Eulogy

Her throne.

  There was no room for love.

  Love made you a pathetic, weak target.

  Never again.

  I took another swig and braced my body against the kitchen counter as the deafening silence of the house slowly started to drive me insane.

  The doorbell rang. I grabbed the bottle and walked slowly to the main entry and jerked it open.

  The UPS guy took one look at me, then at the bottle, and dropped the package off without as much as a “Hi.”

  He was lucky I didn’t shoot him for trespassing.

  I glanced down at the plain brown shipping box and froze.

  Mil De Lange was typed out in bold, black letters, no return address, and no other information.

  I should have been worried about a bomb.

  A distraction.

  Being a target.

  Yet, the only thing I could manage to conjure up was bitterness at those bold letters.

  She couldn’t even take my last name…

  I kicked the box at least three times before I calmed down then pulled out my knife and slit it open.

  A bloody hand holding a cell phone waited inside. I pulled the phone from the hand and held it to my ear.

  “Knew you’d be too curious,” the familiar Russian-accented voice said on the other end. “I’ve been told you’ve lost your soul.”

  I sighed into the phone and kept my attention on the driveway, just in case it was a trap. “I’ve been told you never had one to begin with, Andrei.”

  “Ah, so you do remember me.”

  “Yeah well, hard to forget a dirty Russian.”

  He chuckled as if I hadn’t just insulted him. “Look, I have a business proposition for you.”

  “Not interested.” I almost hung up.

  Would have.

  “I have eleven De Lange associates saying they’d love to switch sides and come work for me. I shot one of them. You’re holding his phone. Keep that, and the hand, as proof of my… loyalty.”

  “Loyal? You?” I snorted. This from the guy who’d tried to take out all the bosses last year? Who allowed my dead wife to work for him? To get in so deep, she couldn’t find a way out? Yeah, right. Loyal.

  “How badly do you want the men?” he asked in a calm voice. “How bad does your blood roar to take out every last one of them?”

  I gripped the phone so hard my fingers went numb.

  “Thought so…” He chuckled. “Shall I send them over?”

  “You must have a lot of faith in my ability to kill that many men without getting killed first…”

  “Think of it as a test.”

  God, I hated how much I liked his brain.

  “Oh, and it’s already too late. They should be arriving in five minutes.”

  I dropped the phone as two SUVs started making their way down the long driveway.

  With a curse, I ran back into the house, grabbed my phone, and dialed Dante. “Ten headed my way, armed.”

  “Shit.” He started firing off instructions.

  I wasn’t afraid to die.

  I welcomed it.

  But I refused to die by their hand.

  And I wasn’t completely sure I could take every last one of them out without getting at least two bullets to the chest.

  I dropped my phone and sprinted toward the camera room.

  The pretty woman was bent over a few files.

  I shoved her out of the way. No time.

  I hit the button beneath the desk, and the floor split open and lit up into the hidden room beneath.

  Guns. Guns. More guns.

  I grabbed two semi-automatics, extra magazines, and a few grenades, just in case.

  When I jogged back up the stairs, the woman was pushed up against the wall with tears in her eyes. “Wh-what’s going on?”

  “Stay in here,” I ordered. “Do not, under any circumstances—”

  She ran.

  She fucking ran.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I think you’re asking the wrong question. Greedy bastards, all of you.” I rolled my eyes. “They will end you, your family, the clerk at the grocery store, the nice old man who rings the bell for the Salvation Army. Men like us have no souls. Don’t you get it? We. Don’t. Care. And you should remember that, when you go home and kiss your wife, we don’t hesitate because we have hearts. We hesitate because we like to see the fear in your eyes before we take your last few heartbeats.” I smiled as his face went pale. He’s lucky he wasn’t already dead.

  — Notes from interview with Agent P, FBI

  Luciana

  I ran like hell down the hall, didn’t even grab my shoes — let him have the stilettos. By the time I reached the front door, two black SUVs were pulling up.

  It was like a gift from God!

  I could plead my case; I could grab a ride out of this hell-hole.

  And do what?

  I couldn’t go to the police.

  I just needed to get out.

  I gripped the handle to the front door just as the first man hopped out of the front seat.

  Completely armed.

  With so many weapons strapped to his chest, I couldn’t count them. One by one, men followed in tactical gear as if I was in some sort of warzone.

  And behind me, I smelled whiskey.

  Chase took a swig out of the bottle, calmly placed it on the table nearest to the door, and nodded to me. “You know how to shoot?”

  “A camera,” I said dumbly. “I can shoot a camera.”

  “Huh.” He loaded the gun and pulled back the hammer. “And here I thought that was a lost art, camera shooting.” He smirked as if it was the funniest thing he’d heard in years. “Unless you want to get shot, I’d hide. The pantry has fortified cement walls that semi-automatics can’t even break through.”

  I backed away toward the wall and eyed the kitchen. “You have cement walls for your food?”

  He eyed me very seriously. “Food’s a big deal. Gotta keep it safe.” He shrugged. “Plus, it’s connected to a wine cellar.”

  Ah, there we go.

  He nodded. “I’d run now.”

