Devil's Pawn Read online

  Devil’s Pawn

  A Dark Mafia Romance

  Sophia Reed

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. In the Beginning

  2. A Mistake

  3. Something Always Breaks

  Epilogue

  A Preview of Fallen Knight

  Molly

  Luca

  © Copyright 2019 - All rights reserved.

  It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Synopsis

  He kidnapped me.

  Locked me up in his mansion.

  Would it be too crazy to fall in love with this monster?

  * * *

  Luca is the oldest son of a mafia boss.

  He’s the sanest one in his family, if you ask me.

  His little girl makes him human.

  But danger is still his middle name.

  I’m drawn to his power.

  His devilish gaze that wants every part of me.

  He has a dark soul that fills a void in mine.

  Reminding me of things that I’m capable of.

  After his father’s assassination, Luca is the new king.

  And he needs a partner in crime.

  A queen.

  * * *

  I’m the woman in his bed. In his heart.

  So, what does that make me?

  Introduction

  As always, it all began with family dinner.

  The Varasso family was a tightly-knit unit prone more often to conflict with external forces, rather than with each other. After all, the Varasso family business was a dangerous one, and it was always in their best interests to trust those with whom they shared blood more than outsiders.

  Yet, somehow, those bonds managed to disintegrate every time they had dinner together.

  Every week on Sunday evening for the past thirty or so years, the Varasso family gathered at the massive oak table that was the proud centerpiece of the late Mrs. Valentina Varasso’s grand dining room. Though the family grew over the decades, the tradition was never once forgotten or rescheduled or willfully ignored. Come hell or high water, the Varasso family sat down in the high-backed chairs at that oak table and broke their bread as a strong, united family--even when it didn’t feel that way. In fact, more often than not, it didn’t feel that way.

  Every once in a while, a Sunday evening would come along and there would be something impalpably awry in the air. Unexpectedly, the energy would shift, and God Himself would stare down at the Varasso family dinner with his fists clenched, waiting for something to break.

  Because the Varasso family, rich and beautiful and powerful as they were, was predisposed to periodic tragedy. Whether it was adultery, arson, or untimely death, the Varasso family seemed fated to experience it all.

  Many say the tragedies began with the birth of Valentina Varasso’s first son.

  Valentina had always wanted to be a mother. Growing up, she told anyone who would listen that having children and being a good mother was her one true calling. She knew, somehow, that she was destined to have three handsome, strong sons, and that the power of those sons would build an unflinching legacy that would be remembered for years to come. No one understood how Valentina, just a teenager at the time, could have possibly known such a future was written in the cards, but they let her muse aloud for hours because her voice was soft and sweet like a lovely melody.

  She was only nineteen when she met Angelo Varasso. Stunningly beautiful and full of youthful energy, it took only a mere moment for Valentina to steal Angelo’s heart. And, in turn, she gave him hers.

  They married less than a year later. Both Valentina and Angelo came from traditional families with conservative roots. Many in the Varasso clan claimed that the moment the young couple locked eyes for the very first time across a crowded community dance hall on a hot, humid July evening, they could hear the wedding bells.

  Valentina knew that Angelo was dangerous. She knew he came from the infamous Varasso family, rumored to have their hands deep in the Philadelphia drug trade. She knew the Varassos were not a crowd to be crossed, that they had a special talent for making their enemies disappear. She knew that a life with him would mean a life of danger and unpredictability, and that she would always be a handful of steps from witnessing or experiencing some kind of violence.

  She knew all of those things, but she married Angelo Varraso anyway. Perhaps she was a foolish young girl driven by lust for an attractive, formidable boy; or, maybe, the ever-present possibility of peril excited her. Regardless, the young couple was madly in love and there was very little that could have been done to stop it.

  When Valentina gave birth to her first son, she was so happy she cried for weeks. Every time she saw the boy’s dark curls and even darker eyes, she collapsed into a puddle of adoration she feared she would eventually drown in. Angelo was equally overjoyed and named his son Luca: a Latin name meaning light.

  Exactly three months after the child’s birth, the earthquake struck.

  Earthquakes in Philadelphia were rare. So rare, in fact, that many of the old lady mystics and superstitious aunties of the Varasso family claimed that it was surely an act of God. No matter the cause, it shook the foundation of young Angelo and Valentina’s home with such fervor that the entire structure nearly fell down on top of them and their new baby. Thankfully, the little family survived.

  The house, however, was condemned. But, the Varasso family was resourceful and influential, and a new, more secure home was gifted to Angelo by his grandfather. In this home, the tradition of the Sunday evening family dinners at the grand oak table began. No more earthquakes rattled the neighborhood, but it was only a matter of eighteen short months later, when Valentina gave birth to her second son Marco, that three Varasso cousins were killed in a deadly fire on the other side of the city. So, the misfortunes continued.

  One year later, a miscarriage shook Valentina to her core, leaving her bones feeling like ice for so long that Angelo worried she would turn to stone.

