A Debt Created: A Dark Mafia Romance (Greco Mafia Book 1), page 1
A DEBT CREATED
MJ MASUCCI
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
2023©MJ Masucci
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN 978-1-950175-43-7
Trigger Warning:
This book is for 18+ and contains verbal abuse, attempted assault, kidnapping, blackmail and steamy sex scenes.
“A ruler must remember that whatever brings success is due to power. Men look at power as a success.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
CHAPTER 1
Vivienne
I moved around the room with my arm firmly locked around my husband’s. This was not a place for a woman to be alone—especially one not part of organization life. The men spoke in hushed tones around us as Angelo sidled to the bar. I waited a few steps away as he ordered a scotch and a white wine for me.
We were required to attend this event. It was the reception for the christening of Pasquale Toscano’s grandson. Pasquale is the consigliere of the Greco crime family, where my husband is a soldier. I’m on my best behavior, keeping my mouth shut unless spoken to, which is rare.
It was not too long after he’d returned with our drinks, Angelo unwound his arm from mine. “I have to go.”
I looked up to see Squale gesturing to my husband.
“I don’t want to be alone,” I whispered.
“You’ll be fine. It’s my duty.”
He hurried away, and I stepped back, looking around the room for a familiar face. Unfortunately, I’m new. Our marriage is new—just a few months old—and as an outsider, I hadn’t been introduced to the family until now. We married at the city court and enjoyed an intimate dinner with my parents.
I back up against the wall as if I could sink into the golden velvet wallpaper, all the while nervously sipping my wine. I know my place. But I feel so uncomfortable that I head for the door, stepping out into the blue-carpeted hall to sit on a padded bench several feet away from the room I just exited.
“Signora?”
I glanced up and saw the Don himself, Alessandro Greco. Steps behind him are two large men dressed in black. I’m unsure of the protocol, so I quickly stand up, sloshing wine on my hand.
Without hesitation, the don removed a black handkerchief from his black suit pocket and wiped my hand dry.
“Thank you, sir,” I said as I swallowed hard.
He laughed. “Sir is not necessary. You’re Angelo’s wife, are you not?” he asked in a slight Italian accent.
“I am.”
Alessandro frowned. “I was disappointed not to be invited to your wedding. One would say it was disrespectful.”
Fear grips me. According to Angelo, people had been killed for disrespect.
I stammer out, “I’m, I’m, sorry.”
He again laughs. “I forgive you.”
My vision is momentarily filled by a lock of my hair that must have escaped a pin, and he gently brushes it back from my face.
“Bella,” Alessandro said with a smile as he flicked his finger to his security men and walked away.
I gaze after him as he enters the room I just came from, and I realize I’m barely breathing before I drop back down onto the bench. When I do, the scent of Don Greco’s cologne is on my skin, and my face burns were his finger touched my skin.
He’s not what I expected from a don. Alessandro Greco is handsome and young, younger than I anticipated, with inky black hair and a small scar above his eyebrow. Angelo told me he took over two years ago when his father was gunned down in the street.
My mind wanders, but I’m torn from my daydream when Angelo grabs my arm. I hadn’t even heard him approach.
“What are you doing out here?” he growled.
“I was uncomfortable.”
“Get used to these people. This is my family.”
He hauled me up and practically dragged me inside. Dinner is being served, and our table is at the back of the room where most of the low-level soldiers sit. The other women at the table are overdressed and drenched in perfume, which assaults my nose.
“So, you’re Angelo’s new wife,” the bleach blonde beside me said.
“I’m Vivienne,” I said and offered my hand.
She doesn’t take it as she shoves a piece of bread in her mouth. “Lila Torrone. I’m Benny’s wife,” she said as she pointed to her balding husband next to her.
“Nice to meet you,” I said as I sipped my water.
Angelo ignored me most of dinner, but the one thing I noticed was the constant gaze of Alessandro Greco. Each time I looked up from my plate, Alessandro was staring at me from several tables away.
After dessert, Angelo tapped my arm. “We’re leaving. I gotta job tonight, so I’ll drop you home.”
He stood, joking with the men at the table, as he helped me out of my chair. As we approached the don’s table to say goodbye, Alessandro rose and wiped his mouth with the linen napkin that had been in his lap.
