by Meghan March
White Knight
Meghan March
Contents
White Knight
About White Knight
1. Cannon
2. Cannon
3. Memphis
4. Cannon
5. Memphis
6. Cannon
7. Memphis
8. Cannon
9. Cannon
10. Memphis
11. Cannon
12. Memphis
13. Cannon
14. Memphis
15. Cannon
16. Memphis
17. Cannon
18. Memphis
19. Cannon
20. Memphis
21. Cannon
22. Memphis
23. Cannon
24. Memphis
25. Cannon
26. Cannon
27. Memphis
28. Cannon
29. Cannon
30. Memphis
31. Cannon
32. Memphis
33. Cannon
34. Memphis
35. Cannon
36. Memphis
37. Cannon
38. Memphis
39. Memphis
40. Cannon
41. Memphis
42. Cannon
Epilogue
Preview of The Fall of Legend
About the Author
Also by Meghan March
White Knight
Book Two of the Dirty Mafia Duet
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Meghan March
Copyright © 2019 by Meghan March LLC
All rights reserved.
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Editor: Pam Berehulke, Bulletproof Editing,
www.bulletproofediting.com
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Cover Design: Hang Le, By Hang Le, www.byhangle.com
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Cover Photo: Regina Wamba, Mae I Design,
www.exclusivebookstock.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Visit my website at www.meghanmarch.com
About White Knight
From New York Times bestselling author Meghan March comes a story of untold truths and one man’s redemption in the Dirty Mafia Duet.
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I never expected to be anyone’s white knight. That’s not a role I’ve ever played.
But when the Casso crime family shifts into uncharted territory, they’re looking for a new hero, and they’re looking for me—Cannon Freeman, the black sheep.
But my time in disgrace is at an end.
It’s my turn to rise up and save the people who matter most to me.
Even if my family has never given a damn about me, I will not let them fall.
More than anything, I will not let her fall.
One thing I know is true—in my life, nothing is ever what it seems.
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White Knight is the second book in the Dirty Mafia Duet and should be read before Black Sheep, book one.
1
Cannon
Twenty-five years earlier
* * *
Even the weather got the memo that today was the crappiest day ever to hit the city. The dark gray skies spat rain and snow as the limo driver crawled his way down the street, even with a police escort.
That’s right, a police escort, and they weren’t even taking us to jail or to court. No, they took us to the cemetery on Long Island where Mom’s casket would be buried six feet under. I refused to think about her in that box. I didn’t care that all the capos’ wives said Dominic Casso had gone above and beyond, picking out that fancy, shiny wood and pink satin interior himself.
The burn of rage flared inside me like a dumpster fire.
If she hadn’t still been trying to win him back, no one would have targeted her. He’s the reason she’s dead.
It was the God’s honest truth, and every single person on their way to this ridiculous funeral knew it. He’d killed her just as sure as if he’d pulled the trigger himself, unleashing the hail of bullets that tore through her and left her bleeding out on those steps.
I slammed my eyes shut when the memory of her blood seeping into the cracks of the concrete stole into my mind. It didn’t help.
I opened them to look into the face of the man who was responsible for the death of the only parent who’d claim me, except Dom wasn’t looking at me. He was staring out the window, probably wondering how soon he could leave and get back to business. Because everything was business to him. Even this.
“Watch him, Cannon. You’ll learn so much, and it’ll open so many doors for you. Just trust me on this.”
Mom had been naive at nineteen when Dom swept her off her feet, and she was even more naive the day she died—because she still believed in love and miracles and happily ever after. How the hell was that even possible?
Dom’s face turned and his enigmatic eyes drilled into me. “I can feel your fucking rage from over here, kid. You know I took care of it.”
Dom’s gruff voice sounded exactly like it always did. It wasn’t hoarse from grief due to the solemn occasion playing out today. Of course not. Because a man like Dominic Casso wasn’t capable of tears. Wasn’t capable of giving a single damn that a woman who loved him more than life itself was gunned down on his goddamned stoop.
My jaw tightened as I tried to pull it together, or at least bury my feelings and slap a mask of indifference over them.
But I couldn’t.
“She was my mother,” I said from between clenched teeth. “Someone killed her. In cold blood. Because of you.”
My nostrils flared and my fingers curled into fists. I wanted to throw myself across the back seat of the limo and bloody my knuckles destroying his face until the driver slammed on the brakes and ripped me out of the car. They’d probably put a bullet in me and leave me for dead. Just like Mom.
