by Xander Hades
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Bonus Book
Author’s Note
The Legacy
A Mafia Bad Boy Romance
Xander Hades
Copyright 2017 by Xander Hades.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechan ical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review
Author Contact
Email: [email protected]
Table of Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Bonus Book
Author’s Note
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I never wanted this, but now it’s all mine.
The business. The Legacy. The Bride.
As the second son, life was supposed to be easy.
No responsibilities,
no ties,
no pressure….
Until my father and my brother died
Now all of this is mine – including Deanna.
Our marriage will cement the legacy our parents bled for
Unfortunately, Deanna and I had a history
One that didn’t end well
With a wedding on the horizon, and a war brewing in New Orleans
I’ll have to move fast to tame and protect my bride…before it’s too late
Chapter 1
Michael
The day my father died, everything turned to shit. I didn’t particularly care that he was dead, we were never close. But I was the second son, the one that wasn’t in line to inherit a damn thing. I had planned on being a bum. It was what I trained for. It’s what I practiced being.
My brother Tony, he got left holding the bag. I got to jet around the world spending money and creating embarrassing incidents and he got to stay here and be the man in charge of the store. The Outfit is a large organization with influence ranging from Chicago to New Orleans and all the way to LA. Nothing moves without us saying so. “Us” being The Outfit. For the last seventy years that meant the Marcottis and the D’Angelos. We were partners. Had been since the day Capone died.
Somewhere along the way, some genius had worked up a plan to solidify The Outfit. Everything had come together pretty simple a little over twenty years ago. Everyone knew that Tony would someday become the head of the family on the Marcotti side. When the D’Angelos had only one child, a daughter by the name of Deanna, it was worked out that she was supposed to marry Tony like some princess settling a foreign pact. Not that anyone asked Deanna or even Tony for that matter. Call it rebellion, call it what you will. As it turned out, back in high school Deanna and I used to… date. Heavily. Congratulations, Tony. I figured that I was going to have very awkward family gatherings since I’d slept with my sister-in-law.
Tony didn’t know about that. But there was something bothering him. He went to an Ivy League school, business major, attending all the meetings, was introduced around and went from 190lbs to over 350 in the space of a couple of years. The day of the funeral, he and I were pallbearers and we carried my father’s casket to the site, put it on the straps that lowered it into the hole and stood by while a priest said some things about a man he’d never met who was not getting into heaven.
When the casket started to go down, Tony tumbled forward and draped himself over it. At first, everyone thought he’d been overwhelmed by grief, that he didn’t want to let go of father. I’m the one that figured out first that something was wrong. For starters, that wasn’t the kind of father we’d had. Besides, even if Dad had been Father of the Year, Tony wasn’t the sort to be getting all dramatic in public places. As it turned out, Tony’s heart had exploded, and he had fallen on the casket as dead as a brick.
It would have saved a lot of time and trouble if they had just kept lowering him with the coffin. But the extra weight was too much for the motor and it jammed leaving him halfway into the hole.
The official line was that Tony was overcome by emotion and by the exertion of the exercise in that sweltering heat. It’s bullshit, but I’ll believe it. It’s safe to assume that the stress of taking over the business was a fairly large strain. It’s also safe to say that a man that fat can’t hold up in that heat doing that much activity.
I just want to believe that me telling him I slept with his fiancé wasn’t what tipped the scales. I suppose I shouldn’t have told him on the way over to the cemetery. So sue me, when I saw Deanna D’Angelo leaving the church as the car was pulling away I might have bragged a little. Maybe I wanted to see what was going to happen now that he was the head of the Marcottis.
I believe what I choose.
The day I buried Tony, I went into the shop. I learned to carve wood when I was high school, it’s a way to chill, to escape for a little while. That day I wasn’t really looking to carve till I freed an angel, like Michelangelo once said. That day I took an ax and slammed at a pile of logs until I made kindling. I barely stopped before I pulverized everything to sawdust.
I was breathing hard, my back was on fire and my arms had become numb from the impact of the ax against the wood. I was covered in sharp little splinters that clung to my sweat like a melting porcupine.
That’s when Dominic “Dinky” De’Angelo decides he wanted to see me right away. I’d heard the phone ring but had taken no notice. It was Rico who brought me the message. As I stared him down I know I looked wild. I must have seemed pretty unstable with that ax in my hands.
Rico didn’t even blink.
“He wants you to come to his place,” he said, “right away.”
“I’m not his slave.”
