ROQUE: A DARK MAFIA ROMANCE (THE SALVATORE SYNDICATE Book 1)

by Jax Hart

HE WASN’T WHAT I HAD EXPECTED. But he was a monster. That much was very true. He was old but tyrannical. When the guard ushered me into a study, I couldn’t quite make out his face because the room was dark. He sat in a wheelchair by a window. Cloaked in shadows I couldn’t see his face until he slowly wheeled himself forward. His right cheek was… flesh. Mangled. Twisted…

  “Car bomb. Those fuckers thought they dropped me, but I crawled on burning legs out of the hot metal.”

  “What brings you to my lair, Little King?”

  “I need your help.”

  He glanced at me and shrugged. “From me? I’m a cripple. What could I possibly offer you?”

  “Everything. Don’t bullshit me, Constantine. You’re a fucking legend. And I need a legend.”

  “That and a prayer.”

  “I don’t pray.”

  “No. Men like us don’t, do we?”

  “It won’t be easy, Little Prince. The remaining families want you dead and gone too. With the Fiorelli’s out of the way and you being the only real Salvatore left…”

  “There’s more for them to fight over.”

  “And what can we do? Me? Shoot a bazooka from my wheelchair and you with your man boy arms?”

  Anger rolled through me like a storm cloud. “I’m hardly a boy.”

  “So, I’ve heard. You made your first kill.”

  Averting my eyes, I glanced at the crackling fire to his right.

  He swore in rapid Italian. “Get out. I can’t help you.”

  “I’m not leaving. Do your worst, Constantine. Make me your teenage bitch for all I care. Help me bring back glory. Let me rise as your new king. I’m young, capable, and fully ready to become whatever or whoever you need.”

  “Bold words. But greatness requires sacrifice. Get on your knees, look me in the eyes and confess everything. What are you hiding? I am your demon lord. Your dark king. I decide if you live or die. If you get kept or cast out.”

  Bowing my head, I kneeled. “I let her live. The Fiorelli girl. I lied. I choked her until she passed out then checked her heartbeat when I pretended to dispose of her body.”

  “Pathetic.”

  “She was me. I saw myself in her. Defiant. Could give two fucks. She had so much fire. Who was I to take it?”

  He said nothing, just wheeled past me to the fire and picked up the poker. The logs crackled and popped as he moved the wood around. I turned my head to stare out at the night beyond the window still kneeling… still waiting.

  “FUCK!”

  He caught me off guard. The tip of the poker seared my skin. The smell of my own flesh melting filled my nostrils. I felt lightheaded. Weak. But I couldn’t vomit or pass out. He’d think I was a pussy and kill me himself. I reached behind to grab the iron and pressed it harder into my back. My teeth bared like a wild animal. Sweat covered my skin. But I pushed the tip of that poker deep until I felt it hit bone.

  “Impressive. But you’ll have to do better. Find the girl. End her. You must become the Grim Reaper. You must become the monster lurking in the shadows, not a monster wearing diapers.”

  “You call this child’s play?” I hissed, through clenched teeth.

  The metal fell to the floor with a clang. I turned meeting his eyes over my shoulder.

  He shrugged. “No. I call this a beautiful beginning. Now strip and get in the hole.”

  “I’m not fucking you, old man.”

  His laugh cackled like dried leaves in the wind on all Hollow’s Eve. “You might wish that’s what I’m asking for when I’m done with you.”

  He motioned for me to follow him out of the study. “Reggie!” One of the Castellione men came briskly. “Take him to the pit.”

  I followed numbly. My pain was so severe I’d gone numb. My mind began to separate from my body.

  The man led me through the house and out a backdoor to a barn. “Take of your clothes and get in.” He lifted a trap door on the barn floor revealing a dark, dank hole.

  I did as he said. A monster can’t be afraid of the dark, so I got in like I gave zero fucks about my disfigured flesh or new home.

  The door banged shut taking all light with. The deadbolt slid into place. I was buried alive. No air. No light. Nothing but blackness enveloped me. I was in the womb of the earth. She must decide what to do with me. Curled up into a ball, I used my body to heat itself. Somehow sleep came.

