She is stubborn and, as much as the game of taming her thrills me and makes blood surge to my groin, I am mostly careful not to overstep.
Sometimes, I feel her resolve might make her not say anything until it is too late, so I have to watch out for her and me.
I let my eyes rake her naked pale-flushed body lying on the sea of black sheets, with her hands and legs cuffed to the bed posts. Her endearing kohl eyes won’t stop glaring at me, and she is chewing her lips like she wants to bite me instead.
“Have you learned your lesson?” I want her to admit to it so I can take care of her as I intended. I want to. I have put her through something tough, and I ache to balance my actions.
“Go to hell,” she exclaims and tilts her head so she is staring at my reflection through the mirror beside her.
“Suit yourself.” Damn, I hate her willfulness, but I have to live up to it.
“See you by morning,” she smirks.
I gulp, hating that I have to do this but knowing I must. I just handfed her and even that came with cussing and tantrums. I turn away from her and strut out of the bedroom, leaving the air thick with all the things I want to do to her. I slam the door behind me, but I stay planted beside it.
I know she is obstinate. But I cannot shake the fact that she does need me. That she might call for me and the last thing I want is for her to feel abandoned when she does.
I dip my hands in my pockets and lean gently on the door. Waiting. She has to call me. I want her to choose to be in my arms rather than cuffed all night to a bed. But a part of me wonders if she would prefer that.
I exhale sharply, and my stomach ties into knots, knowing I will stand here for the entire night without Vittoria calling for me. Or does she think I left her alone? Is she scared?
I go closer to the door, and my hand hovers on the doorknob. I retrieve it and shove it back into my pocket. I stop myself from pacing and try to get my mind to think of anything aside from the fact that her perseverance is both a trait I find attractive and, in cases like this, overbearing.
“Emanuele!” She calls out at last. It’s a little muffled, but I know she wants me to hear her.
I swing into action, twisting the doorknob and diving into the bedroom a little too fast.
Her eyes soften as she takes me in, and her lips twitch as if she is fighting to keep words from pouring out of her mouth. I want to ask her if she called me, but instead, I take cautious steps toward her and sit on the bed, never breaking the flow of our eyes.
“Let me go,” it’s more of a plea than anything snarky, “Please,” she adds and gulps.
“Have you learned your lesson?” I reach for a few strands of inky hair plastered on her face and brush them behind her ear. She drops her face to the side of my touch, closing her eyes as she melts, and I start to stroke her cheekbone.
“Yes,” she whispers, “Yes, I have learned my lesson,” my forefinger is lining her cheeks now and going for her lips, “I took my punishment well.”
“I want to take care of you, Vittoria,” I press the back of my forefinger on her lips, and she parts them to take my finger between her teeth. “Will you let me?” I am waiting for her to bite or do something to make all of this difficult, but instead, she sucks, screwing her eyes tighter and inhaling.
“Y…yes,” she gulps, “Yes, please do.”
I draw back, needing to do what is important first. I go from one post to the other, uncuffing her; all the while, her eyes stay shut, and her chest keeps rising and crashing as she breathes heavily and shakily. I trace my fingers along the bruise from her fighting when I uncuff her wrists.
“Done,” I announce. I turn to return to my initial position, and as I sit, she is up and crawling to me. She is so quick I almost get knocked off the bed. She wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face in my neck.
“I learned my lesson,” she pushes herself into me, “hold me.” She circles her arms in a way that allows her to hook her hand on my shoulder blade.
“Of course, baby girl,” I sheathe her, lifting her off the bed until she is sitting on my lap.
She is so small yet so full of will. So breakable in appearance but steel all the same.
One hand cups the back of her head while the other starts to draw lines down her spine, tracing ridges that I am beginning to memorize. She keeps pushing into me and breathing heavily into my neck. Warm breaths slipping into my pores and gathering in my loins. My perfect girl. But I want it to be her night. I want to give her what she needs.
She probably senses that as she lifts her face to look me in the eyes. Up close like this, her eyes are the same, if not darker, than her hair. They are innocent and pleading as they drop to my lips, and she drags in another long breath, hollowing her neck dip. Before she lifts them back up to plead again for a kiss, I plaster my lips to hers.
She exhales into my mouth and pinches down on my shoulder blades, pressing her body in a way that suggests she wants to crawl into my skin. Like the arms I now have around her are not enough.
My tongue searches her mouth, and she suckles, pouring her moan into me. I reach for the base, wanting to feel the vibration of every syllable that my tongue won’t allow her to utter.
Her mouth is warm, soft, and wet. It reminds me of her pussy but without the salty taste. And now it is what I want. What I crave.
I slow the kiss but don’t stop as I lower her on the bed. As she lays flat on the mattress, I break the kiss. Eyes glossy and face heated. My eyes drop to her swollen lips, and she inhales like they burn. I am wondering how swollen her pussy is right now. I’m picturing pink tenderness oiled for me. It makes my cock tick, but I ignore it. This is for her.
“Open up,” I order, and she opens her legs, blessing my sight with her pink, wet, creamy pussy. I growl, biting down on my teeth to wrap an invisible leash of restraint around my neck, “I want to eat you up. I want to have you for dessert.” She responds with a sharp intake of air. “Tonight, I want to feel your thighs squeeze my head as you orgasm into my face,” my forefinger begins to drag from her knee to her inner thigh. Her legs start to shake visibly, and she swallows nervously, her entire body trembling under me .
I trace my finger until it reaches the lips of her pussy, and I swirl it on her clit.
“Oh, God,” she breathes.
“It’s me, not God,” I swirl my finger again.
“Emanuele,” she scrapes her nails on the sheets, wanting to grab something.
“You have one duty tonight, baby girl,” I slip my forefinger in and pull it out, “I will do the work, you just come on my tongue,” and without wasting time, I signal for her to go further up on the mattress.
As soon as she is in the position I want her, I lower myself and bury my face between her legs.
“Oh,” she is breathless, and I feel her pussy contract against my lips. I kiss her there. Then I start to brush her clit with my beard in teasing circular strokes. “Oh,” her legs quaver, mirroring her voice.
With both hands gripping her thighs to keep them apart, I let my tongue out. Swiping and circling. Sucking and tenderly grating. It’s satisfying and gratifying. To render this service to her and just have her take it the way she is taking it now. It’s taking me everything not to come in my pants. Which is definitely going to happen if we keep going like this.
I slide my tongue into her pussy, digging deeper. She tastes good. She smells good. She feels good.
She moans loudly, and her hand comes to grip my hair, while the other keeps scratching the bed sheet.
“Yes,” she groans, “Daddy, yes,” she twists her hips, fucking my tongue.
I pull it out and continue to swipe and circle from her slit to her clit, narrowing my mouth to suck, then rinse and repeat. This time firmer, and it’s partly because of the way she is pulling my hair and how she is now twisting and grinding against my tongue.
With one hand, I let go of her leg and go palm her pussy. I use my fingers to open her fold, and because I know the pain is as necessary as the pleasure for her, I nib, then suck hard on her clit.
It’s her undoing.
She screams, rocking into me faster, and then I feel her quivering with each swinging move. Her body is thrumming, and she is screaming now. Her grip on my hair turns feral. I keep sucking as she rocks herself to climax. Convulsing and sputtering.
