Reluctant Heir (Mafia Princess Book 1) Read online

  Reluctant Heir

  Mafia Princess: Book One

  CM Wondrak

  © 2021 Candace Wondrak

  All Rights Reserved.

  Book cover by Quirah Casey at Temptation Creations.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Books by Candace Wondrak are only available at Amazon. If you are reading elsewhere, please note it is an illegal, pirated copy, uploaded without my permission. I, the author, nor the distributor received payment for the copy, and if prosecuted violation comes with a fine of up to $250,000. Please do not pirate books.

  Chapter One – Giselle

  Chapter Two – Giselle

  Chapter Three – Giselle

  Chapter Four – Zander

  Chapter Five – Giselle

  Chapter Six – Giselle

  Chapter Seven – Luca

  Chapter Eight – Giselle

  Chapter Nine – Ezekiel

  Chapter Ten – Giselle

  Chapter Eleven – Giselle

  Chapter One – Giselle

  Heaven. Hell. I always envied those who believed in something greater, an all-knowing higher power. A being of unimaginable strength, omnipotent, always with a plan. My mother was like that, or so I was told. I didn’t remember her at all because she died when I was a child. The people who believed in God would say it was all part of his plan.

  I didn’t know whether I believed that.

  I’d started to go to church a few years back, wanting to be closer to her, to my mother. That was the excuse I’d told my father, anyway. At the time, I’d hoped it would give me some sense of purpose, something my father could never give me, regardless of how hard he tried.

  It didn’t, but it was the reason I was here now.

  That was a long story, one I didn’t really want to get into, but as I stared up at this particular church, the oldest church in Cypress, I wondered if this place’s halls could give me anything. I doubted it. The old me might’ve sought answers, but now I just wanted…

  Well, that was the problem. I didn’t know what I wanted. Not anymore.

  The wind blew past me, the sidewalks all but empty even though it was the middle of the day. Not many people walked the streets of Cypress apparently; I wouldn’t know. We’d just moved here, all so my father could win a place on the Black Hand.

  Yeah, another long story, but needless to say, my father’s empire was not big enough. It never was. There was always more to take, more money to make, more enemies to eliminate. Being on the Black Hand would revitalize the Santos last name and make everyone remember why they should fear us.

  The gentle breeze rustled my hair, causing its yellow length to get in my face. I let it, still staring up at the old, pointed steeple. This building looked so very old, completely out of place on this street. Stained glass windows, a big bell up on top. Ominous. Foreboding… but again, that could just be a feeling inside me due to what happened the last time I’d stepped foot in a church.

  I stood before the door, my hands resting at my sides. I wore a white coat lined with fur. Underneath, an equally white dress. Ivory gloves sat on my hands, and my heart did something strange in my chest as I brought my gloved hands before me, just inches from the door. I was slow to drop my gaze off the church and onto my hands.

  The gloves were white, without an imperfection. They were flawless and pure, just like I was supposed to be. Only I wasn’t. I was as impure as the worst sinner here.

  My mind flashed back, and I remembered the last time I’d entered a church much like this one.

  My feet took me through the city, knowing where to go in the darkness of the night. I was bundled up, my blond hair tucked up in a hat. It was an off day, but it was open confessionals. I’d stopped confessing my sins a long time ago, mostly because the sins I confessed were not mine.

  But Father Charlie didn’t care. He sat with me in silence most of the time, a quiet comfort. The only comfort I had these days. After what happened, after what I nearly did… he was the reason I was still here, and I couldn’t forget it. I felt like I owed it to him to try to find inner peace in his God, even if I didn’t personally believe.

  I didn’t hesitate when I reached the church; I walked right in, instantly feeling more relaxed. Past the pews, I saw the altar, where the giant cross hung, a statue of Jesus on it. I reached up to take my hat off, letting my long hair free. As I shook it out, I walked down the middle aisle.

  No one else was here, which I thought was kind of odd. Normally, there was always a person or two here, someone praying for something or other. Whether or not their God answered them, I never had any idea. I supposed that was between them and their God.

  Me? I came here for Father Charlie. For his guidance, for everything he was and everything he stood for. A wizened man of sixty, he was everything my father wasn’t—and perhaps that was why I’d taken to him so strongly, after…

  No. I wasn’t going to think about it. Thinking about it made my skin crawl and those feelings of helplessness return, and I never wanted to feel like that again.

  Clutching my hat, I couldn’t feel the fabric through the gloves I wore. White, as usual. Always white, because white meant purity. It was a lie, like everything else, but it was one my father approved of. Had to keep up appearances. Appearances were about all I was good for these days.

  I stopped about halfway down the aisle, freezing. My ears heard not a thing. No footsteps, not a single thing. It was enough to make me crease my eyebrows in concern. If no one was in confessional with Father Charlie, you could still hear him moving about, cleaning, fixing things, doing anything he could to stay busy and keep the church in tip top shape. He lived right next door, so it wasn’t like he had much of a life outside of this place.

