Pregnant By The Cursed Mafia Alpha

New York City glowed like broken glass below the hill where the Stone's mansion sat, a gothic sprawl of stone, shadows and secrets. Inside the high-ceilinged study, Vincent Stone poured a glass of bourbon, the ice clinking like a warning. His eyes never left the man across from him.

"I don't like delays, Mr. Petrov," Vincent said, voice low and smooth. "Especially not when I'm delivering crates of death that cost more than your life."

Petrov, a thick-necked Eastern European in a too-small trench coat, shifted in his seat.

"The docks are being watched closely. If you want the weapons to reach Italy safely, we have to wait until it's less risky."

Vincent swirled his drink, then downed it in one gulp. "You keep waiting. I move."

Outside the study, Evelyn Stone moved silently down the hallway, barefoot, her black hair tucked under a silk headscarf. Her fingers trailed the cold walls, her instincts tingling. She wasn't supposed to be up by this time of the day.

However, she had discovered long ago that in her world, you had to steal the truth if you wanted it. She wanted to know about every deal going on in her father's clan.

Without making a sound, she stopped by the study door. She caught sight of her father leaning back through a small crevice, his jaw clenched tight but his face unreadable. There was one of those deals going on. She recognized the expression on his face. The one before blood.

"I want the names of those delaying my shipment. And I want them while they're bleeding." Vincent uttered.

Evelyn's breath caught hearing those words. This should be one of the bloody deals her father had been involved in. It sounds more than a mere shipment. This deal can be brutal.

She was about to sneak downstairs, where another deal meeting was on. Her Uncle Dmitri Stone was meeting with the Romano family, a rival gang, for the first time in ten years. And then the hallway's lights began to do a pointer.

Then the power went off.

Everywhere was sucked up by darkness.

With her heart hammering her ribs, she slowly retreated from the door.

The conference downstairs was a tense place. None of them noticed the light had gone out upstairs. For more than ten years, the Stone and Romano families had not sat at the same table. Old blood didn't really go away. But this night, all the fake smiles and suits will only be there for the power they want.

There was a smell of leather all over the room, smoke of cigars, and secrets, and it was softly lit by a chandelier above. Standing around the perimeter, hard-faced and heavily armed men were protecting the two families.

Don Salvatore Romano drew slowly from his cigar, his gaze fixed on Dmitri Stone, Vincent Stone's brother, who sat opposite him like a sleeping bear, silent, menacing, and poised to attack. Tall and quiet, Luca Romano stood by his father's side with his arms crossed and his suit spotless. He exuded control at every turn.

In matching charcoal suits, Dmitri's sons, Sergei and Ivan, leaned back comfortably in their chairs. They had been whispering ever since they entered.

Finally, in a gravelly voice, Salvatore said, "Let's stop dancing." "Next week, my ships will arrive. 50 crates. Superior Balkan weapons. Untraceable and clean.

"And in exchange?" Dmitri smiled.

"Ceasefire along the Hudson docks for three months." Your men stay east, and ours stay west. There are no bodies in the river or abrupt movements.

"You believe all that firepower is worth peace?" Ivan sneered.

Salvatore squinted his eyes. "It isn't tranquility. It is a business. We both make money and move weapons; that way, neither of us buries a son."

Luca spoke in a firm, low voice, leaning in slightly. "Volkov, you too have adversaries around your opium routes, the Triads are sniffing. A war between us and them is unaffordable."

"We have dealt with worse." Sergei shrugged.

"You've survived worse. A distinction exists." Luca corrected.

To keep his sons quiet, Dmitri held up a hand. He pounded the table once with his thick fingers. Two times. Then came to an end. "You wish to enter our airfields. You want our silence and our allegiance after your weapons are secure in New York, what will stop you from betraying us?"

Salvatore's smile was thin. "The reality that you need us just as much as we need you."

Dmitri sat back. "Belief. Salvatore is a funny word. It does not exist in our world."

"Then we refer to it as mutual leverage."

There's a hold-up as if the room held its breath.

Dmitri then gave a gloomy laugh. "I'll take your offer into account. But I'm looking for more."