Her hips lift from the mattress, locking my head between her legs with her thighs, and then she crashes back into it. I savor her cum, cleaning her deliciousness up. My sweet baby girl.
She lets go of my hair, and I rip my face from her pussy to stare at her. She smiles faintly, then covers her face with both her palms. It’s the first time I’ve seen her shy, and it is… adorable.
“Thank you,” she mumbles into her hands, and I can’t keep my smile in.
“Come here.” She turns to the side instead and then presses her face into the mattress, “Am I the first guy to ever eat your pussy, baby girl?” Some animalistic and possessive part of me wants me to be.
“Yes,” she exhales, then crawls to me, but not to sit on my lap. She drops her head on my lap instead and circles her arms around my waist, “Don’t flatter yourself, although you were not so bad.”
I chuckle.
Her sassiness is so damn attractive.
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“Eva, take those things out of my study,” my gaze shifts to the sea-blue eyes and the tresses of coal black. That used to be the color of my hair before the gray showed through, now even more visible under the ring lights and reflector she has arranged in front of my desk.
Thanks to her, I know the names of this equipment, and while that might score me a best dad of the year title by actively participating in his daughter’s career, I would like to draw a line at how much harassment I can take. I’m having a cup of coffee, she is taking shots. I’m trying to read through the newspaper, she is taking shots. I am trying to bloody work right now, and she invading my space with equipment to take shots.
“Dad, just this time,” she drops her camera on the desk and hurries to connect the extension to a socket, “It will be quick and painless.”
“Eva, I’m not in the mood to have my pictures taken,” I look at the antique clock on the desk and see I might still have some time before Vittoria and her father arrive. “Go take a picture of nature or something else,” I pick up my cigar from the ashtray and puff, then tap the butt to let the ash fall.
“Dad, they love you,” she flips the switch, “my page does not have the same buzz as when I post your pictures,” she takes hoppy steps to me and hugs me from behind, then plants a kiss on my cheek, “It turns out they love you more than they love nature.”
“Who is they?” I know who. She fills me in on everything, whether I care or not. And I care.
“My fans, who are sort of like your fans now because they are pining for more pictures of my hot dad,” she smiles sheepishly, saying the hot dad part through joined teeth.
“Are these the kind of people you surround yourself with?”
I know it’s not the point, and I’m not a saint myself, but I don’t joke with her. She is still my little Princess, no matter how grown she is. It will always be my duty to watch and protect her.
“Dad, they are online, so it’s not a physical thing,” she says, dragging her oversized denim pants up to her stomach, then hopping back to the ring lights to set them.
“But they’re in your circle, aren’t they?”
“Let’s look at the good side here,” she ties her oversized neon t-shirt into a knot around her waist. I’m a fan of her style. She dresses in oversized denim pants and t-shirts, and she sometimes wears glasses. When she isn’t being a prickly daughter, she spends most of her time editing on her laptop or taking pictures.
“What’s the good side?” I fold my hands across each other and rest them on the desk, making sure the cigar is visible between my fingers as I pose.
She knows how to get me. My little bubbly offspring of trouble. I always knew she would be this way, from the night I held her in the hospital room when she was born. With those eyes like her mother’s, there’s not much I can refuse her. There’s not much I have denied her. And Eva has never asked for anything I couldn’t do. I built a bubble around her, and I love how she has stayed in it, never wanting anything more.
“Be quick,” I snap my fingers at her, and she blows me a kiss.
“You are the best, Dad,” she flips the first ring light on and then hops over to turn the second one on. She picks up her camera.
“I like how you’re sitting, now look at the camera, please,” she angles the camera to snap.
I do as the professional has asked. She is talented. Every year, she sells her pictures for charity, and it’s good for the family name, and people get their money’s worth.
The shutter clicks, and she smiles brightly.
I take it she is satisfied.
“To put it out there, you have female and male fans,” she takes another shot.
“You don’t have to put it out there,” I lift my eyes to look at her, and she takes another shot. I’m about to scold her when the noises from outside pique my interest.
She hears it, too.
“That’s quite some shouting,” she snorts, “Salvatore is finally losing it.”
None of my domestic staff would dare to ramble so loudly that I could hear it from my study. And not even Salvatore, or the women he changes more than his underwear, would violate the estate’s solemnity in such a way. I wouldn’t put it past him, except this time he is not around.
“Stay here,” I stand and walk to the door of my study. It’s a stringy lady’s voice and a harsh baritone belonging to a man, “Don’t come out.”
Eva nods, “I will start editing the pictures,” she is on her laptop as soon as she sits on the navy-blue sofa.
I open the door meticulously and step out. My study is on the second floor, and from here, I can see what is happening on the ground floor.
I drag my cigar and puff, seeing them through the fogginess of the smoke.
Looks like my guests are having a moment.
Vittoria and her father, Giuseppe Mancuso.
She has her back to me and intersects his line of sight because she is on six-inch heels. Her legs are covered in black stockings that disappear under the red coat she has on.
But I can see the top of his bald head and the lines on his forehead deepening from aggravation. Giuseppe is leaning on his walking stick and I have no doubt he has a pipe between his lips. He wears his darkness like a second skin.
“Give me a break,” Vittoria grits and balls her fists, as if she could punch him if he wasn’t her father. And I bet she can. I have heard enough about her to know she is as ferocious as they come.
“You will do as told and not cause me any more trouble than you already have,” he grunts, “This time, I won’t go easy on you if you make a mess and bring me shame,” he points at her with shaky fingers, “Once is a mistake, but twice,” he spits his last words out, not completing the sentence.
“Whose fault was it that Massimo said no to your proposal for a slave?” She throws one hand in the air in a poised way.
Her audacity. That thing about the offspring of a beast not seeing what everyone else sees when they look at their parents.
She is standing her ground, making her look like a strong, firm woman, but all I see is a brat that needs to be tamed. She has been given too much freedom, and it’s hard for her to know where the lines are drawn.
Giuseppe makes a guttural sound, “I’m happy I’m getting you out of my home.”
“That makes the both of us…”
Her words have no landing as the back of his callous hand swings into action and smacks her hard on the cheeks.
No, not that.
Not under my roof. I get that she is a spoiled brat but hitting her is going too far. There are many ways to clip her wings, and I will take pleasure in… Salvatore would take pleasure in taming her. I correct myself and clear my throat loud enough to get their attention.
I start climbing down the stairs to welcome them when she turns in my direction, and I almost stumble on myself.
Bloody Saints.
I grind my teeth.
To say she is easy on the eye is an understatement.
I am dazzled.
She exudes a pure magnetic charge and bloody hell, I feel like I’m being pulled in with each step I take down the stairs to them. To her.
I hold her gaze, her eyes like coal, only they smolder, and she has the defiance to hold my gaze as I walk down; standing straighter and lifting her chin like I didn’t just see her being hit and humiliated. Like ink on her pale skin, her hair is wrapped up in a polished bun.
The closer I get, the straighter she stands. As if daring me. And that glare in her eyes, like she has already dragged me beneath her and placed herself above as the one with the power.
Oh, she is a fiery one. A wild cat that I want to curb. So many ways to tame her. So many ways to train her. So many bloody ways to put her and her smart mouth to good use.
