Bloodline: A DeLuca Family Novel (The DeLuca Family Book 4)

  Bloodline

  A DeLuca Family Novel

  K.A. Ware

  Twisted Publishing

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the AUTHOR

  Stalk ME Online

  ALSO BY K.A. WARE

  Copyright © 2017 by K.A. Ware

  e-book Edition

  All Rights Reserved

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  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Cover Design by Bite Me Graphic Design

  Created with Vellum

  To all my readers, THANK YOU for sticking with me. This book wouldn’t exist with out you.

  Prologue

  VIC

  "Yo, Vic!"

  "What?" I called out from the front porch.

  "Bring me another beer!" Santiago hollered over the music. The sounds of Daddy Yankee's Rompe poured out of the outdoor speakers and drowned out the laughter of our friends gathered in the front yard. Most people didn't have a full-on barbecue on their front lawn, but with the way the older Portland house was set up, the front yard had double the green space of the back, and therefore the only place that would accommodate such a large group.

  "Get it yourself, huevon!" I shouted back as I made my way down the steps to set the large bowl of ceviche on one of the tables.

  "Fucking caprichosa! Just bring me a beer!" he shouted again making me laugh. He could call me hardheaded all he wanted; it didn't mean I was getting his lazy ass a beer. My twin brother and I were close, but I wasn't his personal bitch. I flipped him off, and a roar of laughter followed me as I headed back into the house to grab the last few things that needed to be put out.

  "What's going on out there?" Maria asked when I walked into the cramped kitchen, smile plastered across my face.

  "Santi being an asshole as usual," I responded snagging a tortilla off the griddle she was warming them on. I tossed it from one hand to the other attempting to cool it down earning a ‘serves you right' glare from Maria. I'd been doing the same thing since I was old enough to reach the stove and I still hadn't learned to take the ones already in the warmer. Once it was finally cool, I ripped off a piece and popped it into my mouth and groaned. There was nothing in the world better than fresh tortillas, nothing.

  "What did he do this time?" she asked absently flipping another tortilla.

  "Acting like I'm his fucking servant in front of the guys, again," I said with a mouthful. If my aunt were still alive she would've smacked me for that one; I could practically hear her scolding me in my head.

  Telling me to stop eating like a cow or I'd never find a husband. As if I wanted a fucking husband, even when I was a little girl I knew I wasn't going to be some housewife, it just wasn't for me.

  "He's just trying to flex that Mexican machismo," she said as if I needed reminding.

  I spent my whole life fighting to be able to do the things my brother was able to do. We were the same age with the same experiences; the only difference was that I was a girl and I'd be damned if I was going to be denied any of the fun just because I didn't have a dick.

  "Yeah well, he better put a lid on it. We're partners if he needs someone to get his beer he can find a wife." I said angrily.

  Maria winced but didn't say anything, which was completely typical. I felt a twinge of guilt realizing how that would sound to a woman, who was more of a sister than a friend, that had spent the better part of the past five years waiting hand and foot on her husband and children. The feeling quickly passed though, that had been her choice. Hell, it had been her dream since we were little kids, find a husband, pop out a couple or five kids and be a housewife. There was nothing wrong with it if that's what she wanted, but to me, it sounded more like a nightmare than a dream.

  "Come on," I said breaking the slight tension. "The meat is probably done by now. We better get the rest of this stuff out there before people start rioting."

  A few wives and girlfriends wandered into the kitchen, and together we hauled the rest of the food out front. I had no problem cooking or entertaining, in fact, I enjoyed it, it was the fact that I was expected to do it because I was female that pissed me off. Growing up in the Mexican culture was great sometimes, but it was also stifling, I craved the freedom my brother had. One day I'd be treated in the way he was, no one would see me as a woman, they'd just see someone that demanded respect.

  "Aye, prima!" Luis called out, sidling up to me and slinging a lanky arm around my shoulders.

  "What's up?" I asked, wrinkling my nose as his breath hit my face, he'd already been hitting the Buchanan's. Hard.

  "You know you're my favorite cousin, right?" he asked, his words miraculously not slurred. He was a skinny fuck, but he could hold his liquor better than a man double his size.

  "What do you want?" I asked, only half teasing as I shrugged off his arm and grabbed a beer from the cooler.

  Turning me by the shoulders to face him, his expression was suddenly serious. "Hey, I'm sorry Santi was an asshole earlier."

  I shrugged again, "He always gets like that when the guys are around."

  "It's bullshit, and we all know it. You do more than pull your weight, and eventually, he'll come around."

  "If he doesn't I'm going to drag him around by his fucking balls," I said in a huff before taking a long drink.

