by Mara McQueen
Axton had never seen Raiden so enraged.
"You two need to stop being so dramatic, it's giving me a headache," Patrice said, pouring herself another cup of tea, as dainty as a debutante.
Looking at her big eyes and cherub face, nobody would guess she'd poisoned two corrupt senators in the past month alone. In their own homes.
Mr. Oscar, the vicious feline pretending to be a tabby cat, deigned to saunter up to the teacup and sniff it. Patrice insisted on bringing that lump of molting fur to each meeting. She should have invested in a security blanket and called it a day.
"If a Clan war does break out, we'll win," she went on, patting her beast's head.
"The point, dear Sister, is to avoid an Underworld war." Axton finished wiping the blood and residue from his gun. He placed it in the row of weapons lining the table, right behind Raiden's katana, which still had one of the groom's blood staining the hilt; that poor bastard had been cut clean in two.
This was a tradition passed down through countless generations. After each Brotherhood mission, all weapons needed to be displayed. They all had to be counted and, if one was missing, mourned. It meant they'd lost a Brother or Sister.
Nowadays, a phone or a microchip could end up in the row. Those could be deadlier than any bullet when used right.
But no sign of gadgets tonight. This operation had been done the old way. It was the respectful thing to do when crashing an enemy Clan's illegitimate wedding. And the Syndicate and Brotherhood were the fiercest rivals in the Underworld.
"We've lost too many people today," Axton went on in that menacingly low tone that carried through the entire council room. Past the velvet chairs, up the golden chandelier, down the Brotherhood Elite's spines.
Fifteen of the most dangerous people in the world were gathered around the massive cherry-wood table, and not one of them said a word, faces grim. No wonder. Today was supposed to have been an easy mission.
Get to the Syndicate wedding. Get the bride. Get out.
No bloodshed.
But when Axton and the rest of the Brotherhood Elite had appeared at the end of the aisle, uninvited and armed to the teeth, bullets had started raining down on that happy little garden, all decorated in blush pink and white.
Worst of all? Axton wasn't all that certain the Brotherhood had been the real target.
The Syndicate and the Brotherhood, the two most powerful Clans in the world, had been fighting for centuries. They both had two clear goals, like any good organized crime family—keep their members’ identities a secret and, just as secretly, rule the world. The civilians had screwed the world up enough. The few outsiders who did know about the Clans—cops, politicians, CEOs—had many names for them. Mafia. Mobsters. Gangsters. Criminals. Dangerous. Cruel. Ferocious. Axton didn't care what they called the Clans as long as they kept on fearing them.
People didn’t need to know they were nothing but pawns in the grand scheme of things—or how many futures the Clans had shaped. Autocratic governments suddenly taken down? Revolutions started from nothing but a text message? Wars stopped right before the first missile left the airplane? All upper Clan meddling.
And you couldn't meddle if people knew who you were. No. The Clans needed to stick to the shadows. To their Underworld, with its rules and traditions. The closest the civilians got to discovering their members’ identities were conspiracy theories on forums and even those were closely monitored.
The newer, lesser mafia families still based the bulk of their operations on smuggling and arms industry, but not the Syndicate and the Brotherhood. Their businesses were international, their influence unstoppable. Money was great, power was better, and they had both. Or the Brotherhood did—Axton had heard rumors trouble was brewing in the Syndicate bank accounts.
"Question is…" He leaned back in his chair, feeling the strain in his muscles. Even with a decade-long career as one of the world's top assassins, today had been brutal on his body. "Who would want to start a Clan war?"
Victor Caputo, the Syndicate leader, had been assassinated today. Throat slit and a bullet to the head. Excessive, even for a newbie assassin. Victor had been found next to his car, as if he'd wanted to run away. The man had been many things—loud, brash, and too reckless—but he'd never been a coward.
Something was wrong. Nobody knew who'd killed him—yet—but everyone suspected the Brotherhood. They had crashed the wedding, after all.
But the Syndicate only had itself to blame for that. Its members had broken the Underworld's code.
The bride had been promised to Raiden since their infancy. The union between the Syndicate’s Second Daughter and the Brotherhood Prince could have ended a centuries-old stand-off. But when the bride had been a child, her parents had whisked her away. Axton had heard they'd hid in the mountains somewhere, far away from everyone. Including their own Clan. She'd reappeared a year ago, but instead of marrying Raiden, she—or her Clan—had chosen another man. One she'd despised so much, she hadn't hesitated to stab him.
Now that mess of a wedding would ruin all their futures.
"Axton's right, we need to find out who’s behind this. Someone in the Syndicate ranks knew we were coming." Raiden's steady voice speared the room. Everyone straightened, eyes on their Prince. He had that cold, sharp look on his face he got whenever he needed to protect his Brothers and Sisters. He was loyal to the bone and twice as dangerous. A brutal heart beat underneath his usual carefree facade, and right now, it shined through.
"They couldn't have known," Patrice said. "I've seen more security at a playground."
"Exactly," Axton went on, just as evenly. In his line of work, he'd learned that being calm was the real weapon. Guns and bullets only got you so far. Control saved your life. "Why have a Clan wedding with minimal security?"
