Page 1 of The Mafia King's Reign
PROLOGUE
Salvatore
They say every empire is built on blood.
They’re not wrong.
But it’s not the blood that keeps you in power. The real power comes from fear and respect.
I learned years ago that the best way to rule my kingdom is with patience, strategy, and control.
The kind of control that makes men think twice before they even consider crossing you.
I learned that lesson young, watching my father nearly bleed out on the marble floor of our family estate while his most trusted capo stood over him with a smoking gun. I was fourteen. Old enough to understand what betrayal looked like. Old enough to remember every face in that room who didn’t move to stop it.
By midnight, he’d killed them all.
My father, Giovanni Vitale, ruled through brutality and fear. He was a man who took what he wanted and destroyed what he couldn’t have. He taught me that power isn’t given, it’s taken. That loyalty is bought with blood and maintained with violence.
He also taught me that some betrayals echo through generations.
Years ago, my father’s most trusted advisor, his consigliere, Vincent Castellano, arranged for his daughter Isabella to marry my father. The ultimate proof of Castellano loyalty. A bond that would have elevated the Castellano family from advisors to true inner circle.
But she was a fool. Instead of taking her place and fulfilling her duty, she ran.
Isabella Castellano chose one of my father’s own guards over her duty. Over her family. Over her blood.
My father executed Vincent Castellano for his daughter’s betrayal. Shot his own consigliere, his most trusted man for over forty years in front of the entire family.
But that guard, Marco? Marco disappeared with Giovanni’s bride-to-be.
My father spent years hunting them. Never found them. The loss haunted him until the day he died. Not only the bride he’d been promised, but the guard’s betrayal. The wound to his pride that never healed.
Two years ago, I inherited everything. The empire. The territory. The hunt.
I finally found the traitor, Marco Marino.
Living quietly as a literature professor by day. Married to Isabella but she goes by Maria now. Two daughters who had no idea what their parents really were.
I could have killed him immediately.
Instead, I made him work for us. Made him pay his debt slowly, painfully, while his family remained blissfully ignorant.
Until he betrayed us… again.
The plan was to kill him, but then, I saw his daughter and everything changed.
Valentina Marino.
Twenty-six. Dark hair, perfect eyes. Intelligent. Beautiful in a way that didn’t try. Standing outside a library with her arms full of books, completely unaware she was being watched.
She was already claimed. Already branded, even if she didn't know it yet.
I stared at that surveillance photo for days. She became an addiction, and I couldn’t get enough.
I made a decision that would either secure my empire or burn it to the ground.
At thirty-six, I sit at the head of the Vitale empire. Five brothers, one throne, and a city that bends to our will.
