Bow Down
Bow Down
A Bad Boy Mafia Romance
Prologue: Louisa
My life was death and bullets and blood and smoke.
I lived for my mafia. I was born to a man that controlled the greatest crime family in the whole world, and I was born for greatness.
But he took that away from me. Arturo Barone was a backwards old man, and he refused to let me take my rightful place in his organization.
Maybe I was young and stupid. But as soon as I realized that my father would never change his mind, I began to form my own gang. It started online as a group of hackers that I met in the deep web, but soon it became much more than that.
I wanted to be respected. I wanted to earn my place in the world at any cost, and I was willing to go up against my own father to achieve that.
My father and his men, they were rotten. They were buying women from Eastern Europe and shipping them back to the states. They were getting these girls hooked on drugs and using them as sex slaves.
It was disgusting. When I found out about that, I turned all of my energy into attacking the Barone Crime Family and destroying them. I wanted to liberate these girls from their bondage. I wanted to save their lives.
I never thought about men. Or at least when I did, I thought about how I could use them or destroy them. I never once imagined that I’d meet a man that was my equal, because I had no equals in the city.
My group, my Spiders, we were destroying the mafia one whorehouse at a time. With each new group of girls liberated, my mafia grew larger and stronger.
We were growing so big that I realized I needed to do something soon, or else we’d get noticed by the authorities. I needed to take drastic steps.
That was how I met him.
Tall, broad, and handsome, he wasn’t at all what I expected. He was powerful, the state’s attorney general. He had control over who got prosecuted and didn’t. In short, in Illinois, he was the law. If I wanted to rule Chicago, I needed him.
Wyatt Carter. I never expected him. He leaned up against me and whispered in my ear.
“Does power make you wet?”
That bastard. He couldn’t talk to me that way.
I never let a man say things like that to me. Any other man and I’d have him killed. But Wyatt smiled at me, that gorgeous, cocky smirk, and he looked as though he had the right to say anything he wanted.
Power didn’t make me wet, but Wyatt Carter did.
Soft lips, strong hands, square jaw. He took me by the hips and pressed me against the wall. His powerful body crushed mine, and as much as I couldn’t stand being dominated, Wyatt Carter could take me.
I needed him for more than just his body, but he was so damn controlling. I couldn’t submit to a man and never would.
But maybe Wyatt was going to be the one to finally break me.
1
Wyatt
Another damn fundraiser. It felt like I went to a new one every weekend. The causes all blurred in my mind: breast cancer, stomach cancer, all types of cancer, ALS, concussions in sports, shit like that. I wrote my check and I smiled, but I knew that these fundraisers weren’t really about raising money for worthy causes.
They were networking opportunities for the filthy fucking rich and the powerful.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have belonged in a room like this. I grew up in a working class family. My father was a plumber and my mother was a secretary, and they didn’t give me anything in this world.
I earned everything I had. I worked my ass off to get a scholarship to Harvard, which led me to Harvard law, which led me through the courts.
People called it a “meteoric” rise, but to me it was jus inevitable. I could play the political game like anyone else, and I could dominate in the courtroom if needed. I had nearly a flawless record under my belt, including some serious, high-profile cases.
Which was how I became the youngest state attorney general ever at only thirty-three.
I wasn’t born rich. I wasn’t born an aristocrat like so many of the people milling about the expensive ballroom. I fought for every dollar and destroyed anyone that got in my path. That was how I made it to the top of my profession, and I wasn’t stopping there.
Chicago fundraisers were always the best. In Illinois, Chicago was the place to be. It was the biggest city in the Midwest, and every wealthy person for thousands of miles came to Chicago during the fundraiser season. It was essential to their business, and to mine.
I stood up near the bar, sipping a whisky as I surveyed the room. Everyone was wearing black tie attire; the women were in gowns and jewels, and the men all tried to look dapper in their tuxedos, but they mostly just looked like overgrown children in their daddy’s outfits. They had no sense of style or showmanship, which were things I had to learn to be successful in the courtroom.
