ROCCO EXCERPT

Below is an excerpt from the first Chapter of Rocco.  It was generously given to me by Justine Sha at St. Martin's Press.  Don't forget to like, comment or share if you enjoyed the excerpt.  Happy reading!

ROCCO
Author:  Sarah Castille
Publish Date:  January 2, 2018
Genre:  Mafia Romance

Synopsis:  

Mafia enforcer, Rocco De Lucchi is the best in the business.

Cold, hard and utterly ruthless, Rocco is the most dangerous of men. Feelings are a luxury he cannot afford—until a chance encounter brings him face to face with the only woman who found her way into his heart and touched his soul.

Grace Mantini has spent her whole life running from the mob. Daughter of the boss's right hand man, she is both a prize and a target. When Rocco walks back into her life, she wants nothing to do with the man who betrayed her and broke her heart. But only Rocco can protect her from the dangerous forces that seek to destroy her family. Can they escape the hands of fate closing around them? Or will love be the kiss of death for them both?

EXCERPT

ONE

“He was a nice boy.”

“Yes, Papa.” Grace Mantini crossed herself as the pallbearers carried the coffin of Benito Forzani across the grass of the Las Vegas Shady Rest Cemetery. As the daughter of a high-ranking Mafia boss she had attended so many funerals over the years she could go through the motions of the formal burial service in her sleep.

“He would have made a fine husband.”

“I’m sure he would have.” But not for her. Was she a terrible person for being relieved that the Mafia soldier her father had wanted her to meet had been found dead in an alley the day after her father and brother arrived in Vegas?

“He wore a baseball hat so you couldn’t see his missing ear,” her father continued, with the faintest hint of a smile. Unlike many other Mafia fathers, Grace’s dad had no interest in forcing his daughter to marry into the mob, but that didn’t stop him from playing matchmaker any time they were together.

“Yankees?” she asked, hopefully.

“Red Sox.”

“It wouldn’t have worked out,” she said. “I like winners.”

Her brother, Tom, stifled a laugh and reached around their father to poke her in the side. Four years younger than her, he had been groomed since birth to take over the family business. One day he would become a “made man” like their father, Nunzio Mantini, now the underboss of the powerful New York Gamboli crime family. Grace hoped it wouldn’t be too soon. Men changed when they became made, and once that line was crossed, the serious business of living in a world of crime and death weighed heavy on their souls.

She smoothed her expression when she caught a few people looking in their direction. The graveyard was filled with members of the Toscani crime family who made up the Las Vegas faction of the New York-based Gamboli crime family, all dressed in black despite the blazing sun overhead and the unbearable ninety-degree heat.

“You could have come home if you married him.” Her father sighed. “He had a new job in New York. Don Gamboli asked Benito personally to handle all the family accounting.”

“I like it here in Vegas,” Grace lied. “I can buy a house, party twenty-four hours a day, sunbathe all weekend, and I have my career…”

In fact, she hated Vegas. A New Yorker, born and raised, she had been happy with her two days of nice weather a year, the postwar on First Avenue she’d lived in with her aunt, a wallet with no driver’s license, and a man she’d loved with every ounce of her being. Now she had an old Mitsubishi Mirage with a pathetic 74 hp under the hood that she had to flog to get anywhere, a permanent sunburn, and instead of a postwar, she shared a characterless ranch house with her best friend Olivia, and two jazz musicians, Miguel and Ethan.

But that’s what happened when your family was in the mob. You didn’t get to choose the kind of life you wanted to live. You didn’t get to do the job you had always dreamed about doing. You didn’t get to live in the city of your heart. And you didn’t get to keep the things you loved.

She scrambled for a new topic of conversation. The last thing she wanted was for her father to find out she wasn’t actually making use of her psychology degree. Instead, she was making ends meet by recording radio jingles during the day, the closest she could get to her ruined dream of becoming a jazz singer. Her father had tolerated her decision to move to Vegas six years ago only because she had been so distraught after the attack that she’d told him was a mugging gone wrong that she could barely function. If he’d known the real reason she’d left—no, run—from New York, he would never have let her go.

The priest finished the last rites, and the crowd responded with the proper prayers. She felt the whisper of a breeze against her neck, the softest caress. A shiver trickled down her spine but when she turned slightly hoping to catch the soothing air, the breeze died away.

