Page 36 of The Price of Power

Somewhere along the line, I’d started relaxing a little too much in my brother’s chair, but at the mention of respect, I straightened up.

“You think our men lack confidence in me?”

It was a serious concern. Right after our Uncle Sal’s betrayal, trust among the ranks out on the street was at an all-time low. Everyone from the capos down wanted assurance that the organization was as strong as it had been under my father’s rule. I’d done my best to calm their fears, immediately taking control and quickly dealing with anyone still holding on to a misguided allegiance to my dead uncle.

The neighborhood mortuaries were busy that week.

But after cleaning house, the D’Angelo family seemed to be back on steady ground. If anything, the bloody and brutal rumors that had swept through the streets afterward had made us more feared than ever before.

Thankfully, Matteo quickly shook his head.

“It’s not our men I’m worried about,” he said. “Their allegiance to you and to the D’Angelo name is as strong as ever. It’s the other families that concern me.”

A month ago, back when I’d merely been the underboss of the organization, I wouldn’t have taken my brother’s concern seriously. Who the hell cared about the other New York families? None of them came close to our power and wealth.

But now that I was Boss, I couldn’t shrug things off so easily. I was responsible for too many loyal men. Too many families and livelihoods.

“What have you heard?” I asked Matteo, leaning forward in my seat.

“Nothing yet,” he admitted. “But something tells me it’s only going to be a matter of time before this story about you going soft and letting Theo Collins off the hook hits the streets.”

I shook my head and pointed toward the ceiling. “The bastard’s sister is upstairs, sitting on my bed right now, and will be for the next three months. I wouldn’t call that ‘off the hook.’”

Matteo’s expression stayed as flat as ever. “What about the Costas? You think they wouldn’t jump at the chance to toss one of their pretty little sisters or cousins at you to get out of a seven-figure debt?”

I recoiled in disgust at the thought. My brother knew better than to put that image in my mind. There was no way I would ever fuck a Costa, let alone allow one into my house for months at a time.

“Anyone who suggests that deal to me will be buried the next day in a closed casket,” I said.

“Then explain to me why Theo’s mother isn’t planning a funeral right now?” Matteo asked. He was one of the only people who could get a pass for talking to me so plainly.

Another one was sitting upstairs, waiting for me right now.

“Because the bastard was too much of a coward to come out and face me himself,” I told him. “Instead, the son-of-a-bitch sent his sister to do the job for him. The sniveling bastard didn’t even tell her what she was walking into. The woman thought she was walking into a damned business negotiation.”

Matteo’s brows pulled together in confusion. “And you took pity on her?”

Pity—there was another word that was never mentioned in the same breath as me.

“No.” I shook my head. “Absolutely not. The only thing I took was her.”

“So, she’s a hostage?”

Fuck, no. Hostages were what two-bit bank robbers took when they got in over their heads. Liv was a goddamn concubine.

“She’s mine.”

I hit the last word hard. Between Liv and Theo, my patience had been tested too much in the last twenty-four hours. The last thing I needed was for my own brother to think he could do the same.

My take-no-shit tone must have worked because Matteo closed his mouth and leaned back in his chair, nodding.

“Fine,” he said with a resigned sigh. “Keep the woman if that’s what you want. Just don’t go soft on the Collins’ in the process. Show the other families you’re every bit as scary as the papers make you out to be. If Theo thinks he can pay you off with his sister, show him you mean business. Take the girl and his company. Take every penny that family has, then run the bastard out of the country. Make him hide in fear as he grows old, poor, and alone. Make an example of him. It’s what Papà would have done.”

Matteo was right.

That was exactly the kind of revenge our father would have taken on a cowardly deadbeat like Theo Collins. It was the kind of action that had made the D’Angelos the most feared family in New York.

And if I wanted to prove to everyone in this city—in the world—that I was a worthy successor, then I needed to do the same.