Set free

Chapter 1 Niko's POV

The room was lit lowly, the music played some classical bulls*t. Snakes dressed up as royalty. Fake, it was all fake, and it was sickening. Everyone here was corrupt, evil, sly and deceiving. We all deserved to be in hell for sins we had committed or sins we had yet to commit. No one here had a clear conscious. They were either guilty or guilty by default for who they were related to, aligned with or married to. Even children were just sinners waiting to grow up. But we liked to act every once in a while like we weren't who we were. Fancy parties would be thrown by the head of the syndicate's lady. They'd flaunt the cash and wealth of their syndicate like they were throwing the parties out of kindness and that we were all friendly and friends. It was all just a show for who could out coin the other.

The fact of the matter was we all hated each other's guts, and we were here, out of some shady deals with each other that weren't always trusted. Scheming and backstabbing was our game. We could be allies one month, then shooting led into each other the month after.

The officials in government offices, cops, doctors, lawyers that were all on payrolls of syndicates would stay clear, not wanting to give the slightest clue they were affiliated with us. It was actually the legitimate straight and narrow ones that would show up. There was always a hero cop or someone or other that wanted to take a syndicate down. Seen as events like this parlay was the code they found it safe to show up, learn about us without fear of ending up stiff and cold by morning. No one showed violence here, not physically anyway. Snide words and comments that would later lead to a shoot-up on a different day were a definite. Someone would say something to piss someone off and boom ten dead bodies a day later. But not tonight. Tonight we were proper gentlemen and ladies. Except for me, if I wanted to kill every f*cker here I would, f*ck parlay.

I felt a nudge to my shoulder and looked down to see my right hand come up beside me. His eyes were covered with a silver metallic mask that looked a lot like mine. Except mine was black gun metal. The hard set of his jaw and the way his eyes flicked about the room, keeping his eyes on everything, told me he hated being here as much as I did.

But I attended for one thing. It wasn't the usual reason I turned up. I wasn't here tonight to make a deal, set up an operation or create an ally in a take-down of someone.

No, I was here to see the one thing that was untouchable in our world. The daughter of Frank Vananti, she was rumored to be attending. Amelia Jasmine Vananti, the untouchable angel of the underground. The best protected girl in the world. Frank's pride and joy, you see Frank. He was the type of mob boss that tried to act like he wasn't who he was. Frank was trying to make moves in the normal world. He was trying to rub elbows with people in power. He wanted to become a big shot. Maybe he was even trying to be a politician or some sh*t who knows.

He didn't get his hands dirty anymore, he raked in the money from his syndicate and still did corrupt sh*t behind closed doors. The man was a walking deluded f*ck. I'd do business with guns, drugs, forgeries, you name it, most of them I'd be involved with. I had no morals, not really. Even growing up away from this world, it was in my veins. But what he is rumored to be involved with, I wouldn't touch human f*cking sacrifices and cult sh*t. But nothing was proven. He kept his hands and name clean. Nothing could be tied back to him.

So, because he wanted to be king of the underworld plus king of the other world, he acted differently. Sent his daughter away to a private boarding school that apparently even had finishing classes, so she would act like a real lady like they used to do back in the old days. His wife was the same: never cussed, always polite and correctly spoken and crossed her legs properly and sat upright in her chair, no slouching. They presented themselves as if they were royalty and belonged in a castle. But he's made some bad choices, and only his family name has kept people from putting led between his eyes.

But all that was about to change. The dons in his family's past will be turned in their graves for the mockery he created of who we were. What we did. He couldn't have it both ways anymore. You are either in or out, and I was all in.

A nudge on my arm brought me out of my inner thoughts. I looked down at Nick again, and he nodded his head in that direction towards the door, so I followed it with my gaze.

At the entrance to the function room stood Frank and his wife. Even behind the mask you knew it was him from his protruding gut. Being off the field had made him out of shape. The man who used to be feared now couldn't even run after you if he tried. In his day, all the women of the underworld wanted him. His wife Talia had been a real looker too, still was poor woman now had a slob on her arm who probably didn't have the energy to f*ck her like he once used to, but his money was good, so she stayed, most likely f*cking one of her bodyguards on the side now. All the dons had wanted her, even my father had taken his shot apparently and got knocked back by her. She had been the daughter of Harry Galloway, Don of the Galloway syndicate. When she had married Frank, it had made both families virtually untouchable.

But Harry was dead and his only son, her brother, had recently been taken out too. No one knew who took him out, but I did. It had been my hand that had taken out Damion, Talia's brother. It was all a part of my bigger plan. Which was her, Amelia. She would be the one that got me back what was rightfully mine.