“You can always come home if things don’t work out,” her father said. “You can stay in the house and look after Tom and me like you did after your mother died. We haven’t had a good meal since you left. Eight years is a long time to go without braciola the way your mother used to make it.”

Grace didn’t miss his emphasis on the word “left” or the undertone of judgment that went with it. Her decision to move to Vegas had been acceptable; her abandonment of the family two years prior had not. But everything had changed when, at sixteen, she discovered that her life had been a lie. Her kind, doting father was not actually an insurance salesman; the weekly funerals they attended weren’t just because her family was unlucky; and her mother hadn’t bled to death in the arms of her ten-year-old daughter as the result of an accidental shooting by an overzealous cop.

And while the revelation that Papa was in the Mafia explained some of her father’s behavior—the respect he received when they went out, the small favors that were bestowed upon him that hinted at his real power and influence—she was unable to process some of the larger concepts. How could her loving father be a criminal and a murderer? How could she wear the clothes he bought her, eat the food he paid for, or live under his roof when he had blood on his hands and everything had been paid for with dirty money? How could she even begin to understand the horrifying things he had done to achieve his position as second-in-command of one of the most powerful organized crime families in the country?

After her father had told her the truth, she’d run away. Just as she’d tried to run away after her mother died. Her mother’s sister had offered to take her in, and her father, distressed by her total and utter rejection, had agreed. She’d thought nothing could be as devastating as discovering her father wasn’t who she thought he was, but it was nothing compared to the night her heart was ripped out of her chest.

She felt a tickle on her neck, not a breeze this time, but something she knew instinctively as a warning. Someone was watching her. She took a quick glance over her shoulder, but she saw only trees glimmering in the sunshine, beckoning her with the promise of a respite from the heat in their cool shadows.

“You can get braciola in any good Italian restaurant. You don’t need me.”

“I’m getting old.” He sighed again. “I worry about you being all alone. I want to see you settled.”

“Setting me up with your friends’ sons isn’t going to do it. You know how I feel about … what you’re involved in.”

Her father bristled and his eyes narrowed, reminding her that although his hair had turned gray and there were new lines on his broad forehead and crinkles in the corners of his dark eyes, he was no weak, kindly old man. His shoulders were still broad, his back straight, and he was trim and fit from years of running and eating in moderation. But more than that, he carried himself with the confidence and authority of a man used to being obeyed. She could pretend to herself that she had made the choice to leave New York and that she was free to live her life the way she wanted in Vegas. But in reality, she was here only because he allowed it. If she pushed him too hard, he would drag her back to New York and force her into a marriage with the mobster of his choosing and there was nothing she could do about it. Such was the power of the Cosa Nostra.

“It’s not what I’m involved in.” He bristled. “It’s who we are. It’s our family. It’s our blood, our heritage. You may not like it, but it’s part of you. You can’t run from it forever.”

“It doesn’t mean I have to marry into it.”

He shook his head as the first shovel of dirt thudded onto the coffin. “Poor Benito. An incredible coincidence he was whacked right before he was supposed to meet with us. Do you know anything about it?”

“Are you asking me if I killed him?” Her voice rose in pitch.

Her father shrugged. “Maybe you were afraid I would force you to marry him…”

Only in a Mafia family would a father ask such a question. Yes, he had given her a gun and trained her how to shoot, but she would never have used it for anything other than self-defense, and her father knew that.

“I’m a pacifist.”

Tom barked a laugh and then immediately tried to cover it up by feigning a fit of coughing.

Her father’s lips curled in distaste. “I thought you got over that years ago.”

“It’s not a disease.”

“It is in our family,” Tom whispered.

“Well, I didn’t kill him.” Grace had no intention of ever getting married to one of the men her father proposed. After being betrayed and broken, her heart crushed and her body scarred, she had no interest in love and even less interest in finding a man who promised to give her the world only to snatch it away at the first sign of trouble. And even if she did find someone, she would marry on her own terms. She would find a man who loved her and could accept that she couldn’t fully return that love because she had lost her heart six years ago and would never get it back.

“What about Father Patrick?” Her father gestured to the priest who was now giving the last rites. “He’s a nice boy. Good family. He would make a good husband.”

“Papa! He’s a priest!” Father Patrick was one of the few mob-friendly priests in Vegas, which meant he heard the kind of confessions that would turn the stomach of a normal man, his coffers were overflowing, and his church was full to standing every Sunday morning.