  "Eso, prima! That's my girl," he said and pulled me close, kissing the top of my head. "Now let's eat!" he roared, garnering a loud applause from our friends.

  People swarmed the two large tables where the food was laid out, jostling each other to get ahead in the line. It appeared that while I was busy prepping the food everyone else had been outside throwing them back. The thought irked me.

  "Don't pull that shit again," Santiago's voice came from behind me, his harsh tone making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  "Don't treat me like a bitch and I won't have to," I responded curtly. There was no way I wa
s backing down; it had been a constant battle between us lately, he knew he was out of line.

  Santi exhaled sharply, nostrils flaring, the only apology I was likely to get from him and stalked away.

  I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth, and took a deep breath trying to tamp down my anger. We'd have it out later tonight when everyone left. I knew he was trying to protect me in his own twisted way, but I was already neck deep in the life and had been since I was old enough to pack heroine folds for our uncle. This was the life we were raised in, and once we were old enough, it was the life we chose.

  All of us, together.

  I grabbed a plate and shouldered into the line, like hell I was going to wait for all these fuckers to get their fill when I was the one that'd slaved all day to make it. There were a few grumbles from the guys, but when my icy stare landed on them, they shut right the hell up. They knew better than to mess with me when I was in a mood.

  Everyone scattered around the yard, finding a place among the mismatched lawn furniture and card tables we'd hauled out for the occasion and soon the party was back in full swing.

  I scanned the crowd, watching the scene surrounding me play out. Drunk bastards hollering to each other across the lawn, kids laughing and playing along the side of the house, and even a couple dancing on the porch. These were my people, my friends, my family. As the festivities continued, the sun started to set. The temperature dropped enough to make me head back to the house for a hoodie.

  I'd made it up the front steps, admiring the happy couple slowly rocking to the beat of the music when something caught my eye over the woman's shoulder.

  A late model SUV was slowly turning the corner to drive past the front of our house, the windows blacked out. Alarm bells went off in my head when I didn't immediately recognize the vehicle. An unfamiliar car like that in our neighborhood only meant one thing, trouble.

  My stomach sank, and my heart kicked off. It was as if I were watching a movie in slow motion as the front and back windows simultaneously slid down, and the car crept forward. A scream tore through my lungs as I leaped off of the porch and ran for the side of the house where I'd seen the children playing. I'd barely made it the edge of the planter box beside the steps when the first shot rang out.

  Screams echoed in my ears, screams that I would never in all my life forget. People dived for cover, flipping over tables as a litany of bullets rained down. I tried to push forward, but someone caught me around the waist and pulled me to the ground. I thrashed at first until I noticed the man pinning me down was Hector, my brother's best friend.

  "Stay down, Mija," he urged as he pulled his piece from the waistband of his pants and stood up.

  He was able to squeeze off two rounds before bullets tore through his body, blood misting over me. I had to roll on my side to avoid being crushed when he fell in a heap to the ground. My stomach lurched when I locked eyes with Hector's blank unseeing stare.

  There's nothing you can do; he's gone.

  I crawled to my feet, keeping my head ducked down. The urge to look back and see what was going on pulled at me, but I didn't stop. My thoughts were of my niece Ava and the last place I'd seen her.

  I made it to the side of the house and straightened to a full on run when I saw the pile of small bodies on the ground. Panic seized every molecule in my body as I slid to my knees on the grass. I reached a shaky hand to one of the small crumpled bodies, and as soon as I made contact, a small voice cried out. Relief rushed through me, but it was short lived when I didn't immediately see her.

  "Ava?" I whispered urgently.

  "Tia?" she cried out. The fear in her voice was enough to make me want to run back and slaughter those fuckers.

  "It's me, honey," I said trying to sound reassuring as I roughly hauled her from the bottom of the pile and into my lap. The other children followed huddling close as we leaned on the side of the house between two bushes. The pop pop pop of gunshots finally subsided, and I lifted my head from where it had been buried in Ava's dark hair to see four sets of eyes set in small, scared faces staring back at me.

  "We tried to protect her," Javi, Hector's son, said.

  Looking at his sweet face made my throat swell. I knew from the look in his eyes that he was scared of what we would find when we came out of our hiding place. But I knew. I knew this little boy would never see his father alive again, and it shattered my heart.

  Taking a deep breath through my nose, I tried to ebb the anxiety coursing through my veins. I cleared my throat, knowing he needed my reassurance.

  "You did, you all did," I said trying not to let my eyes rest on their tear stained cheeks too long.

  People were yelling and screaming in the front, and I heard footsteps crunching on the dry grass as they sped towards us.

  "Jorge? Ricky?" Diana, their mother, screamed.

  I quickly moved Ava from my lap and stood up, not wanting to prolong her worry.

