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  I watched in wonder as he reached forward and wiped my cheek. With a fifty-pound note! “You’re dripping everywhere.” He shoved the bloodied note in my hand. “Now, scram.”

  I darted off with my two fifties, my eyes set firmly on them as I jogged down the alley, worried that someone would snatch them away from me at any second. Run, Danny, run!

  I heard the familiar sound of a knackered Nissan up ahead, and my feet ground to a halt. My stepfather screeched to a stop and jumped out, stalking toward me with the usual murderous look on his face. He didn’t speak first. Never did. The back of his hand collided with my already-injured cheek. I didn’t flinch, not even when I heard my flesh tear some more. “Where the fuck did you get them from?” he spat, swiping the fifties from my hand.

  It was completely out of character for me, but I yelled and dived at him, trying to win them back. “Hey, they’re mine! Give them back.”

  I didn’t want to fight for them or show him I cared but . . . they were mine. I’d never owned anything. I wasn’t going to spend them, not ever, and if he had them, they’d be gone before the end of the day on drink, drugs, and a hooker. My sight went foggy when he cracked me square on the jaw before grabbing my overgrown hair and dragging me toward his shit heap of a car. “Get in the car, you fucking shit.”

  “Excuse me.”

  My stepfather swung around, taking me with him. “What?”

  The cream-suited man had approached, and the evil I saw in his eyes before was back with a vengeance. “This your stepdad, kid?” he asked, and I nodded as best I could with my head partially restrained. Mr. Cream Suit bobbed his head mildly, turning his attention to my stepfather. “Give the kid his money.”

  My stepfather scoffed. “Fuck you.”

  Without another word, no second chance or any warning, Mr. Cream Suit raised his gun and put a bullet clean between my stepfather’s eyes. My head got yanked back as he dropped to the ground, tearing out some of my hair from my scalp. Just like that. Bang. No second chances. Dead.

  Gone.

  Stepping forward and dipping, Mr. Cream Suit took the fifties from my dead stepfather’s hand and offered them to me. “No second chances,” he said, simple as that. “You got any family?”

  I took the notes and shook my head. “No, sir.”

  He slowly rose to his full height, his lips twisting. He was thinking. “Two fifties aren’t going to get you very far in life, are they?”

  At that moment, I felt like the richest kid in the world. But I knew a hundred quid didn’t go far. “I suppose not, Mister. Wanna gimme some more?” I threw him a cheeky grin, and he returned it.

  “Get in the car.”

  My eyes widened. “In your car?”

  “Yes, in my car. Get in.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re coming home with me.” On that note, he turned and started strolling away, leaving me chasing his heels.

  “But, Mister—”

  “Do you have anywhere else to go?” He continued walking, passing his gun to one of his men when he reached his shiny Merc.

  “No.”

  Lowering to his seat, he left the door open, looking at me standing outside his car. “You didn’t even flinch when he cuffed you.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt anymore. Besides,” I went on, feeling my scrawny chest puffing out, like this big, imposing stranger might be impressed, “I would never let him see even if it did.”

  He smiled. It was a broad smile, and I got the feeling they didn’t happen often. “I don’t give second chances.”

  I got straight in the car.

  Prologue - Part 2

  Miami—Ten Years Ago

  * * *

  ROSE

  * * *

  The pain was unbearable. My whole body contorted, tensing, trying to stem it. My bare back grazed the concrete stones beneath it, ripping at my flesh through my torn T-shirt as I squirmed, clenching my tummy, my cries high and howling. My long, dark, scraggly hair was wet with sweat and sticking to my face. It was suffocating. I thought I’d pass out at any moment. Maybe it would be best. Unconsciousness felt like the only way out of the endless pit of pain. Or death. But I didn’t want to die, especially since I finally had something to live for.

  I don’t know how long I’d been there. Hours. Days. Forever? My life felt like one big hole of agony.

  When would this be over?

  I rolled onto my side and curled up, making myself as small as possible. I was alone. Fifteen years old, just a girl, and I was alone.

