Page 10 of Sacred Sin

Chapter 3

Giovanni

“Well, if it isn’t sin in a suit.” My brother, Antonio, dropped down in a chair opposite me.

“It’s a little off-putting when my brother calls me sin in a suit.”

Tony smirked but didn’t comment.

In our world, we operated with a hardness and indifference to the life and death we held in our hands. Inside, we had our demons that we regularly slayed to keep up and grow the empire we’d inherited.

Why was he here?

“Where’s your twin?” he asked, referring to Marko.

“I thought you were my twin,” I rebutted.

“Yeah, from another mother.” He laughed at his joke.

Although Tony, Tano, and Massimo carried the Vitale name now, they had been born Di Mauro. After their parents died, mine adopted them and raised them as their own.

Tony and I were the same age and practically grew up side by side. I didn’t remember a time before him, or Marko. They were more than brothers; they were my best friends, the two men who kept me human.

“I’m asking if you know where Marko is.”

I felt a chill move down my spine. Was Marko in trouble? I’d taken him at his word when he said he was with a friend who needed help, but that was five days ago, and he hadn’t checked in since. I could use our IT to track him and tell me exactly where he was, but I’d never needed to before and was loath to now.

“He’s with a friend. Why does it matter?” I leaned back on the couch and spread my arms along the top of the backrest, daring Tony to question me further. I didn’t like being on the defense, especially when I was in my place of business. I gave him a look that would have most men pissing themselves, but it didn’t have the desired effect on my brother. He issued one back until our silent pissing contest was a draw and we both dropped the charade.

“Shouldn’t you be watching over Papa’s gambling empire?” I hissed.

Antonio was a number genius and our father had placed him well when he put him in charge of accounting for the Vitale empire. He also gave him our gambling operation, which was Tony’s baby. Although our babies crossed, as I ran the clubs where the gambling took place, we made sure never to step on each other’s toes.

“I am, but I was wondering why Almando was overseeing operations that Marko was supposed to be overseeing, but you answered that.” My brother was saying something without actually saying it.

“Do you need Marko for something specific?”

“I needed to make a point to some stronzo who owes us money.”

“Don’t you have enforcers for that shit? Why waste Marko on something simple? Take one of the other guys.” I reached for my Disaronno and knocked it back.

He nodded sagely, almost absently, and again I wondered if he knew something about Marko I didn’t.

Before I could press him for answers, Fausto walked in, shoved one of my arms off the couch, and dropped into my seat. Normally I’d have told him to get the fuck up, but the look on his face stopped me cold.

Antonio seemed to notice too and sat forward in his seat. “What’s going on?”

“The fucking Irish, that’s what’s going on. The Éannas are on the bloody warpath!”

Gone was my quiet, calculating brother, replaced by the barely contained beast that only reared its head for special occasions. It was only two months ago that we’d weeded out the Russians and their plan to take over the routes for the eastern seaboard, at least for now. I had no doubt another would soon pop up in place of Ivan Knyazev, the Russian mob leader who had kidnapped Gabriella.

His plan had been to steal and then sell Gaby to her birth father, a Russian oligarch named Dmitri Peskov, and the plan had almost worked. Until my very perceptive brother, Gaetano—or Tano as we called him—figured out what was going on. We nearly lost him during the rescue, but the misfortune also brought opportunity.

Having used a skill set not connected with his role as head of Mercy Hospital or as its leading surgeon, my brilliant brother realized he had things to offer within the family business and had decided to move away from his traditional roles into something that offered him way more time but still required his critical-thinking skills. He would still help the family as our personal physician.

We still didn’t know if Gaby was going back to school to finish her nursing degree. I knew if my brother had his way, she’d be chained to his bed until she was pregnant with his babies.

“What did they do?” I asked, bringing my thoughts back around to the present.