“We’re leaving,” Angelo said. “I got that thing tonight.”
Alessandro nodded at my husband’s words but had his soft beer-colored eyes fixed on me. It made me blush crimson as heat rose in my cheeks.
“Don’t keep Bella locked up. Let her out some time,” he said, finally turning to Angelo.
My husband shrank back. “I do.”
The don smiled at me, holding out his hand for me to shake. He lingered, stroking my skin with the back of his thumb before he let me go.
“What the fuck was that?” Angelo cursed when he shoved me into the car.
“What was what?” I asked timidly.
“Were you flirting with him?”
“Who?”
He raised his hand, and I cringed. “Don’t screw with me. I told you to keep your mouth shut.”
“I promise I didn’t say anything to him,” I cried.
Angelo grabbed my face, squeezing my jaw with his strong hand. “You don’t fuck with Alessandro. He’s my boss and THE boss. You’re my wife.”
“I know.”
He let me go. “Don’t disrespect me, Vivienne.”
I sighed. “I would never. Will you be gone all night?”
“Don’t ask questions about my work. You know that,” he said as he put the car into gear.
I was quiet for the entire ride back to our apartment. Angelo was more uptight than I’d ever seen him during our eleven months together. He kept me hidden away from the family most of that time, probably because he didn’t want the reaction I had gotten from Alessandro tonight. I was his.
“Go,” he said as he leaned over and opened the door for me.
“You’re not coming upstairs?”
“Don’t you listen? I got a job,” he growled.
“I thought it was later.”
“It’s now, and I want a plate of sausage and peppers when I get home.”
“You want to eat that late?”
“Don’t question. This will be a good score, and I’ll be hungry. Now go right upstairs,” he growled.
I was barely out of the car before he drove away, leaving me in the wake of the car’s exhaust. We lived in a five-story building in the Bronx. It was full of gangsters connected to the Greco family, but I didn’t know any of them. We recently moved here a couple of weeks ago.
I went inside, taking the elevator up to our small fourth-floor apartment. We shared the floor with six other apartments, and there was always the aroma of sauce in the hallway.
After we moved in, Angelo kept me holed up in the apartment. I began doing some freelance writing since I had a degree in English. It kept me busy and was enough to pay the grocery and electric bills for the month. But I didn’t want to take on more because I promised Angelo I would handle all the domestic duties as well as take care of myself so I would be healthy when I got pregnant.
Yet, I was unsure of having a child with Angelo since our relationship was start
A month after the christening, Angelo went out for a late-night job. When my husband wasn’t home by 1 am, I decided to go to sleep. As he previously had, he would probably call me when he was on his way home. Banging on my door woke me.
I pulled on my sheer light pink robe and hurried to the door. “Who is it?”
“Mrs. Russo, open the door.”
“Who is it?” I asked again.
“Open the door. It’s Nico.”
Nico was one of the few people I knew. He was also a Greco soldier.
I pulled open the door, leaving the chain on, and peered out the opening. Nico was standing there; his shirt drenched in blood.
A ripple of fear went through me. “What do you want?”
“Angelo. He’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?” My voice quivered as I asked, trying to hold back my tears.
“Let me in,” Nico said.
I closed the door, unhooked the chain, and pulled at the knob. Nico rushed through and pushed the door closed.
“We were doing a job; it was an ambush.”
I began to cry. “He said he’d be home tonight.”
“He ain’t coming home, ever. I’m sorry.”
I wiped my face with the collar of my robe. “And what am I to do?”
“Wait for word.”
He patted my shoulder with a bloodstained hand and walked out the door. I stood there, ready to collapse. Not long after, women filed in through my open door, comforting me. I didn’t know who they were, but they seemed to know me and the circumstances.
I shook my head back and forth as my parents flanked me during Angelo’s funeral. I had to borrow money to pay for his cremation and memorial. We had nothing in the bank. Angelo did most of his work in cash, and I had no idea if there was any in our home.
“You’ll come to stay with us,” my father said.
I wasn’t prepared to live with my parents again. I was twenty-six, and after months of freedom and having my own home, I didn’t want to go back.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I want to live on my own.”
“Viv, your husband just died. You need support.”
“What I need is a job.”
My father put his arm around my shoulders. “You can work for me again. I don’t understand why you stopped.”
