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  “Then I’d say you’re Abandonato, through and through.” He flashed me a grin. The bartender placed the beer in front of Campisi. He sipped for a few minutes then turned to me. “Come out of hiding and I’ll give you a prize.” His voice was so damn taunting I wanted to punch his teeth out.

  “Found one in my Cracker Jack box this morning.” I shrugged. “Bad ass little yo-yo that doesn’t talk shit. So sorry, but I think I’ll pass.”

  Sergio groaned into his hands.

  I rolled my eyes.

  And Campisi stood, gripping my shoulders with his hands, digging his fingers into the skin. “You come out of hiding. You work for your Family. You work in peace with the De Langes and I’ll give you more than a yo-yo.”

  “Oh yeah?” I knew it was only a matter of time before I was pulled back in, before my past would come back to haunt me. “What’s that?”

  “Amy.” Campisi said it so softly I almost didn’t hear. “I know where she is, and your very first job… to prove your worth and loyalty and all around excitement at being offered a position within the Family?” He chuckled. “You get to go get her.”

  I gulped and stared hard at the glass still in my right hand. “Where is she?”

  “If I tell you — that’s it. That’s your agreement, Ax.”

  “I hate this life.”

  “But you love her.” Campisi nodded slowly. “And because her father, a.k.a. shit-for-brains, is on the prowl you better hope you get to her before he does.”

  “Why?”

  Campisi picked up a trail of condensation with one finger and rubbed it off with his thumb. “She has something he wants.” He said as if we were discussing last nights game. “Something Nixon wants, something I want… something all of us want… and I highly doubt he’s going to let her live when he finds it. He’s lost his damn mind, gone rogue, refuses to report to any of us. He’s insane and he has a gun… but sure…” Campisi slapped me on the cheek twice. “You could always stay in hiding, cramped away from the world while she fights for her life to survive it. Good idea.”

  I jolted from my seat and tried to punch him in the face.

  Sergio grabbed my arm just in time.

  Campisi smiled. “I just love when business deals work out, don’t you?” He tilted his head towards Sergio and slowly waltzed out of the damn bar like he was king.

  And the sick part?

  To all of us?

  To the five Families?

  He was worst.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Amy

  I HATED IT. I hated every second of it. But I didn’t know what else I could do. I had just been fired from my waitressing job for being late too many times, but that was because I was struggling to finish college. It wasn’t like I was out back getting high or selling drugs or anything.

  No. I was just associated with the mafia.

  Not the good kind.

  The family everyone hated.

  My mother died shortly after the incident that night, and my father all but disappeared. The foster care system let me go back to my home to grab a few things. I grabbed as much as I could. And then they sent me to home after home after home.

  And each time they discovered what my name was — I was shipped to another home.

  My suitcase broke after the third home so everything was transferred into two large black trash bags. To this day I couldn’t take out the trash without getting severe stomach cramps.

  The last family was the nicest. But by then I only had another month left in the system. Sergio had called a few times and told me that although he was in hiding, I could stay at one of his houses, but the last thing I wanted to do was depend on someone who blamed me for his brother’s death. So the minute I graduated, I got the hell out Chicago and headed down south. Even working as a waitress while paying my way through school sounded like more fun than staying in the one place that was filled with memories of him---of his life---his death.

  Finally, I’d found my heat.

  The sun always felt good against my face. I could always rely on it to rise every day. And every day I knew it would stare down at me; its rays would fall against my skin and I knew it was just another day I was given a chance to make something of myself. Something that would make Ax proud.

  I swallowed the knot in my throat.

  He wouldn’t be proud now.

  He’d be disgusted. But I’d exhausted all other options. The waitressing job had barely kept me afloat as it was, and I needed money — fast.

  The neon sign flashed in my line of vision. I gripped my cheap fake leather purse tighter against my shoulder and winced as my world caved in around me.

  Hiring Dancers! Next to the sign was another. Topless! Dollar Jell-O shots after 11:00!

  Each word was like a punch to the gut. Slowly, I forced one foot to follow the other until I reached the blacked-out door.

  With trembling fingers I clenched the knob and twisted.

  Low heady music played in the background, but the place was empty of customers. The man behind the bar was cleaning glasses and watching something ahead of him. I turned to follow his gaze as three women started dancing in synchronization on the stage. I should have turned around and ran, but he saw me.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Um…” It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, but as I backed up into what I thought was a wall, strong hands gripped the sides of my arms.

  “What have we here?”

  I turned and gasped. The man was ugly as sin. A long scar ran from his eyebrow all the way across his face, the flesh was pulled tight but at the wrong angle making his face looked like a mismatched quilt.

  “I, uh, saw the ad.” I pointed to the door, careful to avert my eyes from his scary face. “For dancers.”

  “You have any experience?” he asked in a gravelly voice as he winked at the bartender. Heat invaded my face. I was so embarrassed, so ashamed. Tears threatened.

  “No, but I’m a quick learner,” I finally said, our gazes meeting again.