  I lost all sense of time. Cramped in the hole, I shifted as much as I could to relieve myself.

  The smell of my putridness wasn’t lost on me. In and out of consciousness, I grasped onto anything to stay sane. Constantine wouldn’t break me. I knew if he did, they’d bury me here.

  My mind clung to the last pure thing. Her. Little Red with her pale as snow skin, hair on fire, and eyes the color of wet moss on a forest floor. Her hair smelled of honey and roses, her skin felt smooth; untouched. Despite my rancid conditions, I felt myself swell and harden in the dark. For her. The girl I brought to the brink of death only to bring her back. For the girl who’s barely a teen. For the woman she’ll one day be if I ever find her.

  I gripped my shaft, pumping a few times into my hand then pulling from root to tip. She kept me from insanity. I fantasized about being the first man to touch her, kiss her—taste those sweet budding breasts. My hand quickened. I squeezed my eyes shut even though I couldn’t see anything anyway. What was left of me was hers—the little spitfire who taunted me to be a man. She knew I wasn’t. She saw straight through me while everyone else believed the façade. “Fuck, Little Red,” I muttered hoarsely as I came all over myself in the pit. I was in hell already, there was no use feeling shame for thinking about her this way.

  Shaking from the aftershocks of my release, I realized I was burning up. Infection must’ve set in. I was a dead man either way.

  I drifted in and out of consciousness for some time. A loud smack came from the distance. I clung to that sound. Trapped in the dark not wanting to let it go; the need to fight somehow, to survive become stronger despite my weakened state.

  Suddenly the trapdoor to the pit swung up.

  My scream brought me fully back. I was blind. I couldn’t see. The light was too much. I raised my hand blocking it out. I was dragged up and carried somewhere. I felt the pinch of a needle and then nothing… I faded back to black.

  ***

  “The Fiorelli girl escaped Italy. Slipped out like a ghost. But if our men don’t find her you will.”

  I turned my head from my place on the floor. He saved me. Barley. Constantine had the best doctors cut out my rotting flesh, pump me full of IV’s and antibiotics but he saved me to be his stray pet. I slept on the bare floor. On a threadbare blanket with a dog bed for a pillow. Even through the days and hours when I almost died from hypothermia and infection, I stayed on the floor.

  I hide my elation behind my lifeless eyes. My heart still beat but I was still more of a dead man. At least everything inside me felt that way.

  He broke me that week in the pit. I lost my humanity. I wanted her to live, just because for some reason it’s important to him that she doesn’t.

  He kicked me swiftly in the ribs. The toe of his steel-tipped boot would’ve cracked a rib if it had more power behind it. The bastard could move his legs. That piece of valuable information I wouldn’t forget.

  “Get up. Your training begins today.” I followed him to a large bathroom. Hanging up is a custom-made Italian suit. I showered like I’ve never felt hot running water on my skin. I winced when it hits the bandages on my back. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I stopped short at the woman standing inside my room.

  She fidgeted nervously. “I’m Camilla. Here to change your bandages.” She was young, slim, and nervous.

  I’m a demon spawn. Dead. A dick.

  My towel dropped and I walked toward her with my huge erection in front of me. “I have something more urgent that needs attending to.”

  I was stuck in the earth and lived on a floor. Seeing her down on her knees sucking
me dick reminded me that I was still a king. I might be poor and nobody now, but my legacy still lived.

  I smirked as she took the head of me into her mouth, rolling her tongue along my thick rim.

  She knew who I was. Wanted me even though I was still more boy than man. “That’s it, bella. Someday you can say you slept with a God. Everyone will know who I am. Roque Salvatore will be a legend.”

  She couldn’t respond since my hand had taken her by the back of her head. I pumped my hips into her mouth, coming hard. I smiled. Whistling, I let her dress my wounds after she cleaned herself up.

  “What?” I barked as she hovered just inside the door.

  She bit her lip. A faint blush stained her cheeks. “Oh that? Sorry, baby, but I’m saving myself for marriage.” I deadpanned and continued getting dressed.

  “Dog? Come with me.” Reggie sauntered in with two others.