  I was paralyzed with fear — fear of him, fear for him — which felt so misplaced I’d laugh hysterically if I wasn’t afraid I was minutes away from losing my life.

  With a sigh, he charged toward me, grabbed my arm, and shoved me in the general direction of the kitchen.

  A gunshot rang out. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “De Langes shoot first, ask questions later.”

  The name had my eyes widening briefly.

  He hesitated, flinched, stared through me, then bent down, and whispered in my ear, “Run. Now.”

  I ran; I sprinted into the kitchen, opened two doors before I found the pantry, and managed to shut the door as three more gunshots rang out.

  Hot tears ran down my cheeks as I plugged my ears, hugging my knees to my chest and telling myself that it was all a bad dream.

  A really bad, horrible, dream.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Dante Nicolasi is Chase’s best friend.” I tried not to show emotion, but I hated Dante more than I hated anyone in this God-forsaken world. He’d stolen from me — and nobody stole from me. Nobody. “He’s Chase’s protégé. The guy gets off by killing people, and I don’t blame him. Maybe he’ll smile when I kill him. Yeah, I bet he will.”

  — Notes from interview with Agent P, FBI

  Chase

  Another bullet whizzed by my head, and I sighed in disbelief. “Pieces of shit never learn, do you?” I pointed my gun at the door as it pushed open and started my rapid fire to the chest, head, chest, head; the automatic trigger just kept going while I aimed.

  Three of the men fell, while another grabbed his arm and hid behind one of the chairs; it was my favorite chair.

  Was being the key word.

  I didn’t give a shit about destroying it as I fired at least fifty rounds into the cushions, causing stuffing to float into the air.

  He finally col
lapsed behind it, blood trickling down his leg. “Who’s next?” I turned as one of the De Lange men charged me. I fell flat on my back as his fists flew across my face.

  “You!” He hit me again and again in the jaw while I smiled. “You killed seven! Seven of us! They had kids!”

  I spit out more blood and nodded. “And I had a wife. Life sucks. Get in line.”

  “You can’t kill—” Another hit to the face.

  I let him, let him get out his rage, knew what it felt like to need a punching bag so damn bad. It wouldn’t matter. In seconds he would be dead by my hands.

  “—an entire bloodline! We know what you’re going to do, and I’ll die before I let you touch my family!”

  I shoved him off me as another bullet whizzed by. I fired in the direction it had come from, hitting the guy directly in the right cheek, and he floated backward against the window, shattering the glass on contact.

  Huh, I thought it was double-paned?

  Either it wasn’t, or he was just heavy as hell.

  I charged the smart-mouth and got him to the ground just as another one of the bastards tried to grab me from behind. Luckily, that was when my front door opened, and Dante made his way in, guns blazing.

  I hated that the look on his face was joy.

  I hated that mine matched it.

  Death. Death. Death.

  What the hell had I allowed him to become?

  And why did I still blame myself? That I let him feed the darkness I’d been afraid of my entire life, only to let it consume me in the same way.

  The rest of the bodies fell at Dante’s hand; he didn’t even break a sweat as he made his way around each body, checking pulses.

  “So…” I grabbed my attacker by the shoulders and tossed him against the chair. “…you want to talk about fair? You want to talk about rage? Protecting your family? Where the hell were you when your boss decided to take it upon herself to go to the Russians? Where were you when she was in so deep she couldn’t see worth shit? Where. The. Fuck. Were you?”

  He stared me down. “If you think for one second that any one of us would have challenged your wife—”

  “Dead wife.”

  “Dead…” His jaw shook with rage. “…wife…” He glared. “…then you didn’t know her as well as you thought you did. To defy her wasn’t an option. She didn’t give a warning. My brother was shot in the head three times for arguing with her. He was her right-hand man. She had no loyalty. And she would stop at nothing to re-establish the De Lange line to its original glory. So we let her.”

  I jerked away from him, hating the words he was saying, hating the truth that dripped from each and every one.

  I wanted the lie.

  The lie that said she’d gotten caught.

  That she’d gotten in too deep.

  Not the truth that she’d never been a good leader.

  Never fought fair.

  “Arrogance,” I croaked, “gets you killed, and betrayal… well, that just sends you to the pits of hell, doesn’t it?”

  His chest rose and fell as he whispered, “I’m ready to meet my maker. Are you ready for the guilt of sixty men, sixty heads of the Family, on your shoulders?”

  I stared him down. He was around forty years old, with a strong jaw and dark brown eyes. He had a wedding ring on his left finger.

  “Fifty-one,” I whispered, holding the gun to his head. “And now… fifty.”

  I fired two rounds.

  He crumpled at my feet.

  The crunch of glass alerted me to Dante’s presence. He stared down at all the bodies. “This is the second massacre that’s taken place in your living room in a week, Chase.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “Kind of fitting that the house she had to have built would be filled with corpses.”

  “Death—” Dante gripped me by the shoulders then slapped my right cheek. “—is never worth laughing over. It will always be unnecessary.”

  “And yet, necessary,” I argued. “Andrei sent them, along with a bloody hand attached to a new iPhone X.”

  “How was it?” he asked.