A Bad Boy Mafia Romance
Prologue: Louisa
My life was death and bullets and blood and smoke.
I lived for my mafia. I was born to a man that controlled the greatest crime family in the whole world, and I was born for greatness.
But he took that away from me. Arturo Barone was a backwards old man, and he refused to let me take my rightful place in his organization.
Maybe I was young and stupid. But as soon as I realized that my father would never change his mind, I began to form my own gang. It started online as a group of hackers that I met in the deep web, but soon it became much more than that.
I wanted to be respected. I wanted to earn my place in the world at any cost, and I was willing to go up against my own father to achieve that.
My father and his men, they were rotten. They were buying women from Eastern Europe and shipping them back to the states. They were getting these girls hooked on drugs and using them as sex slaves.
It was disgusting. When I found out about that, I turned all of my energy into attacking the Barone Crime Family and destroying them. I wanted to liberate these girls from their bondage. I wanted to save their lives.
I never thought about men. Or at least when I did, I thought about how I could use them or destroy them. I never once imagined that I’d meet a man that was my equal, because I had no equals in the city.
My group, my Spiders, we were destroying the mafia one whorehouse at a time. With each new group of girls liberated, my mafia grew larger and stronger.
We were growing so big that I realized I needed to do something soon, or else we’d get noticed by the authorities. I needed to take drastic steps.
That was how I met him.
Tall, broad, and handsome, he wasn’t at all what I expected. He was powerful, the state’s attorney general. He had control over who got prosecuted and didn’t. In short, in Illinois, he was the law. If I wanted to rule Chicago, I needed him.
Wyatt Carter. I never expected him. He leaned up against me and whispered in my ear.
“Does power make you wet?”
That bastard. He couldn’t talk to me that way.
I never let a man say things like that to me. Any other man and I’d have him killed. But Wyatt smiled at me, that gorgeous, cocky smirk, and he looked as though he had the right to say anything he wanted.
Power didn’t make me wet, but Wyatt Carter did.
Soft lips, strong hands, square jaw. He took me by the hips and pressed me against the wall. His powerful body crushed mine, and as much as I couldn’t stand being dominated, Wyatt Carter could take me.
I needed him for more than just his body, but he was so damn controlling. I couldn’t submit to a man and never would.
But maybe Wyatt was going to be the one to finally break me.
1
Wyatt
Another damn fundraiser. It felt like I went to a new one every weekend. The causes all blurred in my mind: breast cancer, stomach cancer, all types of cancer, ALS, concussions in sports, shit like that. I wrote my check and I smiled, but I knew that these fundraisers weren’t really about raising money for worthy causes.
They were networking opportunities for the filthy fucking rich and the powerful.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have belonged in a room like this. I grew up in a working class family. My father was a plumber and my mother was a secretary, and they didn’t give me anything in this world.
I earned everything I had. I worked my ass off to get a scholarship to Harvard, which led me to Harvard law, which led me through the courts.
People called it a “meteoric” rise, but to me it was jus inevitable. I could play the political game like anyone else, and I could dominate in the courtroom if needed. I had nearly a flawless record under my belt, including some serious, high-profile cases.
Which was how I became the youngest state attorney general ever at only thirty-three.
I wasn’t born rich. I wasn’t born an aristocrat like so many of the people milling about the expensive ballroom. I fought for every dollar and destroyed anyone that got in my path. That was how I made it to the top of my profession, and I wasn’t stopping there.
Chicago fundraisers were always the best. In Illinois, Chicago was the place to be. It was the biggest city in the Midwest, and every wealthy person for thousands of miles came to Chicago during the fundraiser season. It was essential to their business, and to mine.
I stood up near the bar, sipping a whisky as I surveyed the room. Everyone was wearing black tie attire; the women were in gowns and jewels, and the men all tried to look dapper in their tuxedos, but they mostly just looked like overgrown children in their daddy’s outfits. They had no sense of style or showmanship, which were things I had to learn to be successful in the courtroom.