Playing Prey For The Mafia King

The rain did not fall; it slammed into the earth.

Lila stood at the edge of Woodlawn Cemetery, her cheap black trench coat soaking through to her skin. The heavy drops battered the fabric of her umbrella. The cold seeped into her bones, making her jaw ache.

She stood perfectly still under the shadow of a massive oak tree. Her right hand was shoved deep into her coat pocket. Her fingers wrapped around a string of black wooden rosary beads. She squeezed them. She squeezed them until the sharp edges of the crosses bit into her palm, until her knuckles turned a bloodless white. The rosary had been her mother's. The only thing left of her.

Fifty yards away, Arthur Sterling Sr.'s mahogany casket was being lowered into the muddy ground.

Lila stared at the dark hole in the earth. Her stomach twisted into a tight, hard knot. The metallic taste of adrenaline flooded the back of her throat. She had stood at a graveside like this once before. The casket then had been white.

A line of five black, bulletproof Cadillac SUVs crawled up the cemetery driveway. The heavy tires crushed the wet gravel. They stopped in a perfect, synchronized line just outside the crowd of mourners.

Doors opened. Over a dozen men in custom black suits stepped out into the downpour. Their faces were blank. Their hands hovered near their waistbands. They formed a human wall, pushing the crowd back.

Donovan Sterling stepped out of the lead vehicle. The current godfather of the Sterling family leaned heavily on a silver-handled cane. His eyes were dead, scanning the crowd with the warmth of a reptile. Lila had studied his face for years — from newspaper clippings, from courthouse photographs, from the grainy security footage her handler had spread across a conference table two years ago. This family, the handler had said, tapping a photograph, ordered the hit. We just can't prove it yet. Lila had not looked at the photograph of her mother's crime scene after that. She hadn't needed to.

Valerie, his wife, followed. She adjusted the black lace veil over her face with a gloved hand. Her movements were slow, deliberate, and entirely performative.

Lila's gaze slid right past them. Her eyes locked onto the heavy, reinforced door of the final SUV.

A bodyguard reached out and pulled the handle. A pair of polished, custom-made leather shoes stepped onto the waterlogged asphalt.

Leo "Viper" Sterling stepped out of the car.

He wore a tailored black suit that stretched tight across his broad shoulders. A bodyguard immediately rushed forward, holding a massive black umbrella over him.

Leo swatted the man's arm away. The gesture was sharp, annoyed. He stepped out from under the cover, letting the freezing rain hit his dark hair.

He tilted his head back. His eyes, dark and entirely hollow, swept over the gravestones. A slow, mocking smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.

This was the man. Not Donovan — Donovan was old, careful, the kind of monster who kept his hands clean.

Lila stopped breathing. Her lungs burned. The hatred hit her so hard her knees actually weakened. She bit down hard on her lower lip. The skin broke. A drop of warm copper blood coated her tongue. She swallowed it down.

Leo walked toward the grave. He didn't look at the casket. He stopped and turned his head, looking directly at his father, Donovan.

The air between the two men seemed to drop ten degrees. It was a silent, violent collision of power.

Valerie stepped forward. She reached out, trying to loop her arm through Leo's to present a united front for the cameras.

Leo shifted his shoulder, stepping out of her reach without even looking at her. Valerie's hand grabbed empty air.

He reached inside his suit jacket. He pulled out a silver Zippo lighter and a cigarette.

Right there, at the edge of his grandfather's open grave, surrounded by priests and weeping relatives, Leo put the cigarette between his lips. He flicked the Zippo. The blue flame flared, illuminating the sharp, cruel angles of his jaw.

He took a drag. He tilted his head back and blew a thick cloud of gray smoke into the pouring rain.

Lila's grip on the rosary tightened until she thought the beads might crack. She had promised herself she would feel nothing when she finally stood in the same air as him. She had trained for three years to feel nothing. She had been wrong.

This was the closest she had ever been to him. Fifty yards. Forty-nine steps. She had counted them.

She was not here to close that distance. Not tonight. Tonight, she was here to be seen.

She slowly tilted the edge of her black umbrella up. Just two inches.

A gust of freezing wind swept through the cemetery. It caught the hem of her cheap trench coat, blowing it back to expose her bare calves. The wind whipped her dark hair across her pale face.

Leo's gaze drifted lazily over the crowd. The smoke curled around his face.

Then, his eyes stopped.

Across fifty yards of pouring rain and gray fog, his gaze locked onto the shadow under the oak tree. He found her.

Lila forced her eyes wide. She let her chest heave. She projected every ounce of the terror she knew a normal girl would feel under that stare. She looked like a deer that had just realized it was standing in the middle of a wolf den.

She was not a deer. But he could never know that. Not yet.

Leo's fingers stopped moving. The cigarette burned close to his knuckles. His eyes narrowed. The boredom vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, predatory sharpness.

He didn't look away. He stared right through the rain, right at her, and the mocking smirk returned to his lips. It was a promise of violence.

Lila jerked her head down. She yanked the umbrella lower, hiding her face completely.

She turned on her heel. Her cheap boots splashed in the puddles as she walked fast toward the cemetery exit. She didn't run, but she moved with the frantic energy of prey.

Her mother's rosary beads pressed into her palm with every step.

She left the graveyard, leaving the image of her terrified eyes burned into the Viper's mind. The first move had been made. The game had begun.