King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)

The fight started not long after that. The bloodlust was high. The crowd brayed and shouted when Bran flexed his huge shoulders and squared up against the first contender drunk and deluded enough to think he stood a chance against the Irishman. Bran didn’t stretch it out. With a pointed look at me, he knocked the first three guys out with the first punch.

Sworn enemy or not… it was hot.

Sol stood beside me, her hands curled into fists.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “Sure. It’s hardly the first time someone has liked you over me. Why am I even friends with you, remind me again?” She grinned and nudged me, but her tone was flat.

“You had me going there,” I admitted, my heart fast and my palms sweating.

“Seriously, it’s okay. I mean, looking at him now, it’s hard to see what I thought was hot,” Sol admitted.

I turned back to the fight. Bran took down competitors with ease, the Lost Boy of Hell’s Kitchen in his element. Enrico, on the other hand, was a pale, trembling mess in the corner, his friends trying to prop him up when it was clear he was shitting himself.

Watching Bran O’Connor, my brother’s enemy, effortlessly dominate whoever went against him was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. My panties were a mess. I had no control over the wild lust raging through me as I watched Bran fight his way through the line of men who’d always secretly thought they’d be a match for an O’Connor.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him, my problems fleeing my mind for the first time all night.

If you hook up with him, Elio will kill you, a little voice reminded me. Maybe it was time that my brother realized I was an adult, and I’d do whatever, and whoever, I wanted.

When it was finally Enrico’s go, Bran turned to find me again in the crowd, his gaze hitting mine and then dropping down suggestively. A reminder. Take your panties off, wait in the bathroom, and bend over the sink for me.

I heard the command as clearly as if he’d whispered it in my ear. Elio would probably kill him if he knew what he’d said to me. If he knew what he’d like to do to me… he’d take him out with a sniper rifle while he was drinking his morning coffee tomorrow.

Doesn’t that only make him more interesting, though?

“Can we go to the ladies’ room?” Sol asked.

“Sure, let’s go,” I replied and followed her through the ballroom. I didn’t need to see Bran pound Enrico into the ground. It was a given.

Inside the women’s restroom, I stared at my reflection in the mirror over the sink while Sol washed her hands. I was flushed, my eyes huge. Excited. I wasn’t familiar with this breathless look on my face. Interesting.

“You okay?” I asked my friend.

Sol rolled her eyes. “Please, of course I am. I mean, it’s embarrassing for Enrico, but it really does cure a crush quick. I mean, you know he came with a date, right?”

“What? He did? I didn’t see anyone with him.”

He’d come with someone, and Sol had still been hoping he’d chat her up? Oh, Solaria. Terrible taste in men didn’t come much worse than Sol’s.

“I think he ditched her most of the night,” Sol sighed, fluffing her hair.

“Lucky girl,” I muttered and checked my lipstick.

A text came through from my brother. I’d skipped the ceremony back at Casa Nera. He wasn’t pleased.

“I’m heading back out. One more drink for the road. My brother will want us to leave soon,” Sol muttered and smoothed her hair. “Ok, I’ll see you out there. I want to see Enrico bleed.”

I nodded, distracted from following her by Elio’s message.

You should be here, Giada. This is family business. Come as soon as you get this.

Pass.

I struggled to see eye to eye with my older brother lately. Sure, I knew he had some stuff going on. After what had happened when we were young, Elio had been shipped off to the military at a young age, while I was put in the dismissive, judgmental care of a very removed aunt. She’d done her best to teach me how to pretty myself up and cook and look after the men of the house, when all I’d wanted to do was sneak off and work away on the computer the town library had let me use after hours. Those had been the happy times, alone in the library at night, learning to program from thick dusty books that no one else in our backward little village had ever checked out. When Aunt Mena had found me there, she’d taken me home by the ear and locked my room at night. She’d forced me to wear makeup, and dress in her old things, and sit through endless dinners with her husband’s friends. I’d been thirteen years old, and I could still remember every single second of those evenings.

Learn to be a lady, Giada. No one will ever want you if you’re too loud. No man will want you if you read too much, think too much.