“Angelo wanted to take care of me,” I murmured.
“We can talk about it later.”
I went through the motions, thanking everyone for attending. Typically, the head of the family wouldn’t attend a low-level soldier’s funeral, but Alessandro was sitting in the back pew, watching me. He rose and came to me, taking my hand in both of his.
“Signora, I’m sorry. We should talk.”
I nodded, not sure of what to say. Several of those around me, part of the Greco family, seemed shocked that Alessandro would approach me.
“Soon,” he said as he turned and walked away.
I agreed to go to my parent’s home in Westchester County, but not permanently. I would take my time deciding how I wanted my life to go for the future. My sister, McKenna, three years younger than me, was returning from Australia, where she was working on a marine biology project. She couldn’t make the funeral because she was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
My mother held my hand on the way home. “It will be okay,” she said as tears welled in my eyes.
Angelo wasn’t the gentlest man, but he was my husband. During our time together, I didn’t want for much. He took care of most of the bills, and the decision to have a civil service when we got married was mine.
“What will be okay?” I demanded as I wiped my nose.
“Everything.”
“Will it?”
She squeezed my hand. “We raised you to be strong and independent.”
I knew what she was saying. I gave up my independence to let Angelo care for me, but it was what he wanted. For years it was my dream to start a small business, and during our marriage, I was doing research as to what the business would be.
“I am strong and independent. Angelo didn’t take that away from me.”
“I don’t want to argue,” she replied. “You have your whole life ahead of you to make a decision.”
I wanted to change the subject. “When is McKenna arriving?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Dad will pick her up from JFK.”
“Do you want to come?” he asked.
“No. I need a rest. The past few days have been very stressful.”
My mother nervously laughed. “It looked like a gangster get-together in that church.”
I never told my family what Angelo was or what he did for real, but they knew. I always told them he owned a small business selling all kinds of items though I didn’t tell them where those items came from.
“They’re not gangsters; they’re associates of Angelo’s. He worked with them.”
“Who was that man who came up to you before we left?” she asked.
I thought about the handsome don. “Alessandro. He bought several items from Angelo.”
“He seemed pleasant and good-looking. I noticed he had an accent.”
“He’s Italian.”
“What did he want to talk to you about?”
I didn’t want to talk about the don or anything else. I wanted to be alone.
“Nothing,” I mumbled as I looked out the window.
A fine rain began to fall, coating the windows. It rolled down the glass and made the lights from passing cars blur as they drove by. I had a lot to think about and my whole life ahead of me.
CHAPTER 2
Alessandro
“Where is she?” I asked.
“At her parent’s home in Larchmont,” Squale said.
“I want to see her. I need to see her,” I demanded.
Pasquale smiled at me, revealing a chipped front tooth, the result of a fight over a piece of ass at one of my clubs.
“Do you want me to get her?” he prompted.
The things I wanted to do to Vivienne Russo—I had from the moment I saw her attached to Angelo’s arm. It was her face I saw when I fucked other women and had been for almost the past seven months. She was stunning.
“Sandro, I need to ask you this, and don’t take offense,” Squale said as he pulled me from my thoughts.
I narrowed my eyes at him as I slipped lower into my black leather office chair, spreading my legs under the desk to accommodate my growing erection. Any thought of Vivienne did that to me.
“What?” I grumbled.
“Did you take out Russo for her? To have her?”
I jumped up from the desk and was on top of Pasquale in three strides. The man was shorter than me, and I gazed down at him with fire in my eyes.
“You know the circumstances. Don’t ever question my motives,” I growled.
He gently pushed against me. Pasquale was my father’s consigliere, and when he died, he became mine. He was a trusted adviser and had been to the Grecos for over thirty years.
“I mean no disrespect. You know this, but it will look out of place if you take up with the widow of one of your soldiers so soon after his death.”
I took back my seat behind my desk. “His death was his own doing. Angelo was a good earner, but he took risks. Messing with The Chaplains was the wrong thing to do.”
The Chaplains were a street gang whose main source of income was drugs. I forbade my family to sell drugs, and if they were caught, it would result in a very painful death. We had our hands in enough pies to avoid the sale of illegal substances.
“It was their turf but not their business,” Pasquale noted. “The warehouse was full of electronics. Nico told me they hit the place before.”
