Deviant Prince [Romano Brotherhood, #2]

25 | Massimo

At fourteen, my name became a whisper on the streets. With both parents dead or thought to be, many assumed my brothers and I had perished with them, or didn't care enough to assume. But my father, despite his strengths, managed to make enough enemies in his time that some were singularly dedicated to my demise.

By age sixteen, I had over twenty hits ordered on me. All active at the same time. And everywhere I went, I could practically taste it. The desire to wipe us out was tangible. It hung in the air and clung to every interaction I had; two seconds of eye contact with a stranger, the accidental brushing of a shoulder on a crowded street.

My brothers and I were not going to survive. And then I saved us.

After that, surviving was all we knew how to do. As the oldest son of Caporegime Antonio Romano, those streets were either going to become my empire or my grave. And I quickly discovered the only drug I'd ever become addicted to, the one thing that made surviving worth it.

Power.

To Italians, family comes second to nothing. Family is someone you can respect, an ally, someone to defer to. And in the organization, there is no business—no power—without family. 

But I never had my father like that. Once he gave up on us, it only increased his strengths as a businessman. He didn't let love or pride cloud his judgment. But while he couldn't feel love, he could feel hatred. It consumed him. Ruined him. 

So what I had from my father was his name, following me around like an illness impossible to shake. It made me indifferent. I thought little of legacy and progeny. There was nothing to value, nothing to hold on equal ground with good business, with power and wealth. I wasn't here because of my family. I was here because of me. If I could feel love, I would feel it for my brothers and nobody else.

But even love wouldn't change the reality of our upbringing. At some point my indifference sharpened into desire; I want the Romano name to end with me and my brothers. This family doesn't know how to be preserved. We know how to survive. We know how to be brothers, not fathers.

The power and wealth I've built is an empire that will die with me. It works for me and my brothers. I have never tried to open its doors for anyone else, and I never will.

As I watch Vivienne sleep, something burns in my chest, and I don't know why.

She crumped to the floor in the hallway as if she had been shot. I knew she hadn't been, but I'd seen it happen many times. I have never known one person who died from natural causes, and I doubt I ever will. I myself will likely expire at some point before old age kicks in—that, or I'll be riding out a life sentence.

I would rather die before the latter happens—and I always manage to get what I want—so my fate is sure. But not for her. She is going to live longer, live right to the end of a lengthy, satisfying life, and she'll probably find someone she wants beside her for all of it. People tend to do that.

When it comes to Vivienne, I tend to find satisfaction in all thoughts relating to her. But not that one.

Like all the other new things beating at my chest, I can hardly stand it. The only soft part of me is reserved for my brothers. Even that part is worn out and empty, but it used to operate better.

When we were young, one of the hits ordered on me got carried out on Tommaso. Santo and I found him in a ditch with a hole in his chest. Afterwards, Santo told me that I had been incoherent. I wasn't sure if I was watching my brother die or waiting for him to be saved, and that did something to me. The languages I learned as a child—Spanish, Russian, French, and later some Japanese and Arabic— became a senseless jumble in my head. I was reduced to disjointedness.