The one time my uncle had hit me, it had been for asking too many questions. Those were dark times, and I rarely let myself think about them. Elio hadn’t suffered at the hands of the same educators as I had, but his PTSD from working in the Special Forces was pretty severe.

Look at us, Mom, both Santori kids fucked up beyond belief. Happy days.

As I smoothed my hair and reapplied my lipstick — more to buy time before telling my brother to fuck off than anything else — a sound caught my attention. One of the cubicles was busy, and now, the soft sound of crying drifted out.

The noise tugged my attention. I hated to cry. It was weak, and I didn’t do weak. It had been years since I’d allowed my own tears to fall. I hated to hear anyone else crying only slightly less than I hated doing it myself.

“Hello? Everything okay in there?” I called out.

The crying stopped.

Silence surged in, but it was charged, like the very air held its breath.

It’s not your business, Giada. Don’t get involved.

I could practically hear my brother’s weary tone repeating one of his most uttered phrases. He was right. I shouldn’t get involved. But I’d always been a nosy bitch.

I quietly walked over to the cubicle and stood in front of the door. Waiting silently, I watched the stall.

After a few moments, it opened.

A woman looked up and squeaked when she saw me. I was ready for her, however, and shoved my hand in the opening, stopping her from slamming it shut.

“Hi, I’m Giada. Why don’t you come out here and tell me what’s wrong?” I hated the thought of leaving someone crying alone and feeling lost in the bathroom.

She came out slowly, flinching away from me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, backing up so she relaxed.

She went to the sink and washed her hands, splashing water on her red cheeks.

“Nothing, just getting emotional. It’s a wedding, after all.” She took a deep breath and pushed her hair back, sending her silver bangles jangling down her arm.

That was when I saw it. A vivid circle of bruises around her wrist. All thoughts of clearing the room before hooking up fled my head.

I grabbed her hand before she could pull away. “What is this?”

She stared down at her hand clutched in mine. She’d attempted to put some concealer on it, but there was no concealer in the world that could cover that kind of bruise.

“Nothing. Just a routine job hazard in my line of work.” She tugged her hand from mine.

I caught sight of something else on the underside of her arm. A raised welt, in a strangely perfect circle holding an intricate design. I ran my thumb across the mark. It felt like embossed leather.

A brand.

Cold ran through me at the feel of her raised flesh. This woman had been branded.

“And what would that be?” I wondered, letting her arm go.

She put her bangles back into place self-consciously.

“The oldest job in the book. I’m here with someone tonight so everyone thinks he’s got a hot young girlfriend. The usual fake wedding date scenario, except this guy doesn’t like when I talk to any of his friends. Pretty young things are to be seen and not heard, apparently.” She took a lipstick from her clutch and smoothed it on. “You’d be surprised how many men feel that way.”

“Sadly, I wouldn’t.” I sighed and leaned against the sink. “Who are you with?”

“Aldo Sepriano.”

I blinked at her. Enrico’s older, and far more successful, brother.

The girl watched me carefully. “I’m Alice, by the way.” She stuck a hand out to me. Her gaze was bold, but something in her eyes was shy. A confident veneer over her fragility.

I took her hand without hesitation.

“Giada.” I shook her hand, feeling her fragile bones under the surface. Had Aldo given her that bruise? He was the far more successful and respectable of the brothers, but even then, I’d heard rumors here and there.

She gave me a relieved smile. “Nice to meet you, Giada. You’d be surprised at the number of women who wouldn’t have shaken my hand, after knowing why I’m here and what I do.”

Her blue eyes were tired but honest. She was young up close, younger than her heavy makeup would have others believe. I guessed her to be in her early twenties. Maybe even younger, yet she had the confidence of someone who had been hooking for a long time. Too long for someone so young. Something protective moved through me.

I held her hand a second too long. “If Aldo gave you the bruises, who gave you the brand?”

Alice jerked back and pulled her hand away. She swallowed and dropped my gaze. “That’s not your business or your problem.”

“Maybe I want to make it my problem. You have options, Alice, if you want them.” She wouldn’t be the first woman I’d helped to change her life. When you were the De Sanctis IT guy, faking a new identity was embarrassingly easy.

She stared at me in the mirror. She opened her mouth to speak, then abruptly snapped it shut when her phone rang.