But I didn’t do it.
Because Mom wouldn’t have wanted that. There was nothing I could do that would go against her wishes more than causing that kind of trouble for myself.
“Be the smart, sweet boy we both know you are, and he won’t be able to help but love you. He’ll see that you’re different. You’re meant for big things.”
Mom had such high hopes for my future, but I didn’t share even a flicker of the optimism she had. Future, I scoffed silently. What the hell was that now?
I finally lifted my eyes to Dom once more, but his gaze hadn’t wavered an inch.
With his arm against the door, he held his chin as he spoke. “What you’re feeling right now? Embrace it. Hold it. Remember it. Don’t you ever fucking forget how this moment feels. To have something taken from you before you were ready to give it up is the ultimate insult.”
Dom glanced out the window, but my attention snagged on the clenched hand at his side. He straightened his fingers twice before locking them together in a fist. When his eyes came back to me, they were teeming with wrath.
“And then the next time someone wrongs you, you reach down inside and grab hold of this feeling with
both hands, and you use it.”
Right now, all I wanted to do was seize that fury and use it to end him.
Dom leaned back against the leather and unbuttoned and rebuttoned his jacket. Normally, he was a man who wasted no movement, but today he couldn’t seem to sit still. Maybe he wasn’t totally unaffected by all this.
“You always were a mama’s boy, kid.”
My entire body tensed, my prior thought brushed away as soon as he spoke, but he either didn’t care or notice and kept going.
“That shit wasn’t gonna get you anywhere in this life or the next, so you look at this as an opportunity. Not a loss.”
He did not just say that. But the man kept talking, straightening his shoulders and staring me down.
“Harness that anger and learn to become your own fucking man. No more mama to run to when shit gets bad. Figure it out yourself. Rely on yourself. Have loyalty to me and no one else other than yourself. You hear me, kid?”
I wouldn’t have been able to miss the bark behind his words even if I shoved my head out of the window of this moving limo, which I didn’t, but I wanted to. I didn’t want to hear this shit. Not from him. Not now. Not ever.
The words go screw yourself hung on my tongue, but my mom’s innocent voice echoed through my mind.
“Please don’t ruin this day for me. This is the last time I’ll ever see how much he loved me. You can see it, right, Cannon? He really loved me. It didn’t matter that he never left his wife. He loved me.”
The earnest tone my mother’s ghost used to speak in my ear was enough to make me wish I had one of those guns all the Casso men carried so I could send Dom off to tell Mom in person how much he loved her. But I couldn’t. I’d never shot a gun. I didn’t want to be like them. I didn’t want to deal out death when I was wronged—with exception of this long, cold car ride.
I wanted a normal life. Friends at school. To play sports. To be part of something that wasn’t the mob.
But you didn’t always get what you wanted. I knew that now more than ever. The only thing I truly needed was my mom back in our apartment, her hair curled and lipstick on, even as she whipped up dinner.
Something I could never have again.
Dominic Casso would never be my father. No, he’d only ever be the man who got my mother killed.
I would never be like him. Not as long as I lived.
2
Cannon
Present day
“It’s time to prove yourself. You take care of her, or I will.”
The moment I’ve been waiting for over half my life has finally come. Him or me. Dominic Casso’s fingers wrap around the barrel of his Sig and he shoves the grip toward me, like he’s expecting me to take it and put a bullet in a woman.
After all these years, he still doesn’t know jack shit about me.
I may have been born a mobster’s bastard, but I’m not a fucking mobster. Regardless, I learned at the feet of one of the best, so I relax my posture and study him lazily.
Rule number one: never let them see you sweat, even if you don’t have a single fucking clue how the hell you’re going to get out of the situation without dying or ending up covered in blood spatter.
“In a construction site? Isn’t that a little cliché?” I ask, injecting as much indolence into my tone as I possibly can. Dom hates it, but I’ve never given a damn what he likes.
He’s not taking another person from me, despite the fact that she probably hasn’t given me a word of truth since the second we met. But that’s not the point.
The point is that I am the one who will decide how this situation will be handled. No one else. I won’t let Dom take another decision out of my hands. Not now and not ever again.
No doubt a therapist would say there’s still a hell of a lot of that enraged kid rolling around inside me.
“I don’t give a fuck where you do it, but it’s time. I’m done fucking around with this shit,” Dom says, shoving the gun toward me again. “Do it, or I will. Your choice, but believe me that I will remember which one you fucking choose.”