I clear my throat again to sweep the contaminating thought out before it infects my mind any further. She is Salvatore’s soon-to-be wife, and whatever needs to be done to her, for her or with her, is his sole responsibility. Not mine.
I close the distance, and if not for the fact that Giuseppe is in the room with his hovering sourness, which I need to remind myself about, I wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes away from her to look at his face, as unpleasant as that might be.
But his face is where my eyes should stay. They have no business sampling her any more than I have already. The legacy of my clan is hanging on her and Salvatore’s marriage. I should never forget that this deal is one way to strengthen my clan and give me a partnership with La eMe.
Her engagement with Salvatore must go as planned. She holds the key to too much, despite Giuseppe showing he has no regard for her.
By the way she carries herself, she knows her place and what she can make me lose.
For some bloody reason, I find myself longing for hell.
And that fire in her eyes tells me she is not afraid to play.
Chapter 2
Vittoria
The fall of Vittoria Mancuso.
A play proudly sponsored by Giuseppe Mancuso, my father. Even though he keeps showing how undeserving of that title he is with every single passing day. There’s nothing that can be done to alter the script, not when the show has been set, and especially not when he is the one directing it.
Oh, to be a normal girl born in New York, allowed to choose her own career, have normal friends, go out on dates, fall in love, live her life with the people she loves and who love her. To be able to have a favorite TV show to watch, extended family holidays and to argue about which snacks are the best, the salty or sweet ones. To talk about fashion trends with your girlfriends or gossip about the neighbors with your mom.
Oh, what I would give to not have to exist in this world as a daughter to the man beside me.
But the show must go on.
The shit I will have to act through… I know as fucking hell I will have to give a grand performance to the very end. Till the curtains close, the hall is emptied, and I’m finally hollow.
For a moment there, I felt untouchable. Now, I wouldn’t dare to think I’m valued any more than exchangeable stock.
I know a handful of people who are having a field day at the outcome of my life. The ones who think I probably deserve this much and the ones who wish I would get more than I’m getting now.
Then there’s the club of men like the one whose sad semen brought me to life, who are clinking their glasses in celebration of the benefits they will reap from the miserable outcome of my life.
My father doesn’t care for anything other than expanding his wealth and affluence. Sometimes, it’s like he doesn’t even care about his own life.
That makes the both of us.
I sneer, the vexation burning and running through my veins, rushing straight to my brain. It’s scorching every cell and licking up any functional nerves.
Forlorn. I should slap it on my forehead and ride through a cloud of thunder with that miserable word.
If I could sum up my shit life using one word, it would be pitiful. I deluded myself into believing that at the end of a rough life like the one I’ve had, I could find reprieve. I tricked myself into believing that somehow, something that feels like a miracle of some fucking sort could happen to me and get me as far away as possible from the only life I’ve known.
But delusion time is over.
Reality slaps harder than papà can ever hit me.
There’s nothing I can do to change that or reverse the course of my life. It has set sail, and I am nowhere close to the helm of that ship. And it is pathetic to wish for a storm to steer it in another direction.
This is what my life has been reduced to.
Hate it as I may; I have no fucking choice but to live it.
Giuseppe takes his pipe from his mouth, daring me to say another word. I know he is capable of burning me with the thing. He has done it before. I have a body that feels like a display of his artwork from the ridges left by healed wounds. It’s why I always cover myself up.
Someone harrumphs behind me, and I take my time as I circle from shooting fireballs at Giuseppe for his assault, although I’m used to it and I probably saw that one coming, to looking at who I’m expecting to be Salvatore. Another degenerate I’m here to see.
I don’t mean to judge, but I never knew Giuseppe to do business with men of unlike minds. The closest he was to doing things differently was with Massimo, but my father’s reputation preceded him, playing a huge part in ruining that for everyone.
The grimace on my face loses its hold and begs to deflate as my eyes drop on him. The cold from his stapling sooty eyes, almost like the dark strands mixed in the gray of his hair, sends shivers from where our eyes meet down my spine. Any funny move, and I will disintegrate.
He is entrancing, to say the fucking least. Old, no doubt. But age has only given him his attributes an acuteness that should be considered illegal, the same as his choice of business.
I swallow what feels like pricking pins, my throat tight. It both hurts and tingles.
I have a new theory for how the devil looks. Up until now, I could use papà’s face as a pictorial reference, but seeing the darkness in the eyes of this man, sensing the air that surrounds him as he takes valiant steps down the white-marbled stairs with gold rails, I agree with everyone who has ever suggested that the devil looks nothing like we know.
My heart beats faster, in rhythm with my breathing, with each step closer he gets to us. To me.
Giuseppe had to choose his kind. He didn’t even think of picking someone at least age-appropriate for me. I must have lost my market value to be given to this man. Or he offered something way above what Giuseppe would have expected in exchange for me.
Not that he is anything like Giuseppe in appearance. The irony is that his choice of color is black, and Giuseppe’s is white. Black dress shirt for a buff body and muscles that radiate authority. Black dress pants for firm legs with powerful strides as they close the distance. A hole in one of his coal-black bristled eyebrows to show he had a wild youth.
Most of his long, firm, thick fingers are covered in black ink and rings.
I lift my eyes back to hold his slithering gaze. It’s like he can tear through my fort and see that I am cowering inside. Like he can see deep inside how much I’m shrinking and hurting from this arrangement.
My jaw ticks now, and my teeth grate against each other. The fire in my brain is shooting across like fireworks, and my sinuses are prickling with tears that will never make it to my eyes. It’s been twenty years since I last cried. And no matter how vexed I am at this moment, it’s not fucking enough to break the dam.
He is staring intently as he stands before me. Like I summoned him. Like he is some dark lord ready to fulfill some prophecy with me at its core.
His hooded eyes are dispatching encrypted messages to me, and my vexation-swaddled brain is trying to decrypt them. Whatever they are conveying seems important, and I want to know. But, as piercing as his eyes are, there’s a shadow that does not allow looking past what he wants a person to see.
The hair at the nape of my neck spikes up.
It’s a staring contest, I guess.
He is trying to gauge me. To weigh up his new toy. He can get in line. Giuseppe has tried even to break me my whole life and he yet has to get the desired gratification from his hard work. Whatever he thinks he can bend me with, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the hell my father put me through for years.
I take him up on his silent dare. Staring contest it is, then. A little annoying, but thrilling nonetheless. It’s the most thrilling thing that has happened to me in a while, and I can make due with a little excitement in my progressively tedious life.
Papà is observing us, but he just insignificant right now. The man in front of me knows how to guzzle attention when he walks into a place.
We are both determined to see this one to the end.
Then, he drops his eyes to the side of my face. The same side that was hit by Giuseppe minutes ago. Meaning, he saw me get hit. He saw my humiliation, how I wouldn’t want the man I have been handed to as a trophy wife to see me in. And he is letting me know he saw it, to remind me of how little I mean even tomy father and to let me know that he also knows how to keep me in place when I falter.
But I will not falter.
It’s a promise.
A fucking oath, if I need to draw my blood and swear on it.
I won’t let anyone make me feel so little. I am Vittoria Mancuso, and I don’t care what anyone thinks about my predicament; I will keep my head high, my eyes ocean-still, my spine vertical, and my will to fight for myself and retain whatever self-worth is left in my life unshaken.