Fear flashed in her eyes; she seemed to realize how close she’d come to spilling her secrets.

“I have to go. Nice to meet you, Giada.” She backed away.

“Wait! What’s your last name? Mine’s Santori. Giada Santori,” I repeated, scrambling in my bag for a pen. I grabbed her hand and turned it, getting a good long eyeful of the brand on the underside of her wrist, trying to memorize as many details of the design as I could. I gently wrote my number alongside the mark, in a spot where her bangles would hide it. There was something about the design that had my spidey sense tingling.

She watched me with a softening expression.

“What’s your last name?” I tried again. With a full name, there was no one I couldn’t track down and keep an eye on.

She gave me a bittersweet smile, stepping toward the door. “I’m just Alice.”

A chattering group of women entered when Alice slipped out, the door swinging shut behind her. I watched Alice go with conflicted feelings. I’d seen women in all sorts of situations in my life as part of the capo’s inner circle. I couldn’t save them all, though God knows I’d tried, but every single time, it broke a little piece of my heart to see someone in need walk away. I wasn’t the type to let things go. But even I had learned that you couldn’t help someone who wouldn’t let you.

Still, if she changed her mind, she could call. There wasn’t anything else I could do.

The chattering of the women in the bathroom was jarringly loud after Alice’s carefully chosen, scarce words.

I didn’t fancy getting outnumbered by rival Mafia family women, so I headed into a cubicle before they saw me.

“Oh my God, O’Connor’s hot,” one of the women announced. “I’d climb him like a tree.”

I leaned against the stall and shamelessly listened in.

“You think he’s wanting a girlfriend?” someone asked hopefully.

“Like you’d be allowed to date an O’Connor, get real. He’s only good for a one-night thing. From what I’ve heard, he’s insatiable. Must be all those years without in prison…”

The women giggled between themselves.

“You mean he’s a player? I’ve never met anyone with firsthand experience,” one of the women said.

“Me neither. He’s a modern-day urban myth… But realistically, who wouldn’t be a player if they looked like that? All the power of the O’Connor name, none of the responsibilities, and that Irish charm? Who could turn that down?”

“Whatever. De Sanctises and O’Connors don’t mix. Enrico is furious that Bran bested him, though honestly, he made it seem easy, didn’t he?” There was the sound of bags zipping shut; the ladies finished freshening up.

“Let’s get back out there before we miss that fine hunk of Irish beef getting dressed again.”

I waited until they’d gone before leaving the stall. Of course, Bran O’Connor was a hit with the ladies. A man used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it.

Take your panties off, wait in the bathroom, and bend over the sink for me.

He was so damn confident, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a turn-on, but then, I’d never been very good at following orders, no matter who they were from.

You. Just you, Santori. That had been a hot statement, perfectly delivered, by a man who seemed like he knew how to follow through. And yet, De Sanctises and O’Connors didn’t mix, and I didn’t feel like watching the hot Irishman get murdered by my brother.

It looked like tonight, Bran O’Connor wasn’t going to get what he wanted.

What a shame.

The door pushed open, and Sol peeked her head in. “Are you still in here?”

I grabbed my bag. “Sorry. I’m coming.”

She sighed. “Shall we go? The pizza place on Fifth will still be open.” She grinned at me.

I had three choices: hot bathroom sex with a sexy Celtic warrior who would be inundated with offers after the fight, following my dictator brother’s commands, or grabbing a slice with my bestie.

No contest.

“Let’s get out of here.”

I was staying at my apartment in the city that night. I didn’t want to make the long trip to Casa Nera, nestled in the New Jersey countryside, alone. Besides, now it would be home to a married couple. I didn’t think staying there as much as I used to would be appropriate.

It was an odd feeling. I wasn’t the only woman in the De Sanctis inner circle anymore. As unsettling as it was, it was a relief that the woman was Charlie. I could get along with Charlie. She was my kind of woman. Before she came to Casa Nera, I didn’t think she even owned a dress. She was a badass nurse and didn’t take any shit, except from her little sister. There was a lesson in there about letting family control you and looking the other way that I wasn’t ready to learn yet. She wore scrubs, rarely touched makeup, and never failed to speak her mind. And yet, Renato, the King of Atlantic City, was head over heels for her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing, and something I was pretty sure wouldn’t be happening to me anytime soon. Sure, Charlie was strong and kick-ass, but she wouldn’t actually stab anyone. She could probably be demure on occasion, and she probably knew when to stop asking questions. Unlike me.