“He came to the priesthood after his wife died. Since he has already had carnal knowledge of a woman, I believe he can marry again and you won’t suffer in any way for his faith.” Her father opened both hands as if welcoming the priest into their crime family.

“Papa. Please…” She looked to Tom to save her, but he was doubled over with laughter and no help at all. She’d forgotten how brutally forthright her father could be, something that had been both a curse and a blessing the night she’d finally returned home seeking the truth.

She glanced around to see if anyone had overheard them and caught movement in the shadows behind Father Patrick.

That’s when she saw him.

Tall. Dark hair. Black leather jacket snug over wide shoulders. Broad chest tapering to a narrow waist. Black T-shirt tight over hard ripples of muscle. Bandanna, worn jeans, thick-soled boots.

Beautiful. Her body heated in places it shouldn’t. Who was he? She didn’t know any man who would dare show up at a Mafia funeral wearing anything other than a suit and tie.

She squinted, trying to make out his face, but the sun was in her eyes and he was nothing but a dark shadow on the other side of the grave.

After the service ended, a heavyset, dark-haired man broke away from the departing crowd and approached them with a few companions and two heavily muscled bodyguards in tow. He looked to be in his early to mid-thirties and clearly had a fondness for bling. A diamond ring sparkled on each of his thick middle fingers, a heavy gold chain encircled his neck, and on his wrist he sported Louis Vuitton’s Escale Time Zone, which gave the hour in twenty-four time zones simultaneously and had a kaleidoscope-like dial. Grace disliked him immediately and even more when he made a blatant perusal of her body as he shook her father’s hand.

“Nunzio.” His smile didn’t reach his breast-focused eyes.

“Tony.” Papa introduced her and excused himself to greet some friends.

Grace recognized his name at once. Tony Toscani was one of two self-appointed bosses of the now-divided Toscani crime family. After his father, Santo, was murdered, Tony had claimed the right of succession. However, his cousin, Nico Toscani, refused to accept his claim. In an unprecedented show of defiance, Nico had taken half the family capos, crew, and assets and proclaimed himself boss of a new splinter faction. Don Gamboli had sent Grace’s father to help resolve the situation, either by confirming one or other of the cousins as boss, or brokering some kind of truce to bring the family back together.

Tom obviously knew Tony and they shook hands, but when Grace held out her hand, Tony pressed his slimy, cold lips to the back of her wrist and drew her away from Tom’s side. “Why didn’t I know Nunzio had a daughter?” he murmured so quietly only she could hear. “Shame about your face. You could have been almost pretty.”

Grace’s hand flew to her cheek, pulling her dark hair down to hide the long, silvery scar that marred the left side of her face from ear to chin. Although people often stared, few were cruel enough to mention the ugly scar that had destroyed her dream of being a singer.

She glanced over at her father to see if he’d heard what Tony had said. Not many people would have the gall to insult the daughter of the New York underboss, whose vicious and ruthless nature translated into a fierce protectiveness when it came to his family. When Grace was six, her first-grade teacher had informed her parents that she needed remedial-reading lessons. The next day her teacher was killed in a hit-and-run accident. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about it. But later she realized it was only one of many incidences in her life where people had to suffer because of her connection to the mob.

Grace tried to yank her hand away, but Tony tightened his grip and pulled her deep into the shade of the trees that had seemed so welcoming only a short while ago.

“Looks like a knife,” he said. “Am I right? Who did you piss off? Or was this a message?”

“Let me go.” Years of Krav Maga classes meant she knew how to disengage, but the result would be a scene that would, no doubt, embarrass her father and cause a major political incident.

“You got a man?” He tightened his grip, studying her intently. “You’d be lucky to find someone who didn’t mind damaged goods, although the alliance you would bring would make it worthwhile.”

Grace fought for calm. Anger achieved nothing. Despite the consequences, she needed to deal with the bastard the way she’d learned how to do. After fleeing New York, she’d vowed never to let another man touch her without her consent and her Krav Maga training had been the way she kept that promise to herself.

Gritting her teeth, she raised her hand and grabbed his wrist with the other, turning her hips until he was forced to let go. Unfortunately, her attempt to be discrete meant she left her back exposed. Taking advantage, Tony circled a hand around her throat and pressed his big, sweaty body against her, the sharp edges of his ring digging into her skin. “Sheath those claws, kitten. I like my women to be seen and not heard.”

