6,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: BookRix
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Loyalty forged him. Betrayal will crown him.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026
Ähnliche
The Don’s Ruthless Assassin
Loyalty Forged Him. Betrayal Made Him Sovereign.
Robert Jackson
Copyright © 2026 by Robert Jackson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations used in reviews or critical articles permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1 – The Summons from the Sovereign Don
Chapter 2 – The Blade in the Velvet Court
Chapter 3 – An Oath Carved in Silence
Chapter 4 – The Assassin’s First Decree
Chapter 5 – A Contract Signed in Blood and Wax
Chapter 6 – The Gentleman Who Ordered Death
Chapter 7 – Shadows Beneath the Grand Cathedral
Chapter 8 – The Rival Syndicate’s Envoy
Chapter 9 – A Dance of Courtesy and Threats
Chapter 10 – The Night the Bullets Sang
Chapter 11 – Treachery Behind Marble Doors
Chapter 12 – The Don’s Most Guarded Secret
Chapter 13 – A Challenge Issued Before the Council
Chapter 14 – The Assassin’s Unforgivable Mercy
Chapter 15 – War in the Name of Honor
Chapter 16 – The Fall of a Trusted Lieutenant
Chapter 17 – The Crown of the Underworld Trembles
Chapter 18 – Bloodlines and Betrayal
Chapter 19 – The Assassin Who Defied His Master
Chapter 20 – Sovereign of the Ruthless
Epilogue
Prologue
The night I stopped being human, it rained.
Not the soft kind. Not the kind that cleans the streets and makes sinners think they can start fresh. It was heavy. Cold. The sort that soaks through wool and settles in your bones.
I was nineteen years old when I killed my first man.
He begged.
That is what I remember most.
His hands were tied behind him. Rope cutting into skin. He kept promising things he did not own. Money. Favors. Loyalty. They all promise loyalty when their knees touch concrete.
I stood in front of him in a black suit two sizes too large. My hair was shorter then. Military cut. Dark like my father’s. My hands were steady, which surprised me. I thought I would shake. I thought something inside me would rebel.
It did not.
Behind me stood Don Salvatore Vittorio—Sovereign of the Vittorio Syndicate. Sixty-two years old. Silver hair slicked back. Tailored coat. Gloves. He did not raise his voice. He never needed to.
“Luca,” he said, calm as a priest. “Look at him.”
I looked.
The man on his knees had betrayed our family to the Romano crew across the river. He had sold shipping routes. Sold names. Sold safe houses.
He looked like someone’s uncle. Someone’s father.
“Mercy is weakness,” the Don said quietly. “And weakness invites war.”
That was rule one in our world.
There were only four rules in the Vittorio Syndicate.
Loyalty above blood. Silence above truth. Strength above mercy. The Don above all.
Break one, and you were erased.
I pulled the trigger.
The sound echoed off brick walls. Pigeons lifted into the night. The rain kept falling like nothing had changed.
But something had.
When the body dropped, Don Salvatore stepped beside me. He placed one gloved hand on my shoulder.
“You do not hesitate,” he observed. “Good.”
I did not tell him that I had already died once before that moment.
—
My name is Luca Moretti.
I am twenty-eight years old now.
Six feet two. Broad shoulders. Scar along my left rib from a knife fight at twenty-three. Brown eyes my mother used to say were too soft for this life. She was wrong. They hardened.
I am not a made soldier.
I am not a capo.
I am not consigliere.
I am something else.
I am the Don’s assassin.
Not officially. There are no records. No ceremony. No oath spoken aloud in front of candles and old men. My loyalty was sealed in that alley when I was nineteen and soaked in rain.
Salvatore raised me after my father died protecting him in a warehouse ambush. My father took three bullets meant for the Don. That bought me a place at his table.
It did not buy me kindness.
From the age of twelve, I was trained. Firearms. Close combat. Surveillance. Languages. How to bow properly at formal gatherings. How to sit still and listen. How to smile without showing teeth.
He educated me in private schools by day and blood lessons by night.
“You are not a thug,” he would tell me. “You are precision.”
I believed him.
That belief is my wound.
Because precision is not allowed to feel.
—
Our territory stretches across the old quarter of the city. Docks. Nightclubs. Import warehouses. High-rise offices that look legitimate on paper.
The Vittorio crest hangs in every back room—lion rampant in gold on black.
Every soldier knows his rank.
The Don sits at the top. Untouchable.
Below him, Capo Lorenzo Marchetti controls street operations. Brutal. Thick-necked. Loyal but impatient.
Consigliere Arturo Bellini handles negotiations. Thin smile. Cold eyes. He remembers everything said in a room.