  Always had been. Why now that hurt almost as much as the physical agony was beyond me. I cried. I screamed. Wave after wave of pain kept coming and coming. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t control it. I was helpless, at its mercy.

  “You silly girl.”

  The voice pierced the darkness and my pain, replacing it with fear. I quickly sat up and scrambled back until my back hit the rough bricks of the wall. I don’t know why. There was no escaping him.

  His expensive dress shoes hit the concrete before me, getting louder, more threatening as he got closer. He bent down, getting my cowering frame in his sights.

  And he smiled. He smiled so wide. “Let’s get you home, Rose.” He stood and clicked his fingers, magically making five men appear. Two scooped me up, just as another wave of pain took hold, bowing my back and having me wail in their arms.

  “She’s bleeding everywhere, for fuck’s sake,” one man grumbled, looking at me like I was the most disgusting creature in the universe. I said nothing. Accepted their revulsion. It was ironic that either of the two men carrying me might have been the reason for my state. I was virtually tossed onto the back seat of his swanky car, and then driven back to the place I’d not long escaped. The whole time, my fears started to counterbalance the pain.

  When we arrived, I was put in a wheelchair and rolled to a private room. Laid on the bed. Hooked up to machinery.

  A nurse hovered over me, as the men who’d carried me in guarded the door, ensuring I wouldn’t escape again. I couldn’t now if I wanted to. Fear paralyzed me and pain ruled me.

  Then I heard it.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  I dropped my head to the side and watched a glowing line slowly and consistently jump.

  “It’s weak, but there’s still a heartbeat,” a nurse said, looking back to the door when he walked in, joining his men.

  He gave me a look to suggest that I’d just dodged death by a whisper. I knew I had. But what about after this nightmare? Would it be worth surviving? And would this nightmare ever end?

  “Time to push, girl,” the nurse said, just as I was ambushed by another contraction, this one worse than any of the others. I threw my head back and screamed my way through it, begging and praying for relief.

  It took two pushes before a tiny body was dropped onto my chest, and I looked down, finding a little head covered in blood. Panic soon set in. My baby wasn’t crying.

  “A boy,” the nurse said, wiping at his little face roughly.

  “Is it alive?” he asked from the door.

  It. My son was an it. A nameless lump of life to the cold bastard by the door. To me, he was everything.

  The nurse slapped the perfect skin on my son’s ass, and then he screamed. He screamed so loud, like a message to the world that he’d arrived. I sighed and flopped back as the nurse cut his cord and lifted him to my breast.

  That fifteen minutes of him suckling the only goodness I had from me was the most amazing fifteen minutes of my life.

  Then he was ripped from my arms. “No!” I lunged forward to grab him as the nurse wrapped him tightly in a blanket and passed him to the devil by the door. “Please, no.” My sobs were instant, despite knowing what was coming. Shock was cutting my heart in two.

  “We made a deal, Rose,” he said, cradling my baby in his arms. “You can’t take care of him. What kind of life will he have living with you on the streets?”

 
A deal? You didn’t make a deal with this man. You did what you were told or you died.

  “He’s my only flesh and blood.” My insides twisted and yanked as another bout of pain sailed through me. I screamed, clenching my now empty tummy. What was this agony? Grief?

  “She’s hemorrhaging.” The nurse didn’t seem in a rush. She sounded calm too. I felt hot liquid pouring from my body, drenching the bed under my ass. “She’ll need a transfusion.”

  “Will she be able to carry again?” he asked from the door.

  “Unlikely.” The nurse was so blunt. So callous.

  My body seemed to drain of life and energy within seconds, and my eyes suddenly felt heavy, my hearing distorted. “Please don’t take him away from me,” I begged weakly.

  “He’ll have a lovely home. Loving parents who can give him everything you can’t. And in return, you get to live.” He looked to the nurse. “Give her the transfusion.” I hadn’t realized until then that the nurse had stopped working on me. She was waiting for his go-ahead to keep me alive?