  "We're here, they're safe," I called out, and when she saw me her face crumpled. Within seconds she was scooping her boys into her arms and rocking them while she cried. I wanted to give her privacy to hold her children and let the relief wash over her, but there wasn't time.

  "Diana, I need you to take the kids around the back and into the house. Go upstairs to my room and wait for me there. The cops are going to be here any minute, okay?"

  She wiped at her face and sniffed a few times before looking up at me and nodding, gratitude welling in her eyes. I nodded once and moved to go back to the front, but Ava latched onto my leg.

  "Don't go!" she cried.

  "Hey, shh. It's over now. Go with Diana, I need to check on everyone, and then I'll be right up okay?"

  "B-but," she tried to argue. The sound of sirens in the distance told me the cops were minutes away from swarming, and I needed to get out there and find out who'd survived.

  "No buts. I need you to be a big girl and go with Diana. I promise I'll be up as soon as I can."

  She must've sensed the urgency in my voice because she screwed up her face and nodded quickly. "Ok-ay," she hiccupped.

  "Good girl," I murmured, ushering her toward Diana's outstretched hand.

  As soon as I was sure Diana had her, and she wasn't going to follow me, I dashed toward the front of the house and stopped dead in my tracks.

  Chaos.

  Grief was thick in the air. Several bodies lie motionless in the yard, people screaming and crying over them. I was jerked out of my trance at the sight of Maria rushing down the porch steps with towels in her hands. I forced my feet to follow her, not trusting my voice enough to call out to her. I dodged people huddled on the ground as I followed, not sure to who or where she was headed.

  Maria stopped abruptly still a few feet ahead of me and dropped to her knees. Her body was blocking the person that was lying on the ground, but I recognized Luis' shaved and tattooed head over her shoulder.

  For the second time in what was probably less than ten minutes, time stopped.

  My throat felt dangerously close to sealing itself, my hands twitched as I forced myself to take a step, and then another, and another until I was standing directly over the broken and bloody body of my brother. His face was slack, his body unmoving. He looked pale, no color left in him save the bright red blood speckling his skin.

  His blood.

  I vaguely registered Maria screaming out in agony and Luis trying to comfort her, but I couldn't will myself to care. Not really.

  No one could fathom the pain that had coursed through my heart when I saw Santiago, my twin, laying there. But the numbness that followed was worse than any pain I could experience. I felt hollow, a vast emptiness where my heart should be, nothing but oblivion.

  Chapter One

  Antonio

  "This isn't good," I said, tossing a copy of The Oregonian on Carlo's desk.

  "How many so far?" he asked inspecting the front-page article. The headline read: ‘Tainted drugs to blame for a string of deaths'.

  "The art
icle claims there have been four more deaths in the past two nights, bringing the total to twenty-seven in just two weeks."

  "Anything to link us to it?" Carlo asked, his furrowed brows betraying the calm tone of his voice. I wasn't the only one concerned about our exposure.

  "Not yet, but we supply to that area. The higher the body count, the more the cops are going to dig. Doubtful they'll be able to get any solid evidence on us, even if someone flipped, our shit is clean. Doesn't mean it wouldn't garner us unwanted attention though."

  Carlo nodded but remained quiet, his hands steepled beneath his chin. I was used to his way of sorting things out. He wasn't one to make snap decisions, something I'd always admired about him.

  He weighed his options, was patient when he needed to be, and it served him well. Carlo was usually three steps ahead of any advisory, at least when Mia wasn't involved. As much as I genuinely liked the woman, she brought out an impulsive side to Carlo that made my job a hell of a lot harder. I had to be on my toes, be ready to step in and be the voice of reason; one slip up could mean the end of all we'd built.

  For a while, I'd thought Mia was like me, but I was wrong. Once the Russians had been eliminated, she'd backed off, seemingly content with the justice she'd dolled out. Revenge had fueled her, and once it had been satisfied, she fell back into her normal life, no longer needing the bloodshed. At first, I thought it might have been due to her being pregnant, but Lucy was almost six months old, and Mia had yet to push herself into the action. I envied her ability to let the monster lay dormant.

  "Do we know what the drugs are being laced with?" Carlo asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  I shook my head. "The police haven't released that information yet."

  "I could see if Mallory could find out. She has contacts in Portland," Angelo offered.

  Mallory was a forensic scientist for the Seattle PD and somewhat of an informant for us. Well, for Angelo. My brother had done well to keep that contact as low key as he could. He was the only one that ever contacted her, and he'd never told me how he'd even made the connection. She was a ghost who flitted in when needed and disappeared when the job was done. It annoyed me that my brother didn't trust me with that story, but she'd helped us countless times over the years and I couldn't deny that she was an asset, so I let it lie.