“Maybe that’s why he said ‘please’?”
Rico has always been able to cut through my bullshit. That’s why I can trust him.
That didn’t mean I wanted to see the old man. I knew what he wanted. It was my turn to take up the reins. Like I’d ever wanted any part of the Outfit. I wouldn’t have cared less if they gave it to the next guy.
Except there wasn’t a next guy. There was me.
With a frustrated scream, I turned and threw the ax at the side of the building. It struck, the blade chomping into the siding and sticking where it hit. It w
as a shot I could have never done if I’d tried and would probably never be able to duplicate ever again. Rico’s eyebrows shot up.
I turned back to him and in a voice that could have frozen helium added. “I’m going to take a shower. Have Robert get the car ready.”
Rico nodded, face impassive, eyes wide and never leaving that ax. “Take your time,” he said, then paused a moment. “We’ll be waiting.”
“’We’?”
Rico smiled. It was the smile of a man who had some secrets of his own. The smile of a man not afraid of an ax in the hands of a screaming maniac.
You don’t ask guys like that to explain themselves. You just get out of the way and let them do their jobs.
I did.
Chapter 2
Deanna
I hadn’t seen Michael in years. He went to his college, I went to mine, it was over. It must have been over, he didn’t once call me. No birthday cards, random gifts, nothing for years. I only just found out that I was being sold to his big brother – and I do emphasize the word “big” and now I guess the ownership papers fall by default to the one that didn’t keel over dead from too much booze and cheap food.
Daddy and I had been arguing for a while. Three weeks, I suppose, when he called Michael in. I wasn’t sure what I hated worse, the way Daddy was running things, like he was the Emperor of Illinois or the fact that Michael ran to him on command like a happy little puppy. I always knew that Tony didn’t have a lot of spine, but I once thought no one could dictate terms to his little brother. But then, I didn’t think that anyone could dictate terms to me either. Turned out I was wrong on both counts.
“So what happens if Michael dies?” I was sitting on the edge of Daddy’s grand desk, made out of a slab of California Redwood that one of the Western cronies had sent out to curry his favor. Daddy loved the damn thing— it was so big that you could land a helicopter on its surface—which of course put him right into conniptions over anything that might scratch the wood. Maybe I was trying to pick a fight, as I swung my leg out and back casually, my stiletto heel coming dangerously close to scuffing a leg, but truth be told I’ve got some resentment that’s been brewing for a while now over that idiotic piece of furniture. I half suspected that if there was a fire and he had the choice of saving me or the desk, the desk would take precedence.
But the desk was just a minor irritation. Another way to jab at my darling father. He’d only just told me the glorious news and had been waiting for me to fall down at his feet in rapt wonder and thankfulness that I wasn’t going to be left at the altar after all.
Isn’t that just peachy?
So I was mad. And I felt like a fool because I couldn’t think of a damned thing to say about being given away to be married like I was a cow or a pig. Not that anyone married cows or pigs, but… whatever. I was pissed and wanted to hit him back. “I get to be whored out then?”
“Watch your mouth.” He said it without malice. Mostly he was tired. These last few weeks had been hard on him, losing one Marcotti after another like that. Besides, we’d been circling around this argument over and over for at least an hour or two by now, and neither of us was getting anywhere with it. Even the words themselves had become meaningless.
You ever felt that? It’s like this time I’d gone to Mass once with my mother. The whole thing had been in Latin and I hadn’t understood a blessed word of it. Toward the end, the priest said something or another, and everyone said something right back. It was written down in my mother’s prayer book, but in Latin and it meant nothing to me. It was just a response.
That’s what the argument was now, except I was still mad.
You cannot expect someone to be happy to be married off out of convenience.
“Have a son,” Daddy said, wearily. He wasn’t even watching my foot anymore. Back when we’d started out I thought he’d be the next one to have heart palpitations when I’d dragged my heel against the wood. “His son. And after that, you can do what you want. Divorce. Have a half a dozen affairs. become a nun. Whatever. All you need to do is give me a grandchild,”
“I thought I was a daughter, now I find out I’m a broodmare.” I jumped to the floor to quit antagonizing him. Enough was enough. I came to where he sat and knelt at his feet, reaching out to grab his hand, the way I had when I was a little girl. “Daddy, I studied, hard. I worked hard. I can take over. I can…”
He looked at me long and hard, and I saw for the first time how deeply etched the lines around his eyes had become. How grey his hair was. He sighed heavily. “No, you can’t. And it’s not because you don’t have a penis, so don’t start on that road again. If I have to hear you say the word ‘Penis’ once more, I will pull out the last of the hair I still have after raising you!”
