Chapter 0002

**7 years later**

Gabriel's POV

I wiped my bloodied knuckles, my expression stoic as I stared at the man tied up in the chair before me. Nonchalantly, I tossed the once pristine white towel, now spotted with deep crimson stains, to the floor. This was becoming tiresome. If only I could kill him and be done with it. However, on the off-chance he had some vital information, I had to keep this chingado alive. Hell. I really wanted to just kill him.

“I’m going to ask you one last time,” I clipped the words out ominously, reaching for the silver pistol always tucked away on my person.

The silver metal lightly singed the skin of my palms, but it could have been worse had I not built up a tolerance to the metal lethal for wolves. As a babe, my mother, who’d been an alpha-female, had gone so far as to lace my milk with silver, refusing to stop even after her actions caused me to be hospitalized multiple times.

The body is strong. A powerful alpha will adapt.

That’s what she always said to my father, a weak wolf with beta blood in him. So weak he’d nearly sent us into poverty when he lost half our drug business to some stupid American alpha business tycoon. However, I was strong. I was not like my pathetic sire. Gabriel Rossi rose from the ashes and built everything back. Thanks to my hard work, we thrived now, and were doing better than before. Mamma died happy. She might have lived longer had she not rejected my old-man out of spite. Her wolf never recovered. The mate-bond was too strong to deny. Which is why I knew there was no fighting it. Unfortunately. I shook my head to rid myself of thoughts of the past and leveled my gaze on the man before me.

“Who was the informant?” I queried, eyes glaring with calculation at the poor fool trembling as if he might piss his pants.

If the smell was any indication, he probably already had. How bothersome. A dead body covered in piss was a hassle to dispose of.

The capo in charge of the American division of my money laundering mafia looked at the gun, fear skittering through his features. I could count off on one hand how many people had survived this gun. He knew his days were numbered now.

“Please...!” He begged for mercy, eyes wide and pleading.

I cocked the pistol.

This pendejo was already beaten into a bloody pulp, and still wouldn’t cave. It only meant one thing. He’d been a part of it. If I'd been debating about him letting him live before, well let's just say now my mind was made up. Nobody betrayed Gabriel Rossi.

“Please...please...Gabe…” he pleaded, his thick Mexican accent spilling out. He grimaced in pain and spat out a tooth that I had knocked loose when roughing this bastard up. “Be reasonable. I had no idea—”

The deafening roar of the pistol going off drowned out his pathetic pleadings. The sound seemed to echo endlessly, filling the surrounding space with a cacophony of explosive force, leaving nothing but a dead man hanging from the chair he’d been tied to.

“Wrong answer,” I muttered, throwing my pistol aside and looking towards my beta and underboss, Vin, who was sitting at a desk on the far left. The beta was completely immersed in his task as he clicked away on the keyboard before him.

“I guess we’re going to America,” I informed Vin with a resigned sigh. “I hate that place.”

And not just because a certain mate of mine resided there. A human mate. Of all the sick twisted jokes fate had played on me, this was the worst. However, I knew eventually a mating with her was inevitable. I could only ever truly be the strong alpha I was meant to be if I had my mate by my side. But it didn’t mean I’d have to enjoy it. It would just be one of those undesirable tasks, like consuming silver. I had to do it if I wanted to stay strong, to be better than those who wished to bring me down. Being the Don of the Cosa Nostra in Spain brought with it too many enemies. Too many people who wanted me dead.

Briefly, I recalled how my human mate wore a protective talisman around her arm that made it nearly impossible to track her. It had most likely been given to her by her witch aunt for protection. I'd done my research. My mate's stepfather was an alpha wolf mated to her human mother. He was the same alpha wolf that had stolen half my family business. I'd held a gun to my mate's head, ready to shoot her brains out as revenge. But then...I felt it. The bond. There was no way I could kill my mate, so I left.

Stupid little mate. Didn’t she know I had other means of keeping an eye on her? My people were still following her even as I stood in this very room murdering the mole who was behind the recent drug bust at the border in Texas. I had lost count of how many times my men kept my naïve mate from being mugged on the streets of New York. It didn't help that she was playing house in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of the city. Evelina could have her fun for now. But eventually, I would come for her. She knew that much.

Vin suddenly froze, stark fear etched across his face as he looked up at me. His reaction to my words made me give pause. Vin had seen many a man die in this very interrogation room; had killed and tortured a majority of them himself. It was as though an unseen force had gripped his very soul, sending a surge of panic coursing through him, all triggered by the ominous revelation that flickered to life on the laptop screen before him.

“What is it?” I demanded sharply.

Such a visceral reaction was uncalled for. Vin stumbled out of the chair, his eyes wide with fear, and looked at me as if I was going to kill him.

My hands reached for the laptop, ignoring the splatters of blood staining the cuffs of my crisp white dress-shirt. If you’re going to kill, always kill dressed in your finest. That’s what Mamma always said.

In one deft move, I flipped the laptop to face me. My eyes, sharp and penetrating, glinted with dangerous intensity as I took in exactly what had sent Vin skittering out of this room. Smart man. I would have killed him if he’d been in here. My wolf growled low, thirsting for blood. I thirsted for death.

White hot anger settled over me as I stared intently at the screen. With each passing second, my blood lust heightened, an aura of barely contained fury and malevolence radiating off my body in waves. The flickering screen went blank and now I stared at my reflection in the dark LCD. The expression staring back at me spoke volumes without uttering a single word—a silent warning of the storm that raged within me, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.

Fucking sonafabitch. Someone was going to die tonight. And every single day following, until I finally got my revenge.

Within the next moment, the laptop was snapped shut. I wanted to hurl it across the room.

“I think it’s time I pay Evelina a little visit,” I spoke ominously, my whispered words rupturing the silence with the force of thunder in a serene sky.

It was time to remind Evelina who she belonged to.