Stolen

STOLEN MCKENNA MILLER Copyright © Mckenna Miller, February 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. CONTENTS Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Epilogue STOLEN Kidnapping the spoiled mafia princess for my boss and holding her captive during a family war should have been the easiest job of my hitman career. Except I never planned for someone like Bianca Mariano, who was fearless with a brazen attitude and a body that tempted me to sin. I’d been ordered not to touch the goods while she was in my possession, but what was a man to do when Bianca wanted to be touched, and so more? Her v-card was still intact, but that only made her more reckless, more daring. Now that she wasn’t under her brother’s thumb that wild side was even more prominent and I couldn’t resist touching what was so forbidden. But beneath that tough exterior was a woman who craved affection. And freedom. And I was the man who was going to eventually lead her to her demise. Now I had a choice to make . . . loyalty or betrayal? CHAPTER 1 Alexander Whenever I was called in by the boss, I knew that it wouldn’t be for anything good. Not that I was in trouble. I never worried about that. It meant nothing good for someone else. I’d been laying low for the last month or so while the city adjusted to the Kaminsky-Mariano war, and then the aftermath. The Russians (The Kaminskys) had tried to bite off more than they could chew with the Marianos, including kidnapping the fiancée of one of the brothers, and well, nobody in this world likes it when you take their girl. It’s a universal principle. Personally, my boss didn’t care for the Kaminsky family either. The Italians had started this city, and a couple other families like the Irish (The Flannigans) had swooped in pretty quickly, but it had taken the Russians a bit to catch on and now they were trying to play catch up. In the mafia world, nobody liked a guy who didn’t know his place. We weren’t fans of the Marianos either. They were The Flannigan’s biggest rivals. But better the devil you know. And my boss’s opinion was that if anyone was going to take down Nico Mariano and his lot, it would be my boss himself and nobody else. Sitting around doing nothing had never sat well with me, so I’d been patiently trying not to tear my hair out as I waited for things to get moving again and everyone quieted down from the Kaminsky upheaval. The death of any major family member created a vacuum, one that people hurried to fill and rearrange. I was just a hired hitman. I could only bide my time. Now it seemed my time had finally fucking come, and I was being summoned to get my new assignment. Thank Christ. I was just about ready to rip up the wallpaper. Maybe other people would prefer a vacation, but sitting at home with nothing to do wasn’t my idea of a great time. I went straight to the boss’s place. He wasn’t a man who liked to be kept waiting. Especially by me. He was at his penthouse apartment in the city, lording over the skyline. There was a family home in one of the upscale quiet neighborhoods outside of Las Vegas proper but he was rarely there. He preferred to be here, he said, where the action was. No matter how many times I entered, the guards patted me down when I arrived at the top floor, as if I still wasn’t to be trusted. I never said anything about it. Even though it wasn’t my sin but my father’s that had left that lingering suspicion, I never said anything. You didn’t talk back to the boss. You didn’t question him or his orders. That wasn’t my place. I was a hitman for the Flannigans, a fixer, and that meant I wasn’t really part of the family—not enough to argue or talk back and survive, anyway. So I kept my mouth shut as usual and when they were finished with me, I walked through the penthouse apartment to where the boss stood overlooking the Las Vegas Strip. “You have something for me?” I asked. He didn’t turn around and look at me. But then, he rarely did. “The Mariano family is recovering from the war between themselves and the Kaminskys. They’re vulnerable.” Nobody’s going to want a war after the last one. Wars were exhausting and chaotic for everyone involved. Contrary to popular belief we didn’t go around causing violence for no damn reason. Wars were expensive and nobody liked them if they could avoid it, and while the Mariano and Kaminsky war had been cut short, that didn’t mean the rest of us were feeling like we’d missed out on anything. I kept my thoughts to myself. “We need to strike before they recalibrate,” my boss went on. “I need you to follow the girl. Their sister, Bianca.” “Only follow?” Seemed a little below my pay grade. “She goes out regularly. Everyone knows it. I need you to find out where and when, and take her.” Ah. That was more my pay grade. “What should I do once I have her?” “Find a place to lay low and await further instructions. We’ll be in touch.” “Yes, sir.” Hopefully I wouldn’t have to go underground for too long. Being stuck