“Release her.”

Deep and dark, the power of that voice froze her in place, even as it slid over her skin like the brush of thick velvet. She knew that voice, heard it in her dreams, and imagined night after night that fierce rumble vibrating against her chest.

Even though it was coarser, deeper with maturity, she would never forget that voice.

A name worked its way through the barriers in her mind. A name she thought she had wiped from her thoughts as well as her heart.

Rocco.

No. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. Last she’d heard he was still in New York working with his psychopathic father, Cesare, boss of the brutally violent De Lucchi crew. The beautiful, dark-haired boy she had fallen in love with had become the Gamboli crime family’s most feared enforcer, causing the kind of trauma she had dedicated her life to heal.

Tony released her and she turned and saw him—the man from the shadows.

“Rocco,” she whispered.

God, he looked even better than she remembered. Beautiful and breathtaking. His angled cheeks and firm square jaw were lined and scarred, and his thick dark hair was cut military short. Gone were the softness from his face, the roundness of his cheeks, and the dimple at the corner of his mouth. But his sculpted lips were full and sensual, and gold still glittered in the whiskey-brown eyes so dark now, they were almost black.

Once upon a time those eyes had looked into her soul, and those lips had touched every part of her body. Once upon a time all that beauty had belonged to her, and then the mob had stolen it away.

“Frankie.” Tony released her and spun to face Rocco. “What the fuck? This isn’t your business.”

Frankie? Why did Tony call him Frankie?

Rocco gave Tony the briefest of glances, as if he were unworthy even of that gesture. “She’s not yours.”

“Maybe she will be. Look at her. She’s disfigured. No one will want her. Nunzio would be grateful if someone took her off his hands. I’d be doing them both a fucking favor.”

Wham. Rocco’s fist slammed into Tony’s face, sending Tony staggering back into a tree. He tried to rise and suddenly Tom was there, his fists flying, shouting something about the family honor. As the assembled mobsters rushed toward the fight, Grace turned and walked away.

“Tesoro.” Her father hurried to catch up. “What happened?”

“The mob happened,” she said bitterly, whirling around to face him, grateful for an outlet for her pain. “I hate this. I hate that you’re part of this. I only came out today to spend time with you, and to give you support because you knew Benito and I know you’ll feel his loss. I miss you and Tom, but I don’t want to be involved. I can’t deal with the violence and the politics and the games.” And she definitely couldn’t deal with seeing Rocco again and reliving all the pain from their past.

“Grazia, don’t leave. We see so little of each other. I’ll make sure no one bothers you again.”

Grace shook her head. “I’m sorry, Papa. I’ve spent too many years trying to create a life away from all of this. I don’t want to be involved.”

“Always running away,” her father said softly. “What happens when there is nowhere left to run?”

* * *

Rocco wasn’t in the mood for breaking legs.

And especially not the legs of Danny Bagno, owner of the Stardust jazz club. Danny had borrowed half a million dollars from Nico Toscani’s most senior caporegime, Luca Rizzoli, and failed to pay the vig. The interest had accrued and Luca had decided to call in the loan, which meant that Luca did the talking and Rocco did the breaking.

Except tonight all he could think about was the girl he had lost for the very reason Luca had called him out tonight.

“Hey, Danny. How’s it going?” Luca leaned against the bar in the empty club. The Stardust didn’t open until seven, which gave them all afternoon to get business sorted out. Luca’s young associate, Paolo, had taken up guard position at the bottom of the stairs. The club was underground, with no natural light except the few rogue beams that filtered down the stairwell.

“Ah…” Danny froze half in and half out of the doorway leading to the kitchen, but there was nowhere to run. Rocco stood in the shadows beside the kitchen door, and Mike, one of Luca’s most trusted soldiers, blocked the back entrance after making his way in through the service door.

“Good, Mr. Rizzoli. It’s going good.” Danny’s hand dropped to his ill-fitting suit jacket and Rocco grabbed his arm and yanked it behind his back, pushing him toward one of the polished wood tables in front of the stage.

“Keep your hands where I can see them, Danny, at least until Frankie’s got that weapon you’re hiding under your jacket.” Luca chuckled. “We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself before he has a chance to show you his special skills. You haven’t met Frankie before, but when we bring him with us, it means your loan is overdue.”