I kicked off my torturous shoes as soon as I got through my front door and sighed. Wearing heels for five hours straight needed to be added to the roster of the De Sanctis family’s torture methods. It was effective as hell. The greasy pizza I’d downed when we’d made it to the pizza place was heavy in my stomach, cutting through the alcohol I’d consumed. I felt tired, full, and done.

I fixed myself a seltzer in the kitchen and went to the floor-length window that framed the impressive twenty-story view. Outside, the city glowed. I sipped the tart water and let out a long breath. I’d officially reached the age where indigestion was inevitable, and a hangover was a fearsome prospect. The city twinkled below me. That girl, Alice No Last Name, was out there somewhere, right this minute. I hoped she was okay.

I wandered over to my desk and pulled aside the red velvet curtain I kept across my hobby wall.

Photographs of crime scenes and mug shots appeared, pinned carefully to the wall. Who needed artwork or photos of friends and family to decorate their apartment, when there were cold cases out there with tons of public information?

True crime was the hobby that kept on giving. Photographs of girls that the world had forgotten. But I hadn’t. I had a long, long memory, and once, quite some time ago, I’d nearly been one of them, when some long lost relatives had reluctantly stepped in to take care of me.

I snagged a piece of paper and called Alice’s brand to mind, carefully drawing it out as well as I could. Something about that macabre sight felt important. As I finished sketching it, I realized what it was. Rooting through a pile of papers, I unearthed a postmortem shot of a Jane Doe who’d died a few years before from a drug overdose in Central Park. Her death had been given little to no attention by the NYPD, but there had been something about it that had bothered me.

Now, scanning the picture, I saw just what it was.

The brand. The Jane Doe had the same brand inside her wrist.

Cold spread through me. I should have forced Alice to tell me her name or gotten her number or something. I should have done something, instead of letting her go. In my defense, I was trying to be good at the wedding. It was my version of a gift. Renato hated when I tied people up without a “good enough” reason.

I’d taken up my hobby of looking into cold cases when I’d realized that I could dig as much as I needed to without leaving the house, and maybe, just maybe, help someone at the end of the day. There was nothing, or no one I couldn’t find if I dug deep enough. No programs could keep me out. There were no firewalls too high or passwords too encrypted to be safe from my snooping.

And I’d found girls. Some alive. Most, long dead and buried in unmarked graves. One in a suitcase in a loft. Still, she’d been found.

Finding those missing girls gave my life a deeper purpose than covering up De Sanctis family shenanigans. I wasn’t wife material, as Aunt Mena had often told me, and I doubted I’d ever be a mother, so I looked after those forgotten, missing souls. The ones people didn’t care about.

Now, I stared at the brand on the Jane Doe’s wrist. One girl, it could be written off as an odd occurrence, but another one with the exact same mark? Someone was burning that symbol into these women. But who?

My phone rang as I sipped my drink. My brother calling to check up on me, like always.

“You’re not coming,” Elio stated flatly.

“Did you really think I would?” I mused. Despite our years apart, my brother knew me well. That was why he was getting increasingly worried, I supposed. Hardly a comforting thought.

“Why don’t you come out to Casa Nera now?” he asked.

“I’m tired. Ren and Charlie know my allegiance. They didn’t need me to cut my palm and kneel. It’s barbaric.”

“It’s tradition.”

I sighed. “You and your traditions. The world has moved on, brother dearest, you need to catch up.”

“Some things change, but not us. You need to stick to the rules more, be a proper part of the family.”

“My work is worth more to Ren than anyone’s, and you know it. I make the De Sanctis family safe,” I protested hotly. It was true, dammit. Just because I wasn’t out breaking skulls and burying bodies, Elio thought my contribution wasn’t as worthy as his. In reality, I kept our men out of jail, and doctored footage, and diverted funds, and planted evidence. I could make or break someone, given enough time in front of my computers. It was an ongoing source of contention between my brother and me that he didn’t seem to appreciate that.

