Prologue
~ Vittorio ~
"They're all gone?"
"All of them."
I sat down heavily in my chair when my legs gave out. How was it possible? Over fifty members of the same family, all gone?
"Even the children?"
"Everyone, Vito," Carmine replied. "It was supposed to be a celebration, not a slaughter."
The only reason I had not been there—and was probably still alive—was that I had been tasked with picking my Uncle Carmine up from the airport. His flight had been delayed. Otherwise, we both would have been at the wedding when the bomb went off.
It was a last minute thing. No one had known I was leaving the wedding festivities except me, Carmine, and our boss, mafia boss Anthony D'Angelo. The mafia don we all followed.
"Do we know who did this?" I asked.
"Not yet, but we will. I have some people looking into it." Carmine took a sip of his drink before setting it back on the table, his fingers clenching around the glass. "The only reason I'm not pointing fingers is because we need to be sure who was behind this before we do anything. If we go after the wrong family—"
"No, I know." I waved a dismissive hand at him. I knew exactly what would happen. No one would hold it against us if we took out the ones who had done this, but if we took revenge on the wrong family the consequences could be dire.
"How many soldiers did we lose?"
"About thirty," Carmine stated. "I told Enzio to call in some more men until we can figure out what we're going to do."
"What are we going to do, Carmine?" I asked. "Someone has to be the head of the family, except they are all dead. The other families will only accept you or me being in power for a little while. Eventually they will want us to have a permanent head of the family or they will want us to turn everything over to them so they can pick it over like vultures."
I shuddered to think who was going to try and take over now that every member of the D'Angelo family was gone. Unlike a lot of mafia families in the states, families here in Italy were based on bloodlines and only someone from the D'Angelo bloodline could head the family.
"That might not be exactly true."
My head snapped up. "What?"
The entire family had been at the wedding and, according to Carmine, they had all died in the explosion when the wedding venue blew up. The police were still investigating, but we knew it had been a bomb. We just didn't know who had placed it. There were a lot of people that wanted our territory. It could have been anyone.
Carmine drew in a heavy breath and then let it out slowly before speaking. "This information doesn't leave this room, Vito. I'm the only one Anthony ever told about this."
"Of course not." I hadn't gotten to where I was in the organization by sharing secrets.
"A couple of decades back, Anthony had to go to the states to deal with a situation there. Him and Maria were arguing at the time and hadn't spoken to each other in weeks. She was even threatening to move home to her parents' house."
That was hard to believe. Anthony and Maria always seem so happy together. That was the one solace I took in this mess. They had died together with their children and grandchildren.
"Anthony met a woman over there and had a one night stand with her. A few months later, he received a letter stating that he was going to become a father. A couple of months after that, the kid was born. DNA tests showed that he was Anthony's son."
My jaw dropped. "He has another kid out there?"
Carmine nodded. "I've never met the kid, but I did arrange for a monthly allowance to be sent to him until he reached the age of twenty-one. Anthony might not have been able to acknowledge the kid, but he was still his kid. He wanted him taken care of."
"If that's true, he can take over the family."
He'd be the only one left alive who could.
"We know nothing about him, Vito. We need to find him and then have him investigated first. We have no idea what kind of man he is. Not everyone is able to handle being the head of a mafia family."
I'd say the percentage was actually pretty low. Life in the mafia was not for the faint of heart.
"Do you know where he is right now?"
"Not exactly," Carmine replied, "but he was born in New York City."
"Do you know his name at least?"
Carmine cracked a smile. "Anthony D'Angelo."
