Bleeding Envy: The Deadliest Sin Series, #5

By Gwyn McNamee

Envy has led to this.

I saw it coming, knew it was inevitable.

We all did.

No one wanted to stop it.

Now, blood flows like a river in Chicago.

And the streets are only going to get bloodier.

A war that's been brewing between the families has begun.

The first shots have already been fired.

The only question is…who will survive it?

 

Bleeding Envy is the fifth book in The Deadliest Sin series about organized crime in Chicago. This series is best read in order beacuse the stories occur chronologically and each sin builds on the events of the previous one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gwyn McNamee
• Release date: Nov 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393636007

Gwyn McNamee

Gwyn McNamee is an attorney, writer, wife, and mother (to one human baby and two fur babies). Originally from the Midwest, Gwyn relocated to her husband’s home town of Las Vegas in 2015 and is enjoying her respite from the cold and snow. Gwyn has been writing down her crazy stories and ideas for years and finally decided to share them with the world. She loves to write stories with a bit of suspense and action mingled with romance and heat. When she isn’t either writing or voraciously devouring any books she can get her hands on, Gwyn is busy adding to her tattoo collection, golfing, and stirring up trouble with her perfect mix of sweetness and sarcasm (usually while wearing heels). Gwyn is the author of The Hawke Family series, The Slip Series, The Deadliest Sin Series, The Inland Seas Series, The Supernatural Love Stories in the Absurd (written as her alter-ego, DP Payne), and several stand-alone novels.

Book preview

BLEEDING ENVY

BLEEDING ENVY

The Deadliest Sin Series - Book 5

Gwyn McNamee

BLEEDING ENVY

© 2020 Gwyn McNamee

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All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, or organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Contents

Preface

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

About the Author

OTHER WORKS BY GWYN MCNAMEE

To everyone who has ever bled for what they want.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for one makes himself get good things by jealous, while the other does not allow his neighbor to have them through envy.

-Aristotle

1

This is the kind of darkness you can't understand unless you experience it yourself. One that swallows you whole and obliterates any ability even to remember what light looked like. The kind that eats away at your soul and decimates your sanity with every passing second.

And if the utter blackness isn’t bad enough, the hard-packed earth under me doesn't yield, making it impossible to find a comfortable position to lie in. But I'm too weak to sit anymore or even to bother to try to stand. Getting up would be useless, anyway.

The pit is too deep to climb out, the rock walls purposely smoothed so there's no way to get a grip on anything, no way to scale out or seek relief from the despair the place brings.

Grandfather knew what he was doing. When he found it, he immediately recognized its usefulness, how he could twist it to his advantage. He understood what it would take to keep someone down here. The instinct to get out, to survive, makes people do wild things, and he knew what he would need to do to combat that.

Because no one is supposed to get out of here alive.

And Grandfather has thought nothing of throwing countless men down here to their deaths over the years.

Even at my young age, I understand the reality of my situation.

I’m never getting out of here.

At least, not alive.

Grandfather does have the decency to send someone down to get the bodies every once in a while, but I think that's mostly to control the stench that might otherwise waft up and permeate the property. So, eventually, someone will be lowered down this old, abandoned-well-turned-torture-chamber and will lift my corpse by rope into the light again to be dumped unceremoniously into one of the mass graves Grandfather has hidden all over the countryside.

It isn’t an act of kindness on his part, more an act of necessity.

Just like breathing, though, I’m tired of even doing that. It’s too painful, too laboring. I shift slightly, and pain shoots through my collarbone and down my left arm. I definitely broke it when I landed. And my bruised ribs from the beating the other day when Lorenc left make it difficult to breathe the dank, frigid air. When I do manage to inhale, it’s so cold, my entire body shudders, only restarting the endless loop of agony.

It won’t be long.

I’m too small. Too fragile to survive for any length of time.

One of the many reasons Grandfather hates me so much. He expects his grandsons to be strong and hard leaders. Ruthless—like him. He doesn't tolerate weakness, and it seems everything I do he sees as proof that that's exactly what I am.

Weak.

He's probably right.

I caved so easily when he asked where Lorenc was…

Another agonizing shiver rolls through my body, remembering the confrontation. It makes every broken bone in my body scream in protest, and I grit my teeth but can’t fight back the tears.

I should have run. As soon as Lorenc walked out that door, I should have followed him, whether he wanted me to or not. I could have stowed away. I could have found something else to do to get away from Grandfather.

If I had run…

If Lorenc hadn’t run…

I wouldn’t be here.

Where is your brother?

I don't know.

Don't lie to me, djale i vogel. You know where he is.

I struggle against the hold he has on me, but he’s too big, too strong for an eight-year-old boy to have any chance. I don't know, Gjyshi. I don't.

You're lying. His blow knocks the wind from my lungs and sends pain so strong through my body that I vomit, which Grandfather only sees as another sign of weakness. He squeezes my jaw between his fingers so hard that his nails bite into the skin. Where is your brother? The next time I ask and you don't answer, you’re going down into the pit.

A shudder of revulsion rolls through me, more bile climbing my throat. No. Please. Not that. Anything but that.

The blow to my face comes so fast that I don't have time to block it or brace myself. Agony slices through my jaw. Tears flow freely down my cheeks, now impossible to stop even if it might save me some additional pain.

America. The word comes out on the quivered gasp. The last bit of air I have left in my lungs. My defeat.

Grandfather's eyes fly wide, his bushy eyebrows shooting high. America? How?

The Morinas.

His hold tightens, and he slams me back against the wall behind me. The Morinas? Are you telling me he went to those fuckers for help?

I nod slightly, his sneer visible even through the tears warping my vision.

You knew, and yet, you didn't wake me to stop him. His hand closes around my throat. You’re fucking weak. Just like your father was. And so, I'm going to do the same thing to you that I did to him.

No!

I try to scream, but his hold prevents me from making any sound other than a strangled groan.

He easily lifts me and marches me over to the raised stones that mark the edge of the pit. I'd always suspected father's death wasn't at the hands of one of our rivals like we had been told, but I was too young to question it. Too afraid to confront the old man we knew had killed him to get the truth.

Now, I know…

And I'm going to die the same way.

He dangles me over the