Argh. Men. I launched myself to my feet, and pounded my fist down on the desk, wishing I had something heavy to drive into the wood, wanting to splinter this damned desk the way he was leaving me in splinters. “Then why not? What’s wrong with a woman being in charge?”
“It’s not about you being a woman. You’re a D’Angelo!” the vein on his forehead was beginning to show. “He’s a Marcotti!”
“I know that!”
I wanted to stomp out of the room like the 12-year-old girl I used to be. Only 12-year-olds do not get to run large enterprises, so I swallowed down a lot of things I wanted to say, that I’d already said, that couldn’t be said and stalled myself out midway to the door, turning instead to pace unsteadily around the office.
Believe it or not, but once upon a time, Daddy’s office was always my favorite place to be. It was the one room in the entire house that refused to be in the current age. When you walked into his office it was like stepping out of a time machine. Somewhere around the mid-1940’s. You know. Post-war. Everything was antique, and Daddy had enough of everything to be on the verge of cluttered. And that desk wasn’t the only massive piece of furniture in the room. Deep wooden heavy display cases, large bookcases that walked to the ceiling, places to disappear into the shadows with a book.
And my favorite, the book, rather THE BOOK, an original Guttenberg Bible. It was a museum piece, priceless, but Daddy wouldn’t ever part with it. Neither would I.
The problem was, all those antiques had to do something to a person’s brain. My father’s ideas, his very VALUES were every bit as aged as the rest of the room. Straight out of the Dark Ages. Starting with a woman’s role in…well, anything. Especially The Outfit.
So there he sat, glaring at me from under his heavy brows. Looking like he’d aged about a million years all because a couple stupid Marcotti’s had to up and die. And for some reason, judging from his expression, he wasn’t about to be moved by my pleas.
“I don’t understand.” I threw myself down onto a chaise with cushions the color of a glass of Moscato. “You won’t explain it to me!” Maybe I was pouting, but I was exhausted and really sick and tired of the whole affair.
“I have explained it to you!” he slapped a hand down on the desk hard. I actually flinched. I had never in my life seen him even remotely abuse that desk. “I have explained it over and over.”
I sat up straight, feeling my fingers dig into the warm leather. “I’m the one that gets…” I was going to say ‘pimped,’ but he shot out a warning finger. I backed up and tried again, more carefully. Daddy was losing patience. “Who gets to spend her life trapped in marriage like I was some damn princess in a castle.”
There. Deny that.
Only he didn’t. Daddy sat back in his chair and looked at me. He just looked at me, hard, like he was seeing something that he’d never seen before.
“That,” he said, calmer than I’d seen him all night, “is the only thing you’ve said so far that makes sense. Now go on, get out! I’m expecting someone. A business meeting.”
“No, Daddy.” I got up, too restless to sit anymore. I found myself at the glass case, showcasing the prize in Daddy’s Collection, the aforementioned Gutenberg Bible, opened to a page from
somewhere in the New Testament. I stared at the words, struggling to make sense from them. A single phrase stood out. Something about the meek inheriting the earth.
Fuck that.
“I’m waiting right here. I think it’s high time I saw Michael, don’t you? Especially if I’m going to marry him.”
“How the hell did you …”
“Like I said, Daddy, I’ve been working on this for a long time. I know things.” I tried to say that like I had some big, dark secret over him. Only he knew I was bluffing. He raised me after all. Of course, he would know.
Damn him.
Chapter 3
Michael
I was livid. I was furious. I was cooling my heels in an empty room waiting for my father’s best friend to get around to seeing me. It was a power game, designed to make you feel small by making you wait on the leisure of the Lord of the Manor. It was effective, especially for people who have… ahem…anger management issues.
Add in Hudson and it’s just a way to light my fuse. Hudson had been with Dinky for ages. On Dinky, it didn’t show. On Hudson, it did. It’s like Dorian Gray’s portrait in a tux answering doors. The old man shuffled so badly, they could tie rags to the bottom of his feet and let him polish the floors.
He told me to follow him and then moved at a crawl so slow that if I walked normally, I would run into his back. So I had to mince my steps to avoid knocking him over. He led me into a waiting room he insisted on calling a “parlor” and treated me like a visiting laborer, despite the fact that my childhood was divided equally between my home and this one.
