“Do it,” the massive woman whispered, her thick forearm pinning the mafia don’s face into the freezing, blood-stained steel table. “Take one single step, and I will open his carotid artery before your guns even clear your holsters.”
Dominic Castelli, the newly minted head of the most feared crime family in New England, couldn’t swallow. If he swallowed, the six-inch boning knife pressed lovingly against his throat would pierce the vein.
Chapter 1: The Cost of Bleeding
The rain hammered against the cracked neon sign of Hayes Prime Cuts, casting long, bloody red reflections across the wet pavement of South Boston.
Inside the dimly lit hospital room across town, the smell of antiseptic barely covered the stench of fear. Dominic Castelli stood at the foot of the bed, his bespoke charcoal suit impeccable, his eyes dead.
“She didn’t even blink, Boss,” Tony Valente wheezed, his face pale against the hospital pillows.
“You let a civilian put you in a hospital bed, Tony,” Dominic said, his voice a low, gravelly hum that made the heart monitor spike. “You went in to collect a forty percent markup, and you crawled out into the gutter.”
“You don’t understand!” Tony argued, his hands shaking as he clutched the sheets. “I called her a fat cow. I blew smoke in her face. I told her the Castelli family owned this block now. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She just picked up a cast-iron meat tenderizer and swung it like a baseball bat.”
“And now the doctors say you will walk with a cane for the rest of your life,” Dominic replied coldly.
“Dom, you gotta burn that place down,” Tony pleaded, his voice cracking. “Word is already spreading. The baker, the mechanic, the florists—they’re all whispering. You don’t humiliate a made man and live to open your shop the next day.”
“I know the rules of my own city, Tony,” Dominic snapped, leaning closer. “A boss relies on fear. And fear dissolves the exact second the sheep realize the wolf can bleed. I will handle this butcher myself.”
“Take Paulie,” Tony warned, coughing weakly. “Take Vincent. Don’t go in there alone. There is something wrong with that woman.”
If you were a mafia boss whose second-in-command was just crippled by a local shop owner, would you send a hit squad, or would you face her yourself?
Dominic turned on his heel and walked out. He couldn’t let it slide. He wanted to look this woman in the eye. He wanted to watch the defiance drain out of her before he ordered his men to burn her legacy to the ground.