Salvatore's eyebrows went up. "More?"

Dmitri declared, "Loyalty, sealed with family." A union between your son and my niece."

Luca's jaw tightened. Salvatore's fingers hesitated on his cigar. "That's not necessary," Salvatore remarked icily.

"Necessary," said Dmitri. Blood has a stronger binding power than contracts. I have an obedient niece. She's gorgeous and she will not meddle.

"She's a pawn," Luca said sharply.

"A queen if you play it right," Ivan added with a smile.

Dmitri shrugged. "You claim to desire peace. I demand assurances."

Salvatore took a deep breath, his lips curling in smoke. "We'll respond to you in two days."

"I anticipate it tomorrow."

Static sizzled with tension.

Next, then.

BLOOM!

Everyone was splattered with debris as the room's far wall exploded inward. Chairs flipped, men yelled, and the dull whine of a security alarm broke through the confusion. "Down!" Another blast shook the building, and Sergei pulled out a pistol and fired blindly toward the hallway.

Ivan swore in Russian and ducked behind an overturned table. "We are being set up!" a Romano guard yelled before he was killed by a bullet. There is smoke all over the room, blood, screams, and flashing lights. Someone had betrayed them. Not the Serpentas. Not the Triads. Someone from the inside. "We need to move, now!" Dmitri roared at his sons. Furthermore, Luca Romano was unaware that it was just the beginning.

There was a crash from upstairs where Vincent's meeting was held with Petrov, glass breaking. And then there was gunfire.

Poo poo poo.

Evelyn looked around and ran with her nightgown billowing like smoke, her bare feet silent against the ground. As masked men stormed the mansion below, screams ripped through the night. Evelyn hid behind a statue and watched the mayhem play out through the bannister's openings. Like flies, guards fell.

The marble floors were smeared with blood. Orders were yelled in Russian by a masked man with a burning tattoo on his neck. When Evelyn recognized the insignia, her breath caught.

They were set up by Petrov.

Suddenly a hand clamped over her mouth. After struggling, she saw Marco, the security chief for her father. Panic filled his wide eyes.

"Miss Evelyn, we must move immediately!"

"No! My Dad."

He's already dead. We have to get you out or else we will all perish.

He pulled her in the direction of the secret passageway behind the bookcase. Evelyn, however, twisted away. "I will not abandon him!" Another explosion shook the mansion before he could argue.

Below them, the floor cracked. After being flung back, Evelyn crashed into the wall. In a daze, she slithered into the secret passageway and quickly sealed it.

With her ears ringing, she fell into the shadows. She could see the study's edge through a hole in the wall.

Vincent lay quietly on the ground. Beside him two guards lay sprawled, blood accumulating under their torsos.

Then he came in.

Evelyn gasped in surprise.

Luca Romano emerged as the man in the mask tore the black hood away from his face.

Tall, all-black, with a jaw carved from ice, and piercing grey eyes. She recalled him from funerals and gala nights, where he was constantly present but in the background. He was now a god of death, standing amid the carnage.

Luca looked around the space. His nose wrinkled.

Then... a change occurred.

His entire body shook. His back arched.

The bones snapped violently.

As his limbs snapped, reformed, and twisted, Evelyn watched in stunned horror. Muscles swelled. He ripped his suit off.

His skin exploded with black fur. His mouth was ripped with fangs.

In a matter of seconds, a huge black wolf with eyes like twin moons appeared where Luca Romano had been.

His roar rocked the chandelier above.

Then he lunged and tore the throats of humans with ease.

Screams, blood, and claw flashes filled the screen of the secret passageway.

Evelyn's heart was beating so hard she was afraid she might lose it. She bit her hand to stop herself from screaming as she staggered back from the wall crack.

"What on earth did I just witness?"

One impossible truth had just upended her world, which had been so meticulously protected with alliances, lies, and firearms.

There were werewolves.

And one of them had just killed her father or saved him.

The heavy sound through the walls as Evelyn falls to the ground, trembling, and then a low, gravelly voice speaks from the shadows behind her.

"That wasn't meant for you to see."