Page 7 of The Devil's Touch
Chapter Three
Domenico
“We found him, Don.”Damien’s voice made me stir lightly.I peeled my gaze off the window of the private study I had in the interior of Karma, one of my clubs in the city.My gaze met his dark, brooding one, his frame stiff and edgy.
“Where?”My voice echoed through the room like a lazy murmur.
“On the outskirts of Maine.”He slumped into the seat before me like a big lazy panther.“The bastard was planning to run away.”Damien seethed.
My lips almost twitched in a smile.Damien Romano might not be my biological heir, but he still had every bit of me in him.I found him on the streets two decades ago, and I had taken him in since he stunned me with his potential.I got him off the streets and molded him in my own image. He was my other eye.My right-hand man who I trusted the most, even more than my own son who would rather be rebellious and reckless than act like a fucking Romano.
“That fucker thought he could get away with stealing from me.”I twirled the tumbler of amber liquid in my hands, taking a sip from it.
Ever since I took over the Cosa Nostra after my father’s demise, I had turned the tide of things.The laws were more strict and deadly.I ran the Cosa Nostra with an iron fist, acquired allies and immeasurable power that made people terrified of me wherever I set foot.I took what I wanted without caring who got hurt in the process.They called me the devil himself, but I was much more than that.I was The Destroyer.My silence was much deadlier than my rage.That was what made Luca think he could steal from me and get away with it.
He broke not one, but a couple of our most sacred rules.He stole from the Cosa Nostra.He had been stealing from me for a while, and I intentionally turned a blind eye to it, hoping to see what he wanted to pull off with it.Then, I found out that he was forcing himself on one of our girls, Silver.He wasn’t just abusing her.He was using her for his own gain, forcing her to sleep with clients, making money off her back.Silver couldn’t say anything to us since he threatened to stop paying for her mother’s cancer treatment if she told on him.
When he figured out that we were on to him, he took off, convinced that he could hide from me—the devil.
“I’d have killed him off the second we found him, but I wanted you to do the honors.He’s at the warehouse.All yours.”
“The chase is the most interesting part, son.”I smirked.
“Our shipment should be coming in tomorrow,” he informed me.
“Good,” I affirmed, downing the rest of my drink at a go.“Have you seen Luciano around?”
A scowl immediately crawled up his face.“Probably out partying his ass off as usual.I don’t know why you bother with him.Luciano has made it clear that all he wants to do is waste his life away while you build a legacy.”
I smiled, nostalgia stabbing me in the gut.Luciano was the heir I never saw coming.I had a one-time thing with a girl and she fell pregnant.My father wouldn’t allow his grandchild to be raised outside the family, so, he paid off his mother after she gave birth to him.I was stuck with a baby boy at twenty, and twenty-seven years later, I still found myself wondering if I made the right decision to keep him.He has been more of a pain in the ass than I can comprehend.
“Just find him for me, will you?We both know that little fucker has a tendency to make reckless decisions that might be the end of us,” I said, my voice without a twinge of emotion.
“I’ll get right on it, Don.”
I knew he wasn’t happy about it because of how resentful he sounded, but he also understood that my word was final.
“I—” My words died on my tongue when my gaze darted to the screen of the monitor on my mahogany desk.
There she was.
Silvana Bianchi.In the flesh.Tormenting me, undoing me like the first time I laid my eyes on her.
