Vita Mia (Battaglia Mafia Series Book 10) Read online

  Vita Mia

  Sienna Mynx

  The Diva’s Pen LLC Publication

  http://thedivaspen.com

  Vita Mia

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Vita Mia © Copyright 2019 Sienna Mynx

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, The Diva’s Pen LLC.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons living or dead, or places, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Vita Mia (Battaglia Mafia Series, #10)

  Ryder’s Story

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  BOOK ONE | The Past | Lucciola | 1995

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  BOOK TWO | The Day of Reckoning | 1996

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  BOOK THREE | Trapped | 1996

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  BOOK FOUR | The Ghost of the Dead | 1996 to the Present

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  BOOK FIVE | Trials and Tribulations | 1996 to the Present

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  BOOK SIX | Vita Mia - My Life | 2001 to the Present

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Last Don

  Works by Sienna Mynx

  I dedicate this installment to Janet Tillman, Debbie Boxton, Erica Allen. Three women who celebrated, defended, supported, and encouraged my talent. Without your support through some of my darkest days I may not have seen this project to conclusion. Never abandon your love for bad boys, and the bad girls that live to write their tales!

  Cheers to you and all my Mynxers who still ride for the darker side of Romance

  Sienna Mynx

  Ryder’s Story

  Chapter One

  August 22, 2016

  Jekyll Island, Georgia

  “DON’T FUCK WITH ME man. I better get inside,” Ryder said after popping a fresh stick of gum into his mouth.

  Harris cut his gaze from the road to his companion and then back to the road. It was the only response Ryder would receive that didn’t bristle with hostility. Ryder didn’t care. He’d accomplished the impossible. Who said a ‘little blackmail’ didn’t get you far in life? Whoever did have never met a thirsty YouTube vlogger struggling to make his big break in the celebrity gossip industry.

  “Once I get you in, I want the pictures, the videos, everything you have on me destroyed. And I want evidence that you did it. Or I’ll kick your fucking ass kid.” Harris huffed as he shifted gears. “There’s just so much of this bullshit I’m going to put up with—fucking kid—who the fuck do you think you are?”

  Ryder’s brain broadcasted loud static over the empty threat. It was his defense mechanism against the absurdity, and there was nothing more absurd than the fake bravado of the idiot next to him. Ryder was born Giulio Santini and he grew up hardened by bad decisions. Why should this play be any different? At thirteen he was kicked out of his house after he stole his mother’s car and ran over a neighborhood cat. He went to stay with a cousin who sold meth and marijuana out of a trailer park. A real low-life who used to fantasize about abducting the four-year-old girl who lived in the same community. He started hustling drugs for his cousin to pay his way and graduated to breaking into people homes before his fourteenth birthday. He joined a gang soon after. They said they had never met a white boy so young that could hit a lick and take a hit without blinking. Soon he earned the name “Rider”. A badge of honor for some of the late-night rides he’d do in the trunk of their car with a shotgun to surprise low-ranking dealers they’d rob. He tagged that name with spray paint on any building or train as: ‘Ryder’. Lucky for him he never had to kill anybody. But he could see death in his future. Ironically the one time he wasn’t breaking the law he got arrested in a neighborhood sweep by a vice cop known for shooting gang members in the back. Ryder didn’t break the code of his gang, but saw it as an opportunity to gain more ‘clout’. In his world clout was more valuable than an 800 credit score, so he confessed to crimes he didn’t commit. His logic was that if he had been present during the crime he’d have pulled the hammer anyway. That’s how stupid he was. The judge sentenced him to a juvenile detention center and left him there to rot. He spent 4 long years away from his friends and his mother, getting his ass tested and kicked by rivals every day. He stayed there until he reached 18. It was then the judge made a promise that stripped away Ryder’s gangster dreams.

  “You’re a pretend thug, a waste,” Judge Mason said from behind the bench. He glared down at Ryder from over the top of his glasses. “I give you six months before you graduate to the big- time kid. I give you a year before you’re dead. You’ve done nothing, not even your GED while in the center. If I could send you there now I would and save the taxpayers the money.” Judge Mason slammed down his gavel. The threat pissed Ryder off, because the smug bastard was right. He was pretending at this shit—trying to find a way to fit in. And his weeping mother and aunt cosigned the judges’ prophecy. He’d return to the system for an extended stay if he didn’t clean up his act, they said, so he agreed. He left the hard streets of Atlanta and went to the hard streets of New York to live with his aunt and work for her in her restaurant. He spent his time as a live-streaming video gamer making side money competing against the best gamers across the world. Everyone respected his “gangsta” online. If he pulled the hammer online no cops came running. It was clout of a different kind. It was a different kind of hustle. His graffiti and art turned a profit for him as well. He designed merchandise like hats and shirts for street gangs and it sold like crazy on his websites. His Instagram followers reached over a hundred thousand in just a year. Then he got into YouTube, and his life changed.