So, I boss up my chest. In my mind, I seize him up with a leash and strip him till he shrinks. I keep him where I keep them all—underneath me. I don’t care about the power this one emanates. I don’t care if he threatens to turn the wheel and use my leash against me.
I don’t fucking care if Giuseppedived into hell and brought the devil out with him to give his daughter to.
He is beneath me.
And beneath me is where he will be for the rest of this shitshow.
A glint of amusement flickers in his icy eyes, and I sup up. It’s the first opening he is giving me. The first anything I get from him other than the dark threat in his eyes.
“Giuseppe,” his voice bellows with the thick, dry texture of a tree bark. “Welcome. How was the flight?” He turns his head in the direction of Giuseppe. No smile. Not even a subtle welcoming hint. It appears Giuseppe has found his twin.
“I beat death again,” Giuseppe grunts, moving closer with the aid of his walking stick. He once again makes it clear that I mean nothing by standing in front of me, giving me nothing but the back of his glossy bald head.
I know he can manage on his own, but he chooses to use the walking stick as a guise, so people think he is vulnerable, and they let their guard down around him.
“This must be her,” that stormy voice again, making me want to zero out every other voice in my head and narrow it down to only his.
“This is my daughter,” Giuseppe offers, stepping aside slightly.On the bright side, if there’s any to this arrangement, at least I won’t have to listen to his screeching voice any longer.
“I would say I that see, but…” he snorts quietly.
“She took after her mother,” Giuseppe chortles abrasively, “She is lucky. What good would she be if she had this face?”
I would carve the face out myself if that were the case. If life had dared to not only give me him as a father but also make me even a sliver of an image of him. It would feel like a punch in the gut every time I looked in the mirror.
“She has your tenaciousness.”
He doesn’t know me. I’m nothing like my father.
If anything, I’m worse.
“It has cost me,” Giuseppe replies, looking around, “I don’t see Salvatore.”
“He is around somewhere.”
“You are not Salvatore?” I don’t want to show the nip of disappointment in my maniacally twisting stomach.
“Would you want me to be?” He turns to me now, then shoves his firm hands into the pocket of his dress pants. His starehas the same effect as a thunderbolt. It strikes.
It’s my turn to harrumph, “I thought you were my fiancé.”
“Is that so?” He lifts both brows, eyes almost shimmering from the effect of the bright white light overhead.
Cheeky laughter breaks through the intensity in the air before the person laughing pokes her head from behind him. Everything in this estate appears to be on a different plane of beauty.
She practically bounces over to us with coal-black curls, vibrant blue eyes, pink flushed smiling cheeks, wearing an oversized neon shirt tied to the back, baggy denim pants, and holding a camera.
“That would be awkward now, wouldn’t it?” She sneaks her free hand under his arm and plasters herself to his side.
She looks too bright to be around someone with such a sullen aura. I flick my eyes between them, observing the stark contrast. Tight-pressed lips and lips curved in a smile. Darkness and light. Maybe a storm and rainbow.
“Salvatore is my brother,” she wraps her hand around his waist now. “Wouldn’t it be awkward if my father was your fiancé?” She cranes her neck to stare at him. “I know he is easy on the eyes,” she smiles, the kind of smile that says how much she cherishes him, “But nah…” She shakes her head, scrunching her nose.
Her father. That’s the piece to complete the puzzle. As a pair they are like a work of art I can’t figure out, no matter how much I stare at it or try to delve into the artist’s mind.
And as if it’s not enough, he smiles at her and wraps his strong, protective arms around her.
His daughter has so much life pulsing through her that it is impossible not to have some of it spill on you. A daughter who looks like she has been allowed a freedom I can never dare dream of. I observe how bold she is to not only approach her father but to fling herself on him, even with a guest like Giuseppe groaning disapprovingly alongside me.
Never in the world has a woman looked more stunningly beautiful than my bride does tonight.
My bride.
Wife.
Katya Levine is my wife. She’s declared to the whole world that I am the one that she wants to spend the rest of her years with and I could not possibly want it any other way. I’m so happy that I could sing it to the entire world. I’m sorely tempted to. I would, actually, if it weren’t for the fact that Katya has explicitly told me that I’m not allowed to do anything of the sort.
My stunning new bride spins around the dance floor as if she’s moving on clouds.
The veil that she was married in is pinned up closer to her head and the elaborate updo that she picked for the evening. The strapless gown that she chose for today takes my breath away each and every time I allow myself to look at it for too long. The smile that she’s has plastered across her face has the very same effect on me but I will happily indulge.
She’s pinned the bulk of her skirt up in the back so that she can dance and I’m rewarded with brief, intimate flashes of her shapely legs every time she twirls just a little too far.
“Do you know how impressive I find you?” I ask her as she spins in closer to me. Her back pressed as much against my chest as her dress will allow.
“Oh? And why’s that?” Katya grins as I spin her away and back again.
“Moving so easily in your… condition.” I wink as she moves out once more.
The music is so loud at our reception that the only time she can hear me speak at all is when I pull her in close to my chest and growl my words into her ear.
Though, I might like it better like this. It means that I get to see the furiously red blush blossom across her cheeks and there’s nothing that she can do to stop me teasing her every chance that I get.
“Stop it!” Katya practically begs as we move closer once more. “Somebody will hear you and get the wrong impression!”
“What, that you’re pregnant?” I shake my head. “Not yet. But who cares if they do?”
That only makes her blush deepen.
“Seriously.” I commend her. “You’ve been such a good girl so far this evening, I don’t think that anybody has any idea what you’re wearing for me under that dress of yours. Can you feel it every time you move?”
I can see her gritting her teeth. No doubt she doesn’t want to talk about it here. But I’m also willing to bet that she’s so turned on her thighs are coated with her wetness right now as well.
“I’m… getting used to it.”
“Then next time, we will have to get you something with a little more weight.” I tease.
I love watching the way her pupils dilate and her eyes widen at my words. I bet she’s picturing it right now. I hope she is. She had been nearly filled with outrage when I told her that she wasn’t allowed to wear anything underneath of her wedding dress apart from my one, special little item. She had balked and thrown a fit but a few minutes of convincing her with my tongue between her legs and she had caved. Had let me put it on her without so much of a fuss.
The plug was something new for her, she said. But if she was going to promise her life and body to me – I wanted to be able to have all of her body. Every inch and every hole would belong to me. What better night to claim her fully than tonight?
“Somebody is going to know if you don’t stop talking about it!” Katya pushes against my chest like that’s going to do anything but encourage me further.
“Oh, that’s how you want to play it?” I answer and slip my hand into my pocket. She realizes the error of her ways a moment too late when my fingers close around the small remote that controls the vibrating underwear that she’s wearing.
Katya’s knees clamp shut and she nearly falters in her dance step as she whimpers with the sudden pleasure now vibrating against her clit. Her grip is like iron on my bicep as she fights to regain composure and starts to dance once more. Albeit a little less graceful than she had been before.
“Do you think that you will be able to keep them on all night for me, my love?” I whisper into her ear.
She doesn’t answer, but the defiant fire in her eyes lets me know that she’s going to power through. She doesn’t want to lose our little game. She wants me to claim her just as much as I do.