Frankie. He’d answered to that nickname for so long, he’d almost forgotten his real name was Rocco.

Until yesterday, when every painful memory came back in a tidal wave of longing for a past that had been ripped away, and a future he would never have with the only woman he had ever loved.

Danny whined as Rocco patted him down. “I don’t want any trouble. You guys want to have a cup of coffee, and we can work things out? The wife just bought a new coffee maker for my office and some fancy beans from Brazil.”

“I hope she didn’t spend any of the five hundred grand you owe us or we’ll have to take it with us.” Luca walked around the bar and poured himself a drink, directing Paolo to check the stairwell with a lazy wave of his hand. Tall and lean, seventeen-year-old Paolo had just been made an associate after years of running errands for the Toscani crew. He’d struggled with a drug problem, but his quick thinking and courage when Luca had been kidnapped earlier that year, together with his lock-picking skills, had been enough for Luca to give him another chance.

Rocco relieved Danny of his .22 and a Swiss Army knife that had seen better days. He’d been doing collections and shakedowns as long as he could remember, and the only thing that made them bearable was the fact that the kind of guys who tried to cheat the mob were scumbags, just like him.

No, not like him. Danny was hustler. Rocco was a monster. No wonder Grace had run away.

Grace.

Her name twisted through his mind, opening doors that had been closed for the last six years, flooding his veins with the poison of desire. He hated her now as much as he had loved her. His adoptive father, Cesare, had tortured his body; but Grace had flayed his soul until there was nothing left for him but to embrace the darkness he had been fighting for years.

He had lived for her. Breathed for her. He would have died for her. He supposed, in a way, he had. There was no salvation for a Mafia enforcer. No redemption. Rocco went to church and confessed his sins, said his Hail Marys and offered his body for punishment, not because he expected God to forgive him, but because the emotional numbness that came with the pain of penance enabled him to make it through the work he had to do each day.

Work that had not included pulling a weapon on the acting boss of the Toscani crime family in a public place.

But fuck.

Grace.

Her hair had darkened since he’d seen her last. Once light brown, it was now a rich auburn, falling in thick waves to the middle of her back. Long, dark lashes framed her brown eyes, a startling contrast to her soft pink lips. He had savored that mouth, kissed the length of her slender neck, the bloom of each cheek, every inch of her oval face …

Scarred.

His gut twisted and he pushed away the image of that long silvery scar. He had never seen the outcome of the injuries she suffered the last night they were together. The last time he had seen her, she was covered in blood.

My fault.

Rocco’s hand tightened into a fist and he forced himself back to the moment he’d recognized her at the cemetery. The total and utter shock of seeing her again. Her body had filled out in the years they’d been apart, her slim frame giving way to the rounded, sensual curves of a woman—a beautiful woman.

Even at ten years old, she had been confident and self-assured. At fourteen, the combination of looks and poise had drawn the boys like flies, and it was all he could do to keep them away. And by the time she turned sixteen, his possessive instincts had taken over. Even though he was ten years older than her, when she offered herself to him, he’d claimed what his heart desired.

Gracie. My Gracie.

She had been his savior, pulling him out of the darkness and into the light. Grace with her beautiful voice and musical laughter. Grace with her warm hugs and soothing hands. Grace with her compassion and her tears. Grace who had tried to save his tortured soul as his adoptive father, Cesare, dragged him further and further into the abyss.

Grace who had run away when he showed her the real monster behind the mask.

He touched the cross around his neck, given to him by his mother when he had received Holy Eucharist two weeks before his parents were brutally murdered. He still prayed for forgiveness for his sin that day—the cowardice he had shown as a six-year-old boy who had hidden under the stairs instead of trying to defend his parents. He had almost no memories of his mother and father. Trauma had erased their faces from his mind, along with most of the childhood memories that could have kept them close to his heart. All he had left of his family were the symbol of their faith and his Christian name. Two powerful gifts.

Faith had sustained him when he discovered four years later that Cesare De Lucchi, the man who had adopted him from the orphanage six months after his parents died, didn’t want a son to love, but a tool to mould into the perfect enforcer.

