Devil's Advocate: A Dark Mafia Romance

By Vivi Paige

Sophie’s mine.

And I’ll kill to keep her.

Navigating the mafia underground in Chicago is not easy.
It’s like a waltz where nobody ever taught you the steps.
You show respect when it’s due, never back down,
And kill who they want you to kill.

I didn’t become a Made Man by being careless,
But even the most ardent professional stumbles now and again.
Sophie’s job is to keep me from ending up in the slammer,
She thinks we’re done once I walk out of court a free man.
Too bad I’m hooked on my defense lawyer’s lovely charms,

And what I want, I get.
You see, Indro Lastra is a Made Man,
And a Made Man gets what he wants.
I want Sophie Vercetti. And I won’t let anything stop me.
Not a gang war. Not the police.
And not even the Family stand in my way.

And once I get her…

I’m never, ever, letting her go.   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Sep 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094449364

Vivi Paige

Vivi Paige is the sekrit pen name of a New York Times and USA Today bestselling romance author who decided she wanted to play on the dark side of happily ever after… Join her in a sinister world of murder, mayhem, and marriage.

Book preview

Chapter One

Ever meet someone you just… don’t… like?

Maybe it’s the way they pronounce certain words, or how they stand, or something less arbitrary, like they’re a Mets fan. Whatever the reason, this individual just rubs you the wrong way.

It’s even worse when you’re forced to work with them on an almost daily basis. Such was the case with me—Indro Lastra, in case you’re keeping score—and one Diego Malone. Like me, Diego was born and bred in the Windy City. Also like me, he was FBI—no, not the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stupid—full-blooded Italian.

He even had dark hair and eyes like me. That, however, was where the similarities ended. Diego was a whiner, pure and simple. He bitched about standing around in the cold while we waited for some deadbeat to come outside so we could bust his kneecaps. He bitched whenever the Don forgot his birthday. (Like anybody would bother to remember.) And he most emphatically bitched whenever he lost all his money betting on the ponies at Hawthorne.

Everybody knew I couldn’t stand the guy, but they kept pairing us up for jobs. I guess maybe they figured we were close to the same age, or it could have been they thought being around yours truly would toughen up Diego. I don’t know.

What I do know is, out of the blue our operations got raided on an almost weekly basis. Like the cathouse in Hyde Park disguised as a massage parlor. Or the high-stakes poker game over Panucci’s Laundromat. When Don Maloik’s favorite nephew got popped for leaning on a dock worker to ‘lose’ a crate full of designer watches, enough was enough.

We had a mole in the operation, a stoolie who fed the Chicago Police Department tips about our operations. Finding the mole wasn’t my job.

I’m the guy who deals with the snitches once they’ve been found out—among other, various duties.

So, on a blustery evening around about six, there I was… Strolling through Englewood while clenching my trench coat tight against the freezing air blowing off Lake Michigan, hoping I wasn’t gonna lose my balls to frostbite. Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead in Englewood, but that was where my prey had decided to lay low.

I stepped around a corner and the wind blew all the fiercer, tossing my hair back and making my face hurt. Cursing the day of Diego’s birth, I quickened my stride and made a beeline for Sal’s Place, a greasy spoon diner whose brightly lit environs promised warmth and a good cup of joe.

I stepped inside and shook off the cold, nodding to Sal’s nephew Grado, who mostly ran the joint now that Sal was getting on in years. He poured me a cup of steaming coffee and jutted his head toward booths nestled in the back.

I smiled my thanks, took my coffee and made my way to the very last booth. The black and white tiled floor shined with such a polish my reflection matched me stride for stride.

I saw the back of Diego’s head and knew it was him, even though he’d shaved his hair into one of those shitty buzz cuts the pigs are so fond of. Diego had lost a notch of his ear trying to sneak through Miss Cutty’s back yard, when he got nipped by her pooch, a big mean Mastiff named Colonel.

Even without the chunk missing from his ear, though, I’d have known it was Diego from the way he slurped his friggin’ soup. Just another thing that rubbed me the wrong way.

I plopped down opposite him in the booth and smiled. Hello, Diego, I said. I noticed he’d yet to start in on his chopped beef sammich, so I took the liberty of dragging the plate over in front of me. Biting off a huge chunk, I gestured at him with the sammich and talked with my mouth full. You’re a hard man to find these days, brother. I’ve been all over Chi Town, walking holes in my soles, and here you are.

Diego turned white as a sheet. The spoon trembled in his hand so much it made a rattle against the ceramic bowl.

What, you got nothing to say to me? I raised my eyebrow.

T-there’s six grand in my shoe, he said, dropping his spoon into the bowl. You can have it, all of it, if you just let me go.

Diego… I sighed and shook my head. "Unlike you, I know the meaning of the word loyalty. You messed up a lot of people’s lives running your mouth to the police. And, quite frankly, I’m insulted you think I can be bought off with six friggin’ grand. I mean, seriously?"