  “Bloody.”

  “No, the iPhone, been wanting to grab one…” His voice trailed off.

  I rolled my eyes. “Focus. I only used it for a few seconds. We need to get cleanup here.”

  “Already called it in on my way over.” He lowered his voice and looked away as three SUVs pulled up. I recognized each of them. I refused to feel guilt.

  The first person in the door was Trace.

  Not Nixon.

  She looked around the room, doing a slow circle, and then finally faced me, and in that moment, I was transported back to a time when I was babysitting her in her dorm room.

  When all she wanted was an ice cream cone and to watch Twilight a billion times before reading her vampire novels.

  Tears filled her eyes.

  And for the first time in six months — I felt.

  I hated her for it.

  I felt the heartbeats now silenced around me.

  I felt the blood on my hands.

  I felt the shame in her eyes.

  The guilt in mine.

  The anguish in the space between us as she continued to stare as if she was searching for the old Chase, as if she was trying to find one redeemable part of my soul still existing.

  But no matter how long she stared, we both knew the answer, didn’t we? That man no longer existed.

  The space between us felt heavy with words left unsaid.

  With pain we both refused to acknowledge.

  Mistakes I’d made against her.

  Mistakes she’d made against me.

  And I wondered again, would this have been our ending? Had Nixon not lived? Had I gotten to her first?

  Had she chosen me instead of him?

  A solitary tear slid down her cheek, falling in slow motion to the body at her feet, and I wondered in that moment, if maybe her tears would cleanse my sins, if her kiss would do the same. If any part of her would redeem me, if maybe just in touching her, I’d feel like myself again.

  I slowly made my way over to her and dropped my gun onto the ground.

  She held out her hands to stop me, just as Nixon barged through the door followed by Phoenix, Sergio, Tex, and a man I’d never seen before in my entire life.

  His hair was shaved short against his head, and he had enough muscles to make me wonder if Tex had already tried to beat the shit out of him just to prove he was stronger. He was at least six-foot-four and looked like the last time he’d smiled was when he’d had gas as a diapered baby.

  “Vic—” Tex spat the name, and pointed. “—is here to make sure we get alerted next time you get a nice little present in the mail. He’s going to be staying in the pool house and running security detail for the next few weeks. He’s good at making himself invisible. You’ll hardly know he’s here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I can handle myself.”

  “Ten De Lange associates were just sent to your house to assassinate you.” Tex’s voice shook with rage. “We could have lost you!”

  “That’s what this is about?” I looked around the room at my brothers’ faces. “The way I see it, I’m going to die anyway, because I won’t stop. You know I won’t stop. I’m going to kill them all, every last one, and I know what that means if the commission says no. We all know what that fucking means.”

  “Don’t—” Tex clenched his teeth. “—don’t force my hand.”

  “I didn’t,” I whispered. “She did, by forcing mine.”

  Phoenix walked around each body and then did something I’d never seen him do; he covered their faces, and then he faced Tex, bracing his shoulders, and said in a clear voice, “I officially denounce the De Lange name.”

  The room fell silent.

  I was so stunned I couldn’t speak.

  “Phoenix—” Nixon moved, but Sergio put his hand on his shoulder and held him back.

  It was Frank who finally spoke. “That is your choi
ce to make, and yours alone. Either way, Luca would be proud.”

  Phoenix checked his watch and then looked back to Tex and whispered, “Note it, in the Family records, at seven fifty-two on January fifth, the De Lange Family is officially on its own.”

  He walked out.

  “You…” Nixon shook his head, disappointment marring his features. “…you did this.”

  Shame filled me as I looked around the room of men who had families, loved ones who no longer had the protection of the Nicolasis.

  A mafia family broken and bruised.

  In desperate need of leadership.

  Who’d just lost their final hope.

  The heir to the throne just denied them everything.

  And I knew Phoenix hadn’t just done it for me.

  He’d done it because of her.

  And that hurt the most.

  A legacy lost — because of greed.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I laughed. Oh shit, he was serious? “No. I don’t think there’s a chance in hell Chase will ever be the same. Tell you what, you bring in that pretty wife of yours and watch me shoot her in the neck then tell me if you don’t feel altered?” Idiot.

  — Notes from interview with Agent P, FBI

  Chase

  The bodies were cleaned up. My house looked like a shit hole. We taped the front window as best we could, and I made a mental note to call someone in the morning.

  Trace was the last one standing.

  Everyone else had left, including Dante and Nixon, though Nixon had left begrudgingly, with one last threatening look my way. I might be insane, but I would never touch a hair on his wife’s head.

  At least that was what I told myself.

  “Wine?” I asked.

  “Whiskey,” came Trace’s quick response.

  She followed me into the kitchen and waited in silence while I grabbed two small glasses and poured a generous amount in both. Then we clinked them together.

  She gulped hers in one sip and slammed it down onto the granite counter. I was surprised the glass didn’t shatter between her slender fingers. “When does this end?”

  “When it ends.” I shrugged and forced myself to lock gazes with her.

  “Don’t…” Tears filled her eyes. “Don’t let what happened turn you into a monster, Chase.”