No Longer His Obedient Mafia Shadow

I had been the obedient shadow of New York's future Don since we were six years old, willing to bleed for his Outfit.

But in a club full of made men, when asked who he would save in a lethal crossfire between me and a Capo's daughter, he looked me dead in the eye and chose her.

"Tessa is too soft for the life. Saving her would just be a tactical liability."

The entire syndicate crew erupted in mocking laughter, cheering as the Capo's daughter brazenly took the seat beside him.

To further break my spirit, he later used my late grandfather's sacred blood-oath rosary as a pawn in a treacherous mountain survival drill.

He left me to freeze in the torrential mud, violently shoving me aside to coddle his new favorite's fake injury, publicly berating me as a pathetic burden.

For fifteen years, I endured his isolation and casual cruelty, naively believing he was just hardening me for our future reign.

I couldn't understand how the boy who used to protect me could so ruthlessly strip away my dignity, deliberately destroying my confidence just so I would remain his dependent toy forever.

Waking up battered in the hospital, the fifteen years of suffocating devotion finally drained out of me.

I calmly booked a one-way ticket to the rival Southern Syndicate to become an underground surgeon, leaving him and his bloody throne behind forever.

Chapter 1

I was holding a losing hand of poker in a room full of made men when the future Don of New York looked me dead in the eye and publicly declared he would leave me to die.

If I did not walk away from the business of this family tonight, the man I had worshipped since childhood was going to be the one to put me in the ground.

The air in the VIP booth of the underground Syndicate club was a stagnant fog of expensive cigar smoke and spilled whiskey.

Rocco sat at the center of the leather booth. He commanded his space without movement, a man whose tailored suit could not conceal the sheer mass of the shoulders beneath it-shoulders that had, before his twenty-first birthday, dismantled rival syndicates with nothing but his hands.

His dark eyes surveyed the room with the heavy, arrogant stillness of a king who owned every shard of glass, every drop of spilled liquor, every soul.

Including me. Or so everyone thought.

I tossed my cards onto the table. Another losing hand.

The Syndicate Associates around us erupted in rowdy cheers. They demanded a truth as my penalty.

One of the older hitmen leaned forward, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk. He looked right past me and addressed Rocco.

"If a rival Family ambushed us right now, and you only had time to pull one girl out of the crossfire alive... who do you save? Tessa, or Daria?"

The low thrum of music from the club floor seemed to fall away into nothing. The air in the booth turned thick and suffocating.

Rocco slowly turned his head. His gaze drifted over me. There was no recognition there-only the flat, cold appraisal of a man assessing a piece of damaged property.

"Daria."

The word was so quiet, yet it seemed to suck all the air from my lungs.

Rocco took a slow sip of his drink, his voice cutting through the silence with brutal authority.

"Tessa is too soft for the life. Saving her in a firefight would just be a tactical liability. She would freeze before she even unholstered her weapon."

The mobsters erupted in laughter, a harsh, grating sound that bounced off the glass tabletops. They slapped the table, mocking my unrequited devotion and my supposed ambition to join the Elite Enforcer Academy.

I sat perfectly still. My hands rested in my lap, my fingernails digging into my palms until the skin nearly broke.

Tears pricked the back of my eyes, but to argue now would only gratify them. I swallowed the metallic tang that rose in my throat and forced my fingers to uncurl from my palms.

I silently conceded that he was right. I was not built for the casual cruelty of his operations. The sight of blood made my stomach turn, and the thought of taking a life made me want to stop breathing.

That was the exact second my secret decision solidified into stone. I was going to flee to the Southern Syndicate. I was going to study underground medicine and never look back.

The heavy velvet curtains parted, and Daria strutted into the VIP booth.

She was a Capo's daughter, a woman who moved not with grace, but with the coiled, efficient tension of a predator. She wore tactical leather and a smirk that promised violence.

She grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the table and downed a punishing shot as a late penalty. The Capos and Soldiers roared their approval.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she smoothly claimed the empty space beside Rocco. She snapped her fingers at a server, ordering a chair to be placed directly against his.

She playfully punched Rocco's broad shoulder. It was the rough, familiar gesture of a fellow soldier-an intimacy I was never permitted.

"I heard about an illegal underground fighting ring opening up near the docks tonight," Daria said, leaning close to his ear. "You in, Boss?"

Rocco showed his teeth in a smile that held no warmth. "I am always in for blood."

A realization, cold and sharp as a needle, pricked at my consciousness. He hadn't answered my calls last night because he was out with her, spilling blood or making deals.

Daria stood brazenly between Rocco and me. She shifted her weight, intentionally forcing me to awkwardly slide my seat away from the future Don.

An Associate across the table sneered. "Looks like Daria is breaking up the Family's golden couple."

I kept my face entirely still. I waited for Rocco to assert his territorial dominance. I waited for him to shut the disrespect down, the way he used to when we were teenagers.

Rocco maintained a bizarre, heavy silence. He just stared at his glass, and the air grew so taut that the men around us fell quiet, one by one.

I forced down the massive lump of humiliation in my throat and looked directly at the Associate.

"Watch your mouth. We aren't bound by any arrangement."

Rocco violently knocked over his whiskey glass.

It shattered against the edge of the table with a loud crack. Shards of glass flew across the leather. Daria gasped and jumped back.

Past Daria's shoulder, I saw Rocco's face. His usually arrogant expression had darkened into something feral and unrecognizable.

Daria stood up to find a towel from the bar, telling me to watch her seat.

The second she moved, Rocco shifted his massive frame. He closed the distance between us in a fraction of a second, trapping me against the back of the booth.

"Did the crew's disrespect bother you, Tessa?" he asked. He leaned forward, the clip of his tie catching a sliver of light that stabbed at my eyes, and his words were so soft they did not stir the cigar smoke between us.

I looked up into his eyes, countering with a bitter question of my own.

"Did it bother you? I remember a time when we were kids. You beat an Associate half to death just for teasing us about holding hands."

Rocco faltered. A muscle feathered in his jaw.

"I was just a kid protecting my property back then," he muttered, his voice hard. He quickly pivoted, leaning closer to interrogate me. "How are your Enforcer trials going? You have been skipping the shooting range."

My heart raced. I debated confessing right then and there that I had never signed the blood-oath for the Academy.

But Rocco's intense, obsessive gaze dropped to my shoulders. His face suddenly contorted.

"Why do you still keep your hair long?" he barked, his voice loud enough to make the men at the table flinch. "Female Enforcers must crop their hair. Enemies will grab it in close-quarters combat and snap your neck. Cut it off."

I fell silent, looking at the dark strands cascading down my chest.

"I haven't cut my hair short since middle school," I explained softly. "I just wanted to feel normal for once."

Rocco looked at me with disbelief. He scoffed, a sound thick with contempt.

"Normal? Look at Daria's tactical efficiency. You are being vain, Tessa. You are useless to the Family looking like a civilian."

His words sliced through my chest like a serrated blade.

For a moment, the urge to scream at him was a physical pressure in my throat. I wanted to tell him I never submitted my name to the Enforcer Academy because I would rather die than become a monster like him. But I looked into his unblinking eyes, and the impulse died like a flame starved of oxygen.

Daria returned with a towel, immediately noticing the strained set of Rocco's shoulders.

"Act like a Boss, Rocco," Daria said, tossing the towel onto the spill. "Apologize to her. You are scaring the girl."

Rocco did not even look at Daria. His eyes remained locked on mine, as cold and empty as polished stone.

"I am not apologizing. She is being an irrational liability."

The last drop of courage drained from my veins.

I watched the two of them resume their effortless banter about guns and territory, swallowing a heavy sigh.

The future Don could not care less about my survival, and he certainly did not care about my soul.

I needed to get out of this city before he destroyed me completely.