“Or, would a better question be – do you think you’re going to make it all night?” I tilt my head to the side in silent question. I push the button on the panties once more and her knees go weak. She bites down on her bottom lip and I pull her into my chest as the song mercifully shifts into a slow dance. I support her weight with an arm banded around her waist and carry the pair of us through the dance as I know the vibrations are relentless between her legs. No doubt it’s worse every time that I force her to move through the motions of the dance.
I wonder how close she is.
I need to feel her. I want to see her come undone.
Just when her eyes threaten to roll back in her head in front of all of our guests, I turn the panties off. A light sheen of sweat covers her forehead as she glares up at me.
Just to be a shit, I turn them back on full force for five seconds, and then off again.
“Something you need, my love?” I ask her with a saccharine smile.
“Take me somewhere. Now.” she demands.
“So needy.” I click my tongue in admonishment.
“Please. Sir. Take me out of here.” She requests, catching herself.
“I think you can take it a little longer.” I turn the panties on low, just enough to make her miserable with the sensation she can do nothing about as I take a step away from her. “Hmm, I think that I need a drink.”
I know good and damned well that it’s going to be hard for her to walk after me without being noticeable. She closes the distance between us anyway. She’s trying her damned best.
I turn them up a notch again. I swear I can see her nipples through her gown and her thighs clenching together.
“Unless you want to be a good girl, and beg?” I whisper so that only she can hear. My lips brush ever so softly down the column of her neck as I speak.
Full of fire and spark, she glares at me. “Please, Luca, take me out of here… now… please.”
I grin ear to ear and turn the panties up as high as they will go before taking her hand in mind and heading right off of the dance floor. It’s our wedding, after all, we can do whatever we want.
***
Katya
Faster. Faster. Faster.
I can’t walk for much longer. There’s just no way that he can expect me to keep up with him in these conditions. The moment that we are out of the main hall of the venue, Luca turns and scoops me right up and flings me over his shoulder, but he doesn’t turn the damned underwear down for a second. I have to bite down on my lip to keep from crying out in pleasure. I don’t think that I’m going to be able to take it much longer.
I clench my thighs together tightly as my fists ball into the fabric of his jacket. I’m sorely tempted to bite him for good measure just because I can’t take this much longer.
A moan slips out of my lips before I can stop it.
Luca carries us into the first bathroom that he sees and puts me down on the counter at the exact same moment that he manages to turn off the underwear. The abrupt sensations are so sudden and unexpected it’s almost too much.
“Such a good girl for me.” Luca praises me as he kisses down the side of my neck toward my clavicle. “Should we see if you’re just as wet for me as I think that you are?”
If he doesn’t move quickly enough I’m going to grab him by the hair and show my husband exactly where I want his attention. “If you want more begging then I-
“Will give me exactly what I want?” Luca teases with that damned insufferable smirk right before his teeth brush over my skin. I readily arch into the contact. I need friction between my legs. Something. Anything.
“If you insist on flapping your mouth, at least put it to good use.” I beg.
“So needy you are, wife.” Luca breathes into my skin. His hands drop to my legs and start to gather up the fabric of my skirt. I’m only too happy to help him in the process.
“Say it again.” I breathe. Oxygen is harder to come by when he’s speaking to me in that tone of voice.
“Which part, my love?” He sinks to one knee in front of me and my heart flips happily in my chest. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that either and I love it. I love seeing him on his knees for me.
“Where you called me your wife.”
Luca laughs. Laughs at me. I swat at his shoulder and he catches my hand. “Careful now, wife, or I shall stop being so generous. We don’t want that, do we?”
His thumbs massage circles up my inner thighs. He finally reaches the panties and curls his fingers around them slowly. It’s torture how slowly he pulls them off of me. I think they are the first pair of panties that I’ve worn in the last month because Luca doesn’t like having anything to bar his access to me when the mood strikes. I’ve gotten so used to not having them there that the extra fabric is too much contact with my overheated, overly sensitive skin.
“Lift your hips for me, wife.” Luca commands.
I move to obey without even thinking. My hands curl around the lip of the bathroom counter and I lift my hips up so that he can pull my panties down.
Luca groans. “Exactly as wet as I thought you were.”
Every movement that I make causes me to be more aware of the shiny metal plug in my ass. The only thing that had distracted me from it was the vibration of the panties and that’s gone now. I’m overly aware of it as Luca no doubt catches glimpse of the jewel the moment that the panties are off of me. I hear them hit the floor but I don’t care.
I hook my legs around Luca’s shoulders and urge him closer before he has the chance to change his mind. I don’t want any more sass from him. He chuckles darkly as he kisses every bit of my exposed skin except for where I want him to be the most. I think he’s trying to kill me.
“Luca!” I plead, his word barely more than a moan on my lips as I lean back against the counter and attempt to grind my pelvis against his face.
Luca takes hold of my thighs and holds me down. He keeps me from moving any more than he wants me to and only then, when I’m helpless in his hands, does his mouth make contact.
A slow savor at first. A man presented with a rare delicacy that he doesn’t want to waste a moment of as he licks and kisses me. His tongue delving deeper, savoring the taste of my wetness on his tongue with a groan of appreciation.
I’m going to come apart at the seams. Literally. I try to move but he’s relentless, never giving my swollen clit any more attention than he deems necessary until I can’t think. I can’t breathe. Only when I’m shuddering, my legs trembling around his shoulders does he show me even the slightest bit of mercy.
His tongue flattens. No more teasing, light touches but something harder as his fingers find my center and slip inside. They curl expertly to the place that makes me see stars.
“More?” Luca asks. I’m nowhere near capable of answering him, but he knows that. “I think you can take more. That’s my good girl.” He adds a third finger. The stretch isn’t anywhere near the way that his cock would fill me but it’s getting me ready for what I know is coming. What I get to have all to myself for the rest of my life. My head falls back and hits the mirror softly. I can’t even bring myself to care about the dull ache in the back of my head as my core clenches.
“Luca – I- I’m-” I try to get the words out, but the moment that I’m about to head over that precipice… he stops. I think I might actually cry.
My body plummets down so quickly I cannot keep up. “No!” I sob. I’m only half aware of Luca moving to stand and then he’s moving me. He pulls me off of the counter and spins me to face the mirror. I don’t trust myself to stand on such shaky legs. He props one of my knees up on the counter and pushes between my shoulders to bend me forward and arch my ass out toward me.
My stomach clenches. I know what’s coming next. I’m not ready. I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be. I’m so turned on – my nerves are like live wires and I cannot think of anything other than how badly I need his cock in me.
A rustle of fabric and I feel him. He grabs the plug from my ass and pulls it out slowly. I hear the metal clatter on the countertop somewhere beside me but all I can focus on is him spreading my wetness back over my hole – and then there he is. Lubricated with his precum and my own cream as he eases into me.
It’s wrong. It’s intrusive and painful and I’ve never felt so full in my whole life.
My face presses into the cold glass of the mirror in front of me. My hand slides down the reflective surface as I will myself to exhale. Slowly he eases inside of my ass, taking and claiming and owning that final part of me that I’ve never given to anybody else before. Something that is only Luca’s and always will be.