"They wanted us there. Both distraction and motive." Raiden steepled his fingers. "We need to discover who wanted to hit us and the Syndicate in one go. And why."
The word echoed around them. That was the real question—why risk an all-out Clan war?
“We can dance around it all we want,” Logan said. He was the only Brotherhood Elite member who could recite every single rule, every operation, every target by heart. From the past fifty years. The man had the memory of a quantum computer. He was, perhaps more than any of them, indispensable to the Clan. “But are we willing to do what needs to be done to avoid more bloodshed?”
There it was. The finality they’d avoided until now. It sounded even more dreadful said out loud.
"I do not want to deal with some Syndicate First Family brat I've never met." Mason, the Clan's weapon specialist, glowered at the wound on his leg. The bullet he'd been shot with had carried a poison nobody in this room had ever seen. It blackened blood. If Patrice hadn't been there to clean Mason's wound, he wouldn't have been here right now, glowering. "Three of them tried to kill me less than two hours ago! And I'm pretty sure my chosen "beloved" was one of them."
"Manners, Mason." Axton grinned at his friend, but it lacked all warmth. Nothing but fury pulsed inside him, and it was getting harder to contain. "I don't think the esteemed Toni Caputo would appreciate you calling her that."
Axton didn't want a fucking alliance either. But that was the only awful option to stop this Clan dispute.
The Underworld was violent and vicious, but they at least attempted to be civil and talk things out. If that failed, they got a bloodbath like the one they'd just barely survived. Axton didn't want more of his Brothers and Sisters' lives on his conscience.
"I think you should worry about your own alliance, Axton." Patrice sipped gingerly from her cup, pinkie up. A true lady. "We've all heard about the she-devil."
Everyone in the Underworld had heard about her. The Syndicate's First Daughter, the former leader's only child. One of the most dangerous women in the world. The sharpest woman in the Underworld.
Emiliana "Ella" Caputo. Or, as she apparently loved to be called, the she-devil who could talk her way out of dea
th.
Axton had known all those wretched souls he'd taken as an assassin would come back someday and ruin his life. This was proof his luck had run out.
"And you've already met her." Mason grinned, wincing when he shifted his bandaged leg. "Think she'll try to kill you on sight or—"
"Probably." Axton sighed.
They hadn't actually met. He'd dashed through a perfectly manicured hedge and found her clutching her father's body.
The image of her maid-of-honor dress, drenched in blood, flashed in his mind. The look of pure hatred she'd sent his way had chilled him.
She hadn't been frightened of him. Him. The assassin who had a gun aimed straight at her. If the sleeping draught misting through the garden hadn't taken effect, she would have probably tried to rip his throat out.
And Axton had to live with her?
"Enough," Raiden said. His tone might have been calm, but there was a dark tension underneath it. "We will find out who planned this. And may the gods have mercy on their souls, because we won't. But there are more pressing matters right now. We have less than twenty-four hours to decide if we accept the alliances. If we do, we risk our futures. If we don't, we risk the Clan's future. Five of our leaders for five of the Syndicate’s leaders. I, of course, accept."
A current passed through the room, building with every second of silence. None of them wanted this.
Axton hated this plan. He didn't want an alliance. Ever. Why subject anyone to the vicious existence he led? But he especially didn't want an alliance with this Ella.
He had his dangerous life. He had his rules. This woman could destroy that balance he'd worked so hard for. No. She would definitely destroy it if the rumors about her were true.
He could say no. But then he'd put his Clan at risk, the only family he'd known after his parents' deaths. And when a Clan fell, the civilian world felt it, too.
He couldn't endanger his Clan's future and countless lives. But he could risk his own life.
He nodded. Once. He accepted the alliance, she-devil or not.
One by one, the Brotherhood Elite mirrored him, resigned, but determined. Each said the phrase which guided all of their decisions. The one which united. The one which demanded sacrifices they were all willing to make.
"For the good of the Brotherhood."
Patrice sighed, clenching her jaw so hard, she looked like a cat ready to pounce. "What happens now that we've agreed to screw our futures? How are we supposed to deal with those Syndicate people we're supposed to share a house with?"
"Now?" Axton rose slowly, buttoning his black jacket. He'd just changed the entire course of his life, this meeting was over as far as he was concerned. He needed to prepare himself for his first real meeting with Ella. All eyes swiveled his way, expectant, looking for guidance, as always. "Now we make them our own."
Get The Target: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge Book 1)
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The Favorite
An Enemies-To-Lovers Mafia Romance
THE SYNDICATE’S REVENGE BOOK 2
He killed her fiancé on her wedding day.
Now she has to marry him.
Chapter One
AVA
Evana "Ava" Caputo couldn't stop crying.
She had over two-hundred pairs of eyes watching her every steady step. She was wearing a wedding dress straight out of her fantasies, all creamy silk and buttery lace. Her long bespoke veil was dripping in enough gems and beads to fill a jewelry shop.
She looked like the perfect mafia bride, walking down the aisle toward the heir to the wealthy Serpent Clan.
But she couldn't stop crying. These weren't happy tears, either.