Then the soldiers. Then the associates. Then the civilians who think they are not involved.
And then there is me.
I answer only to Salvatore.
I do not attend public meetings unless summoned. I do not drink at celebrations. I do not gamble in our clubs. I do not form attachments.
That last rule was never spoken aloud.
It was simply understood.
—
Three nights ago, the Don called me to the Black Estate.
The mansion sits on a hill overlooking the river. Iron gates. Long gravel drive. Cameras hidden in stone eagles.
I arrived at eight sharp.
Inside, the house smelled of cigars and polished wood. Portraits of past Vittorio heads lined the hallway. Men who built empires from corpses.
Salvatore waited in his study.
He no longer stands as easily as he once did. Age is a thief. Still, his presence fills a room.
“You are late,” he said without looking at the clock.
“I am on time.”
A pause. Then the faintest nod.
On his desk lay a folder sealed with wax.
“The Romano family has grown bold,” he began. “They believe my age has softened me.”
It had not.
“They are wrong,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. “They are.”
He pushed the folder toward me.
Inside were photographs. Shipment manifests. Bank transfers. And one face circled in ink.
Matteo Romano. Youngest son of Don Emilio Romano. Thirty-two. Educated abroad. Ruthless by reputation. Groomed to inherit.
“He plans to strike our docks within the week,” Salvatore said. “He thinks we will not see it.”
“What do you require?” I asked.
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Remove him.”
Simple words. Heavy consequence.
Killing a rival heir is not street work. It is a declaration.
“War will follow,” I said.
“War is already here,” he answered. “They simply have not heard the first shot.”
I studied Matteo’s photograph. Clean-shaven. Tailored suit. Arrogant tilt to his mouth.
“Do you hesitate?” the Don asked.
He always asks that.
“No.”
The lie tasted strange.
—
There are rules between families.
No killing during negotiations.
No targeting wives or children.
No violence during sanctioned events.
The old codes keep chaos from swallowing everything.
Three days from now, both families will attend a charity gala at the Grand Aurora Hotel. Public. Lavish. Cameras everywhere.
Matteo will be there.
So will I.
“Not at the gala,” Salvatore said, as if reading my thoughts. “We are not animals.”
“Understood.”
“Clean,” he added. “Quiet. Send a message, but not panic.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“You are my finest instrument, Luca. Do not disappoint me.”
There it was.
Not trust.
Expectation.
I left with the folder under my arm and something unsettled in my chest.
—
I have killed seventeen men in nine years.
Drug traffickers who skimmed profits. Traitors who sold routes. A politician who thought he could blackmail us. Two hitmen from Chicago sent to test our defenses.
Each death was necessary.
That is what I told myself.
Necessary. Efficient. Controlled.
I never asked if they deserved mercy.
Because mercy was not my role.
—
The first crack in that certainty came last winter.
A warehouse job. Target: Carlo Ventresca. Accountant. Quiet. Bookish. He had been feeding numbers to the Romano syndicate.
I found him alone in his office above the docks.
He did not beg.
He removed his glasses. Set them down carefully.
“I suppose this is it,” he said.
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
“Tell my daughter I kept my promise,” he whispered.
“What promise?”
“That I would not let them touch her.”
I did not know what he meant.
Later I learned the Romanos had threatened his child to force cooperation.
He chose betrayal to protect her.
Rule one: Loyalty above blood.
He broke it.
I shot him.
Afterward, I confirmed the girl had been relocated out of state by unknown parties. She was safe.
Carlo died thinking he had failed.
That was the first night I did not sleep.
It was the first time I wondered if the rules were written by men who no longer remembered what it felt like to lose.
—
Matteo Romano is different.
He is not cornered. He is not desperate.
He is ambitious.
And ambition is harder to justify.
I spent two days tracking his movements. Gym at six. Meetings at ten. Lunch at the Bellarosa Café. Private dinners twice a week.
He moves with guards. Professional. Alert.
He smiles often.
On the third evening, I followed him to a townhouse near the river.
No guards entered.
I waited across the street in a parked car.
Lights turned on in an upstairs window.
Then I saw her.
A woman stepped into view. Long dark hair. Pale dress. She moved toward him and placed her hands on his chest.
They spoke. I could not hear the words.
He touched her face gently.
It caught me off guard.
Monsters are easier to kill when they act like monsters.
He kissed her forehead. Not possession. Not hunger. Something softer.
I looked away.
It does not matter who he loves.
He plans to spill our blood.
Still, something shifted.
—
Tonight is the gala.
The Grand Aurora glows like a palace. Chandeliers. Marble floors. Politicians pretending not to recognize criminals.
I enter alone.