  The man’s smile turned hungry. “I bet you are, beautiful.”

  “You know—” I gave a half hearted laugh and started to sidestep him. “—maybe I’m wrong, maybe I should just leave, you know, yeah that’s a good idea I’ll—”

  “Three hundred dollars,” he whispered, his hand moved to my arm.

  I stopped.

  “My girls make three hundred a night on a bad night, five if it’s good. We’re one of the only topless bars that offers cheap booze.”

  Great, so I’d have cheap drunks to look forward to along with losing my morals.

  “So?” He tilted his head. “What do you say?”

  I closed my eyes, briefly apologizing to my mom, to Axton, to everyone in my life who’d ever believed in me and told me I was going to make something of myself one day.

  I waved goodbye to the straight-A student who just wanted to see a palm tree, and when I opened my eyes I shook hands with the devil and whispered, “When do I start?”

  A person will do anything to survive… anything.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Amy

  THREE HOURS OF “training” and I was ready for my debut. The training consisted of girls teaching me all the things I should be careful of when dancing. Never let a man pull you into a dark corner — unless he pays. No sex — unless he pays. No touching—unless he pays. When I told them I thought it was just dancing, they laughed at me.

  Apparently money really did talk and the girls were willing to do anything to make more of it. I was surprised to find out that a few of them were pretty well off, making more than what someone would start out working full-time with a degree, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

  It was what I was doing.

  Dancing, basically naked, in front of people, and earning money for it. Earning money for my skinny, barely fed body.

  I was fit, only because I was forced to walk everywhere.

  I was tan because walking meant I was outside a
ll the time.

  And I was skinny because oatmeal and Top Ramen were the only two things I had in my apartment at any given time.

  The last chocolate cake I had was for my sixteenth birthday. Funny, my twenty-second birthday had been yesterday.

  The day I’d gotten fired.

  The same day I’d finally given up.

  No cake. No candles. No Axton. I closed my eyes against the painful memories.

  “What’s your wish?” Axton whispered, holding the cake up so I could blow out the single candle he’d put there. “Tell me.”

  “I want a palm tree.”

  He laughed. “In Chicago?”

  “No silly, in Florida, or Texas, or California, just… somewhere warm. I want a palm tree in my yard.”

  His expression grew serious. “And if I can’t let you go?”

  My heart sped up. “Then you’ll have to find a way to bring me the warmth here…”

  He moved an inch closer to me, his mouth so close to mine I could almost taste him, then he lifted the cake and whispered, “Blow.”

  It was hard enough breathing let alone blowing out a single candle, but I did it.

  He set the cake down and pulled me in for a hug. “I won’t let you go. So I guess I better figure out a way to keep you warm, huh?”

  “You let me know when you have the answer,” I mumbled against his chest.

  “On your eighteenth birthday,” he vowed. “I’ll tell you then… it will give you something to look forward to.”

  Silly that on my eighteenth birthday I sat outside the foster home I was in and waited for him. As if he’d suddenly come back to life and come rescue me.

  I cried for him that day.

  I cried for me.

  “New girl!” Someone clapped in front of my face. “Time to get dressed!”

  With a sigh, I stood and followed her into a tiny dressing room where girls were piling on layers of makeup and hairspray like it mattered what they looked like when all the men were just there to get drunk and horny.

  “Here.” She tossed something black at me and moved in front of a mirror to fluff her hair.

  I lifted up the measly scrap of fabric and nearly choked. “What is this?”

  “It’s a type of leotard.” She shrugged, still not taking her eyes off the mirror. “It barely covers the girls, but gets the guys wild because it still leaves a bit to the imagination. You’re lucky the manager doesn’t make you go out there topless, everyone else had to when they started.”

  “Oh.” I clutched the leotard tighter. “So where do I change?”

  The girls all stopped what they were doing, shared a look, and burst out laughing. The one named Sherry winked. “You ain’t got nothing we haven’t seen before, kid. Now strip.”

  Strip.

  My new job title.

  With a gulp, I slowly began doing just that, hands shaking the whole time.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Axton

  MY DAMN PALMS were sweaty as I drove to the location Sergio had given me. I hadn’t been out for years.

  Years.

  I’d been a ghost, just like my brother, not really existing. Living on one of the large family ranches. We had more money than we knew what to do with, and I was more than happy to sit there and finish my PhD, not that I’d probably ever be able to use it, all things considered. My last name was either like being a celebrity in Chicago or a death dealer. It wasn’t rare to see someone drop my credit card with trembling hands or freaking bow. Yes, a teen actually bowed to me at the gas station and then asked if it was all true.

  And I wanted to say was, “yeah let me show you my gun.”

  Instead I told him I had no idea what he was talking about.

  I’d only gone to prison for a few months. The feds couldn’t tack anything to me or most of my family.

  But my father? They had loads of shit on him and a few other lucky ones. So while I was set free to live out my miserable existence, they still rotted behind bars.

  I had my brother back now and an empty mansion.