  If I thought I’d felt pain, I was wrong. Watching him leave with my baby was excruciating. The last thing I saw that day was my baby’s tiny hand holding the wicked bastard’s finger—the little finger he wore that nasty serpent ring on. It was nearly as big as my son’s hand, and the emerald eyes of the snake were as blinding as my pain.

  Chapter 1

  Miami—Present Day

  * * *

  DANNY

  * * *

  The walk down the corridor toward his suite feels like miles, the sound of my shoes hitting the solid marble floor echoing around me. Our mansion smells like death. I’ve smelt death enough to recognize it, except right now it isn’t welcome. I feel like I’m walking the Green Mile, though it isn’t me who will be six feet under by the end.

  The two heavies flanking the solid wooden double doors outside his room look grave. Grief is hanging heavy in the air.

  Two sharp nods greet me when I come to a stop. Solemn nods. They don’t open the doors, they know not to until I give them the go-ahead. Until I’m ready. Am I?

  “Esther in there with him?” I ask, getting a nod in answer. I swallow and nod in return, taking a deep breath as the doors are opened for me. I wander in, pulling my suit jacket together, looking down my front to check for lint. It’s a conscious move, one to distract me, to delay me from looking up at the huge four-poster bed and face what I’m dreading. Grief blocks my throat, but I can’t show it. He’ll be pissed off if I show it.

  The sound of Esther moving around his room pulls my attention up, and I find her emptying his catheter bag. That alone makes my heart clench. The man is proud. Notorious. A fucking legend, feared by everyone in our world. His name alone makes people shudder. His presence injects fear like no other. I always thought he was invincible. He’d dodged dozens of attempts on his life, laughed in the face of the many assassination efforts. And here he is waiting to die at the hands of fucking cancer, unable to take care of himself anymore. Not even in the simplest of ways.

  I finally pull my eyes to the bed. My hero, my father, the legendary Carlo Black is half the man he used to be, the disease literally eating away at him. His breathing is loud. The death rattle. It won’t be long.

  Moving around the edge of his bed, I settle in the chair and take his emaciated hand. “Call the priest,” I say to Esther as she folds over the bed covers neatly at his waist.

  “Yes, Mr. Black.” She looks up at me, smiling in sympathy, and I look away, unable to entertain her silent offer of compassion.

  “Now,” I add shortly.

  She leaves the room, and every second she’s gone, his breathing seems to get louder and louder. “It’s time, Pops,” I say softly, moving in closer and resting my elbows on the mattress, cupping his one hand in both of mine.

  He hasn’t opened his eyes in two days, but now, as if he knows I’m here and it’s time to say goodbye, his lids twitch. He’s trying to see me. He knows I’m here. I rest my lips on our bunched hands, silently willing him strength to see me one last time. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until his glassy blue eyes are revealed, the brightness long gone, the whites of his eyes now yellow.

  He looks at me, vacant. “Hey,” he rasps, following it up with a shallow cough that makes his skinny body jerk a little.

  “Don’t talk,” I say, truly torn apart seeing him so weak.

  “Since when has it been acceptable for you to tell me what to do?”

  “Since you can’t shoot me,” I reply, and he chuckles, the sound so welcome, until it turns into another cough and a struggle for air. “Lay still.”

  “Fuck you.” He weakly squeezes my hand. “You come to say goodbye?”

  I swallow once again, forcing myself to hold up the front expected of me. “Yeah, and I’ve ordered you a sending-off present.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A nice piece of arse to ride your dying cock into heaven.”

  “It’s ass, not arse, you British piece of shit. All these years . . . been with me. You still talk like . . . like you fell out of Buck . . . ing . . . ham Palace.”

  “Asshole,” I mutter in a lousy American accent.

  Another chuckle, this time louder, therefore the cough is even more strained. I shouldn’t be making him laugh. But this is us. Always has been. Him delivering tough love, and me accepting it. Every single thing this man has done for me has been because he loves me. He’s the only person in this fucked-up world who ever has.