Christ. He needed a cigarette. Luca’s wife, Gabrielle, had convinced him to try and quit, but he didn’t give a fuck if one of his few pleasures shortened his already wretched life. He’d sealed the deal on his fate in the afterlife long ago, and every life he’d taken since then was just another drop in the fucking well of flames.

“Yeah. About that…” Danny’s voice pulled Rocco out of his reverie and he gave himself a mental slap for losing focus. One glimpse of Grace and he was already losing his touch. Cesare had been right. Women were a distraction an enforcer couldn’t afford to have.

Danny swallowed so hard Rocco could hear him gulp. “I just need a few more weeks. Things haven’t been so good, you know. There’s a lot of competition in the city. It’s hard to get a new club off the ground.”

“You had a few weeks. And a few weeks before that,” Luca said, sipping what looked to be bourbon. “Where’s all the money gone?”

They knew exactly where the money had gone and why the club wasn’t doing well. Danny had a gambling problem. He’d drained the business dry and then he’d come begging to the mob. Luca was always happy to lend out a few bucks to help guys in need, but he was firm about deadlines. When it was time to pay it back, he expected to see his cash. Plus interest. And a little something for his trouble.

“You maybe got the vig this time?” Mike dropped his sports bag on the table and made a show of unzipping it and removing the baseball bat and gear Rocco had asked him to bring for the lesson today. “Maybe if you pay up, Mr. Rizzoli might be forgiving. I’m telling you, the last thing you want is to spend any time with Frankie.”

Damn Mike was getting soft. It was too late for Danny to pay the interest he owed on the money, but clearly if it had been up to Mike, he would have had another chance. A former boxer who now ran a chain of boxing gyms that served as a front for the Toscani family’s underground betting operation, Mike was a big guy who used his size and muscle to intimidate the low-lifes who were stupid enough to borrow from the mob. He shaved his head and wore skin-tight T-shirts for effect, but inside he was all marshmallow. You’d think after he lost his two best friends—Big Joe, who turned out to be an undercover cop and Little Ricky who had been gutted by a drug lord obsessed with Luca’s wife—he’d have hardened up some. But no, it was like he’d taken all the good out of his friends and sucked it up until he’d almost lost the edge he needed to do his job.

“I don’t feel very forgiving today,” Luca said coldly. “How ’bout you, Frankie? You feel forgiving?”

“I don’t feel anything.” It wasn’t a lie. Cesare had trained him not to feel—no emotion, no pain, no longing, desire, loss, or regret. No love because love made you weak, and above all things an enforcer had to be strong—physically, emotionally, and mentally.

“How ’bout I comp you an evening instead?” Danny suggested, staring at the equipment on the table—hammers, saws, pliers, gags, vices, knives, ropes, bats, whips, and the other tools of an enforcer’s trade. “You and your friends, your family. I can give you all a meal, free drinks, a good show. Call it even.”

Christ. The last thing Rocco wanted was to spend an evening listening to the kind of music that had drawn him and Grace together when they’d first met. At first, he hadn’t believed a ten-year-old would like Rat Pack songs, but when she sang for him, the lyrics word perfect, something had stirred in his soul. Years later, when they would lie in bed together, hidden from the world, and she sang the same songs in her liquid voice, he remembered that day as the first warmth he’d felt in his life.

“I’ve got my own restaurant.” Luca idly knocked a bottle off the shelf behind him, standing aside when it smashed on the floor. “What I need is the money.”

“I have five grand in the safe.” Danny was sweating bullets now, his collar stained dark blue. “You can take that and next time…”

“There is no next time.” Rocco twisted Danny’s arm back, forcing him to his knees. “Paolo, gimme the bat.”

When no bat was forthcoming, he looked up to see Paolo staring at a poster of a nude woman reclining on a piano. Stupid kid wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around him. Shit like that would get him killed, and he looked like he had a lot of living yet to do.

“Paolo! What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry.” Paolo’s face turned sheet white and he raced over to the sports bag. “I mean I’m sorry, boss … sir.” He cast a frantic glance over at the box of straws on the bar counter as he grabbed the bat.

“Jesus. Fuck.” Rocco knew all the rumors. How he’d killed someone with a straw because the dude looked at him the wrong way. Or how he’d heard someone disrespect the boss, and gutted him like a fish. Or how he only drank blood, slept on a bed of nails, and specialized in obscure Mafia tortures with names like Sicilian Necktie, Cement Shoes, and Power Drill.