  But… there was nothing. Not a single sound, and it didn’t sit right with me. Maybe it was because I was a Santos, but I knew something was wrong. I knew it instantly, my gut hardening in anticipation. I’d seen enough to know when something was wrong, it usually meant the shit had hit the fan in the worst way.

  My feet picked up the pace, drawing me toward the altar. I opened my mouth, seconds from shouting for Father Charlie, but a faint sound called my attention, a sound coming from the left—where the private confessionals were. I turned to face the area, slowly walking toward it. As I did, the sound grew louder.

  It wasn’t a loud sound by definition. It was something most people would overlook entirely, but my ears heard it; they were keenly attuned to the sound of blood.

  When I saw the red dripping from the confessional’s door, from the side where Father Charlie normally resided, I knew my instinct had been right. Bright and garish, thick and oozing into a puddle near my feet; there was only one thing that red stuff could be.

  Blood.

  No. No, no, no.

  My breath caught in the back of my throat, and I reached for the door, swinging it open to see what I already knew, and the sight made the last flickers of hope within me die. My world had shattered three years ago, but this… this was a reminder that nothing I could ever do would make it okay ever again.

  Father Charlie’s body was slumped against the wall. His eyes, which normally held such kindness and warmth and generosity, were still open, but they were glassy and dilated. He stared right through me, his body pale. Blood painted the walls behind him and next to him, splattered on the divider.

  Three times. He’d been shot three times, at point-blank range. Once in the gut. Once in the chest, near his
left shoulder, and once in the head. His clothes were ruffled, and I could see he no longer wore the decorated, golden cross he’d picked up while visiting Rome decades ago. He never let that thing out of his sight.

  My blood ran cold when I stared at him, every part of me hardening. The innocent girl I pretended to be vanished, replaced by someone with an anger problem, someone who wanted answers and would do anything to get them.

  Father Charlie was a good man. A nice man, a rarity in these parts. There were more mobsters, more gangsters, around here than good people. He had been alone in his righteousness, and that was why this community didn’t deserve him.

  He’d told me once that was exactly why they needed him here. If he could save a single soul, then he’d consider his life and his work well-spent and well-done.

  “No,” I whispered, pushing inside the confessional, dropping my hat in the process. There wasn’t much room, but I managed to fit along with Father Charlie. I pulled his body away from the wall, shaking him a bit, as if he could magically heal from a bullet to the head.

  His body was heavier than it looked, and I let out a soft cry when his head fell back and his eyes no longer stared at me. He was gone, and nothing I could do or say would change it. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t fucking deserve to go out like this. I didn’t know who the hell would come after a priest, but—

  As I thought that thought, I heard something. A noise. A sound that definitely did not belong in a church, much like a corpse. If some thugs had decided to raid the church for money, they wouldn’t find much. This church didn’t rake in the money like others in different cities might. If they’d killed Father Charlie for a few bucks, I was going to lose it.

  No, wait. I’d already lost it.

  I pulled myself out of the confessional, letting go of his body. It slumped back over in a different position, his head tucked in the corner of the tiny room, bent at an unnatural angle. His glassy eyes stared off into the distance, and I swore I saw my reflection in them.

  Three years ago, he’d saved my life, and I wasn’t here to return the favor. What kind of shitty irony was that?

  I glanced down at my hands, at my gloves. It felt like I stared at them for hours, but in reality, only seconds passed. The white fabric had been stained a bright red from Father Charlie’s blood, and I held my breath as I worked to take them off. Once they were off my hands, I let them fall to the floor. They landed in the pool of blood near the side of the confessional.

  My damned gloves sat on the floor, further stained with the escaped blood.

  Damned. That’s what this place was here for: to save the sinners, to welcome the righteous, to turn away the damned.

  That’s what I was. I’d known it all along. Coming here, getting close to Father Charlie, trying to be like my mother… it never would’ve worked. Everything I was today was a lie, and no amount of fighting would prove otherwise.

  I could not be saved, much like Father Charlie.

  My fingers curled into fists, and I turned toward the altar. On its far side sat a door, where a room was hidden. That room was where the church must keep its collected money, along with the extra wine and bread for communion. As I walked across the church, abandoning Father Charlie’s corpse, I shrugged off my jacket, knowing I’d need full range of motion.

  I passed the front stage, where the altar sat, and I grabbed the processional cross as I went, lifting it out of its holder. A tall cross on a metal pole, its weight felt wrong in my hands, like I shouldn’t touch it. Like I wasn’t meant to. I was too sullied, too dirtied.

  And yet it did not burn me.

  I made not a single sound as I approached the door to the back room, and the closer I got, the louder the noises became. Someone was definitely searching for something, and rage boiled inside of me. How fucking dare they come into this place, take away someone I cared about, and have the balls to stay to ransack it? Whoever it was wouldn’t leave this church alive.

  Standing before the door, holding onto the metal pole, it was like the world shifted. Everything changed. The person I was faded away, replaced by someone who was so very angry. Angry at whoever had done this, angry at my father, angry at the world. When the person you thought you could trust betrayed you, fury tended to come all too easily.

