When a man steps out of death row for a murder he didn’t commit, the first thing he wants to do is kill a motherfucker.

The jacket I wore when they marched me into New Alderney State Penitentiary no longer fits my expanded muscles, so I sling it over my shoulder like I’m walking off a yacht. I didn’t expect to get freed so soon after obtaining hard drives crammed full of blackmail material, so my five o’clock shadow looks more like a quarter to midnight.

Fuck it.

I can shave after part one of my revenge.

The afternoon sun turns the concrete courtyard into a sauna, making sweat bead across my hairline and down my back. My skin itches and not because of the heat. Now that I’m no longer a prisoner, I’m twitching to lash out at the procession of prison guards flanking my steps.

Officer McMurphy with the double-Ds leans close, the perfume I bought her filling my nostrils. “Don’t be a stranger, Montesano.”

My attention shifts to the sharpshooter aiming a rifle at me from the tall concrete tower. After four years and three hundred forty-seven days, my sexual options are no longer restricted to crooked prison guards.

I nod, not because I plan on seeing her again, but because she’s a skillful and reliable mule. Our arrangement permitted me to run the family business from the joint, allowing me to save it from falling into complete ruin. 

“Roman!”

Vincent Spiera waves through the gates, wearing a ten-thousand-dollar tailored suit and a manic grin. Behind him is the silver 1965 Mercedes Cabriolet that Dad and I painstakingly restored from an old casino debt. I tear my gaze away from the reminder of what I’ve lost and focus on Vincent.

Our family lawyer has aged since my incarceration. He’s lost at least twenty pounds, looks like he’s shrunk three inches, and his once-full hairline has receded into a steel-gray circlet.

I flick my head in acknowledgment, the itch in my skin intensifying to a burn.

The gates open and let me out onto the desolate highway that surrounds the prison. Vincent’s arms wrap around my neck before I can inhale my first breath of freedom.

Every instinct in my body screams at me to snap his neck, but I didn’t escape one death sentence to blunder into another. Instead, I give him a lackluster pat on the back. Before Dad’s sudden heart attack and the series of events that led to the demise of our family empire, this man was Uncle Vincent—a trusted advisor for many years.

He pulls back from the embrace, his smile widening. “Welcome back, son. You have no idea how much we’ve missed you.”

I glance over my shoulder to the other side of the gates, where Officer McMurphy and her colleagues still linger.

“Let’s take this discussion somewhere else,” I mutter.

Vincent nods and heads for the driver’s seat, but I clamp a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll drive.”

His jaw drops, and he gazes up at me, his aged features etch with surprise. It’s his first genuine expression.

“You sure, Roman? I don’t mind taking you back.”

Back into another ambush? I keep that thought to myself. Vincent doesn’t need to know I’d rather place my hand in a grinder than let him lead me anywhere.

I slide into the driver’s side, the seat still warm from the sun. Its leather scent is familiar yet tainted with the thought that this backstabber helped an even bigger bastard to pick apart Dad’s possessions.

Vincent settles beside me into the front passenger seat and clasps his hands. His gaze irritates the right side of my face, but I focus on the road ahead.

At the first key twist in the ignition, the engine roars to life. I pull out from the prison grounds and onto the highway.

Wind rushes through the open windows, whips back my hair, and reminds me I’m free. I inhale a deep breath and fill my lungs with the first scent of air that doesn’t remind me of that shit hole.

“Roman—”

“Don’t speak.”

Vincent stiffens.

As he should. It took years, and a grand-scale massacre, to unravel the mess he and his accomplices made of the business. Thanks to the efforts of my cousin, Leroi, the men responsible for taking everything from our family are dead.

All but one of them.

Vincent only lives because I need one piece of information to enact the next stages of my revenge.

Scrubland whips past us in a blur, which soon darkens to sparse trees and then dense woodland. I make one stop for gasoline, which I pump into jerry cans that I load into the back seat.

“Tell me again which assets we lost to Frederic Capello,” I say.

“Why are you asking this question again? You already know—”

“Humor me.”

He gulps. “Casino Montesano plus the hotel, the shipping company, the loan company, fifty million dollars of real estate, and whatever was in the safety deposit boxes.”

I nod.

“Capello was blackmailing your father,” Vincent blurts. “I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.”

“You already said that.”

Blackmail was the only explanation for why Dad signed over his assets to a second-rate underboss like Frederic Capello. I never understood what kind of information was worth more than the wealth our family had built over generations and had thought Dad was weak until we got hold of Capello’s hard drives.

It turns out Dad wasn’t the only person with dirty secrets.

“Capello still has an heir,” Vincent says, his words filled with the accusation that I ordered the hit on the man and his family.

“I know. An illegitimate daughter named Emberly Kay.”

His quiet gasp tells me he didn’t expect us to conduct our own research. When the last of my appeals failed, my brothers, Benito and Cesare, hired an out-of-town firm of private investigators to dig up everything they could about the woman I was supposed to have murdered. 

They found nothing to connect her to anyone we knew except for Frederic Capello. Strangely, the DA never mentioned that the dead woman was one of his mistresses. They continued digging and found their daughter, Emberly. 

