Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
I do as I’m told. Say what you will about me, and there’s a lot to say: I’m a liar, I’m selfish, I’m a spoiled American girl that doesn’t love her family enough, I’m a worthless thorn in my father’s heart that took my good mother away—
Say what you will, but I know when to listen to common sense.
I grab the bag and follow Perico. He steps into the hallway, looks left, then right—
Gunshots blare out. Red holes bloom in his chest and I scream, my hands coming to my face, as he staggers backwards with a grunt. Blood spurts everywhere, and Perico looks at me, the only person in my life that ever truly cared about me, the only man that was ever kind to me, and his hand reaches out.
I can’t grab it before he falls to the floor and a tall man appears above him, dressed in all black. The stranger casually shoots Perico in the skull, splattering my father-figure’s brains across the carpet. I scream again, staggering back into the room, backing up and up and up until I bump into the bed, hands shaking with terror, fingers clawing at my mouth. Perico, poor Perico, dead and gone like everything.
The man turns to me and smiles as he raises the gun.
“There’s the flower of my eye.”
Chapter 2
Luca
It wasn’t hard to track down the Florakis compounds. We hit their house in Athens first, then in Thessaloniki, then Patras. The girl wasn’t in any of them, but we did manage to kill a few more of those Greek fucks.
Finally, one of their cowardly little crime lords came begging to my father and made a deal: the location of the last living Florakis daughter in exchange for leniency.
The man told us to search Crete. Then I put a bullet in his head.
We don’t suffer traitors.
The island is beautiful. I’ll give the Greeks that. I love Sicily almost as much as I love New York, but Crete’s not bad, either. I can see why people care about this place. It’s wild and sprawling with pristine blue oceans and gorgeous vistas and history going back deep into the darkness of the past.
It also happens to be the heart of the weed-growing and smuggling trade in the Mediterranean.
The Florakis place isn’t well guarded. Many of their men turned and ran after Spiros and his sons died in that yacht bombing. I don’t know how my father managed to get a device on board, but with one incredible move, he took out his largest adversary and ended a years-old conflict that stole away too many good people and bled my Famiglia dry.
Now I’m here to end it for good.
“You ready?” I ask as I survey my men. They’re my best soldiers, each of them kitted out in full body armor and carrying semi-automatic weapons.
Fio grins at me before flipping down the visor of his helmet. “Ready and waiting, boss.”
“I’ve got to admit, I’ve been looking forward to this for a while,” Tony says, a big guy with a constant goofy smirk. “Them fucking Greek bastards been a real pain in the fucking ass for too long. Now they’re just meat.”
“And we’re the sharks,” Niccolo says, the youngest of the crew.
I nod and make sure my own gear’s prepped. “Kill on sight. Find the girl and leave her to me. Understood?”
“Kill on sight is like music, boss.” Fio cocks his weapon and stands. “Shall we?”
“Stay tight until we’re inside. We don’t know what those Greek fucks have got for defenses out here. Let’s roll.”
The house is a massive structure hidden behind scrubby trees and bushes at the top of a hill overlooking the sea. It’s a gorgeous thing, white and blue in that Greek style, square with arches and almost modern looking. I’d like to have a house like this one day, except they don’t make houses like this in Manhattan, and I don’t plan on moving to this piece-of-shit country.
Once this is over, the damn Greek crime lords can rip each other to pieces for all I care. I’m done with the bastards, done and ready to move on.
Because for me, there’s more to this job than ending the war. This job is about my future and the future of my family.
My father made a promise before I left. And my father doesn’t make promises lightly.
Find the Florakis girl. Kill her yourself. Do that, and I’ll make you my underboss and officially announce you as my heir.
I hit the gas and the Jeep rushes forward. We’re in the biggest, baddest car on the entire island, bought from a former paramilitary group that has their own little weed business deep inside the interior, a bunch of guys that don’t love the Florakis association and would be happy to see them all dead. The front bumper smashes into the gate and blows it to pieces and then we’re inside, roaring out front. I slam the brakes and throw it in park, leaving the thing running, as we jump out and storm the front.