PROLOGUE
Tex
RAGE CONSUMED ME as I looked around the building. A sea of familiar faces stared right through me. It was as if the past twenty-five years of my life had held no meaning at all.
Had I been nothing to them?
Nothing but a joke.
The reality of my situation hit me full force, I stifled a groan as I fought to suck in long, even breaths of the stale dusty air.
“It is your choice.” The voice said in an even steady tone, piercing the air with its finality.
“Wrong.” I stared at the cement floor; the muted color of grey was stained with spots of blood. “If I really had a choice, I would have chosen to die in the womb. I would have drowned myself when I was three. I would have shot myself when I had the chance. You’ve given me no damn choice, and you know it.”
“You do not fear death?” The voice mocked.
Slowly, I raised my head, locked eyes with Mo, and whispered, “It’s life. Life scares the hell out of me.”
A single tear fell from her chin, and in that moment I knew what I had to do. After all, life was about choices. And I was about to make mine. Without hesitation, I grabbed the gun from the waistband at my back, pointed it at Mo and pulled the trigger.
With a gasp she fell to the ground. A bullet grazed my shoulder as I knelt taking time to reach for the semiautomatic on the concrete. When I stood, I let loose a string of ammo; the sound of it hitting cement, brick, bodies, chairs, and anything else in the line of fire filled me with more peace than I’d had in a lifetime of war.
I stalked towards him, the man I was going to kill, the man who had made me feel like my existence meant nothing. I held the gun to his chest and squeezed the trigger one last time. When he collapsed in front of me, it was with a smile on his face, his eyes still open in amusement.
Chaos reigned around me and then suddenly, everything stopped.
When I turned it was to see at least twenty dead, and Nixon staring at me like he didn’t know me at all—but maybe he never had. And wasn’t that a bitch?
He took a step forward his hand in the air. “Tex—”
“No,” I said, smirking. “Not Tex. To you?” I pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. “I’m the Cappo.”
Part One: A Rise To Power
CHAPTER ONE
Two weeks before the incident…
Tex
“NO! NO! STOP!” Mo tossed and turned in her sleep, her arms flying around the bed as if she was trying to punch someone—though really she was only landing blows to the air.
With a sigh I grabbed her fists as gently as I could and whispered in her ear, my lips damn near shaking with the need to caress hers, to make her feel better “Mo, you were dreaming.”
Her long lashes blinked against her skin a few times, possibly clearing out the images that had just haunted her rest. “Sorry.” Her glance fell to my hands as they held her wrists midair, and she jerked away from me and moved to the side of the bed. “It was just a bad dream.”
My touch had once comforted her. She used to crave it; at least I thought she had. It had always been about me and Mo. We were a team, a dysfunctional one, but a team’s a team right?
“It’s okay,” I lied. It was absolutely not okay that she wanted nothing to do with me, that she was scared of me, that she was pregnant and I’d done everything within my power to make it easy on her—even when every day it was harder on me. “Just go back to sleep, and things will look better in the morning.”
But they wouldn’t. She knew it. I knew it. Hell, everyone who knew us and our family knew it. Things never looked better in the morning.
Actually, I preferred night. Not because I actually enjoyed sleeping—hell if I didn’t need sleep I wouldn’t do it. Too many images ran through my mind, pictures of death, blood, more death. But the real messed up part? I wasn’t haunted by the dreams like Mo was—no I was the exact opposite. Death inspired me, it drove me, it motivated me. Hell, I was the one you’d least expect. Chase even had problems doing some of the dirty work.
But me?
I was the worst type of person.
Because I craved blood like a drug.
I craved death. I craved war. I craved it like an addict. And I loathed the days of peace because they reminded me that I was basically an orphan. Unwanted by my family, unloved. And now? Unwanted by the girl I’d sworn to love for the rest of my life.
So, sugarplums? Santa? Unicorns? Sheep? Nah, that shit didn’t fit in my dreams.
It never had.
Mo moved away from me pulling the covers up around her frail body. She’d been losing so much weight it was ridiculous. Weren’t you supposed to gain weight when you were pregnant? It stung that she didn’t want me to go to her doctor’s appointment with her. Apparently he’d said she was stressed. Right, like I could do anything to help that. I was doing everything within my power to fix things—to fix us—to fix her—to fix the family. Nothing worked.
Nothing ever. Freaking. Worked.
Being with Mo wasn’t just my peace, it was like I’d finally found someone that got me, someone who understood who I was, even when I chose not to reveal my whole self to her. One look, and I knew she knew. All the shit that went on in my head, but she didn’t pester me, didn’t make me explain anything, just loved me as I was. And now, it was gone. I was gone. There was literally nothing left.
My role was no longer fulfilling its purpose. I’d known it for a while now, without wanting to admit it. But the signs were clear.
It was time to take my place. Time to bring the nightmare to life, to wake the beast, to be what I was born to be.
Vito Campisi’s son.
CHAPTER TWO
Dreams are believed to be 1/60th prophecy.
Mo
I’D HAD THE SAME damn dream for the past three nights in a row. Small details changed. One time I was out in an open field, the next I was in an abandoned warehouse. And the most recent one? I was in Tex’s car. The dream started off normal, Tex and I would be laughing and joking around, and then all of a sudden a gunshot would ring out into the night sky and I would find blood on my fingertips.
When I asked Tex for help, he shook his head and laughed.
He said I deserved it.
And I always woke up with the feeling that I actually did. I deserved it. I groaned and reached for my phone to check the time. It was only seven in the morning. Tex and I had been away from the family for four days. They’d freaked when we left everyone in Vegas, but I wasn’t exactly in the best emotional state to be partying it up and putting on a good face. I didn’t exactly possess that talent like my brother did. People could always read my emotions. Thankfully, Tex knew that my face was one of my tells, so he hightailed me out of Vegas and back to Chicago. Though, he’d been so freaked about my news he’d forgotten to tell everyone where we went.