Mated
to the
CAPO
GEORGETTE ST. CLAIR
Mated to the Capo (Encantado Shifters Book 1)
Copyright © 2019 Georgette St. Clair
Editing – Tiffany Fox and C.A. Houghton; Beyond DEF
Cover design – LeTeisha Newton; Beyond DEF
Formatting – Beyond DEF
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information contact:
Beyond DEF
https://www.beyonddeflit.com
[email protected]
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Epilogue
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One
Z oey limped into the office of Kalinda’s Katering Saturday morning, wondering if she’d be picking up her paycheck or facing a firing squad.
After the week she’d had, the firing squad would be par for the course.
Her favorite cafe had closed up shop and vanished last Monday—the latest in a string of local businesses that had shut down.
Then, an acquaintance had set up a blind date four nights ago, describing the guy as “perfect for you.” She must not have liked Zoey very much because Mr. “Perfect for you” had become the blind date from hell. Five minutes after meeting her, the drunken accountant had slurred that he “liked dating fat chicks because they weren’t so demanding.” Well, that was a guaranteed panty-dropper … not.
When Zoey had made it clear she was going home alone, he stiffed her with the check, so she’d headed to the bar. As far as she could recall, she’d tried to drink her weight in tequila, which was why she’d found the phrase “love bites” tattooed on her right butt cheek the next morning. The fact the calligraphy was really pretty didn’t help anything.
Last night proved those sucktastic events had been the high points of her week.
Zoey entered Kalinda’s office, trying to keep her limp to a minimum. Clad in her usual uniform of tuxedo jacket and skirt, her dark shiny hair yanked back in a severe braid and brows drawn together, Kalinda stood. She was tall, mocha-skinned, and regal. Judging by the curt look she fixed on Zoey, she was also very annoyed. Quite the opposite, Zoey was short, plump, and her brown hair exploded everywhere in unruly waves.
The expression on Kalinda’s face told Zoey her boss had already heard what had happened at the Moretti Pack’s party. Of course. Word got around fast in Encantado.
“Hello, Kalinda. Beautiful morning, isn’t it? The sun is shining, the phoenixes are flocking …” She gestured out the window at the half-dozen phoenixes gliding overhead, trailing cold blue flames.
The business district was typical, gaudy Encantado, with a kind of tarted-up chorus girl appeal to it. Architectural styles mish-mashed together, emphasizing a mid-century modern feel, and spindly, fifty-foot palm trees lined the streets. Neon signs were splashed randomly up and down the avenue. Kalinda’s Katering was located in a strip of three-story office buildings, squeezed in between a wholesaler dealing in ingredients for spells and a company which specialized in tours through “Encantado’s Most Magical Neighborhoods.” One of their buses, painted like a dragon and full of excited tourists, was gliding out of the parking lot.
But today, Kalinda was in no mood to admire the scenery.
“There are three simple rules to catering a mafia pack event,” Kalinda said, her voice sharp enough to slice through bone.
“You don’t say. Why don’t you tell them to me.” Zoey might have been a little salty, but she felt she had the right. Her right butt cheek had an enormous set of fang marks in it, right below the tattoo, and the bite was probably going to scar.
“Get in. Don’t get bitten. Get out. Is that so hard to remember?”
Zoey shrugged. “Apparently.”
Like Zoey hadn’t heard this lecture before. After all, Zoey worked those events all the time. She was one of the few girls willing to work the Moretti Pack shindigs because everyone else was terrified of them.
Zoey was too, of course. Shifters were scary enough, but the Moretti Pack? Effing petrifying. They’d been known to literally eat their enemies. The pay was too good to resist though. It paid triple what she earned at other catering gigs.
Kalinda gave her a dirty look. “Now is not the time for your sass.”
“When is the time?” she grumbled. Could she schedule a time? But she didn’t say it out loud because Kalinda looked like she was about to blow a gasket.
“When you didn’t do something to provoke a Capo of the Moretti Pack to bite you on the ass.”
Zoey looked at Kalinda, eyes widening in alarm. “How do you know he’s a Capo? I didn’t know he was a Capo.”
“Word gets around fast. What did you do to him? Step on his paw? Pull his tail?”
“Do you think I’m crazy?” Zoey spluttered. “Seriously? You think I’d pull the tail of any wolf shifter, much less a Made Wolf?”
There were made wolves, and there were Made Wolves. Dominic Lombardi was both.
The tattoo on the back of Dominic’s hand told a story. The howling wolf nestled into a crescent moon meant he was a Made Wolf—he’d had to prove his loyalty to the pack by secret, violent means. The star above it meant he hadn’t been born a wolf.
From what Zoey had heard, surviving the Turn took exceptional strength and stamina.
Dominic ignored Zoey, other than grunting a curt “thank you” when she served him drinks. If anything, he was even more abrupt with Zoey than he was with the other servers, although he didn’t flirt with them or anything.
But Zoey hadn’t known he was a Capo. That meant he was one of very few men who served directly under Arturo Moretti, the Capo di tutti Capi—boss of all bosses. Arturo tore people’s limbs off for just looking at him wrong.