  “Name’s Roque.”

  “You are Dog until you earn the right to have your name back. You betrayed your familia. Didn’t carry out your last order and killed your Uncle. Both offenses are against the code.”

  “I can’t take either back.”

  “No, but you can be our dog to train, little king.”

  Constantine wheeled in, “Dog. Obey your master. You will work off your debt to us. I’m not foolish enough to give you a weapon. You will be our new grim reaper.”

  With no other choice, I climbed in a limo between three made men. Two hours later, I’d taken three souls. Over the course of my time with Constantine I added dozens more. And with each death blow I dealt, I vowed two things: The first, Constantine himself would be the last soul I took by my own hand and the second, when I was the head of my Syndicate I’d be done being the Reaper. I’d give that job to someone else. Days blended to weeks and I lost track of time.

  When I was almost seventeen, I asked Constantine if my cousins could come train. He smiled that greasy smile of his. They spent ten days in the pit. Vito and Geno wouldn’t look me in the eyes for months. They hated what I made them become. But family pride and basic need made them do it. They were poor and their mother had a dozen mouths to feed. They wanted in the mob for years and now being a part of it wasn’t all money and designer suits. It was hell. Sheer hell.

  I promised to make them gods beside me. One night after a particular hellish day, where none of us could sleep, we sat out in the barn on the floor next to the pit smoking a pack between the three of us while hoping our hands would cease to shake.

  Constantine.

  The Castellione’s. They controlled the uglier businesses. A few weeks earlier, we helped move military weapons into Turkey. Warheads, ground to air missiles and the like. Today, a commercial jet was shot down. The faces of the kids who boarded that plane haunted us as we watched the news.

  They were too young. Too good.

  I thought sacrificing my soul was worth it. But that day it wasn’t. The three of us knew it was on us. Those lives lost. Those kids who would never live. It wasn’t a simple war between the five families anymore. We were doing global shit and sin and it was too much, even for us.

  “We can’t go on like this.” Vito took a drag. The six months he’s spent here has aged him. Fine lines marred his eighteen-year-old face. His brother, Geno was ten months younger than me and he looked like shit too.

  “I know. I have a plan.”

  “It’s more than Constantine against us. It’s the Castellione crew… the other families… he lied to you Roque. Instead of setting you free all he did was make you a slave for life.”

  I gritted my teeth. I was cocky and full of arrogance when I swaggered into his lair. He did fulfill one promise though, I learned everything from the ground up. I listened, watched, and made a million mental notes. He set me up better than I could ever imagined. All I needed was to break free.

  “America. We’ll make our move there. When we overtake Chicago, we’ll come back to Italy. They will all pay.”

  “How? They’ll kill what’s left of our family.”

  A ghost of a smile played with my lips as I exhaled watching the smoke rise up.

  “Constantine is an old fool. Too busy sucking his own dick to see what’s been happening right under his nose. I know his safe combination, every bank routing number… all the details to break us free.

  We end Reggie and the rest of the men. Slit their throats in their sleep. I’ll snuff out the old bastard. He’s mine. We’ll use his cash and connections to get the fuck out of Italy. Take your Ma and crew, we’ll start fresh in the states. Become Americans. Lose our accents. Get properly educated. The day will come when the Salvatore’s come back and when we do—I’ll slay them all.”

  “All the families?”

  “Anyone who won’t bend a knee.”

  We finished our smokes all the while drunk on thoughts of freedom. We planned and executed. In less than a week it was time.

  I dressed in the finest suit he had gifted me, went down to the study and made a fire. I took the poker in my hand, fed it to the flames until the tip was orange with flame. I walked into his room.

  I stood over him.

  My maleficent presence alone awoke him from slumber. He wasn’t surprised. The fucker had the nerve to smile. “Finally, at last. Free me, my son. I want to walk again, even if it’s over the hot coals in hell.

  Death was too good for him. It was what he yearned for. I dragged him out of bed, wheeled him out into the cold and into the barn.

  “Strip.” I commanded.

  His hand’s shook as he did. Naked, pale and withered, I dumped him from the chair into the hole.