“Are you going to kill her?” Vincent asks. 

“Will that get back what was stolen?”

“No,” he rasps. “Capello’s lawyers are searching for the young woman to claim her inheritance. If she isn’t found, then the assets will go to his third cousin, Tommy Galliano, in New Jersey.”

My jaw clenches. Every ounce of resentment I have toward that double-dealing bastard rises to the surface. Five years ago, when Dad was alive, and the organization wasn’t so fragmented, we might have been able to handle the Galliano family. But not now. Not yet. Emberly Kay is a more accessible target that I’ll keep alive until I get back our property. 

Vincent’s gaze still bores into the side of my face, but I hold my silence and continue toward Beaumont City until we reach the dirt track that leads to an isolated cabin.

That’s when I take the turn at speed, scraping branches down the sides of the car and sending dirt flying.

“What’s going on, Roman?” Vincent asks, his voice tense.

“We’re taking a detour.”

He reaches for his inside pocket, presumably to get a gun. My fist connects with his temple, knocking his head into the window. I wince at the damage to my beloved car and continue driving through the woods until we reach the cabin. 

Benito is already waiting for us beneath the shade of a huge tree with his arms crossed over his chest. He opens the passenger-side door as I park the Mercedes and drags Vincent’s limp body to where Cesare is adding the last few branches to a bonfire.

While my brothers truss Vincent up with ropes and lay him atop the unlit wood, I reach for the cans of gasoline on the back seat. The old man jerks awake at the first splash.

“What’re you doing?” Vincent asks.

“Capello didn’t blackmail Dad into signing over his assets.” I empty the can over his face.

Vincent splutters as realization hits his balding head. “No, Roman, please!” He hurls himself off the bonfire, but Cesare throws him back onto the branches. “All I’ve ever been to your family is a friend.”

“How did it work?” I ask, not bothering to address his bullshit. “Did Capello blackmail you into forging Dad’s signature, or did you forge it?”

“That wasn’t me!” Vincent screams.

“We have Capello’s hard drives,” Benito says. “We’ve seen the footage he shot of you strangling that woman.”

Cesare shoves the edge of his shovel into Vincent’s gut, making him double over. I place a hand on my youngest brother’s shoulder in a warning for him not to ruin the bonfire.

“What I don’t understand is why you framed me for your sick perversion,” I say. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Capello held my family hostage and threatened to kill them if I didn’t do everything he demanded.”

Cesare huffs a laugh and pulls out two cigars, but I exchange a glance with Benito. That story is entirely possible. As Dad’s lead enforcer, Capello was capable of some heinous shit, but Vincent could have reached out to the family for help. 

“Why didn’t you say something?” I ask. “Dad would have killed Capello for threatening Aunt Monica.”

Vincent’s mouth opens and closes, but he makes no sound. 

“That’s what I thought.”

Cesare lights his cigar and takes a few puffs before handing me the second, along with a box of matches. Keeping my eyes fixed on Vincent’s, I place my cigar to my lips and strike a flame. In an instant, the sweet tang of tobacco fills my mouth, and I blow out a cloud of smoke. 

“Any last words before you join Capello in hell?” I ask and take a long drag.

“Please.” Vincent’s voice breaks. “I’ll do anything.”

“You stole from our family, strangled a woman to death, framed me for her murder, and stayed on our payroll trying to get me off death row. I’m going to enjoy watching you burn.”

I throw the match on Vincent’s prone body and step back, letting the flames race across his suit and into the branches. Vincent’s screams ring through the air, drawing out the sound of the crackling fire. 

The gasoline accelerates the blaze, creating tall flames that engulf Vincent’s flailing limbs. Cesare cackles and tosses a log onto the old man’s head, sending out an explosion of sparks. I snort. My baby brother still finds joy in mayhem.

Ben, on the other hand, watches on, unimpressed. He’s more level-headed than the two of us and prefers cooking books to barbecuing betrayers. 

As my nostrils fill with the stench of burning flesh, I pull another long drag from my cigar. “How’s the plan going to ensnare Emberly Kay?”

Benito pulls out his phone and fires up an app. “I’ve installed surveillance in the apartment she shares with three other girls and have sent leaflets offering free VIP entrance to the Phoenix. It’s only a matter of time before one of them visits the club.”

“Good.” 

Vincent loses consciousness. My nostrils flare, and I’m tempted to pick up a rake to shake him awake, but I get distracted by an image of a half-naked woman. 

She walks across her bedroom and out of the camera’s range, robbing me of what looks to be a promising show. 

“Do we kill her?” Benito asks. 

“Not unless we want to fight Tommy Galliano. I’ll get a few contracts drawn for each of the assets Capello stole, and she’ll sign them over to me.” 

“How will you get her to do that?”

I smirk. “I can be very persuasive.”

Vincent’s body tumbles out of the bonfire, but I shove it back into the flames with my foot. Burning him alive wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I imagined. Five minutes of agony doesn’t equal to five years on death row. 

My gaze drops back to Ben’s screen, where a dark-haired woman in black lingerie slips on a dress and a pair of heels. 

I’ll just have to exact the rest of my wrath on Emberly Kay.