It’s all I have. Diego sighed and ran his hands down his face. He didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep. Well, I’d have been plagued with insomnia, too, if I knew I was coming after me. Come on, Indy. I’m not asking you to betray the family, I’m just asking you to look the other way, just this once.

You clearly labor under a misconception of what the term ‘betrayal’ really means, I said, munching on his sammich. You knew the price when you squealed, Diego. What, did you think you were gonna be the exception? The guy who gets to stick a knife in Don Maloik’s balls and get away with it? They popped his nephew, man. He’s looking at hard time.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Diego covered his face with his hands. All right? I got upside down on my car loan and was on the verge of getting kicked out of my girlfriend’s place, and I got desperate.

The whole world’s desperate, Diego, I replied, not unkindly. That’s why family is so important. Family looks out for each other, takes care of each other—

Nobody would even loan me a couple hundred bucks so I could keep my car, Diego lamented.

Diego, come on, you hit up everybody on the food chain for months before we cut you off. If you could stop laying down sucker’s bets on the ponies for five freaking minutes, maybe you wouldn’t be in such dire straits.

Diego’s face tightened into a scowl. So, that’s it then? You’re going to rub me out, after all we’ve been through together?

You’ve brought this on yourself, Diego, I sighed. Besides, I never liked you much anyway—

That son of a bitch hurled his bowl of hot ass soup right in my face.

Jesus Fucking Christ, I said, grabbing my forehead while spots danced in front of my eyes. Soup dripped down my nose as Diego leaped out of that booth like a bat out of hell and tore off out the door.

God damn it, Diego, I sputtered, grabbing a handful of napkins to wipe my eyes so I could see. You’re going to make me go out in the fucking cold again covered in fucking soup.

I don’t always enjoy popping somebody in the dome, but when I do, it’s usually a dumb ass like Diego.

Chapter Two

I ran out into the cold, the sheen of soup on my mug changing from warm to icy in the blink of a friggin’ eye. Diego’s heavy footfalls echoed up through the concrete canyon and I homed in on the sound.

I caught him dashing through a strip club parking lot, weaving between the cars. He slowed for a moment, turning his gaze back my way to see if I was still coming. When he spotted me, Diego flipped the fuck out and fell flat on his face.

I hopped the curb and ran after him, careful to pace myself. When you’ve run down enough guys, you learn that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I kept my breathing under control and didn’t wear out my legs. Meantime, my prey was going on pure adrenaline, gassing himself out before he even knew it was too late.

Diego hit the edge of the parking lot, his head turned around to watch me instead of where he was going. He ran smack dab into the chain link fence and bounced off.

Now, had Diego kept some semblance of composure, he’d have realized the fence didn’t encompass the entire property. All he’d have had to do was run about twenty feet to his left or right and he’d have been past it. Instead, his dumb ass tried to make like King Freaking Kong and climb the damn thing.

I ran up underneath him when he was about ten feet up, shaking my head in disgust.

Look at you, Diego. You’re pathetic. This only ends one way, you know that. All you’re gonna do is die tired.

Screw you! Diego made it to the top of the fence and swung his legs over. He lost his balance and tumbled down to the sidewalk to land in a groaning heap.

Looks to me like you screwed yourself, I said sadly. Diego leaped up, leaning on the fence for support. We stood there looking at each other for a moment, separated by the fence.

Then Diego turned about and ran once again. His feet slipped on a patch of black ice and he went sprawling again. I tsked as he struggled to his feet, clutching his bleeding mouth. I would have been more sympathetic if he hadn’t given me a whop knot from that stupid bowl of soup.

I jogged around the fence right about the time he finally got his bearings and took off again. He was less than twenty feet from me then, his stride faltering, breaths coming in ragged gasps. Diego wouldn’t last much longer.

He skidded around a corner and plowed into an old lady struggling to get her groceries home. A bottle of milk crashed to the ground, spilling out white fluid and glittering glass shards onto the sidewalk.

I stopped long enough to help her back to her feet while Diego scrambled to flee.

You all right, ma’am? I asked.

I think so, she said. I propped her against a parked car and patted her cheek.

You got a cell phone?

Uh huh.

Call yourself an ambulance, you’ve got a nasty cut on your chin. I dug a handkerchief out of my pocket and shoved it into her hand, and then pushed it up to her face. Keep the pressure on.

Someone should throw that hooligan in jail, she said.

Ha. Trust me, where he’s going, jail’s gonna look like Club Med.

I pursued Diego as he dashed into an alley. I grinned, knowing that he’d just corralled himself. That alley ended in a fence what made the one at the strip club look like a kiddie corral.

Diego’s footfalls slowed when he realized the truth. He was trapped. Trapped like the rat he was.