  The car bumped a little along the unpaved road but maintained speed. He’d never ridden in something so slick and expensive. He was on a natural high. And why not? He’d done the ultimate hustle.

  “Fucking bullshit,” Harris muttered, with a fine mist of spittle splashing from his lips to spray the inside of the windshield. He shifted gears and his diamond encrusted Rolex blinked in the darkness of the car. It kept capturing Ryder’s attention. Ryder resisted going for the man’s throat and taking the car and watch off him. But he was different, now.

  “Can’t believe I’m even dealing with this shit!” Harris shouted.

  “Chill man. I get inside and you off the hook. Our business is done.”

  “It better be. It fucking better be or else,” Harris mumbled.


  He nodded his agreement to Harris’ empty threat but he didn’t mean it. Jason Harris was the latest “hot boy” British actor in Hollywood. His starring debut as a comic book hero in a movie that grossed over eight hundred million made him the most desired man in the nation. The crime Harris committed was his business. He was just unfortunate to have done so in Ryder’s aunt’s restaurant after closing with a video vlogger inside to capture every sordid detail.

  “I could sue you,” Harris mumbled.

  “But you won’t,” Ryder replied.

  “I could pull this car over and get out and kick your ass, kid.”

  “Try it,” Ryder shrugged.

  Harris punched the roof of the car. Ryder didn’t flinch. He had enough of Harris’ threats. He was the one in charge. He had all the power. Harris kept glancing to Ryder and then to the road. Ryder played it cool.

  “You can’t take a camera inside. You do know that? These people don’t fuck around. Do you understand? This is not a game. You can’t record anything,” Harris said.

  Ryder shrugged again. The word ‘can’t’ wasn’t in his vocabulary.

  “What do you care? You said once I’m inside we’re done. You’re off the hook.”

  “I’m serious. This party isn’t what you think. It’s private for a reason. They catch you with a camera and—,“

  “What? What will they do? Put me in jail? So what. If I get into this party I have the biggest story on secret societies ever told! I prove Beyonce and Jay-Z are part of it all. I’m exposing everything.”

  “You’re a kid. A stupid kid,” Harris scoffed. “There is no fucking Illuminati or secret societies. There’s just money and greed with the people that control it all.”

  “Yea, yea, yea, I’m a stupid kid. A stupid kid that has a video of you fucking an underage girl in a restaurant bathroom who you fed coke to all night.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” Harris shouted and nearly swerved off the road. To this Ryder did react. He tensed all over and his fists clenched. Part of him wanted the bitch-boi to pull the car over. He’d show him who was the real man. He glanced over to Harris to see the man’s face contort with rage. “She told me she was nineteen,” Harris whined. “I had no idea she was fifteen. These models, they look older, they are...”

  “Underage. Most models are underage. And to be honest man I don’t give a shit that you’re some pervert—“

  “—I’m not a pervert—“

  “I’ve done my research. I know all about this place. This is where it goes down.”

  Harris frowned. “What research? This party isn’t public.”

  “YouTube. A vlogger called the ThirdEyeRaven said once a year all the elite head to private destinations to meet with the Illuminati and sell their soul to the devil. And you fit the profile.”

  “Me? The fuck are you talking about?”

  “You’re a hot actor on the rise in just a year. You fucking sucked in that movie, man. But look at you. I know you had to get help from somewhere, so I hacked into your email and found out about the party. The rest was easy.”

  “You are so fucking, clueless kid.”

  “I’m not a fucking kid man. I’m 22. And like I said I don’t give a fuck about you and that little girl. I’ll give you the tapes. What I care about is this party. Once a year you rich motherfuckers get together for a private party on this island. Once a year some really dark shit goes down. You party, you fuck, you do things that control the industry—this is the Illuminati. Jay-Z is part of it, isn’t he! When I break this story, I’ll be bigger than PewdiePie on YouTube. Fuck YouTube, I’ll be infamous.”

  “Like I said. You’re an idiot. You’ll see. There is no Illuminati here. But you’re right. It’s some dark shit,” Harris chuckled.

  “If I didn’t know any better I’d say the great Jason Harris was scared?” Ryder asked.

  “The world is a fucked-up place kid, and everyone has to pay a price to live in it whether they know it or not. You want in? You want to see what the rich do for fun? Fuck it. I’ll open the gates. But if you’re caught it won’t be jail, motherfucker. If you’re caught it’s a bullet between the eyes, and no one will fucking care that you were too stupid to know your place.” Harris made the gesture of his finger with a gun with his free hand and put it to Ryder’s head.

  Ryder slapped it away and glared at him. Now he was pissed. And Harris saw it on his face.

  “Here’s the rules. I don’t fucking know you and I won’t do a fucking thing to protect you once we are inside,” Harris said.

  “Those are the rules?”