A chess piece I needed for the grand game. I had planned on stealing her away from her fancy school, but Frank had made it easy and brought her to me like a fine sine on a platter. Her looks were of no matter to me. Just who she was, she could be the sexiest woman alive, and it was no matter I didn't need her like that. I had w****s that saw to my needs, three ladies that were paid well and knew what I liked. My mind was too focused on my plan to have a woman there distracting me. My grandfather had been murdered, his syndicate had been broken down and spilled between three Dons. Leaving my family with nothing, only our name.

But I have made my family name rise again. I have exceeded what they had before. And with money and power had come my ability to find out exactly which dons it had been to take my family out. The Galloways, The Deiagos, who had now been taken out and their syndicate spilled. And finally, The Vananti's. My family had been on top, after my grandfather had been taken out. It propelled The Galloways and The Vananti's to the top in my family's place.

Especially after they even betrayed their partner in crime, the head of the Deiago's, and took their families' share of my family's money too.

But death was approaching. Taking out Damion Galloway was just the start. A little warning shot. Whether they knew it or not yet. I did not care. You see. I rose up under a rouse. I operated under another name. I was but a baby when they wiped out my family. My father had fled with me and my mother, in the hope of protecting us. He had taken the cowardly way out instead of fighting for his family's name. He had even gone as far as torching his own family home to fake our deaths. He must have done so, because paper articles claim we all died in that blaze. Who else would have done that but my father ?

My mother had really died when I was seven, and my father had left me to raise myself pretty much. Life as a normal citizen had been hard for him to adjust to. After I found out who we were, I understood why he went to sh*t. Why did he drink himself into oblivion and shoot sh*t into his arms? Why did he check out? It was all because he didn't know how to just be normal. Lucky for me, his liver didn't pack in until I turned eighteen. By then, I had long since found the boxes in the attic, paper articles, journals, business deals, family history all stored up in the attic, as well as lots of cash , money he had managed to take before we ran. Money he hardly ever spent, so not to raise suspicion. Even when he was high, he never took too much out. I had learned who I truly was at the age of thirteen. I tried to ask my father, who then flew into a blind drunken rage and hit me for the first time. Telling me to stay out of the attic, the attic was pretty much his shrine to his past life.

By the next morning, he had forgotten I had ever asked, and I never asked again. Instead, I researched who I truly was. I was not Johnny Berchun, the name they had placed upon me in hiding. I was Niko Ricci, the grandson of the great and feared Alessandro Ricci. My father was Nicholas Ricci, not Robert Berchun. My mother Rose Berchun was Cassandra Diego before she was married and became a Ricci, matched to my father in an arranged marriage to align families. My own mother's family tried to wipe out ours ? Why they would team up to kill their own daughter is still a mystery to me. Eventually, I planned to find out.

No matter how far they took me from this life, I found it. I sold my first bag on the streets at fourteen and developed contacts, used the cash in the attic to start my business. There was that much dad didn't notice a fat wedge getting taken. By sixteen, I had my own turf and my own reputation and guys on the streets dealing with me. I also had a name in the depths of the underground for my skills in fighting. A kid taking on grown men for territory made me into a fighter. I had to learn. Learn how to dodge a punch from my drunk father and learn how to heal from a knife quickly when a turf war had gotten dicey. I got tough, I became f*cking feral.

Right now, at twenty-six, to not spoil the surprise, I was known as Dominic De Luca, the new Don on the block self-made by being a cruel merciless f*ck, I still get looked upon as a kid by these f*ckers they didn't really respect me, I didn't have an old name that guaranteed respect, but they saw I was a threat, sprung on them with a ready-made army at my back. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise just yet, that Niko Ricci has risen from the dead like a demon of death coming for them all. And he was back to take back what was his. His place at the top and his family's name and belongings restored to his former glory.

So yes, I have not brought our family name back just yet, but I will. And when I did, and I revealed myself, it would be just as I put a bullet between Franks' eyes and watched as the lights went out, or once I had his prized possession, his daughter, in the hands of a Ricci he would piss his pants with fear knowing he was f*cked, the slow build of torture now that would be sweeter revenge watching him fall apart, just more bloody a war would break out. I'd probably go with the latter. It was more food to feed my depravity.

Hushed whispers started spreading around the room, catching my attention, and then I saw her. For the first time, I saw the angel of the underworld. And rumors for once had not been a lie, they were infact understated. What they said about her was nothing to what she was. F*ck she was stunning, but she was also Vantani, and that had my lips curling up in disgust at the fact my d*ck had woken up too with just one glimpse of her. Traitorous f*ck, already I f*cking despised her.