End of the line, Diego, I said, coming in behind him. I glanced around and found every window nailed shut with plywood. Nobody was going to see shit. I told you what was going to happen. You made me run around in the middle of the worst cold snap in fifty years for nothing.

Diego flattened himself against the fence, feet struggling to fit into the spaces between the links. The cyclonic was a different make, though, and he couldn’t even get his toes in. Despite this, Diego managed to get about four feet off the ground based on his arm strength alone before he dropped heavily back to the pavement.

Diego looked up at me as I closed in. A snot bubble expanded and retracted in his left nostril as he wheezed. I kept expecting it to burst but it never did.

Please, he blubbered. Please, I don’t want to die.

Everybody dies, Diego, I said with a shrug. You had the chance to die with some fucking dignity. Instead you’re going to get gutted in an alley.

Now this was the part where it got dangerous. You ever hear the phrase ‘there’s nothing more dangerous than a cornered animal’? Well, Diego was a cornered animal. In desperation, he grabbed a chunk of concrete off the ground and lunged at me.

I snapped my knee up into his chin and he folded like a house of cards. Diego whimpered as I knelt on his back and grabbed hold of his stupid fucking cop haircut.

Aw, you look so sad, Diego, I said, whipping out my switchblade. Let me draw you a new smile right here under your chin.

I dragged the blade along his throat, making sure to cut deep enough and long enough to get both the big arteries in his neck. Then I slammed his face onto the pavement a few times until he held still. Slitting somebody’s throat ain’t like it is in the movies. It takes a minute or two for ‘em to bleed out, and in that time some of them will still come after you, try to take you with them because they know they’re on their way out.

I wiped the blade clean on his jacket and stowed my knife. That’s when I heard it: a sudden gasp muted by the passage of a city bus.

My blood ran cold and I whipped my head around to see an older guy standing at the mouth of the alley. I knew he’d seen the whole damn thing.

I leaped to my feet and ran hard toward him. He took off out of sight. I whipped around the corner and saw him getting on the same bus what just trundled by.

The bus lurched off. I gave chase like an idiot for half a block before it pulled onto the main drag and left me in the dust.

Shit, I said, my breath coming in a white puff. "Shit, shit, shit."

Chapter Three

The watery pale sunlight beaming in through the courthouse windows offered nothing in terms of warmth. I shifted in my seat, crossing my legs and regretting the fact I’d worn a skirt.

Of course, Judge Maroni wouldn’t have been able to surreptitiously peek up my skirt had I worn pants. And I wanted him nice and distracted, which was why I’d worn sheer hose with no panties underneath.

I don’t mind using what God gave me to win a case. Of course, just flashing my shaved snizz wasn’t going to be enough. Judge Maroni still had people he answered to. The longer you live, the more you find out even powerful people have folks they’re accountable to.

My peepshow act was just one tiny facet of my overall strategy. The tall, skinny toothless guy to my left—the defendant—had offed his own aunt for the insurance money, then bragged about it to his best friend over text. It wasn’t exactly an orgy of evidence; my client had done a good job of cleaning up the crime scene. The cops didn’t have the murder weapon and they couldn’t reliably place him at the scene at the time of the murder.

But they had his phone. It sat right over on the District Attorney’s table in a plastic bag, a big letter A scrawled across it. Given my client’s less-than-stellar history with law enforcement, it was probably going to be enough to send him away for the rest of his life.

My client, a meth head named Dilbert Wayne, had fallen far from his family tree. Unemployed, in and out of prison for the last ten years of his life, a real wastrel. Yet he had a couple of uncles who figured he was innocent of the charges, so they’d pooled their resources to hire the best criminal defense attorney in the greater Chicago area.

That was me. Sophie Vercetti. My motto is ‘just because you did it doesn’t mean you’re guilty.’ I left one of the city’s top firms a few years ago so I could start my own practice and never looked back.

Dilbert shifted uncomfortably in his chair as the prosecutor droned on and on about the grisly details of the crime. I had to admit it was a good strategy. When your evidence is sketchy, you try to appeal to the jury’s emotions, get them riled up and angry, horrified, offended that a piece of work like Dilbert gets to walk around amongst the normal, law-abiding types.

I wasn’t worried. I poured myself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and drank it down. Casually, as if I weren’t even aware, I uncrossed my legs and spread my thighs wide. Judge Maroni’s bushy eyebrows rose just a hair on his wizened face. I knew I had him hooked.

DA Miller wound up to a crescendo, gesturing toward my client.

And now, the people would like to present exhibit A, Mr. Wayne’s cell phone. Miller lifted it up and paraded it around for their perusal. Mr. Wayne sent numerous texts to Larry Hansen detailing how he had cold-bloodedly bludgeoned his seventy-year-old aunt to death with a garden spade in her own bed.

Objection, Your Honor, I said,