Most of the rumors were true. Sometimes, even the toughest wiseguys couldn’t stomach what they needed to do. That’s when they called in the De Lucchi crew, a group of professional enforcers led by Rocco’s adoptive father, Cesare. Whether they were required to beat, torture, threaten, or kill, there was no limit to what the De Lucchi crew would do. Every member was inducted into the crew at the age of ten years old, stripped of the burden of emotion, attachment, and moral codes, deprived of love and human affection, trained to withstand pain, and unleashed on the world as a vicious, cold-blooded monster who felt nothing beyond the satisfaction of a job well done. And yet no one could match Cesare for sheer brutality. Cesare would go above and beyond simply because he liked to watch people suffer, and he had no issue with killing innocent civilians who got in his way.

Rocco was nothing like Cesare, and his refusal to take the violence beyond the requirements of the contract meant he had been a constant disappointment to his adoptive father. Still, when stupid, young associates didn’t pay attention, he didn’t hold back on teaching them a lesson that could mean the difference between life or death on the streets.

And, of course, he had a reputation to protect, and a jazz club owner who needed to learn a lesson. The second most feared enforcer in the Gamboli crime family couldn’t let the disrespect slide.

When Paolo brought the bat, Rocco smashed his fist into the kid’s face with a precisely calculated blow that would inflict the most pain and bloodshed with the least amount of damage. Blood streamed from Paolo’s nose as he scrambled to his feet. Luca helped him up and sent him to the restroom to clean up before reporting back for duty.

“Oh shit. Oh shit.” Danny shook so hard, Rocco thought he was going to piss his pants. He was the type. Some guys were fucking tough, didn’t make a sound. But others, like Danny, started to cry even before Rocco swung the bat.

“I have a wife. She’s got no one to look after her. She’s in a wheelchair. She’s got a … disease. And … she’s … blind.”

Luca chuckled. “Then who was that blonde bombshell at your house when we stopped by looking for you just an hour ago, walking around giving us a wiggle, winking at Mike like she wanted in his fucking pants? Said she was your wife and you two were on your way to Hawaii in the morning for a two-week vacation.”

Danny moaned and Rocco yanked his arm up higher. “You got cancellation insurance, Danny? ’Cause I’m thinking you aren’t going to make that flight.”

“How ’bout the club?” Danny trembled in Rocco’s grip. “I could sign part of it over to you. We could be business partners.”

“You are gonna sign it all over to us,” Luca said. “I’ve got the paperwork right here. All nice and legal. I had it prepared by our very own attorney, name is Charlie Nails.”

Rocco pushed Danny over to the table while Luca spread the papers out. Luca handed Danny a pen and Rocco squeezed his elbow until the club owner shuddered in pain. “Sign.”

“I don’t understand legal stuff.” Danny shook so hard, Rocco released him just to see if he would crumple to the ground. He took no pleasure in his work, but small amusements made it bearable.

Danny disappointed him by remaining upright. “I need a lawyer.”

Luca grabbed his hand and held it flat on the table. Before Danny could process what was happening, Rocco bent Danny’s little finger back until it cracked. Danny screamed. Luca grimaced. Rocco didn’t even flinch. He had fully embraced Cesare’s teachings only after losing Grace to the violence that was destined to be his life.

“That’s the best fucking legal advice you’re ever going to get,” Rocco said. “Now sign the damn papers.”

Cradling his injured hand, Danny signed the papers. “Is that all?”

“No.” Luca folded the papers and put them into his pocket. “We’re in business together now. You’re gonna run the place for us to pay off the rest of your debt.”

“But what will I live on?”

“Not our problem.” Luca turned away, motioning for Mike and Paolo to follow. “But you’ll have lots of time to think about it while you’re getting better.”

“Getting better from what?”

Rocco grabbed the bat and put everything out of his mind—the despair of a ten-year-old boy forced to do things that would make even the toughest mobster weep, the brutality of the man he’d thought of as a father, the pain of his heart breaking when he severed his connection with Grace to save her from the life he would never escape, his inexplicable anger at her for actually doing what he wanted and running away, and the powerful wave of emotion that had unsettled him since he’d seen her again.

He lifted the bat and took aim. “From me.”

Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Castille in Rocco and reprinted with permission from St. Martin’s Paperbacks.

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