His Protection: Mafia Made, #7

By KL Donn

From USA Today Bestselling Author KL Donn comes the Mafia Made series, featuring novels from Award-Winning Author E.M. Shue. His Protection is book 7 in the Mafia Made Series.

 

Maso Cardarelli is the oldest brother.

The protector.

He makes the hard choices, the biggest sacrifices.

When the opportunity to bring his new sister-in-law closure presents itself, he doesn't hesitate to step up to the job.

What he doesn't expect is to fall in love with the girl he was sent to rescue.

She doesn't speak with words, but her eyes…

They say everything.

And she stares at him with stars in their deep pools of emerald green.

After swearing off women years ago, Maso is torn between being her hero and breaking her heart.

 

Bria Marino is not prepared to fall in love with her dark protector.

He swears he's not the one for her.

But his touch…she feels coveted.

Men lie, betray, and break women like her.

But she's ready to put everything on the line if only Maso will too.

After breaking down her walls and opening her heart to love, will Maso be just like every other man in Bria's life, or will he put her back together piece by fractured piece?

 

Author Note: While His Protection is set in a Mafia world, it's on the lighter side and focuses more on the relationship between Maso and Bria and the emotional turmoil she goes through.

Trigger warning: There is mention of and flashbacks of Bria's past physical and sexual abuse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: KL Donn
• Release date: Jul 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215701744

Book preview

Prologue

BRIA

Run.

Keep running.

Don’t. Ever. Stop.

Just run.

My legs pump so hard that I no longer feel my muscles quiver. My breathing is haggard in the quiet woods, but I can still hear him. Despite the blood pumping in my ears, I hear him.

My tormentor.

My jailer.

My destructor.

I wished for death for years, and now that it’s upon me, I don’t think it’s what I want at all.

I want Bella, my twin sister.

I want an everyday life where I can be free and happy and not ruminate on all the horrific things the church did to us. How they sold us. How he betrayed me.

Over and over.

Natan Vella promised me safety. Promised that I could trust him. Then he left me in the care of this monster.

The brush of his fingers in my hair trips me up, but my desire to escape is stronger, and somewhere deep down inside, I garner the strength to run faster.

Harder.

There’s a brick wall before me; the sea crashes against the bottom of the cliff.

His screams rend the air as I scramble up and over the top of the wall. Glancing back once more, he’s closer. It’s jump or get caught.

Run.

CHAPTER 1

Maso

Y ou’re certain about this? I stare Benito Torres down; he’s not bullshitting me. The man is devious as hell, but he doesn’t lie. Not in the time we’ve known him and not in any of the research I’ve done on the man since Pace brought him into our lives last year.

Positive. He motions down at the compound map of a rival of his who has stolen more than their fair share of guns from him and used them to wage a small-scale war in Stromboli, which is where we are now.

In the months since Pace dismantled the network of churches and their trafficking system, we’ve all worked harder to ensure it doesn’t happen again. And given that Benito’s stepsister was part of those atrocities, he’s hired more mercenaries than a small army to keep watch all across Italy.

Let’s get this shit done then, Donato barks. He never wanted to come. He’s been trying to track down the Marino twins that our new sister, Isabel, has been obsessed with finding. It’s been next to impossible to gain access to the girls, despite knowing who has them and where.

In the dead of night, I lead my brothers into the fray. As the oldest and the only one not interested in creating a family—not like the men at my back—I’m always the first through the door. The first to go down. There isn’t anything I won’t sacrifice for the men I grew up protecting.

Lock and load, Santi mutters into the mics in our ears. Flashbangs fly over the walls at the perimeter as stun grenades get lobbed at the building. Breaching from all sides, gunfire assaults us from inside the house as we advance.

Unfortunately for those men, we’ve got more intel than they realize. Down! I call when I see a man pop up with a submachine gun. I wait until the burst of fire peters out before jumping to my feet and blasting the asshole in half. Go, I direct again.

In less than thirty minutes, we have the house locked down, and Benito and his men have gone in search of his weapons. With no casualties in our unit, we find six men injured but alive in theirs. Benito ends each of them with a bullet between their eyes.

That was…anticlimactic, Pace mutters with bloodlust in his eyes. No matter that Isabel is at home waiting for him, pregnant as can be and ready and willing to do whatever my brother wants, he always craves the kill. Torture is where he finds satisfaction when he can’t get his hands on his young wife.

After loading up the weaponry and getting back to the inconspicuous airstrip, we’re back in Messina before the sun rises, and even with the action of the night, I find myself exhausted and crashing at one of the safehouses I keep here while everyone else heads in their own direction.