  Voices came from inside the room. At least two men were in there, searching the place. Two men. I wasn’t scared. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I could take them, no matter who they were or why they were here. Whether they were sent here by their boss or if they’d come to this church of their own accord didn’t matter.

  The walls of this church would be painted in blood by the time I was done here.

  I pushed into the room, instantly causing the men inside to whirl at me, each pointing their guns at me. Okay, I recounted, so there were three. It still didn’t matter.

  One look at them, and I knew who they were. They each wore the same style leather jacket, a handmade patch on their right sleeves. Hair shaved short; one of them had a teardrop tattoo just below their eye. I wondered if that was the man who’d killed Father Charlie.

  My father had some run-ins with the Greenback Serpents in the past. I knew the shitty patchwork anywhere. My question was: what the fuck were they doing here, in this church, with a priest’s blood on their hands? Every gang in the area knew this was a safe place.

  They saw the cross in my hand, smirks spreading on their faces, and they chuckled. Two of them put their guns away, tucking them into the waistband of their pants, while the other resumed tearing up the room. Clearly, they didn’t think little old me was a threat.

  I knew I didn’t look threatening. An eighteen-year-old girl, wearing all white. Pretty. I’d taken after my mother where my hair was concerned: long and blond, a little wavy here and there. My eyes were warm and brown; something I’d gotten from my father, the Santos side. My skin might be pale right now, but if I was in the sun often, I took a tan pretty well.

  Just a girl. One look at me and that’s what they thought. Unlike them, I didn’t wear a patch on my sleeve telling the world who I was or who I owed allegiance to.

  “Lookie here, boys,” the man closest to me spoke, cocking his head at me as his eyes studied me. The one with the teardrop tattoo on his face. “What do we have here, hmm? Come to confess your sins, girl? I’m no priest, but if you get on your knees, I’ll—”

  That was enough.

  He’d stepped close enough to me that I could get him with the cross’s pole, and I did. I whipped the pole up, getting the guy right between his legs. Pretty sure his balls made an audible sound as they popped, and he instantly turned red in the face and collapsed on the floor before me, sputtering out curse words at me.

  “You killed Father Charlie,” I hissed out, twirling around the collapsed man to reach the other two—who were starting to realize I wasn’t just some girl who’d waltzed in off the streets. “And now you’re going to pay for it.”

  I hit the second man right in the gut with the end of the pole, shoving him back onto the table he stood near, and then I went after the one who still clutched his gun. He couldn’t turn it on me fast enough. I spun the spoke so that the cross was near him, and then I whacked his hand with the metal, causing his gun to fly out of his hand and slide across the floor.

  It was easy to lose yourself in the thick of it. Easy to snap and not see reason or sanity ever again. Sometimes it was like someone else was in control of me, and I was just along for the ride. This girl was not the innocent, pure girl in white. This girl was a devil in disguise, and she was about to wreak havoc upon these three poor, ugly men. Never again would they hurt anyone else. I didn’t fucking care if this started a war between my father and the Greenbacks. Let them fight. Let my father’s men annihilate these wannabe gangsters.

  I didn’t fucking care anymore. The girl who cared was dead; she’d died three years ago.

  The men didn’t know what hit them. I was at one with the pole in my hands, beating the shit out of
them. I was faster than they were, and every time they went for their guns, I knocked them out of their hands. Each time the guy who’s balls I hit got up, I tripped him and knocked him back down again.

  I didn’t stop with the cross until their faces bled, their cheeks cracked and bruised. Their lips and eyebrows were in much the same condition. One of them eventually grabbed the end of the pole, finally starting to think, but it was too late. The moment I’d seen him going for the pole, I’d released it, ducking and rolling. My fingers found the metal of the nearest gun on the floor, and I aimed, pulling the trigger shortly after.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  Unlike these fools, I didn’t waste any bullets. One I got in the chest, the other in the head. The third—the guy with the teardrop tattoo—I hit in the knee, causing him to collapse and cry out in agony. One of the most painful areas to get shot. I’d never been shot, so I guess I wouldn’t really know how true that saying was.

  The other two men fell down in a heap, and I never tore my eyes off the teardrop man, getting to my feet slowly. He was trying to reach for his gun, but I stepped on it and kicked it away, letting the gun slide across the floor. I stepped on his hand after that, putting all my weight on it and hearing the bones crack. He cried out again.

  “What the fuck,” he spat, glaring up at me with hatred in his eyes. “Who the fuck are you, bitch?”

  “I’d ask who you are, but I already know thanks to that hideous badge on your arm. Did your boss send you here?” Atlas, the man with no face, was the leader of the Greenback Serpents. He’d been a thorn in my father’s side for years now. I didn’t know why my father didn’t just find out his identity and kill him.

  The man didn’t answer, probably because he knew he was dead either way.

  I aimed the gun at his head. “Why come here and kill the priest? There has to be better scores somewhere else!” My voice rose in desperation, but deep down I knew this man would give me no answers. And if he did, it wouldn’t make me feel better about any of this.