The Underboss's Secret: Ten Years Of Obsession

Serena POV

Elena's hand remained on Dante's arm. She turned her head to look at me, her mouth forming a smile of saccharine pity.

She mentioned, her tone light and conversational, that he had just moved his entire base of operations to the industrial district, a decision made purely to be nearer to her.

The words were a physical impact, sharp and stinging.

I forced my own features into a mask of placid indifference and gave a slow, measured nod, as if the information were of no consequence.

They walked out of the café, a single, fluid unit.

I watched through the rain-streaked glass windows as they climbed into a massive, bulletproof SUV.

The hulking vehicle pulled into the gray afternoon and was gone, leaving me in its wake.

I walked home in the pouring rain.

The frigid water seeped through the thin fabric of my coat, but the chill did little to touch the cold, hollow space that had opened up in my chest.

As I pushed open the door to my apartment, its peeling paint sticking to the frame, the familiar miasma of stale beer and cigarette smoke met me.

My brother, Leo, was lounging on the torn sofa, his boots propped up on the coffee table, leaving fresh scratches in the wood.

He was a Soldier in the syndicate, a low-level parasite who sustained himself by feeding on my earnings.

A greedy, calculating light entered Leo's eyes the moment he saw me.

He announced with a swell of pride that his mobster girlfriend had accepted his proposal of marriage, but her family required a gesture of commitment.

He needed twenty-thousand dollars—a buy-in to secure his position within their ranks.

At the mention of money, my mother emerged from the cramped kitchen, her eyes alight with a frantic, grasping hope.

She promised him the sum would be found, no matter what it took.

Then, she turned to me, her expression hardening into a mask of vicious disappointment.

She demanded to know how my sit-down with the syndicate matchmaker went, and I told her it was a failure.

Her hand moved in a blur, and a sharp, burning sting exploded across my cheek, my head snapping to the side with the force of the blow.

She screamed that I was useless, ordering me to accept the forced marriage to the widowed Capo.

She spat the words out, her voice thick with contempt, explaining that the old man was offering a substantial price for a young, untouched bride—blood money to finance Leo's future.

A profound, sickening cold washed over me.

I stared at the woman who had given me life, my own voice a tremor as I asked if I was nothing more than an asset to be liquidated for Leo's pathetic ambitions.

My mother did not even blink. She stated, her tone as cold and flat as a coroner's slab, that it was my duty to the family.

Her callous eyes were a portal to a decade past, to a dark night on the damp floor of a warehouse.

My mother had offered me to a loan shark as collateral, a bargaining chip to settle a debt from a street brawl Leo had started.

I had been a child then, sobbing on the cold concrete.

And then, Dante had appeared.

That rusted iron door was kicked open on the Don's absolute command. He alone stepped over the blood-fouled floor as flames licked at the warehouse rafters—a rival's accelerant turning a simple shakedown into an inferno. His knuckles were split and raw from a fight I hadn't witnessed, and his shirt was missing a cufflink I would not find until years later. He invoked the law to prove Leo had acted in self-defense, clearing the debt and, in the same motion, dragging me from the mire. The Don buried the incident so completely that my mother's reputation remained spotless—the whole sordid affair entombed in the silence of Omerta.

I looked at my mother and brother now, and a terrible clarity settled in my bones.

I finally understood. Dante had saved me from the predators outside my home, but he could never protect me from the ones who shared my blood.