They were bitter and miserable and fell harder with each step she took toward the altar. Toward the man she hated more than anyone else in this world—her future husband, Darius.
He had more money than brains and wasn't capable of doing anything with his life other than drinking, snorting, and boasting about how much money his family had.
And Ava had to marry him.
If she didn't, people would die.
If she told anyone she was being forced into this marriage, people would die.
If anybody found out she wasn't a blushing, love-struck bride—especially her four cousins, the most dangerous people in her own mafia Clan, the Syndicate—people would die.
So Ava walked tall, in tune with the orchestra nestled in a corner of this lovely little garden, located on a secret island in the Mediterranean Sea. It had been decorated with soft flowers and pastel tulle.
It looked like a dream come to life. It was Ava's nightmare.
She held onto her flower bouquet for dear life. Dug her fingernails into her skin. Clenched every muscle in her face.
The tears still came. Mercifully, her veil hid her stained cheeks.
Nobody could know she was crumbling inside.
"She looks beautiful," came a whisper from the rows of white chairs flanking the altar.
"Well, the dress does," came another whisper.
Two-hundred guests. Two-hundred of the Underworld's fiercest, most ruthless assassins, spies, and schemers were watching Ava throw her life away to save countless others, and none of them could tell.
She'd played her part as a love-struck fool well. But if she didn't get a grip right now, everyone would find out and then…
Then there was only one option—an all-out Clan war. Ava would never put her family through that.
So she kept on walking and clenched her jaw to keep the sobs from spilling out.
For the first time in her life, Ava wished she'd been trained as an assassin. That should have been her future, from the moment she came out of the womb, kicking and definitely screaming.
But on her sixth birthday, her father—the Syndicate's First Son and heir—had whisked Ava and her mother away, abandoning the Clan and hiding away with them in the mountains.
Because before Ava had even uttered her first words, her Clan had already decided that once she'd hit twenty, she'd marry the Brotherhood Prince. The boy who'd turned into a feared man they now called The Dragon. She'd been destined to become the Brotherhood's Queen. Instead, she'd lived the last seventeen years in a shack that didn't have running water most of the time.
She'd hated her lonely life in that mountain shack. She hated Clan life even more.
Her parents had wanted to give her a better future. Free from Clan life. Free from the Underworld. Free from a marriage alliance.
They had failed—and lost their lives for it.
One day after her parents had been murdered—her mother had been an excellent driver and knew those mountain roads like the back of her elegant hand; that hadn't been an accident—five Syndicate men showed up at her rickety door.
Ava had never met them until that day and wished she'd never had.
Between threatening to skin alive all her remaining relatives, they'd forced her back into the Clan. To be married, to another heir this time.
Darius. Fucking coke-sniffing Darius who scowled each time Ava brought up the idea of her getting her Master's degree. Who screwed everything that batted their eyelashes at him. Who ate like a pig and fought for sport.
Ava had big, awful plans for him on their wedding night.
Her parents had ruined their lives and died for nothing.
Ava was still forced into a marriage alliance.
She clenched her jaw hard enough to taste blood and stepped onto the first stair leading toward the makeshift altar.
She passed her cousin and maid-of-honor, Emiliana "Ella" Caputo, the sharpest woman in the Underworld.
If Ella found out Ava was dying inside, she'd kill Darius and everyone in sight. Ava couldn't risk that.
So she smiled until her cheeks hurt, like she'd been doing for the last twelve months, hoping her red lipstick shone through the veil.
Ella smiled back, but she frowned.
Shit.
&n
bsp; The plan couldn't fall apart now.
Ava grinned wider and rolled her shoulders back. She stopped in front of Darius, who looked high and bored. He probably wasn't even seeing her straight.
Ava wanted to gouge his cloudy, reddened eyes out. With her nails, so she'd feel the life draining out of him.
The music died down. The nasally priest began to speak.
She was trapped.
Darius caught Ava's hands into his beefy, sweaty palms. He held on too tightly, his gaudy golden rings dug into her skin, his touch felt wrong.
Maybe she would have been better off married to the feared Brotherhood Crown Prince. Nobody could be worse than Darius.
Ava wanted to yank her arms back. Slap him. Run away. Roar until this entire hidden island shook with her rage.
Instead, she stood there, smile frozen on her tear-soaked face.
The perfect little bride.
Inside, she was shaking. Bile rose in her throat the more the priest talked about happiness and unity and coming together.
Ava didn't want to do this. She did not want to do this.
Her parents had sacrificed everything to keep this from happening.
A sob wracked her body. Darius' grip tightened on her hands, eyes narrowing.
Ava gulped down air, trying to find some semblance of calm. It was fine. After the ceremony, she could pretend she'd been just so damn happy.
Nobody needed to know her soul was shriveling.
Keep it together. Think about your family. Keep. It. Together.
But she heard Ella shifting behind her. Coming closer.
Shit.
"I'm sure we're all so excited to see the happy couple in wedded bliss," Ella began, her calm voice as sharp as needles. All eyes swiveled to her, but nobody said a word. When the First Daughter of the Syndicate talked, people listened. "But I need a quick word with Ava—"