His moan shudders through my bones as he sinks further until there’s nothing left. His hand wraps under my thigh, finding my clit and arching me back to his hips as he starts to move – and in seconds I combust. My orgasm had been delayed too long as it was and I can’t fight it off any longer. I don’t want to. It’s blended with the whole new sensations on my end and it just goes, and goes. A climb without a peak.
I cease to exist. I am only pleasure and lightning zaps of sensation and ripples of pain as my body acclimates to him. The sounds that come out of me are hardly human but I have given up caring what any of the guests at my wedding might or might not hear.
My eyes roll up so that I can see Luca’s reflection in the mirror behind me. His hands wrapped around my hip and under my leg as he fucks me. His tie thrown over his shoulder. I don’t even know when he took his jacket off and I don’t care. I can see the strain of his muscles against his shirt and damn if I hadn’t just cum once… not that the second is far off with the way my legs are trembling.
I’m sinking. My bones are turning to molten lava and replacing whatever shape that I might have been before with the one that Luca turns me into. His perfect assault on my clit carries me through one orgasm and straight into another. I think I might black out for a moment. Just a moment. Then he’s filling me. With a groan that I would have swallowed could I have had the ability of kissing him right now. He pumps deep into my ass before stilling. Only then does he give my clit mercy and stop. I can’t tell if I want more or if I want a nap.
I feel the cold of the plug going back to my ass and pushing in almost too easily as I close back around it – sealing the gift that Luca gave me just now deep inside.
He helps me with my dress and picks me back up to sit on the countertop. His hands brush the now sweaty loose strands of my updo back and away from my face before pulling me forward to kiss him. I open my mouth to him, accepting his tongue to dance against mine as he pulls me close into his chest.
“I love you, Katya.” Luca breathes into my lips between kisses. He pauses to press his forehead against mine. “From now until my dying day.”
I can’t stop smiling. I kiss him softly and let him pull me into a strong, comforting embrace. “I love you too.”
I can feel his heart beating against my breasts. It feels like home. Whatever the future has in store for us, Luca will always be my home from this moment forward.
There are very few things that can ruin a lovely vacation. And that was the sort of phone call that could ruin not only a vacation, but one’s whole damned life.
I wanted it to be wrong. I wanted to have misheard it.
Honestly, I wanted to cover my damned ears so that I could pretend that I had never heard that string of words in that particular order ever again.
“Please tell me that you’re joking.”
My voice trembled, and I couldn’t even bring myself to hate it in the way that I normally would. I’m not the sort of person that is prone to emotional displays. But, this? This ripped the world right out from underneath of me and tilted everything on its axis.
My skin felt cold. I could feel myself paling as the damnable words came from my family’s assistant straight into my ears once more.
“I’m so sorry Katya… but your mother’s death has been confirmed by our people. Stay where you are, and await further orders. I repeat, stay where you are until Alexei gives orders.”
Moments ago, I had been allowing the September afternoon sun soak into my fair skin.
I had been having my feet rubbed by the hunk now awkwardly pawing at my back. Not the best travel boyfriend that I’ve ever had in my life, but he’s stupid handsome and looks incredible in a suit so I can’t complain much. Standing at a good foot taller than me and covered in glorious, bulging muscles and tattoos, he certainly looks good being photographed next to me on the beach for my Instagram. He can’t offer me much in the way of conversation, but that’s not what I want him for anyway. He’s not marriage material. Not by half. But, he will do for now.
Certainly good enough in bed to keep me fully satisfied.
What else would one want from a leisurely trip to Valencia, in Spain, if not to have a lot of good sex and sangria?
“What is it, babe?” Derek muttered as his large hands rubbed up and down my biceps. He tried to kiss the cap of my shoulder but the last thing that I want right now is to be touched.
I shrug out of his hold, wading across the pool a couple of inches away from him.
“What the hell happened?! Where is she? Her… her body, where is it? I can go and collect her tonight.” Even as I said the words, I knew that I was not going to be given permission to fly back to Russia tonight and collect her body from whatever pop-up morgue they had her in. I can’t even remember the last time that I was given leave to fly back home to attend to anything. Guilt surges through me at the knowledge that I, being the horrible daughter that I am, have not seen my mother in years. When was our last conversation? Was she alone when it happened? Was she scared?
The thought of her lying there cold and prodded at by strangers is almost more than I can stomach. I might be sick.
Derek tries to grab me again, pulling me by my hips back into the warm, broad expanse of his muscled chest.
“Stop,” I mutter dismissively. Can’t he see that I’m busy right now? Can’t he see that something important is going on right now? I turn my focus back to the phone call. “Does Alexei know? What did he say?”
This time, Derek seems to not want to take no for an answer.
The grip on my hip tightens as he yanks me back toward him. Roughly enough that my phone slips and falls right out of my hand and into the pool.
Whatever my family’s assistant was about to say to me about my brother becomes a gurgly mess.
“What the hell?” I half shout as my palms collide with Derek’s chest.
Something shifts on Derek’s face.
He is no longer the mostly stupid boyfriend that’s been entertaining me for the past couple of months.
No, he just transformed into something darker. Something that I don’t even have time to process before I’m being yanked under the water.
My lungs burn.
For a brief, delusional moment I think that he’s just being petty or something because I ignored him. But then his hand knots roughly into the crown of my long platinum blonde hair and doesn’t budge.
He’s trying to kill me.
Panic explodes through my body as my ‘fight’ mode kicks into overdrive.
I swipe my feet at his, hoping that I can knock him off balance, but he’s so much larger than I am and his grip on my hair is so tight that it feels like he’s going to pull my scalp clean from my skull.
This can’t be how I go out. I refuse to allow this to be the way that I die.
Absolutely not.
I’m a Levine for Christ’s sake. Does he not have any idea?
Guess the meathead just doesn’t care. He might not have any sense of self preservation, but I sure do.
I surge forward under the water and grab a hold of his junk as hard as I can, twisting and pulling with every bit of strength that I have left in my body.
Dark spots are forming on my vision, but it works.
I can hear him yowling in pain even from under the water. Enough that I can scrape my manicured nails into his arm like talons to free my hair from him and kick away.
With a final burst of energy, I kick the heel of my foot into his face as hard as I can before swimming for my life.
Shaking so hard my hands barely work, I gather up all of our clothes and belongings and book it to the elevators.
I glance over my shoulder long enough to see that the pool water has bled red in a ring all around his frame.
Derek’s eyes glint with absolute murder and rage as he slowly attempts to wade toward me.
The elevator doors ding and I burst inside and awkwardly fumble the room key against the lock.
It’s certainly not going to delay him for very long that he doesn’t have a key to the room, but I will take every second that I can possibly get.
I throw myself into our hotel room and slam the door shut, barricading the thin wood with the dresser. Adrenaline must be on high time overdrive because the heavy wooden furniture is not something that I would have been able to move on my own before. I don’t think that I’ve ever managed to pack quite this quickly in my whole life.
I am a hurricane as I tear through the room moving on instinct more than anything else.
I know that if I stop moving, even for a second, reality is going to catch up with me. I can’t allow myself the time to process whatever the fuck just happened to me.
I have to move. I have to get somewhere safe. Then I can call Alexei.
Everything will be okay. That’s what I have to keep telling myself.