  Gazing up at me, he smiles that rare broad smile. I’ve only ever known him to use it on me. “Never trust anyone,” he warns, not that he needs to. He’s one of only two people I’ve ever trusted, and here he is dying, leaving only Brad. But Brad doesn’t love me like Pops loves me. “Don’t hesitate to kill,” he whispers.

  “Never have.” He knows that. After all, I learned from him.

  He takes a moment, trying to fill his lungs. “No second chances, remember?”

  “Of course.”

  “And f . . . fuck’s sake, learn how . . . to play poker.”

  I laugh, the sound pure joy, despite my eyes filling with tears. The sensation is alien. I’ve not cried since I was eight years old. My dire poker skills have been a bone of contention to my father all my life. He’s a pro. Wins every game. No one wants to take him on, but no one has ever refused. Not unless they wanted a bullet in their skull. “If you can’t teach me, I think I’m beyond help.” I really am. The only reason I win is because the poor fuckers playing me have an invisible gun pointed at their heads. Over the years, my father’s reputation has proceeded me.

  “True,” he rasps, his weak grin wicked. “My world is yours to rule now, kid.” He pulls my hands to his mouth and kisses my knuckles, then proceeds to remove the serpent ring off his pinky finger. Even the emerald eyes of the snake look dull. Lifeless.

  “Here,” I say, leaning in to help him, the gold and emerald ring loose, coming off with ease. I slide it onto my little finger, but I don’t look at it. Don’t want to see it on me. Never have. Because that will make it too fucking real.

  “Do me proud.” His eyes close, and he inhales, like he’s taking his final breath.

  “I will,” I vow, letting my forehead fall to the pillow. “Rest in peace, Mister.”

  As I’m pulling the suite door closed behind me, I run into Uncle Ernie, my father’s cousin. I have no fucking clue why I call him uncle, but Pops insisted, and I always listened to Pops. Ernie is the polar opposite of my dad, and by that I mean he’s a law-abiding citizen. He makes his millions legitimately on the stock market, and is an upstanding, respected member of the public. I always wondered how he and Pops gelled so well, given their contrasting ethics and morals. Maybe because Ernie is the only living relative of my father. Their relationship has always been an easy one, but that’s only because they had a mutual understanding to never discuss business. The respect and love Ernie had for my father was probably misplaced, given Pops’s dealin
gs, but I have many fond memories of them laughing together on the veranda over a Cuban and brandy.

  “You’re too late.”

  His shoulders drop, as well as his heavily wrinkled cheeks. Death is embedded into every crevice on his face. “I’m sorry, son. I know how much you adored that barbaric fucker.”

  I give him a meek smile, and he slips his arm around my shoulders, giving me a half hug.

  “You know what your old man always told me?” he asks.

  “That you’re wasted as a saint?”

  Uncle Ernie laughs and releases me, pulling out an envelope from his inside pocket. “Wasted? This saint saved your father’s skin more than once.”

  I smile, remembering a couple of those times. Once in New York when a small-time gangster thought he could jump up the ladder of power if he took out my father. Ernie saw him pulling his pistol and alerted Pops, who ducked in the nick of time. The culprit was tortured slowly by my father’s men. I was twelve years old. I watched it, every second of them plucking his nails from his fingers like they could have been tweezering unruly eyebrows. Then I watched them carve out my family emblem on his chest and pour acid into the wounds. I smiled my way through it. The arsehole had tried to kill the only human who’d ever looked out for me. So, yeah, he deserved every second of his time chained to that metal chair before he was electrocuted. It was me who turned on the power.

  Then there was another time in Costa Rica. I was fifteen. A whore my father was bedding at the time tried to take a knife to his chest while he slept. Ernie disturbed her. Turns out she was planted by the KGB. I never asked what happened to the whore.

  Not my business.

  “Here.” Ernie hands me the envelope. “Your father wanted me to give you this.”

  I accept it slowly, like it could be a bomb in disguise. “What is it?”

  “His last will and testament.” Ernie smirks. “He really was a sick fuck.” He winks and passes me, heading for my father’s room. “It details his wishes for his funeral too. There might be a problem, though.”