  When the third son, Alessandro, arrived, Valentina was in awe. Three sons, she had prophesied, and it had come true. For a long time, all was well in the Varasso family. The sudden tragedies seemed to have stopped or, at the very least, paused for the time being. Angelo and Valentina loved their sons with all of their heart. Valentina taught them kindness and honesty, while Angelo taught them the strength and cleverness that was required for the family business.

  Following the peaceful, natural death of his father, the business flourished under Angelo’s leadership. Drugs and cash alike flowed like rivers through the city, filling their pockets with a wealth that afforded Valentina’s sons every privilege she could have ever dreamed of for them.

  Seven years later, a vehicle accident caused a six car pileup and sent a seventh car sailing over the edge of the Walt Whitman bridge. Valentina had been in the backseat of that seventh vehicle when her chauffeur was killed instantly on impact and, for a moment, as the car fell down toward the icy depths of the Delaware River, she felt as though she was flying.

  Valentina Varasso’s life was cut short that day. Angelo Varasso was left without a wife and his three boys, the oldest of which was fifteen at the time, without a mother.

  And so it seemed the Varasso family misfortunes were fated to begin again.

  Yet, despite the heartbr
eak, the Sunday evening following Valentina Varasso’s funeral, just one short day after her casket had been laid in the ground and the garden of roses had been spread atop the grave, Angelo, Luca, Marco, and Alessandro Varasso sat at the gleaming oak table for family dinner.

  1

  In the Beginning

  Another Sunday evening, another family dinner.

  Over the course of the last twenty-nine years of my life, the faces around the dinner table changed, but the large oak monstrosity my late mother had sourced herself from the Canadian forests remained the same. Sure, the table had suffered a few scuffs here and there, but it still looked the same as my earliest memories could recall.

  Everyone else was irreparably altered. My father, though always stern, used to have a lightness in him. It happened rarely, but he used to offer up a smile here and there, or chuckle at one of my younger brother’s ill-timed jokes. Now, he remained still and stoic at the head of the table. None of us could pinpoint what had triggered the change in our father, the head of the Varasso drug empire. Perhaps it was the cold, cruel world of the family business that hardened him over time, or maybe it was the death of Valentina Varasso, our beautiful mother. Or, possibly, he was destined to become like this all along. Regardless of the reason, Angelo Varasso’s presence at the dinner table had become chillier and grayer over time; it was almost as if he was turning to stone.

  My younger brothers, Marco and Alessandro, changed the least over the years. Marco was still quiet, obedient, and willing to please. Alessandro was still the jokester, always the one to bring humor into the least appropriate situations. Both of them were still bumbling fools, if you asked me, but I loved them. They took on their respective roles in the family business with diligence and pride; I knew that when the day came for me to inherit everything, they’d be loyal partners by my side, just as brothers should be.

  And me? When I think of how I’ve changed since the first Sunday evening we sat down at this table for dinner, I can only picture a growing hardness. Maybe I’m like my father in that way, but I’m also more optimistic than he is. Although the nature of our work was rarely lighthearted, I sought to always seek out the rays of sun peaking through the shadows. My father said I lived up to my name well in that regard. Luca. Light.

  Of course, as the past three decades passed by, there were countless additions and subtractions to the table. It was incredibly large, after all, and could accommodate many.

  The first person to go missing from the table permanently was our mother. Valentina died when I was only fifteen. Marco was thirteen and Alessandro was seven. The space opposite my father at the other head of the table had remained vacant since then, except for three consecutive Sundays that had occurred about ten years ago.

  Because, as it turned out, my father was not the incurable romantic that everyone thought him to be, endlessly faithful to the beautiful Valentina Varasso. About a year after my mother’s death, Angelo revealed to us that, soon after the birth of his second son, he began a love affair with another woman. Her name and her origin were irrelevant, though I did feel sorry for the unfortunate situation her heart had led her to. Being Angelo Varasso’s mistress surely could have never ended well.

  The love affair had produced my half-brother Gabriel. It was he and his mother, my father’s mistress, who had attended dinner all those years ago after my mother’s death. Gabriel was only twelve years old at the time, born right in between Marco and Alessandro. His mother had sat down in Valentina’s chair, at the insistence of Angelo Varasso himself.

  I hadn’t liked that very much. At sixteen, I wasn’t interested in entertaining the idea of anyone replacing my mother in any shape or form. It was the first of many times that I lost my temper, losing my sense of self awareness along with. I didn’t remember much from that third Sunday evening all those years ago, except that the sight of Gabriel’s mother, who looked nothing like my mother, and yet sat in her place and behaved as if she was the new Varasso family matriarch, turned my stomach.

  I’d thrown the priceless porcelain dinnerware against the walls, smashed the crystal wine glasses, and I would have overturned the entire table if the stupid thing hadn’t been so huge and heavy.

