However, the same cannot be said when dealing with their enemies.
Throughout recent decades, in the midst of civil evolution, an ancient war was being fought. From both sides of the globe, blood was spilled in the name of honor, while the brutal carnage each family bestowed upon the other was anything but noble. Soldiers, kin, and innocent lives were lost on all sides, and the inevitable extinction of the mafioso way of life was fast approaching.
In the most unlikely scenarios, six families came together in an undisclosed location to negotiate a peace treaty. As the leaders of the most influential crime families in the world, they recognized that a ceasefire was the only way to guarantee their endurance. Should this attempt fail, then their annihilation was all but imminent.
The treaty was effectively simple.
Each family would offer up one of their daughters as a sacrifice to their enemies. Marriage was the only way to ensure that the families wouldn’t retaliate against one another. It would also guarantee that the following successor’s bloodline would be forever changed, creating an alliance that would continue throughout generations to come.
Not all in attendance were happy with the arrangement.
The deep scars gained from years of plight and hatred can’t be so easily healed or erased. However, even the cynical and leery knew that this pact was their best chance of survival. Although the uncertainty of the treaty’s success was felt by every mob boss there, one by one, the families swore an oath that would bind them to it forever.
And as the words spilled from their lips and the scent of blood hung in the air, they made sure innocent lives would yet again be deemed collateral damage to their mafia wars—one last time.
Their daughters would have to pay the price of peace.
Whether they wanted to or not.
Prologue
Tiernan
Ten years ago
Fucking hurricane.
It’s a bad omen that the first time the most influential mafia families in the world come face to face with each other, it’s under such dire weather conditions. Who the fuck had the brilliant idea of meeting up in Bermuda during hurricane season anyway? I don’t care if this island is considered to be neutral ground. Saint Brendan himself wouldn’t have wanted to face such a storm.
The howling wind continues to bang furiously against the green shutters, threatening to bring the whole luxury hotel down with every ferocious pound to its walls, while the trembling windowpanes do their very best to keep from shattering completely and exposing us to the violent storm outside. How ironic that for all Mother Nature’s fury, it still can’t compare to the destruction made by every man sitting in this very room.
What is God’s wrath compared to the devastation we can conjure up when we put our minds to it, aye?
We’ve been killing each other for so long, I can’t recall a time when we weren’t at war with one family or another. Such a thing has never happened in my lifetime, at least, that’s for goddamn sure. Just because I can’t remember when our feuds began doesn’t mean that the memories of burnt flesh, dismembered bodies, and coffins being lowered into the ground with my friends inside them haunt me any less. Everyone here has lost more than just mere foot soldiers. We’ve lost friends, family, and loved ones all in the name of pride and honor.
Every boss sitting around this table knows he’s responsible for all the death this blood war has provoked. The weight of that certainty, and the knowledge that if we continue on this route our way of life will undoubtedly become obsolete, forced this meeting to be unavoidable. Peace amongst the families is the only way we will be able to survive. If we insist on killing each other one by one, then soon there will be nothing worth fighting over.
My features remain carved in stone as I take in the sight in front of me. In a twisted Arthurian version of the round table, each family’s boss takes his seat, ready to craft an arrangement that will ensure no more innocent blood is spilled.
Compared to the expensive suit-wearing assholes in this place, my father looks like just another tourist. In a colorful, flowery-patterned shirt that strains over his Guinness belly, Athair looks like your run-of-the-mill blue-collar worker on his first retirement trip to the tropics. No one would ever peg him as the boss of the Irish mafia.
Never let them see ye coming, lad.
In all the years I’ve been a made man, Athair’s mantra has never led me astray. Besides, it’s easier to throw out a bloody t-shirt than it is to replace a five-thousand-dollar Tom Ford suit. Even those Bratva pigs look like they spent a pretty penny on their designer clothes to be here today. I’d expect such pompous attire from the Italians, not those assholes. But I guess the occasion called for them to be on their best behavior considering where we are all meeting. It was a strategic idea from La Cosa Nostra to have planned this meeting in a hotel conference room in the Caribbean and not in some vacant warehouse where someone might get the itch to blow the competition into smithereens.
And when I say someone, I mean me.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing all these motherfuckers blow up in smoke. Can’t do that with a clear conscience when innocent lives could be lost, too. But maybe I’m the only one who considered the hotel guests and staff as unacceptable liabilities. The Butcher twins haven’t arrived yet, and with each passing second that The Firm’s boys aren’t here, my impatience morphs into dreaded uneasiness.
I’m two seconds away from getting my father far away from this place when the double doors to the room swing open–Benny and Danny Butcher finally making their grand entrance. As Benny takes his seat at the table and his twin stands tall behind him, we all notice how their clothes are covered in dried blood.