that have been torturing my feet for hours. Somehow, I twist and contort myself just enough to grip one of my shoes, kicking out fiercely with my other foot to keep Assailant One at bay. Meanwhile, gripping the shoe tightly, I swing it like a hammer, driving the heel into the head of the man holding me. His yelp of pain sends a wave of triumph through me. I hope I got his eye. He drops me.

"Fucking bitch."

I try to scramble to my feet, but a steel-reinforced shoe kicks me in my ribs, leaving me breathless, while a hand seizes my hair and pulls me up. Assailant Two, now bleeding from a large cut on his cheek, slams his fist into my chin so hard I would have crashed to the ground like a sack of potatoes had the other guy not been holding me up.

"Move," he tells the man holding me, then pulls out a handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood. Even if I wanted to run away, my legs were weaker than jelly after that punch. Blackness threatens to surround me, but the pain in my scalp from where I'm being dragged across the foyer keeps me semi-conscious. That's when I catch a glimpse of two bodies lyingbehind the concierge desk. Fred and Sam. It's hard to tell if they're dead or alive, but the sight shoots another rush of adrenaline through me. Not that it helps any. One of the two men has me slung over his shoulder now like a sack of grain, holding my feet, seemingly no longer concerned if I scream or not.

We make it out onto the street.

Cars pass, not many because of the time of night, but enough that at least one should see what’s happening to me. I try to wave my arms to catch someone's—anyone's—attention, but they keep going. A couple on the other side of the street stops dead in their tracks, and I yell, "Help."

The bleeder pulls his gun, and the couple hastily retreats around a corner.

A huge black SUV is waiting for us; both doors on the right side are wide open. The man grabbing my hair pushes me into the second row, while the one with the handkerchief moves into the front seat, nodding at a third, the driver, I presume.

"What do you want from me?" I cry.

"Shut her up, Marco. I'm not in the mood," the man in the front seat yells.

This time, it's the other side of my chin that receives the blow, knocking me out for good.

The next evening…

"Such an unfortunate turn of events, what happened with your father. Truly… tragic." The woman's voice is laced with the right amount of sympathy, but there is an undertone I don't like. Reluctantly, I look up from the whiskey I'm nursing. A dark foreboding grows in my stomach as a red dress, an hourglass waist, and high breasts come into view. One that is confirmed when my gaze reaches her face.

"Donna Margarita," I greet her. The woman is in her seventies but doesn't look a day over forty. I know the other women gossip like magpies about her, but most men never care if beauty comes from surgery or not. All that matters is that she is a drop-dead gorgeousSophia Lorenlookalike. She is the only person bold enough to approach me at this party.

"To what do I deserve the honor of your condolences?"If a few months too late… I think sardonically. "It's not a condolence. You and I know well enough that Jacomo and I couldn't stand each other. Still, to be gunned down during a dinner party," she shakes her head, tsking. "I don't know how you haven't killed Carlos yet."

She is right. My father couldn't stand her, and now I remember why. She is as cold as a dead fish, as cunning as a spider, and as trustworthy as a scorpion. If the devil ever came to the surface, he would use her to disguise himself. She's a true succubus—a demon disguised in a beautiful body. I've seen pictures of her when she was younger and heard rumors of many lovers.

I blame the booze for my words as I empty my glass, "Me neither."

"Oh, Antonio," she pats my arm, and cold ripples run down my spine, "always so much self-control, just like your dear old dad."

From across the room, the sound of deep laughter rings out, coming from the very throat I want to cut more than anything in the world. Carlos Orsi. How he was let out on bail unexpectedly late this morning is a miracle—a very suspicious one. Judge Lambert is a known hardass, who holds no friendly feelings for the Cosa Nostra. He is holier than theUntouchableswere. No bribes, no threats, no promises, nothing works to get this man on our side. Many of us have tried. It's actually one of the few reasons Carlos is still breathing. It’s not by chance he’s on this case. If I didn't have so much trust in Judge Lambert, I would have defied the explicit order to stand down issued by our Capo di Capi, Don Edoardo Zanello, and gunned down the bastard the same way he did my father. Were it not for the family I am now responsible for, I still would. But as a capo, many lives depend on me, and in our business, one does not defy direct ordersand live to tell the tale. Unless one is Carlos Orsi, apparently. According to Edoardo, Carlos killed my father on his own. But we all know the truth; we know he gave the order. The question is: Why?

Ourleaderpunished him by forcing Carlos to hand me his Los Angeles territory. Blood money, as if that makes up for my father's death. It's more of a headache than acompensation. I live and work in New York City. Los Angeles is a six-hour flight from here and a nightmare to boot. The gang wars remind me of the wild west. And now there are a ton of new gangs coming in, fighting for territory. Armenians, Chinese, Cambodians, and lately the Venezuelans as well. Forget the wild west—LA is a powder keg with a lit fuse and no sheriff in sight.

"He's so close," Margarita whispers seductively in my ear, reaching for a glass of wine the bartender filled for her. Revulsion pulses inside me, not because of her age, but because there is something about her that makes my skin crawl.She's a born manipulator, my father warned, and according to rumor, he would have known; the word is that he and Margarita were in love before they hated each other. I've never believed those rumors, because it would have meant my father cheated on my mother, but I never asked him about it, either. And now I won't have a chance ever again, because Carlos killed him.

I grip the glass of whiskey tighter, nearly breaking the reinforced crystal, picturing all the ways I'd love to kill the bastard. A knife drawn across his throat or a bullet would be too fast for him. He needs to suffer. Maybe drowning? His son Angelo allegedly died like that. Allegedly. I know better. Still, that would be poetic justice. The thought settles some of the darkness inside me that has been trying to claw its way out ever since my father's death.

"Donna Margarita, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to tempt me into doing something your son-in-law forbade me to do." I force a smile onto my face, waving at the bartender to refill my glass, keeping a close eye on our Don's mother-in-law to see her reaction.

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