I leave behind everything that isn’t absolutely mandatory for my survival.
It feels far too much like my childhood to be comfortable.
Scrambling to hide. Throwing everything into a backpack and mindlessly running until I know that I’m safe.
Alexei is my safe. He’s always been the one to take care of me – but now my brother is tucked away in New York City and a hell of a long distance from Spain.
The violent pounding at the door is even more triggering.
Only, it’s not my father on the other side of the wood this time. It’s an enraged giant of a man whose nose I likely broke a few moments ago after his failed murder attempt.
My heart thumps into my throat and my shaking is even more violent as I throw my backpack on and lace my shoes as best I can before heading to the balcony.
Not the best option, I’ll admit that. But, if it’s death or death, I will be damned if I don’t choose pavement splatter when the other option is man.
Over the balcony and down the drainpipe. I’m nearly down to the ground when I hear the door of my hotel room shatter.
The angry crunching of wood splintering and furious shouting is the background noise to my heart threatening to suffocate me and a desperate desire for him to not look down.
I dive into the first taxi that slows. I don’t even wait for it to stop before shouting at the man to drive me to the airport. “Hurry, please. I’ll pay double if you get me there in the next twenty minutes.”
The man clearly wants to ask me handfuls of super annoying questions but I don’t have time for it. He must read it on my face because in the next moment, he’s peeling down the road so fast it would have made my Russian grandmother incredibly happy to see. I glance anxiously behind me to see if somehow Derek is running behind the taxi on foot. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Almost trembling too hard to dial Alexei’s number on my phone.
He doesn’t pick up until the third ring.
“Brat?” I mutter softly. I hope that by speaking like this, I can hide how terrified I feel right now.
“Da? I am very busy right now, Katya, what is it?”
Even though he sounds annoyed that I’ve interrupted his day, just hearing his voice is soothing to me.
“Has Ms. Lagunov not called you yet?”
“She’s tried, but like I said – I’m busy right now.”
“Mama is dead, Brat.” I whisper.
Saying it out loud makes it real. It makes her actually dead and all at once, the pain hits me.
The pounding, angry headache that throbs and the burning in my lungs all seems to fade away into nothingness as the reality of the situation sinks in. “Ms. Lagunov just told me. She is with her body now, the mortician is finishing up the autopsy for formality’s sake… but Brat, she is gone.”
There’s a series of hushed, angry swearing in Russian from the other end of the phone and I know he’s likely covering the receiver with his hand in some futile attempt to shield me from his temper.
“You are certain of this?” Alexei demands harshly.
He’s always like this. Business first and emotions second.
“Why would she lie?”
“Those damned Italian bastards.”
Something breaks on Alexei’s end of the phone. I don’t know if he’s punched something or thrown something, but it doesn’t really matter. “I warned those mafia pricks what would happen if they stepped out of fucking line. I warned them! Listen to me, Katya, I will handle this. You are to stay put until I say otherwise. I mean it. If they are making moves, I will not risk you getting in harm’s way.”
“Yes.” I mutter lamely as I try to keep myself from blubbering.
“Are you safe where you are?”
I almost don’t want to answer that. I don’t like lying to my brother. “Yes.” I mutter. I mean, I’m as safe as a person in a taxi can be.
I don’t tell him about my own murder attempt.
They have to be related somehow. The timing of it is just too perfect.
Alexei will go completely off the rails if he knows that somebody tried to hurt me and that somebody managed to find our poor mother. He would have every man in his considerable army mobilized in the hour if he knew… and avenging mother comes first.
Besides, I’m fine. Mostly. I can take care of myself.
“We are at war, Katya, do not make trouble. I will send word soon.”
Just like that, the line goes dead on his end and I’m stuck with the taxi driver and the chaos of my own thoughts as he pulls the taxi around to the entrance of the airport.
Alexei can tell me to stay put all he wants, but there is no way in hell that he can make me actually do it. He’s not going to cut me out of this situation as easily as he might like.
He really ought to know me better than that by now.
I’ve always been more of an act first and ask forgiveness later type of gal anyway.
He can yell at me all he likes for it when I show up at his place in New York City.
Chapter Two
Luca
‘Russia target eliminated. Standby for confirmation for Spain target.’
“Well, would you look at that?” I chuckle bitterly to myself as I dab the corners of my mouth with my napkin.
What started out as a nice lunch with my most trusted right-hand man, Dario, was turning into something truly lovely. Paired with the stunning weather outside, good wine and now this?
Yes, it was setting me up for a damned good day.
“Luca?” Dario questions as he sips on his expresso.
“Looks like my father got busy again. Making even more plans without bothering to loop me in on things. How well do you think that is going to work out for me the next time I have to meet with him?” I ease back into my chair and let the cloth napkin rest on the table in front of me.
I close my eyes and inhale slowly through my nose to remain as calm as possible.
It’s not the first time that my father has done something like this.
This damned war he’s gotten our family involved in is a constant struggle.
Logic rarely matters when Enzo has the lead. He gets a hair up his ass about something or another and runs with it. In truth, he would rather prefer not to have to tell his son anything if he didn’t have to. I’ve always been the black stain that he can’t seem to rid himself of. But, as his only heir – he’s stuck with me. He certainly doesn’t care to run his choices through his son before acting on them.
Even if those choices are completely against Cosa Nostra’s moral code.
Something else that he tends to forget in his cursed wars.
My phone vibrates with the alert of another text message that I pick up before I can think better of it.
‘Update received – Spain target en route to NYC. ETA 4:37pm’
The updates are coming to me and not my father for a reason.
It means that he has folded me in and made me responsible for these tasks and hasn’t bothered to tell me.
Again.
Some days I swear that he wants for me to fail.
I’ve done everything that has ever been required of me, and yet it never seems to be good enough.
And now, he’s put me in charge of this task when apparently only one of the two targets that he wanted killed were actually properly taken care of. Which means that I’m going to have to give my father a bad report.
“Everything all right?” Dario asks, already packing up his belongings from the table and signaling for the bill. Most people mistake Dario for my older brother based on our looks. Not dissimilar in features despite the fact that I stand a couple of inches taller than him. He doesn’t have quite as many tattoos as I do, but we are matched scar for scar. Guess it comes with the territory. He’s got seven years of age on me, but you wouldn’t know it to speak to him. It’s not something that has ever gotten in the way of our working relationship.
“No. We will have to reschedule our meeting, Dario. Looks like my father needs to speak with me.” I answer as I tuck my phone down into my pocket and take the car keys from the table.
I don’t bother to wait for Dario, he will manage on his own.
Every second that passes between my getting those texts and not showing up in my father’s office will be counted against me, and Dario is my closest and most trusted man – so he understands.
There is very little that he would ever blame me for.
My black range rover zips through the city that I’ve called home long enough to know it like the back of my hand.
It takes almost no time whatsoever before I’m pulling into the parking garage of my father’s skyscraper.
I pass the keys to the valet and adjust the fit of my black suit jacket before stepping into the elevator coded specifically to work for my father, myself, and our inner circle.
I see that even those security measures aren’t quite enough for the old man, as the red light of a newly installed camera sits in the top corner of the elevator watching my every blink until I reach the penthouse.