Days like today, I’m reminded of my age. Thirty-five is relatively young, but I’ve lived what feels like a dozen lives in the past decade, and it’s catching up to me.

As my eyes close, I’m reminded of the one night I’ve been fighting to forget for five years. The night my Anya died in my arms in the dirty streets of Harlem, where she was gunned down for simply walking home alone at night when she was supposed to wait for me.

I failed her that day, and I haven’t been able to forget about it. Haven’t been able to move on. And for that alone, I know I’ll never trust love again, have more than a night of passion with a woman.

Love, marriage, babies, none of that is for me. I’ve left that all to my brothers, and aside from Donato, they’re doing a great job of grasping it with both hands and never letting go.

I’m in, Donato tells me as he works across from my desk in our Palermo home office.

You have them? Getting up from my chair, I make my way around to stand behind him and stare down at the picture of the Marino twins. One has black-as-night hair, while the other is a shade lighter. Both with startling green eyes. Both with curves for days. Who is who? I ask him. The only images of the girls we’ve had until now are years old.

Not a damn clue, he mutters, reading further down the page for more information. There’s nothing else forthcoming as to which twin is which.

Bria is in Marsaskala. I’ll take her. Grabbing the printout as it’s spit out of the printer, I read through it, surprised about what I find. She’s married?

A ringing phone is my answer as Donato makes a call. Vella? gets snapped out through the line.

Lude Vella? Don questions.

Who the fuck is this? The man is caught off guard.

Maso and Donato Cardarelli, I respond, a bite to my tone. There’s not a chance in hell I’m taking shit from this asshole.

There’s a pause before he answers. What can I do for you? Benito has worked with these men before, and so has Cage Craven, which has me surprised that they’d be caught up in this scandal.

You have twins in your care, Bria and Bella Marino; we want them back. No point in mincing words.

A bark of laughter echoes through the line. What makes you think I’m the kind of man who will give my girl back? There’s a possessive note to his tone, which is surprising.

Because you fucking bought them, and you don’t want the hell we’re prepared to rain down on you and your brother if you don’t.

And if they don’t wish to return? That response gives me pause.

We want to meet with them privately. If they want to stay, fine, but after what they went through at the hands of Father Cassio, I seriously doubt it.

Fine. Bella and I are in St. Paul’s Bay. I’ll have Natan get in touch with you about his location. Last I heard, his bride was…injured. The line dies as he hangs up.

Injured? I hiss.

Why do I have a feeling we’re about to break Isabel’s heart? Donato mutters.

We wasted no time in catching a flight to Malta. Donato has gone to St. Paul’s Bay while I’m driving up the winding road to Natan’s Marsaskala home—which is more like a fucking castle than anything.

After a lot of digging, we were able to discover that both girls signed a marriage certificate to each man after their eighteenth birthday, just over a year ago, but there were no ceremonies performed that we could find. Which means it might be in name only, so far, especially with the brothers residing on different parts of the island.

Benito supplied us with more information about the Vella brothers on our private flight over, and we learned that both brothers have to be married before their own thirty-fifth birthdays or have produced an heir in order to receive their inheritance from their father.

We were assured that while the Vella brothers aren’t angels, they’ve never raped women, nor are they fond of crimes against women. I get the sense that while the girls are both trapped, they’re safe at the very least.

Except for the fact that Bria had been mysteriously injured. A tidbit that her twin Bella doesn’t know about. Gates to the castle open before I have a chance to stop and ask for entry. The drive is still another three minutes before reaching the covered circular driveway.

I’ve been around mob money my entire life, so I’m no stranger to opulence and showmanship, but goddamn, Natan Vella is on another level.

Gold columns frame the double door that appears to be made of silver. The lion head knockers alone are probably worth more than I make in a year as a private investigator, and that’s saying something.

Stepping out of my rental, I lean my folded arms on the roof, taking in the sight before me. Brick and mortar cover the home—some of it might even be from the original build in the fourteen hundreds—but it’s obviously been upgraded and refinished. Modern rustic is what I’d call it.

Stately towers frame each end of the building, and inside one, I glimpse a shadow move across the highest window. Mr. Cardarelli? An older man, around sixty, stands in the doorway, calling my attention away from the tower.

Maso. Closing my door, I keep my eye on the grounds, but there’s nothing to see, just flat green grass all around. I know that in the distance, there’s a brick wall along the perimeter, and beyond that is the sea.

Mr. Vella is on the line for you. My eyes narrow.

He’s not here? I didn’t ask Natan outright if he’d be at home, but since I aim to take his