CHAPTER 5

Alessandro's POV

I was born and raised in the Bandoni Famiglia. And even though I despised the life in the famiglia, I had known from the very start that my fate was sealed within that life. Once you were in, there was no other way out. 

Guns, blood, and murder were not mere words to me. I had witnessed them since I was born. They were all part of the everyday life of the famiglia and they all made my stomach churn. That is why I decided to hide completely behind the computer.

To my father's disappointment, while the other boys were fighting in The Underground, a fight club owned by The Bandoni Famiglia, I was locked up in my room, working on breaking an encryption code of a random company or website. The times you would find me at The Underground were after my father would have dragged me there and forced me into a fight.

"You need to toughen up and fight like a man," he always insisted.

Most of the time I ended up sprawled on the ground, with a bleeding nose and bruises all over my body. It always ended up with even more bruises from my father's brutal punches as a punishment for soiling the Conti name. 

“You are a useless piece of sh*t, just like your mother. She gave me you and nothing else! If she only could have given me another son, I would make sure he would not turn into a wimp like you!” he always reminded me, and every time it killed me inside. Not because he was calling me names, but because my mother was being dragged into this. My mother was not useless. She was a strong woman. She had survived my father for years, up until a heart attack claimed her. And I had promised myself I was never going to turn into the man he wanted me to be. I was never going to be like him. That is a promise I had made to my mother when she was lying on her deathbed.

When my mother was still alive, and punching he released, punching me was not going to forge me into the man he wanted me to be; he had turned to my mother, punishing her for my weaknesses. And to protect my mother, I had to customize myself to the sight of blood and breaking bones, becoming the “man” he wanted me to be. But the day she died, I had no reason to fight. And certainly did not want to stay in New York. I found myself a way to buy some time before I had to be initiated and take the oath to become a made man.

The world outside was evolving, and the famiglia was being forced to adapt to the new realities no matter how much they wanted to stick to old ways. While violence and terrorism worked best in the old days, diplomacy and technology were taking over. I wanted a life away from one I was raised in, and I had the perfect plan to get away from it. Convincing my father that I would be of better help to the famiglia with an Oxford degree was not easy. But in the end he thought I could actually make something out of myself and bring the Conti name the glory it deserved since I was nothing but a chicken. So he sent me off to Oxford to get a degree that I never needed. I was already good at what I did.

But as life would have it, one can only run away for so long. Eventually, I had to come back to New York. But I never thought I would come back to see my father marrying his third wife.

But I did.

The day after I landed in New York, my father visited me in my new apartment. I thought he was there to remind me that it was about time I gave my life to the all great La Bandoni Famiglia, but he was there to invite me to his wedding. 

Only three months had passed since the death of his previous wife, and he was already moving on to another one. I should have been shocked, but I was not. My father came with no moral compass and no heart to talk of.

I was not surprised again when I saw the woman he was taking as a wife. Another stunning blonde, young enough to be my father's daughter. She looked innocent, yet another gold digger, ready to be my father's arm candy, ready to open her legs for him and maybe finally give him a son that would take after him. A real heir. Something my father had been yearning for for years.

What she did not know was she was going to pay for the diamonds she probably loved with black eyes and broken ribs from my father's .

I stood across the hall watching her as she greets their guest with a smile stretched so wide that her jaws must have ached.

She had the most perfect set of teeth. Sparkling and perfectly aligned. There was no denying her beauty. Dressed in the white mermaid dress, she looked like an angel.

Our eyes met, and I realized I had been staring at her. I did not look away though. I stared right into her blue eyes. She stared right back at me until Giuseppe stood in front of her, blocking my view and breaking the staring contest. 

So instead of watching my father's wife, I walked to the bar to get a refill of my Martini.

I stood by the bar, nursing my drink as I watched the crowd mingle.

“Alessandro!” someone shouted, and immediately I felt the weight of the world falling down on me.

I had managed to move in the shadows and have no one recognize me, and I was enjoying the peace that came with that. But with one person recognizing me and calling my name, he had pushed me right into the spotlight? I was already dreading the questions that were about to come.

But before I saw who had shouted my name, an explosion erupted. Screams filled out the room, and I heard the sound of guns being drawn out. 

This was the life in the mafia. I was back in it. I drew my own gun and squinted my eyes, trying to see through the darkness and smoke. Gunshots rang out from every direction, and I moved from pillar to pillar, moving towards the exit. I was not going to fight to defend the enemy; my aim was just to get the hell away from the chaos.

“Alessandro!” I heard my father's voice cut through the chaos, and I turned, my senses sharpening, adrenaline coursing through my veins, thinking a bullet was coming my way, but instead I saw him approaching me, dragging his screaming wife by her thick mane.

“Take her out of here,” he said, pushing his wife towards me. 

She stumbled over and collided with my chest. My hand went around her waist to stop her from falling. She started to shout and kick trying to get away but I easily scooped her up, placed her over my shoulder, and walked out with my father covering my back now. I got to my car, and I threw her in the back. She kept on screaming and hitting the windows so hard that if my windows were ordinary ones from the dealer shop, they would have given up and broke.

She left me with no choice but to take the syringe from my pocket and press it into her neck.

Why did I have the syringe with propofol in my pocket? For protection. I was the son of the New York underboss, and I better make someone unconscious rather than put a bullet through their brains. And that is the same reason I was happy with babysitting my father's wife over rather than being involved in a shootout.