Fingers curl into the back of my suit jacket. The touch of my betrayer. The woman who got us into this situation to begin with. The one who I would be a fool to trust now. And an even bigger fool if I were to choose her over the only family I’ve known for most of my life.
“Time to be your own man,” Dom told me once. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean for me to remember that right now, when he’s offering me a gun and a choice I didn’t ask to make.
Before I can make a move, Primo, one of Dom’s ever-present bodyguards, shuts the passenger side door of the SUV and walks around the back to pop the tailgate. That’s when I hear muffled screaming.
My gaze cuts between Primo and Dom. “What the fuck is going on?”
One of Dom’s steel-gray eyebrows rises like he doesn’t get why I’m confused, but he doesn’t say anything.
In my mind, all I can picture is Memphis’s stepmother being hauled out of the SUV and dragged toward us. My blood, already running cold, slogs along in my veins.
But I’m wrong.
It’s not Cynthia Lockwood. It’s someone completely different.
As soon as Primo gets the woman out of the back and carries her across the gravel construction site, kicking and screaming and with her hands bound in front of her, a wave of relief washes over me.
Teal.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Thankful I have one hell of a poker face, I mask every single thought I’m having in this moment. If Dom knew what was going through my head, he’d empty the entire magazine into my chest and tell Primo to bury me under an ocean of concrete where no one would find my body.
From behind me, I hear a swiftly inhaled breath, and I pray like I haven’t prayed in years that Drew—Memphis—keeps her fucking mouth shut.
With that prayer sent up, I return my attention to Dom, who is watching Teal as she’s brought closer. Her mascara runs down her face in black streaks. She was probably fucked up when they found her.
“Ms. Fancy Tits here thinks she can go wherever the fuck she wants and run her mouth about my business,” Dom says with his lip curled.
Teal’s short party dress rides up as she struggles in Primo’s hold. The terror on her face as she tries to squirm free strikes a chord of pity inside me. Finally, she’s sober and very fucking aware of the consequences of her actions.
I’ve been trying to get through to her for months to make her understand that life isn’t a fucking game. She couldn’t keep expecting her sister to cover for her while she fucked off, making us all look bad. Which was when I started cutting her shifts, letting her work just enough while I found a replacement. Tanya was supposed to break the news to her that she was fired, but we both know how that went sideways. I still can’t get Teal’s meltdown in the break room out of my head.
I was brutally honest with her then. She didn’t take it well.
Now here she is, her blue eyes full of tears, pleading for me to help her. Again. Except this time, she must have gotten mixed up in something new and different for Dom to want her dead.
“What did she do?” Feigning indifference, I slowly shift my head and keep the weight of the moment out of my tone.
“Got smashed at one of Gabriel Legend’s underground clubs she gets into using my name and then runs into that fucking Rossetti punk, Donny Linetti.” Dom’s furrowed face takes on a ruddier hue. “From the video footage we’ve already hacked, he cornered her and she started talking. Saying shit about my organization.”
All the hair on the back of my neck stands up as Dom recounts Teal’s cardinal sin. Fucking hell. The only thing I can’t figure out is why the hell he brought her to me, because for that, she should already be dead.
I wait in silence for Dom to continue.
“Donny starts to drag her out of the club, and Legend, that fucking upstart who’s out to prove he’s king shit, intervenes and kicks out the Rossetti crew. And then she uses my fuckin
g name again with Legend as a get-out-of-jail-free card. He had her brought to my brownstone this morning, with a bow and a note that said I owed him a fucking favor now for saving one of my girls’ asses. Do you believe that shit? The audacity of that fucking bitch and that punk?”
The lines between Dom’s eyebrows deepen as his temper flares and his teeth grind together.
Oh. Fuck.
“I don’t hand out favors unless I want to.” Dom turns and taps the butt of the Sig he offered to me against Teal’s temple. “You hear me, little girl? You fucking cost me, and I didn’t give you leave to cost me shit. And that doesn’t even begin to cover whatever information you might have given to the fucking Rossettis. You caught your last chance, girl. Now you’re done.”
Teal crumples, sobbing hard as tears roll down her cheeks. I know she can cry on demand, but this isn’t that. This is knowing you fucked up and you’re going to die.
And yet I hear myself saying, “She has a problem. She needs help, Dom, not a fucking bullet to the head.”