Zoey paced in front of Kalinda’s desk, her butt cheek aching with each step. Stupid bite! It figured that the only time Dominic’s mouth was near her nether regions, he was in wolf form, sinking his fangs into her flesh.
She mentally slapped herself for that thought. Dominic was nothing but a very naughty fantasy—a fantasy involving blue-green eyes that would make the ocean jealous, a perfect butt, and muscular thighs. Even if she could have him, she wouldn’t because of who he worked for.
“The no-shift potion is guaranteed, right?” Zoey raised a brow.
“Of course,” Kalinda said, sliding her gaze away from her friend. “I’m pretty sure.”
Zoey spun around and pinned her with a glare of fury. “Pretty sure?!” she screeched.
Kalinda threw up her hands in frustration. “Warl
ock Cyrus is the best in the district. I have never heard a complaint against him. The only way we can be sure, though, is if someone was bitten and went through the next full moon without turning. None of my girls have ever been bitten. The potion is strictly a precaution. A couple of times, the Moretti men got a little frisky when they were in wolf form and maybe, ah, nipped a girl. Or two.”
“Or two? So … like five or six?” Zoey glowered at her boss.
Kalinda’s gaze moved to the left. “Three or four. Through their clothing. They didn’t even draw blood, but I didn’t want to take any chances, so I started using the no-shift. I have never, ever heard of it failing, so we’re good there.” Kalinda’s lips twitched up in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, but it looked so forced, it had the opposite effect. And it was out of place on her face.
Kalinda was a worrier, a caretaker, a fixer, an organizer. But not a smiler.
“You never mentioned the nipping when you hired me,” Zoey said indignantly.
Kalinda looked her up and down with a critical eye, ignoring her complaint. “Do you suddenly crave raw meat? Are you unusually hairy?”
Zoey gingerly sank down into a chair, favoring her right butt cheek, and gave Kalinda look of annoyance. “I was bitten at two a.m. Seven hours ago. It’s probably too soon to tell. The next full moon isn’t for twenty-eight days. And the werewolves don’t have any craving for raw meat when they’re in human form. You know that. Do they order a hundred pounds of hamburger? No, the pack gets filet mignon and prime rib.”
“Right, right.” Kalinda sat in the chair next to Zoey’s and nervously tapped her fingers on the chair arm, her long, gold-painted nails clicking on the scarred wood. “Pardon my panicking. This only involves one of my employees possibly accidentally offending a pack of wolf-men who delight in eviscerating their enemies. Why would I be a little tense? Okay, walk me through what happened. Tell me everything that led up to him biting you.”
Zoey leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “Let me think a minute.” She tried to stifle an enormous yawn. She hadn’t slept all night. The room she rented above a nightclub had paper-thin walls. Not to mention it was hard to sleep after having been bitten in the butt by a werewolf.
“Fine, fine, I’ll get you some coffee,” Kalinda said grudgingly. She liked to act like a hardass—to run any kind of business in Encantado, she had to—but she was protective of the girls who worked for her.
Zoey nodded gratefully. “You’re a lifesaver.”
As Kalinda hurried off to the kitchen in the back, Zoey replayed yesterday through her mind, searching for clues.
Why had Dominic chomped on her gluteus? Was it because she’d asked to talk to his boss? It hadn’t seemed like a terrible idea at the time.
The Moretti Pack was supposed to ensure city services made their way in and out of all the districts in their territory. They certainly charged the districts enough for their “protection”. They’d been taking money from District 17for months now and hadn’t delivered a damn thing.
Yesterday, she’d reached her boiling point. As the trash pickup had become more and more sporadic over the last few months, rats crawled around the piles of garbage rotting in the streets. She had stepped in the runoff and ruined her new sneakers. And the potholes? Forget about it. She worked as a bike messenger during the week, and riding through her neighborhood was like running a slalom course.
It had gotten to the point where Zoey and the other residents were paying their extortion money just for the privilege of not being murdered by a pack of corrupt, furry goombahs. Yes, they didn’t pay as much as the wealthy districts, which meant they could only expect the bare minimum of services, but now they weren’t even getting that.
When the neighborhood residents tried to take the trash to the city dump themselves, they were charged an outrageous fee.
Zoey was part of a volunteer neighborhood improvement committee. She and the other committee members had tried to talk to Jordan Smythe, the pack’s neighborhood liaison who collected their fees and passed them on to the Moretti Pack. The results? Crickets.
And more garbage.
Zoey’s tired mind was drifting. She mentally gave herself a shake and replayed the events of the previous night.
It had been a gorgeous evening. The pack threw a party to celebrate thirty years of Arturo’s leadership. Enormous potted palms and winding stone paths surrounded the exotically landscaped garden. A fat white moon hung lazily in a velvet sky, and a warm breeze swept the scent of magnolia blossoms through the air.
Arturo was sitting by himself when Zoey tried to approach him. His men were scattered around drinking expensive whiskey, smoking cigars, and helping themselves to the lavish buffet. The Capo di tutti Capi looked as if he was actually in a good mood. Lounging in a wicker chair and sipping a glass of Pappy Van Winkle, he stared off into the distance at the twinkling lights of the city’s skyscrapers and a single pegasus flying overhead.
