Dante: Prologue

The tension in the room is thick and cloying, so much that I suck it in with each breath that fills my lungs.

“Papá!” my older brother implores. “Please?”

Our father, il padre, sits in his old leather wingback chair, a cigar in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. Smoke furls around him, giving his already formidable appearance an even more sinister look. A cruel laugh escapes his lips, mocking us — the symphony of our childhoods.

Lorenzo stiffens, balling his hands into fists at his side. His biceps strain at the seams of his dinner jacket, and a thick vein bulges in his neck.

“Papá?” I plead now too, not only on my brother’s behalf but my own. Despite what Lorenzo might be thinking right now, I want no part of this either.

“Silenzio!” he barks, stubbing his cigar out in the large glass ashtray on his desk before pushing himself to his feet. “If you refuse to marry the woman I chose for you, then you will not…” He shakes his head and plants his hands on his desk. “You cannot be the head of this family.”

Lorenzo’s scowl deepens as he glares at the man who sired us. The man who has been priming him to take over his legacy from the second he was born. Lorenzo was born to be the head of this family. It’s his birthright. It’s the reason he endured the years of mental and physical torture at the hands of this man. It was all supposed to lead him to this.

“That was never part of the deal,” Lorenzo grinds out the words through clenched teeth. I know my older brother better than anyone, and right now, he’s torn between all he has been taught — to respect and fear our father, the great Salvatore Moretti, unchallenged and unyielding head of the Cosa Nostra for three long decades — and all that he has learned. As powerful and as formidable as our father is, my older brother could squash him like a bug if he chose to. Lorenzo Moretti is the most feared man in the city. He can crush a man’s skull with his bare hands.

“Deal?” The word echoes around the room, bouncing off the walls. “There is no deal, ragazzo!”

Boy! Lorenzo bristles at the term. He first took another man’s life at the age of fifteen and even before that he was never allowed to be a boy. Neither of us were. Because while Lorenzo has been groomed to be the head of the Moretti empire, I was born to be his second. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Until today.

“You refuse to marry Nicole Santangelo? Even if it costs you what you’ve been working for your entire life?” our father snarls.

“I can’t marry her,” Lorenzo replies.

“You’re giving all of this up for some Russian —”

Lorenzo takes a step forward until his thighs are pressed against our father’s desk. “Choose your next word carefully, Papá,” he warns. “Because she will be my wife.”

Our father narrows his eyes, glaring at Lorenzo. He doesn’t like to be challenged in any way. He’s unaccustomed to it, especially from his sons. But perhaps he feels the anger radiating from his first born as much as I do, because he doesn’t finish his sentence and stops short of calling Anya a whore.

Anya Novikov is Lorenzo’s fiancée. He met her six months ago and he has been hopelessly in love with her ever since. Papá has not taken kindly to their union. Their engagement last night has rocked our entire existence. Nobody expected it, least of all me. I wasn’t even sure my brother was capable of love, but something about Anya has him in a chokehold. And whilst I admire that he is a man of principle, I can hardly believe he’s giving up his birthright for a woman he barely knows.

“I am not saying you have to cut all ties with her,” our father says as he sits with a heavy sigh. “Marry Nicole and you can still keep seeing Anna —”

“Anya!” Lorenzo corrects him.

“Fine. But marrying the Santangelo girl does not mean you have to give up other women. You can have it all, mio figlio,” he says softly, switching tactics to gain my brother’s compliance. But he has touched a very raw nerve now and has no doubt pushed Lorenzo further down the path he has chosen.

“Like you did?” Lorenzo snarls. “Even though Mama gave you three children. Gave you everything!”

Salvatore Moretti jumps from his chair and bangs his fists on the wooden desk with such force that papers scatter onto the floor. “Your mama and I are not your concern,” he growls.

Lorenzo snorts, shaking his head at the man standing before him, and I see it on my father’s face, the moment he realizes that he’s no longer the one pulling his son’s strings. It makes him falter. Just for a second.

Then he turns to me. “Congratulations, mio figlio, you just earned yourself a new bride along with your promotion,” he says with a cruel smile.

“I don’t want either of them,” I remind him. “Lorenzo is taking your place. The Santangelos will find a groom for Nicole easily enough, Papá.”

I’m far too young to get married. I don’t want a wife. I don’t want to be the head of the family. But I’m not as stubborn as my older brother — maybe not as stupid as he is, either. I would never allow my life to be controlled by a woman.

“This is about our family, Dante,” he says, his tone softer as he tries to win me over. This has always been a tactic of his when it comes to me and my brother. Divide and conquer. “You know this is the way it has to be. You, of all people, understand how our family, our community, thrives and lives on.”

Lorenzo turns and looks at me, his brow pulled into a deep scowl.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, knowing that the course of all of our lives is about to change forever.