Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Now he’s back—older, harder, and responsible for two kids who lost everything.
The family he left behind has moved on. The men he once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with had become bosses, while he’s stuck running cash pickups while he tries to earn his way back in.
But a routine stop at a pawnshop changes everything.
The woman behind the counter is everything he wants but can’t have: smart-mouthed, stubborn, and strong. Worse, his niece and nephew adore her.
He’s determined to stay away. But when she finds herself in the middle of the mystery and is violently attacked, he takes her in to help her heal as they try to figure out what someone might be willing to kill for…
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
Christopher
This place used to be as familiar to me as my own home. More so. Now, it felt like staring up at a stranger’s house.
I guess, in a way, it was.
I’d been gone for a long time.
I’d been so busy that I’d barely even kept in touch.
All these people I used to know as well as I knew myself might as well be strangers. Hell, I knew I was going to be just as much a stranger to them. So much had changed. I had changed. In more ways than I could even count. Sometimes, I barely even recognized myself.
The man I’d been the last time I stood looking up at this brownstone was so much younger. Hardened, yes, by this life, by the instability of the previous leadership. But lighter. Less weighed down by life.
I barely even knew what had gone down with the family since I’d been called away. I got the marriage and birth announcements. For women I’d never met. Whose stories I didn’t know.
I was still part enough of the organization that I got highlight reels here and there, mostly from the boss’s wife, Gigi, but that was it. I didn’t know shit about what had gone down with the business, who the major players were, or, it seemed, who some of the new members of the organization were.
Because I had no fucking idea who the guy standing guard at the door was.
He was a good-looking kid, everything about him screaming ‘mobster’: tall, fit, black hair, brown eyes, classic bone structure, and put together in a nice suit.
My own suit felt heavy and itchy. I once lived in them, wore them like a second skin. But it had been so long since I’d worn one. I felt like everyone could tell they didn’t quite belong on me anymore.
Finally clocking that I was looking a little too long, the guard glanced at me. “You got business here, get about it. Otherwise, get gone.”
My lips curved up slightly, remembering how things like that used to come out of my own mouth.
Fuck, it felt weird to be back.
“I need to see Lorenzo.”
“Yeah? I need a long weekend on a beach with Megan Fox. But that ain’t happening either. Fuck off.”
I stepped closer, watching the way his hand slipped into his jacket.
“Tell him Christopher is here to see him.”
“Christopher? That supposed to mean something?”
“It will to him.”
He watched me for a second before reaching to open the door, keeping his eye on me until he was inside.
It was maybe ten seconds later when the door flew open.
And there he was.
The capo dei capi of the New York mafia.
The last time I’d seen him, he’d just taken over for his old man.
He looked older, with some gray threading into his dark hair. Then again, I didn’t look the same either.
“Holy shit,” Lorenzo said, a smile breaking across his face. “I didn’t believe Nero when he said a Christopher was here. Man, what the fuck?”
He jogged down the steps toward me, then wrapped me up in a bear hug.
“Haven’t seen your face in fucking ages,” he said as we broke apart.
“Yeah. It’s… weird to be back.”
“Weird? To be back with family? Dunno if I like how that sounds. How have—”
“Boss,” the kid—Nero—called, “hate to be this guy, but you’re not supposed to be on the street right now.”
“Something going down?” I asked, feeling a surge of adrenaline that I hadn’t experienced in years. But there was something familiar and almost comforting about it. Maybe because it was a sign that my body did remember this, that it would all come back to me if I just gave it time.
“Always something,” he said, slapping my shoulder and leading me up the stairs to the brownstone. “Nero, this is Chris. He’s a, fuck, what is it? Second cousin once removed or some shit? Chris, this is Nero. One of Miko’s brothers.”
“Miko,” I repeated.
“Shit, yeah. You have been gone a while. Miko was an associate under Cosimo a while back. He’s a capo now. This fuck is hoping to get there one day.”
A whole new generation getting Made.
That should have been me years ago.
If life had gone differently.
I shook away those thoughts, trying not to let the feelings about being left behind take hold and root.
My life went differently.
Got sidetracked for a while.
I was getting it back on track now.
“Used to have your job,” I told Nero.
“Want it back?” he asked, shooting me a smirk.
Young and hungry.
I remembered those days.
I moved into the townhouse with a man who used to be like a brother to me.
It had been nothing like this the last time I’d been inside. Lorenzo had just started renovating when I left. It looked like a whole home now.
I could see his wife, Gigi, all around in the décor. And evidence of the kids all around: a half-built model car on the coffee table, a pile of children’s books on an end table, a forgotten single sock.