Dark Soul Vol. 5

Dark Soul

Vol. 5

Aleksandr Voinov

Riptide Publishing

PO Box 6652

Hillsborough, NJ 08844

http://www.riptidepublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Dark Soul (Vol 5)

Copyright © 2012 by Aleksandr Voinov Cover Art by Jordan Taylor, http://bit.ly/uGAHFK

Editor: Rachel Haimowitz

Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-937551-29-2

Also available in paperback (Dark Soul: Volumes 1–5) ISBN: 978-1-937551-31-5

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About Dark Soul,

In “Dark Hunter I,” Stefano Marino must face his most dangerous enemy yet: US Attorney Sebastiano Beccaria, who’s seeking the total annihilation of the Marino clan in the hopes of purging his own dark past.

In “Dark Frost,” a traitor in the organization makes his move, hiring Silvio to kill Stefano. Meanwhile, Silvio struggles to find his place in the Marino home as Donata learns the truth about Stefano’s affair.

The game is up in “Dark Hunter II.” Sebastiano Beccaria confronts Stefano with evidence that will undermine his power and put his life at risk. Stefano faces a bitter choice: fight and risk it al , or flee and protect himself and those he loves. Also, there’s a puppy.

In “Dark Lie,” Stefano makes the only choice he can. With the mutiny brewing and his marriage hanging in the balance, he agrees to leave the life of organized crime. Beccaria has won, but the victory came at high price—for everyone involved.

In “Dark Heart”, Stefano and Donata have gone to ground in Paris. When a ghost from the past tracks him down, he knows he won’t survive the day if he can’t find a way to make peace with all he left behind.

To Taylor V. Donovan, who helped me work out the legal issues
(saving me weeks of research and months of despair); Sara, who gave
Stefano a new name that he rather likes; Meg and my other “research
partners,” who ensured I got the mental health stuff right; and
Audra, for the writing tree.

Also to Kate and Oleg for the constant (in)sanity check, Sunita at
Dear Author for an entirely unexpected review, Sarah Frantz for
an offhanded (I assume) comment that triggered the ending, and
Aija and Blaine and all my other Twitter buddies. Last but not
least, Jordan Taylor for the terrific covers, and my editor, Rachel
Haimowitz, who keeps pushing me harder.

Table of Contents

Dark Hunter I

ebastiano, would you come to my office for a moment?”

Sebastiano looked up from the screen to the woman “S standing in his doorway. “With you in a minute, Mary.”

She could have sent an email, but she was one of those people who made an effort to every now and then leave her office. Personal leadership style. The best organizations were run by a visible, hands-on boss. Like the
Cosa Nostra
.

He sent the email he’d been crafting for the last hour, then got up and grabbed his jacket. Walking into her office in shirtsleeves felt wrong. He even closed the button on the way, aware the action was a physical projection of his need to be prepared.

“Please, have a seat,” Mary said, standing in her office, her small frame impressively flanked by law texts and a shelf of her own academic work, separated out from the rest.

“Thank you.” Sebastiano folded into the leather chair she indicated, over on the Persian carpet in the corner. A coffee table sat in between the chairs, a silver tray with water bottles centered on it.

Cookies on a plate, arranged so neatly he imagined they were fake, like the food in the windows of Japanese restaurants. A social visit, then, or she’d have seated him in front of her desk.

He glanced up at her, still at peace with the situation. And keenly aware that she triggered none of his old responses because she was black and female. He was bad with Caucasian bosses, worse with male ones. Defensive. There’d always been friction, until his therapist had tracked it all back to his father. She even sent him to a family constellation workshop last weekend, where some poor bastard had to impersonate his father so they could work on the issues.

The stranger had looked nothing like his father, hadn’t been Italian, wasn’t the right age. Compared to his father, who looked like a gleeful devil had made him from bundles of stripped cables, the stranger at the workshop was chubby and friendly, and played the father completely wrong. For one, he’d reached out to touch Sebastiano.

Sebastiano wasn’t a violent man, but he’d lost it then, very nearly attacked the man who wasn’t his father, and everybody in the room must have seen it, felt it, even, stupid emotions to get so out of control. His standin “mother,” a kindly woman wrapped in a sari with a red dot between her eyebrows, had stepped between them, which was
all wrong
, too. And his standin brother, a gangly black kid, had just watched. Well, that bit was spot on. But really chilling was his youngest brother, a fat white kid, who’d just rolled himself in a bal .