Zoey had walked over to Ottavio, one of Arturo’s men, and asked if she could be granted an audience to address an issue in District 17. She had been told that was the proper way to approach Arturo – through one of his men, and only after asking in a very deferential tone.
Ottavio nodded gravely and stood, towering over her, but before he could answer, Dominic bit her.
She didn’t see how the two could be related. She really didn’t think she had offended anyone. She had spoken with the utmost respect, and Ottavio hadn’t looked angry. And she’d been speaking to him, not Dominic. If Dominic had been angry at her, he wouldn’t have just nipped her. He’d have torn her in half.
Kalinda hurried back in, shoving a cracked mug of coffee into Zoey’s hands, and then leaned on her desk. “It’s instant. We save the good stuff for the customers,” Kalinda said.
Zoey took a long swig of it and made a face. “Yeah, you do.”
“So talk. How did you bring the wrath of the wolf down on you? What have you done, Zoey?”
“Nothing,” she said, with a wide -eyed, innocent expression, and took another sip, grimacing at the bitterness.
In hindsight, maybe she shouldn’t have tried to speak to Arturo at all. Whatever the problem was, he had to know about it already, right?
“Okay, you wanted a recap,” she said quickly. “I showed up at the event, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Dominic was in human form. He did glance my way once, but most of the night, he talked with a few people and pretty much ignored me. One of them was a tall, good-looking guy with a scarred face. I think his name’s Romano, and he’s always with Dominic at all the parties. I think he’s an enforcer. One of them was Giuliana, she’s Arturo’s personal assistant and niece, and one was a dark-haired girl who kept following Dominic around and petting his arm.” She tried to keep the snarkiness out of her voice when she mentioned the dark-haired girl—she’d mostly succeeded.
Dominic had acted like he was casual friends with the blonde and looked bored with the dark-haired girl, which had made Zoey happier than it should have.
Kalinda frowned. “Dark-haired girl. Hmm. For some reason that makes me nervous.”
“Everything makes you nervous,” Zoey pointed out.
Kalinda made a skeptical “psssht” noise and glanced out the window. A day-walker in a black cape strolled by. Day-walkers were rich-as-hell vampires who’d paid good money for powerful charms that made them temporarily immune to sunlight. The wards affixed to the window glowed as he walked by. It cost Kalinda a small dragon’s hoard to keep those wards charged. Kalinda’s wards were a lot stronger than those on Zoey’s apartment building.
A lion shifter in human form walked by. At least, she was pretty sure it was a lion shifter—they all had thick, tawny-blond hair that flowed past their shoulders. The shifter accidentally jostled the vampire, and the vampire swung to face him with a snarl. A long, tense moment stretched between them before they finally went their separate ways.
“Of course, everything makes me
nervous,” Kalinda said irritably. “Anyone who lives in Encantado and isn’t nervous has their head up their ass.”
Zoey shrugged. Yes, living in a Portal City was fairly terrifying on a regular basis, given that the portals tended to burp out scary, hostile creatures at random. They never knew if the mages would be able to hold them off, but she just didn’t see the point in being afraid all the time.
“I dunno,” she said. “What good does it do to worry? If I’m fated to be hexed or dragon roasted, I might as well enjoy my life up until the last moment. And try to make sure that everyone around me is too. If I’m not fated for a terrible death, then I’d have spent a lot of time worrying about nothing.”
“Fine, Saccharine Sally, nothing scares you. Just keep in mind, fearlessness isn’t going to make you any less tasty next time we have a troll attack. Now, finish telling me what happened.” Kalinda fixed Zoey with her fierce glare.
Zoey nodded, trying to remember. “Well, he ignored me the rest of the night. After the moon rose, they all started getting louder and friskier and a couple of older guys pinched my butt, and I accidentally spilled a drink on one of them and stepped on the other one’s foot.” Kalinda had told her to do that. Those kinds of macho guys would run right over the girls if they didn’t stand up for themselves.
“And then?”
She hesitated. Kalinda wouldn’t be too happy if she found out Zoey had tried to approach the boss of the Moretti Pack with a complaint at one of Kalinda’s events. She’d probably slap Zoey silly or fire her on the spot.
“Well, I was standing there with a tray of hors d’oeuvres when I felt a sharp pain in my butt. My right cheek, in case that matters.” That wasn’t strictly a lie. She had indeed been standing there holding a tray.
“It doesn’t,” Kalinda assured her with a scowl of impatience.
“I dropped the tray and screamed. When I spun around, there was this huge, beautiful white wolf staring at me intensely. I recognized it as Dominic because he had the same blue-green eyes and … and I don’t know, I could just tell it was him. I was so shocked, I dropped my tray and ran.” She finished the rest of the coffee and set the cup on a small side table. “So … that shifting potion …”
Mated to the Capo (Mafia Wolf Shifters) (Encantado Shifters Book 1) Page 1