  My father’s mistress never showed her face at a Sunday evening dinner ever again. A few months later, she was reported missing. I didn’t look into it.

  Gabriel stayed, though. He became a permanent fixture of those dinners, a fourth son for Angelo to prove his masculine power to the rest of the world. And, even though the three of us brothers hated our father’s mistress, we grew to love Gabriel as our own. If anyone ever asked, he was a pure Varasso.

  Other faces came and went. Back when grandfather was still alive, he frequented the oak table. Various aunties and uncles and cousins showed up intermittently over the years. As us boys grew older, girlfriends who had been deemed trustworthy enough also appeared, disappeared, and sometimes reappeared. Marco and Alessandro were notorious playboys, though, and the girls they brought to dinner were usually short-lived affairs. Gabriel had yet to bring any girl with him to dinner, but he was serious about relationships, just like me. He didn’t date for fun. He dated to find a loyal life partner.

  I’d been lucky enough to find mine, and I was keeping my fingers crossed for Gabriel to find his sweetheart soon.

  Tonight, it was a small, typical Sunday dinner. Angelo sat at the head, sipping his whiskey and not touching a bite of his food. Marco and Alessandro bickered over something mundane on our father’s left, with Gabriel minding his business at the end of the table.

  I sat at my father’s right. It was an honorable place to sit, especially in a family like ours. Leadership in the Varasso clan was patrilineal. My father, Angelo, had been his father’s oldest son when the business was first growing roots in the rougher neighborhoods of Philadelphia. He’d been trained to take over the emerging empire upon his death, just like a Prince would lead a country after the death of the King. Now, Angelo was King and I was the Prince. When my father died, as all parents eventually did, the vast underworld of influence, power, and money that he had helped to nurture would be my responsibility.

  I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

  Next to me at the dinner table sat Alana Rhodes. Beautiful, charming, witty Alana Rhodes. She was a nurse at the walk-in clinic I’d had no choice but to stumble into one night after a particularly nasty “business meeting.” I saw her long red hair, big blue eyes, and angelic smile and was an absolute goner. I’d been too much of a pansy that night to ask for her number and spent weeks hating myself for it. I even contemplated giving myself another injury so I would have an excuse to go back to the clinic and see her.

  In the end, Gabriel got sick and tired of my moaning and marched right into the clinic, demanding to speak with the red-headed nurse named Alana.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about how handsome you were,” she’d told me on our first date. “And I kept wishing you’d come back to the clinic! Not that I wished you’d get injured again, of course, but just so that I could… see you.”

  It had taken me mere seconds for me to fall in love with her.

  And now, three years later, not only was she sitting beside me at the Varasso family table, but she was also nine months pregnant with our first child. Rosy-cheeked and glowing, Alana wore the pregnancy well. She was like mother earth incarnate, heart-achingly beautiful and graceful as she brought new life into the world.

  The pregnancy was a point of controversy in our family. Times had changed since Angelo and Valentina married at just twenty years old, and the Varasso family had grown to be a little looser with their traditional Italian morals. However, even now, a pregnancy outside of a marriage was cause for shocked whispers in the corners of family gatherings. Being the untouchable heir to the Varasso family fortune certainly helped to quell a lot of the gossip.

  Yet, despite that, the fact that Alana was carrying my child and was still not my wife seemed to be destined to become the hot topic o
f conversation that Sunday. Fate had a way of frowning on our dinners, and our family in general, like that. Our moods and our luck twisted unexpectedly; a moment of calm could become a heated family argument in seconds.

  My father was the one who started it.

  “Has my son given you the ring yet?” grumbled Angelo, setting down his whiskey glass on the oak table with a muted thud.

  Alana bit her lip and glanced at me nervously. Three years, and she wasn’t quite sure how to communicate with the head of the Varasso family. No one did, really.

  The ring my father was referring to was the engagement ring he’d given to Valentina when he proposed thirty years ago. It was a massive emerald set in a crown of tiny white diamonds, and the band was a perfect, shining white gold. For years, it had sat in the large locked vault my father had hidden in the back of the closet in his home office. Only just last year had he dug it out from under neat stacks of cash, various family documents, and who-knows-what-else so that I could give it to Alana as an engagement ring. We’d barely been together for two years at the time, but marriage happened fast in the Varasso family. It was clear to my father that Alana was the only one for me, and I suppose he figured I might as well tie the knot sooner rather than later.

  But, I didn’t think like that. Coming from a home with a dead mother and an exiled mistress made me mistrust the sanctity of marriage a little bit. Not to mention, I had countless uncles and male cousins who’d had torrid affairs of their own. So, sure, marriage came quick for the Varassos, but the love tended to die soon afterwards.

  And, even though I knew I loved Alana with every cell in my body, and that I would never stop loving her as long as I lived, I didn’t want to risk it. Not with the family curse and all that. Not with the Varassos being inexplicably prone to tragedy.