  “That’s it,” Harris smiled.

  Ryder frowned. He glanced out of his window at the tall trees covered in moss as the sports car turned onto a road that ran closer to the ocean. A private stretch of a road that hauntingly beckoned to a time of horse and carriage days. They traveled toward a plantation home on the island that looked to be over two centuries old. It was a three-story, white structure with tall columns to the front and windows aglow with partiers. They’d flown in on Jason Harris’s private jet from New York and the actor barely said a word to him. He was a fucking chatterbox now.

  What did the Illuminati do out on this island? Was two years of research finally going to uncover the secret that rappers and industry people claim was nothing but a myth? Was he finally going to see who runs the world?

  The real people in charge.

  Ryder reached into his bag and removed a pair of glasses. He slid them on as if doing nothing out of the ordinary. Harris didn’t seem to notice. His watch was the remote control. He rubbed the surface and a tiny image popped up to reveal he was recording. It also had a built-in microphone attachment as well.

  The car stopped.

  “Remember kid, you asked for it,” Harris said and threw the gear into park. The Lamborghini doors lifted before the valet could assist. Harris didn’t want to be seen leaving the vehicle with him. That was fine. He was a piece of shit actor and douchebag for a human being. But he was no pedophile, and Ryder took a sick sense of satisfaction in making him think he was. The night he found out that Harris was coming to have a private dinner in his aunt’s restaurant with his management team changed Ryder’s life goals. He immediately put his plan into action. First, he convinced his aunt to let him bus the tables alone. She thought it was his fanboy in overdrive, so she agreed to give Hector and Pedro the night off. After all, since Ryder was six years old he’d collected every comic book that the hero Jason Harris now played on the silver screen. But Ryder wasn’t a boy any longer. He was twenty-two and he had man dreams. A friend of his who was indeed nineteen and an inspiring Instagram model was up for the seduction. All he had to do was set up the camera’s and get Hollywood’s golden boy with his dick in action. It went off smoothly. She arrived at the restaurant and made a beeline for the private dining room as the dinner was coming to a close. Harris nibbled the bait. Gave her a taste of the coke he was snorting. After his management team left he kept the liquor flowing. It didn’t take long for her to seduce his ego and lure him to the bathroom for a dinner snack. The next month Ryder and Janet approached Harris’s agent and convinced the idiot that she was underage. Harris fell for it. The rest would be recorded in the history books when Ryder becomes the one to solve the Illuminati mystery.

  Ryder left the car. He walked tall in a tuxedo that cost him his entire rent check and he tried to appear as polished at the others arriving. He had only four hours of battery-life to store what he could on the iCloud server, so he had to be careful to record only what was needed.

  An Oscar winning actress with the biggest pop-star in the world walked passed him. They just breezed past him as if he weren’t there. He nearly choked on the gum in his mouth. Behind the couple were a few star athletes. One of them had an Olympic champion swimmer as his date. His heart raced. Harris was a step ahead of him and he was greeted like a king. The actor greeted everyone he passed as if he were the president.

  At the door, they were
greeted by security. This was the first test. They were obviously trained in combat and very serious about their jobs. Ryder glanced to the left and saw more men of the same stature and intimidation watching. Each man wore earpieces like members of an elite secret service team. And they all had intense scrutinizing stares at the guests arriving. The Pope would have to show identification to get pass these men, he thought. Ryder tried not to seem conspicuous, but he was nervous. If there were guards then that meant there was a reason for privacy.

  Fuck what The Third-Eye-Raven said in his investigations about the location of the Illuminati, and the improbability that it could be discovered. This was it. He’d found Eden.

  With a discreet move of his finger over his watch he turned off the camera to the square lensed glasses he wore and stepped forward to be searched. Everything went to plan. He could see the relief in Harris’s stride and manner once they accepted his invitation and scanned their identification without issue. He passed the scrutiny. The bum actually walked as if he’d done something of importance when it was Ryder who had finessed the goons. But both of them were detained inside. Two women who looked like enforcement agents approached. One carrying a velvet box.

  “What’s this?” Ryder asked.

  “Do what they say,” Harris mumbled.

  “Phones?” the woman to his left said.

  “Huh?” Ryder answered.

  Harris removed his phone and handed it over. A sticker was put to the back and a small scanning wand was used to swipe the barcode. The phone was placed in the velvet box. A valet ticket was given to Harris in exchange. The woman’s dark gaze turned to him.

  “Telefono, signore.”

  Ryder reached inside of his pocket and handed over his iPhone. The woman did the same thing. He stood impatiently, nervous as she scanned the phone and then gave him the ticket. When he accepted it he expected the matter done, but she paused. She stared at his face. Was she looking at him or the glasses he wore? Ryder’s heart began to race. But her stare then lowered to his attire. She seemed to answer whatever questions she had over his appearance in her mind and nodded to the woman with her that they should move on.