Those people had no clue. The things that were wrong were painfully wrong, and the things that were right were even more painfully wrong.

He’d turned to the therapist leading the workshop and asked him
what the fuck
he thought he was doing. He didn’t normally use that kind of language. Strong language meant weak character and weaker arguments.

“Had a good weekend?” Mary asked as she sat down opposite.

I almost punched a man who wasn’t even my father.
“Oh, great, yes.

I went on a retreat to let Irene get on with her dissertation.”

“How far is she?”

“I’d answer that question in tons of paper if I could. I haven’t seen the dog in a while.”

She laughed. “What about your own ambitions? Is the PhD virus catching? Some men struggle to live with an academically higher-qualified partner.”

“I like to apply the law better than further our academic knowledge of it. From where I stand, the current body of our understanding is sufficient to uphold society. That’s really all that matters.”

So you’re the last bastion between civilization and what, exactly
?

Irene would ask.

My father.
That’s what his therapist told him.

“Sebastiano, let me be frank.”

“Please.”

“You have tremendous potential. I’d say you’re the most gifted young man I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. Do you know why that is?”

“I have a guess.”

She weighed him. “You’re tenacious, disciplined, bright. But that’s not al . You’re a believer. Whatever the job will throw at you, I doubt you’ll ever lose the passion, the vision, and above al , the sense of what’s right and what’s wrong.”

My little crusader,
Irene would tease.
You know I love you for it,
right? But do think of yourself every now and then.

“You got me in a nutshell.” Sebastiano shrugged. “What can I say.

Everything worth doing at all is worth doing right.”

“The thing is, Sebastiano, I got an extremely big case in today that’s the most important I’ve seen in a while. It really would be Bob’s, but with his health situation what it is . . .”

“Then Sheryl’s?”

“Sheryl has five years on you in this office, and I know I could trust her with this.”
But I want to trust
you
with this,
her expression said.
Make me.

“Kenneth?” God, not Kenneth, but he had to bring him up, for fairness’s sake. He was nothing if not fair, even if he had to keep his teeth from clenching. “What kind of case is it?”

“Organized crime.”

Sebastiano swallowed, felt his skin’s electric resistance change, an almost unpleasant tingle that made him want to scratch himself all over. “The mass-murder of the Russians?” Talk about a heavy-handed, bizarre crime, spiking the coffin of a suspected crime lord with C4 and blowing all attendants of the funeral to Kingdom Come, or wherever Orthodox Christians went if they were gangsters. Everybody but the priest, who was on TV all night and day now and praising God for the miracle.

She nodded toward a pile of big folders on her desk. “The FBI has been investigating the Russians, and apparently there were very strong indications of an impending turf war between them and the local
Cosa Nostra
.”

“Which fits the violent attack on Stefano Marino several weeks ago,” Sebastiano completed without thinking.

She smiled at him, proudly, he thought. “That particular attack was the work of freelancers—the FBI didn’t see it coming despite their surveillance. But it does confirm the suspicion that Stefano Marino took over for his father, despite his age.”

“He’s not the youngest boss in the history of the
Cosa Nostra
,”

Sebastiano murmured. “Just atypically educated. He finished college with decent to good grades. I’d wager that went down really well with the rest of the family. Of course, he’s compounding it with his Yuppie lifestyle and looks. If you met him, he probably wouldn’t look any more dangerous than a McKinsey consultant.” He smiled. “Mind you, never underestimate a determined consultant.”

Mary’s face had turned pensive. “How much do you know about Marino?”

“I was cursorily interested in his father, Al ‘The Butcher’ Marino.

Big player in the meat trade, especially meat that came back onto the market after it had been deemed unfit for human consumption.

He was fined, but they never traced anything more interesting back to him, which to my mind makes him very much the previous boss of what we might as well call the Marino clan. It’s easier to nail something to the underbosses and
capos
, but the boss stays out of the big criminal activities. And nobody ever sold him to the police.

Granted, few people have tried taking the Marinos on. They are extremely local, fairly low profile in the bigger game ever since Al’s father lost his seat on the Commission. So, a smal , prosperous outfit, and ever since everybody’s hunting domestic terrorists and Islamist conspiracies, the
Cosa Nostra
hasn’t been high on the agenda. And when it was, people concentrated on the large families and New York City.”