  “I succeeded. Don’t forget I made you in my image, Roque. I’ll live on through you.”

  I handed the poker to Vito. Make it burn again.”

  “As you will, il sovrano.” He referred to me as the ruler.

  Constantine watched helplessly when Vito came back. “Kneel,” I commanded.

  “Fuck off.”

  I jumped into the pit with the poker in hand, the tip of my boot found his ribs. Blood dripped from his mouth shortly after.

  One hand moved his legs, contorting them into a kneeling position. Lowering the poker, let the tip graze his right eye. Then his left. Then I wrote my name in cursive all over thin skin on his back.

  Disgusted at how he screamed, I spit on him before using the ladder Vito lowered and left the pit.

  “You’re weak and screamed just like the rest when it comes down to it,” I sneered. “Enjoy the slow descent into hell, old man.”

  “I’ll save a spot for you,” he rasped before I slammed the door shut and slid the bolt.

  “What next?”

  I turned to Geno and Vito. “We get the fuck out of Italy. Hide out somewhere. Become someone else.”

  Geno and Vito left for the coast to gather my aunt and the rest of her kids. I stayed behind to pilfer what I could—guns, money, art.

  I packed it all up.

  Then I sat in Constantine desk and called a banker in Palermo. “Buongiorno. I’m calling from the Castellione estate in Lake Como. I’d like to inquire about two houses in Palermo. The old Salvatore residence and the Fiorelli’s.”

  Silence greets me. “Those houses are both cursed.”

  “I know.”

  “They sit in ruin. Untouched tombs.”

  “Who owns them?”

  “The city. No one paid taxes and no one will buy either.”

  Thinking quick, I scanned the amount of money in Constantine’s account, offering a quarter of it for both. The man laughed. “You’re a fool. But a rich one.”

  He faxed over the paperwork the following morning. I forged Constantine’s name. Then shortly after, forged his name on a new will by delicately using a tracing technique.

  Upon his death, all his riches will be left to a variety of charitable foundations.

  Both houses will be given to mine. An anonymous American-based foundation that was conveniently set up hours earlier now owns both properties.
The foundation is a fraud. Just a name on paper, “Little Red Enterprises.”

  I used Constantine’s money to pay off crooked lawyers. The ones my family used for years. They took quick money and asked no questions. Then I set up my new name.

  Ralph Smith.

  Bland. Utterly American and absolutely a forgettable name. Even if the remaining families came looking, they’d never find me.

  Opening the briefcase Vito left, I found the vials of blood and the two teeth that each of my cousin’s extracted. Seeing a dentist later would be the least of it.

  Finding pliers, I pulled out a lower tooth. It hurt like a bitch, but it was nothing compared to the torture I underwent to become who I was now. Then I collected my things and drove to where they left the car by the side of a back road. I carefully placed my tooth in the front and theirs in the back, splattered our blood and set the car ablaze. It’d look like it was a hit. Us. Constantine. His men. All of it. The families will fight amongst themselves each pointing the finger at one another while I rode off into my dark sunset for a land where I know she lives and breathes.

  “I’m coming, Little Red. I told you I would.” My words were whispers carried on the back of the wind as they traveled through the starry sky and hopefully landed a world a way to where she was.

  I’m not in love.

  Obsessed or pining.

  She’d just become my talisman. My good luck piece; a part of me as much as all of my past.”

  I close the journal to take a break, poured myself another drink, and stared out the windows.

  “Shortly after we arrived in America we moved to Chicago. More Italians in Chicago. No one paid us any mind, after all the Italian no longer ran here. It was street gangs and crooked politicians that ruled. But not for long. We took college classes at a local community college at the same time I aced my GED. Constantine was a whore for Greek Mythology, Plato, and Aristotle. The Ancient Romans fascinated him. He made me learn Latin. My training was twenty hours a day of sheer hell. My own family paid the best tutors money could buy while I was still their prince. I had over a decade of the best teaching in every known subject matter known to man.

  Getting accepted into Princeton was a cake walk. Especially when I paid my way in Aunt Becky style. No one asked questions about my missing year, my lack of formal education, or the fact I wasn’t a varsity NCAA athlete.