  And guns, lets not forget the guns, and other weaponry and enough fancy cars to make a sixteen-year-old boy shit himself.

  But what was that life without some sort of meaning?

  I’d trained since boyhood to be part of the Family. To do what was right. To protect Family — blood. But in the end my own blood had betrayed me, a deal with the De Langes gone bad. My father was trying to impress the boss and ended up blowing our covers to Hell.

  I tapped the steering wheel of the Mercedes again.

  One more mile.

  Alabama, of all the places for Amy to end up in, why the hell had she chosen Florence, Alabama?

  I pulled into the parking lot and checked the address on my navigation. It said I was at the right spot, but Sergio had said she was a waitress.

  I checked the address again.

  At a strip club?

  Pissed off all over again at my brother, I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. The music made me sick. I had never been a guy for strip clubs, they seemed cheap… like the type of thing men went to when they weren’t confident enough to actually ask a girl out or take her on a nice date.

  Disgusted, I opened the door and winced. The smell of smoke filled the air, burning my nostrils. The place was packed.

  I searched anxiously for Amy, all I needed to do was grab her, stuff her in the car if need be, and then hightail it out of Hell. I needed to bring her back where she belonged, right the wrong, and hopefully not scare her to death considering she thought I was dead.

  The lights lowered as dancers exited the stage.

  Still no Amy.

  I started making my way towards a security guard who was standing on the far side of the room nearest the stage, when a booming voice sounded over the speakers.

  “Tonight we have a special treat for you!” The voice made my ears hurt. A drunken group of college guys pushed in front of me and ran to the stage with dollar bills. Swear my finger twitched on the gun in the back of my pants. But I refrained — barely.

  “Hey,” I said loudly to the security guard. “I’m looking for a girl.”

  “Keep moving.” He glared.

  I could take him, I knew this, he probably knew this, but he didn’t move, or even make eye contact, instead his head was leaning forward so he could see the stage.

  “She’s young,” the voice continued. “And so innocent.”

  More hoots from the crowd.

  “She needs money for college! And who are we to keep her from getting her education?” More cheers. “Please welcome Amy—”

  I pushed past the security guard. When he tried to grab me, I turned on my heel and elbowed him in the throat, possibly breaking something — ask me if I cared.

  I ran down the hall and nearly collided with a man holding a microphone. “Listen you bitch, I already announced you. You have to go on.”

  “No.” Her voice was weak. “I thought I could do it, but I can’t. I can’t. Please don’t make me do it!”

  He slapped her.

  And I snapped.

  With a curse I lunged for him, slamming his body against the wall; the microphone dropped out of his hand.

  “Who are you?” he spat, fighting against me.

  With a grin, I answered, “The angel of death.” And knocked him out with a right hook breaking a few teeth in the process as blood poured from his nose and mouth.

  When I turned around to see if Amy was all right, she was immobile, her face ashen. She swayed forward.

  I caught her just before she hit the ground, lifted her over my shoulder, and walked as fast as I could out of that hell hole.

  Hands shaking with rage, I buckled her in the front seat, careful not to look at her body as I gently placed her legs inside the car. Anger slammed through me, clouding my vision as I belted her into the front seat. My hands shook so badly it took me three tries to finally latch the buckle—a fourth try would have had me ripping the damn thing
from the car and saying to hell with it. I couldn’t control the damn shaking, couldn’t control the anger that I’d kept at bay for five years. Anger that Sergio had forced me to do the unthinkable, anger that my family had told me that the De Langes would never find out. And of course there was also the anger that it was my fault she was in this position in the first place.

  I shut the door and then promptly kicked the tire until my foot hurt. When that didn’t make me feel better I got in the car and started the engine. It would be a hell of a long drive back to Chicago, especially with me threatening to go all Hulk at any second, but we had a few stops to make first. I had no one to blame but myself, it had been my bright idea not to fly. I thought it would give me time to think about things.

  But my decision to “find myself” had almost ended up in disaster. What if I had arrived five minutes later? What if she had gone on stage? What if he had hit her again?

  My knuckles were white as I gripped the steering wheel. I drove towards her small apartment, the only other address Sergio had given me, and parked in front of it.

  She still hadn’t woken up.

  When I whispered her name, she didn’t budge.

  Panicked, I called Sergio.

  When he didn’t answer… I begrudgingly called the boss, Nixon.

  “What?” he barked into the phone. “Any trouble?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” I said tersely. “But, she passed out.”

  “So wake her up.”

  “She won’t wake up.” Did whispering her name count as trying to wake her?

  A long pause, then, “Did you hurt her? I swear if you hurt her I’m going to—”

  “No!” I yelled. “What the hell, Nixon! I’m your cousin! I wouldn’t touch her.” Not in that way. My eyes roamed her body. I hated myself in that moment, hated that when I thought about touching her, my entire core heated like someone had tried to set me on fire but forgotten to blow out the flame. It burned, and burned, and burned. I was consumed with the need to touch her.

  “Ax?”