PROLOGUE
Vincent
I’ve never been one to believe that everything happens for a reason.
I don’t like the idea that our fate has been predetermined by some unknown deity—one who has rolled the dice with our destiny and laughs away at the hardship of such an existence he has created.
Fuck that!
I’m the master of my own fate! I alone make my future, and I dare any cazzo who thinks otherwise.
Yet, as much as I believe this to my very core, too many times have I been a victim to catastrophic choices made by others, altering my reality completely.
First, it was the loss of my parents. They were ripped away from my life before I had a chance to know them.
To love them.
Losing the two people that were supposed to love me unconditionally at such a tender age, cast a dark shadow on my willingness to feel. Their death turned my heart into the arctic thing it is today. Maybe most people who have suffered such traumatizing loss grew up to be more sympathetic to others’ anguish. As noble as that empathic sentiment is, I have never been conflicted with such inclination. Most call my cold demeanor an inherited genetic trait. I, however, feel that nurture played the composing key role in my development rather than nature.
How could it not? With their deaths came the second event that molded my existence so completely. Being raised into a family that considers those sensibilities to be nothing but a weakness that could get you killed in the long run, was not only eye-opening but detrimental to any lingering sentimentality. It made sure to dry up any tears for the dead, and instead, garnish a steel heart as my own protective shield.
Being one of the few survivors in the Romano line made it clear that life was too fleeting to waste on laments, and that vulnerability was a commodity too expensive a purchase to our way of life. My education taught me that if blood has to be shed, always to make sure I was the one wielding the razor-sharp knife. I was a quick study at being ruthless in cutting enemies down instead of giving them the opportunity to do the same to me. I became a scholar of the syndicate code, with the boss of the Outfit as my ruthless tutor and only guardian—the last parental figure I had, and the very one who deemed such silent callousness to be an asset.
But at my side, unknowingly, I had my first chink in my well-placed, apathetic armor. Blind loyalty and reverence given without question to my accomplice in crime, who had the same heartless destiny laid out for him as I had.
My cousin and brother.
My leader and first ally.
And the last one I thought capable to set in motion the events which would lead to my ruin.
Feelings are traitorous in that way, though. Once you are distracted by them, the truth becomes a blurred line—making emotion the ultimate culprit of your short-sightedness. And once you let one person into your heart, it allows a precedent, welcoming others in to cause the same chaotic damage.
Unaware of the lies and betrayals which were bound to fall at my feet, that one sliver of susceptibility cracked a large enough tear to enable three others to slither their way into my cold heart and anchor me to them in ways our world would never tolerate or condone. But it was in them I found my true, earnest desire, and what I had been denied from the very start—my own family.
In Dominic and Giovanni, I found my true kin. The ones that would fearlessly defy me, yet strike down any other who would dare to attempt trying the same. The ones who kept me humble and raised me higher, all in the same breath. The fratelli who would walk into the pit of hell in the name of our friendship and brotherhood, always adamant I live up to their loyalty in return.
In them, I learned the true meaning of family. Not the one we are born into, but the one we choose for ourselves. The vera famiglia, where allegiance and fidelity is a sincere choice, instead of a burdened obligation.
But if brotherhood kept us tied to each other, then falling in love with the same girl fortified our bond even further. Like a puzzle craving its completion, Selene was the missing piece which linked us all together, creating a picturesque landscape of a life that most would weep at its miraculous sight.
Because that was exactly what she was to us—a miracle. One that blew into our lives undetected by the powers that be, offering us all something no made man could conceive as a possibility—a soulmate in a world where only the soulless roamed free.
To me, she was a treasure I wanted to preserve and keep safe from thieving hands. She was my precious, hidden tesoro. The only one who held gifts which could placate my heart far better than any reward the syndicate provided.
She was my reason in all things.
Vita mia.
Every decision I made and every chance I took was with her in mind. Not once did my resolve blink or hesitate in the pursuit of a life where she and my brothers would be at my side permanently, where we could be true to our love and give in to its splendor without fear of discovery.
However, crossroads sprung out of nowhere, without a single inkling that our love’s demise was just around the corner. Choices made by the powerful, by the envious, and by the greedy, turned the tides to our fortune, tarnishing any remaining hope that somehow our young love could flourish. Disheartening actions and damaging decisions tilted our world on its axis, creating a myriad of tragedies, stripping us all from our naive dream that, in this wretched life, our love could overcome any obstacle.
Instead, we were confronted with one truth we had been too unwilling to address—all is fair in love and war.
Pietro’s betrayal put into motion the spiraling of my well-crafted plans to marry my love when he cut them with surgeon-like precision at their very root. But it was his untimely death that caused real destruction in my life.
Grief led me to seek comfort in the arms of the one person I promised to honor above all; and in this selfish turn, I—the betrayed—became the betrayer. The trust that was bound by brotherhood, which was forged in blood between myself and my true brethren, suffered its first rift by my own hand. My shame and guilt increased tenfold, ultimately blinding me to my surroundings, making emotion, once again, responsible for my downfall.
The final bullet to my heart had been shot by the very girl I would have given my life for.
With my parents’ death and my young introduction to the syndicate way of life, my heart had frozen over. Pietro’s betrayal and death took the ice-sculptured organ and sliced it into thin pieces. But it took the love of my life’s planned-out disappearance to burn the malignant thing to ash, leaving me hollow and lifeless.
Death changes us all. Especially our own.
So I never gave much weight or credence to fate or destiny. Experience has shown me, time and time again, that it’s men’s choices that hold the true power in life. Other people’s decisions have given shape to my own, after all. Turned it to the cruel, cold, unfeeling thing that it resembles today.
Yet, all these calamities and upheavals have made me that much stronger. These misfortunes have made me the one to be feared—a leverage that I intend to keep and use unceremoniously. When it comes to me, everyone knows how to keep a safe distance or, better yet, run away in haste if they value their life.
Because a man without a soul has no fear of damnation.