As we grew older, Luca became the dark prince he was groomed to be, and it had gotten harder and harder to resist the temptation and lure. When you grow up lower middle-class and always struggling, money and power can make a remarkable impression on the young male mind.
We wanted better.
We wanted it all.
I stood in the center of the warehouse next to one of my best friends, and we both had guns aimed at the two men strapped to the metal chairs before us. Luca and his father, Giovanni Benetti, stood behind us, looking on.
The room held about ten men, including the two men who were gagged and tied to the chairs. The rest of the men stood, forming an arch behind us, waiting for our next move.
It didn’t matter that these guys were pedophiles. It didn’t matter that we were judging them in a way only The Lord had the right to. It didn’t matter that every second I stood here I was jeopardizing my relationship and future with Frankie.
Frankie-the girl I’ve been in love with since we were seven-years-old; Ciro’s sister.
I glanced over at Ciro and, with the conviction of a thousand men, he looked back and gave me a tightly measured nod. I looked back at the men before us, raised my arm, aimed, and fired a hole clean through one man’s forehead while Ciro did the same to the other.
The room was silent for a few seconds before we turned around and handed the guns back to two of the sentinels that had been standing by. We handed them back without wiping them clean of our fingerprints as a show of loyalty and trust to Giovanni Benetti.
He stepped forward and shook both our hands. His smile was evil and powerful and there was no going back.
Luca was the next to shake our hands and it had felt like a homecoming. He was our best friend, and we knew he’d been doing this shit at a young age, but now we were more than best friends.
We were family in a way no one outside the Benetti Family could understand.
There was no way I was going to be able to keep this from Frankie much longer. Not when I planned on marrying her as soon as she graduated from college next semester. My only hope would be that she loved me enough to balance the life she wanted with the life I would now lead.
Little did I know that she already knew.
Little did I know that she would shatter everything I believed we were.
Little did I know that I would lose my mind when the dust settled.
It was the first step to the obliteration of my soul as it existed.
Chapter 1
Phoenix – 2019~
I should have been home hours ago.
Normally, a hit took no time at all. They called me The Holy Ghost for a reason. And the reason? I was in and out within minutes without anyone ever setting eyes on me.
When I was working, I was invisible.
When I was working, I didn’t exist.
Sure, on paper, I existed.
On paper, I was clean as a whistle.
On paper, I was a respectable accountant, and I even had a degree in my name that claimed I had the proper credentials to manage someone’s money.
In reality, I was the Benetti Family’s number one hitman, and I was good at what I did. Never missed a mark, and no one ever knew it was me doing the marking. The only other souls on the planet that ever knew my agenda were Giovanni Benetti, Morgan City’s Mob Boss, Luca Benetti, the Underboss, and my best friend, Ciro Mancini, who just happened to be the Benetti Family’s number one enforcer.
My hits were so high profile that no one outside us four knew my kill count. In six short years, I went from a Mafia soldier to the Benetti’s most prolific killer.
And I was fucking great at it.
Granted, what else did a person become when they had no soul? And, tonight, I was in Neil Hansen’s home waiting patiently to put a bullet through his head.
Now, usually, my homework was spot on. I knew everything about my mark before I made my move. And I mean every-fucking-thing. I left nothing to chance. It was how my kill count was so high and I wasn’t behind bars for life.
Well, for a couple of lives if they only knew.
However, tonight had thrown me a curve when Neil’s mistress arrived on his doorstep, weeping uncontrollably, claiming to be pregnant with his child.
Normally, every Thursday afternoon, Neil Hansen sent his wife to a luxurious spa salon to get the works. He manipulated her into this tradition by convincing her that she needed to look her best in case he wanted to whisk her away to The Bahamas at the last minute. Leslie Hansen thought it romantic, but if the dingbat only knew the truth. Good, ol’ Neil sent her to the spa, so he could get his dick sucked by…wait for it…his workout trainer, who was thirty years his junior and a he.
Don’t let Neil’s pregnant mistress fool you. Respectable Neil Hansen had a boatload of sexual proclivities he indulged in.
A ship size boatload.
So, with his dick sucked, relaxed, and unsuspecting, it should have been easy-peasy to slip in, put a bullet in his head, and slip out.
But, no.
Enter the hysterical, pregnant girlfriend.
Now, while there’ve been very few in my lifetime as a Mafia hitman, I didn’t relish killing women. The women I have put down were sex traffickers or worse, if you can believe there’s something worse out there. But, trust me,