“Did anything exciting happen after I left?”

I thought about Alice, and Aldo Sepriano. Elio wouldn’t want to get involved in that, and he wouldn’t want me to, either. He was a firm believer in not sticking your nose into other people’s business. Basically, the opposite of my life mantra.

“Not much. It was boring.”

“I heard the O’Connors started a fight,” Elio said.

A grin chased over my face at the memory. “They only did it to liven up the atmosphere and stop the rest of us from dying of boredom. Everyone was into the idea. Bran O’Connor is quite the showman,” I drawled, knowing the compliment would only annoy my brother.

“He’s quite something, that’s for sure. I don’t know why Ren had to invite them.”

“A gesture of goodwill? It doesn’t benefit either family to start a war over a tiny area of the Hudson, surely.”

Elio sighed. “You don’t know enough about it to be so opinionated,” he snapped, irritated. It took a lot to break my brother’s icy composure, so it was a testament to how far under Elio’s skin Bran had worked himself.

I enjoyed it more than I should have.

“When has that ever stopped me?”

“Don’t be facetious.”

“Yes, sir!” I mocked. “You’re not in the military now, so quit giving me orders. ”

“Quit acting out, then. Come back to Casa Nera. I’ll have someone pick you up.”

“No. I’m staying in the city. Stop smothering me, Elio. I don’t like being told what to do. I can take care of myself.”

“Have you eaten, at least?”

My patience snapped. “Enough. Everything is fine. I’m an adult, I can look after myself. I have been since I was thirteen years old, remember, and you decided that serving your country was more important than making sure your little sister ate.”

Elio was silent for a long time.

“Kidding,” I murmured, already regretting my barbed comebacks. He drove me crazy, and yet hurting him felt terrible.

“You’re not wrong, though,” he said heavily after a moment.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, remember?”

“In that case, I’d think you’d be pretty strong by now,” Elio murmured.

Warmth filled me at the semi-compliment.

“Nice of you to notice once in a while. I’m going to bed. Goodnight, dear brother. Don’t stay up all night cleaning your weapons and obsessing, okay? Promise?”

He didn’t answer, which was expected.

I said goodbye and hung up, annoyed. Elio treated me like I was still his friendless, awkward kid sister who he had to shield from the world. The girl who didn’t fit in. The one who preferred electronics to people. He wasn’t wrong. Electronics didn’t judge you and find you lacking. You didn’t have to wear perfume and a pretty dress for your computer to like you. You didn’t need lipstick and to bite your tongue. Electronics didn’t put their greasy hands on your thighs under the table and tell you to smile for once.

Sure, I’d learned how to be an adult and deal with the adult things people did. I dressed up when I felt like it, and I smiled plenty when I wanted to. I could lure a man to bed when I was inclined without too much trouble. The problem was the next day… when I wasn’t so pretty or pleasing. When my veneer of polish had worn thin, and I was just plain old awkward me. When I’d talk too much, or laugh too loud, or say something uncomfortable. Luckily, I’d figured out the most effective way of avoiding seeing that look of disappointment in a man’s eyes in the morning, which was leaving as soon as they drifted off and blocking their numbers. Worked like a charm.

The ice rattled in my glass as I brought it to my lips. I stared at the girls on the wall. Had they been good at pretending? Had they asked too many questions? Talked too loud? Had a few too many independent thoughts? Had they dreamed of getting married and having their own happily ever after, only to end up on a metal slab, their name written on a file that was shuffled to the bottom of a department’s workload and then filed as a cold case?

It was funny that Bran O’Connor’s nickname was Lost Boy of Hell’s Kitchen. I’d always fancied myself a mother of lost girls. The loud, overconfident, brash woman who men loved to say they bagged but would never date. The praying mantis of the De Sanctis family — one night, and he was toast. It was predictable, safe, and utterly boring at times. Most times, honestly.

I knocked back the rest of my drink, toasting my reflection in the window. Time to take this aspiring spinster to bed.

I was halfway across the room to the kitchen when the handle of the front door rattled.

Someone was outside.