I can feel my father’s strange mood in the air the moment I enter his residence. It looks more like a sterile art gallery than a home that somebody could actually live in. A cartoonishly sharp version of hyper modern. All stainless steel, sharp edges and matte black everywhere that you look.
My oxfords make no noise whatsoever as I move to father’s office, where his sweltering fireplace is already lit.
He’s standing with his back to the door and a glass of brandy in his hand, swirling the contents of the glass around the tumbler as he holds it casually near his hip.
I have been told that my father and I look a lot alike.
I haven’t decided yet if that flatters or bothers me.
The man tends to favor heavily on paranoia so he had nearly all records of his history and life destroyed save for a small album of baby photos in my late grandmother’s house. But the album was buried with her for the same paranoid reasons.
He stands at a lean six foot, while I am three inches taller and a good deal bulkier than he is. While his head of thick black hair has turned mostly silver with age, hints of the true color still remain in his full beard and mustache. We have the same deep olive skin and russet brown eyes, though he lacks the dimples that I got from my mother.
“Tell me that you have good news, son.” He addresses me without turning to look at me.
Son? If that isn’t an indicator that he’s in the mood to play games, then I don’t know what is.
Honestly, his constant power trips and games have become almost comforting at this point.
Predictable in their consistency. No point in sugar coating things, get right to the point.
“Levine’s mother? Are you out of your mind?” I blurt a touch more bluntly than advisable.
If it was not just the two of us in this room, he would have had beaten the crap out of me for such a comment.
Instead, he turns slowly, his eyes impossibly darkening with rage over the disrespect that he would interpret my words as.
“It was supposed to be both of the Levine bitches. A swift strike to eliminate most of the remaining bloodline.” His words are condemnation and explanation both as he slowly sips the contents of his glass. “But apparently, the little bitch managed to give our man the slip somehow.”
The clinking of the ice cubes around the edge of his glass is the only noise in the room between us for a long moment.
I understand that he’s pissed that Alexei Levine’s younger sister isn’t dead but he doesn’t seem to understand how serious of a move he has just made. We’re not supposed to go after wives and mothers. Women and children are supposed to be off limits and yet my father has chosen to make his move by going after Levine’s immediate family? That is punching below the belt. This war has been going on for too long, I know that better than most, but this is not the way to move forward.
However, even if I voiced my opinion here, my father wouldn’t listen to it. His way is the only way. His opinion is the only opinion that holds merit.
“You know how this is going to go. This war that you’re obsessed with – there will be no turning back now. You’ve opened season on all of us.” Anger starts to bleed into my words as I speak.
He might be the boss, but his long-term thinking has always been severely lacking.
“You have no one, besides me, so what do you care? Is it not as if they can kill your wife or daughter as retaliation.” Enzo shrugged.
“And our men? Those with families? Because you needed retribution for a few clubs and a slight dip in profits… you felt that this was warranted? Going against all of Cosa Nostra’s values? What does this mean for our clan?”
“My clan, son. You have a long way to go before you get to claim that you have any rights to this family. Do not speak higher than you can reach.”
“You are telling me that you find your actions to be fair? Especially when you know for a fact how volatile Alexei Levine can be?!”
I take a step forward as father places his glass down on the mantle of his fireplace. “You said no innocents. It was your cornerstone, father, and yet here you are – murdering a woman who had nothing to do with any of this. I doubt that she had even the slightest idea of the war that her son was involved in. You know as well as I that there have been no reports of them even being in contact for years.”
“Innocent?” Enzo answers, as if that were the only part of my words that he has picked up on at all. “You stand there and have the balls to tell me that any of those Levine bitches are innocent?!”
His eyes narrow into slits – something that used to cowtail me into submission when I was a child – but that was a long, long time ago.
Now I can just feel the muscle in my jaw clenching, knowing how much his impulsive, reckless actions are going to cost all of us.
“Every one of those bitches is connected to him. That little roach that keeps getting in my damned way!” Enzo’s voice never changes pitch or volume, but somehow it becomes barbed and lethal when he speaks.
Something about the way he can glare daggers at the person he speaks to, that seems to inflict actual physical damage, is something I have never understood and have also never quite learned how to master yet for myself.
This whole war is wrong, but I know that I can’t say that to him.
He wouldn’t listen anyway.
I think that some part of him knows that I don’t support this war, and that I haven’t fully supported his choices in a while now.
Maybe this is all just another test that he’s putting me through.
He’s probably just trying to push me to see where I will break and what the final straw will be that makes me defy him.
That day will come, I am certain, when I will no longer be his obedient son, and I will become one more name on his ever-growing list of enemies.
I don’t know which one of us will survive that day either.
“Care to explain to me why only one of them is dead, instead of both?” Enzo broke the silence, expecting an explanation from me that I just don’t have.
“I have men on the way to the airport to intercept her as soon as her plane lands.” I answer through my gritted teeth.
Enzo smirks. “Oh, good. For once we are on the same page about something, son.”
He lifts a hand and condescendingly pats me on the cheek.
“I want you to ensure that there are no more fuck ups on this job. I want you to personally go to the airport and pick up the young Levine bitch, and I want you to bring me her head. I will have her stuffed and mounted and pictures sent to that meddling twat of a brother of hers before the day is finished.”
Just the idea of doing what he asked of me makes my stomach roil.
It is not because I am not capable of great violence, but this girl didn’t do anything to deserve the horrible, depraved things that I know that my father would do to her.
Not to mention, it is a damned insult to send me out on a petty wet work job when I’m supposed to be getting groomed to take over as the head of the family.
“Unless you think that you can’t handle it? Son?” Enzo continues, his thin lips curling up into a devious smirk.
A year and a half. That’s how long our engagement lasted, and as of today it was finally over. All the planning and worrying, the guest list and invitations, the catering, the music—it had all taken so much out of me, but I already couldn’t remember any of it, and the reception wasn’t even over. No, the only thing I had eyes for was my husband.
My husband.
I smiled at him giddily, and he caught me looking and chuckled. “Another dance, baby girl?”
“Yes please!”
The slow, romantic music had long ago been put away for the night, so instead we improvised a sort of bastardized swing dance as a pop song jazz remix played. I beamed.
I felt perfect, and from the look in Sal’s eyes, he thought so too. Not that I ever doubted that anymore.
We’d come so far. I loved him completely.
He looked over my shoulder and smiled mischievously, turning me around so I could see what he did.
Specifically, my best friend… flirting.
My heart soared.
She’d never get over Nicola, never stop loving him, but she was healing. Though she looked very flustered when Flavio finally broke his stoic work persona to flirt back. I chuckled.
“Since when was your best man such a charmer?” I teased him. “If he sweeps Lucy off her feet, I’ll have to file a complaint.” Sal smirked.
“Yeah, for what?”
“Dunno, something HR,” I shrugged, too overjoyed to bother putting together an actual response. Sal laughed.
“Tipsy,” he accused. I stuck out my tongue at him, as if we didn’t both know I only ever did that when I’d been drinking.
“Not so tipsy I’d miss my brother pretending he’s not head over heels,” I smirked. Sal snorted.
Sure enough, there was Pietro, stuck close to Taylor—also an illegitimate child, technically also a Pellico, but she had been Cristiano’s wife’s affair baby from before they met. In other words, they were unrelated. And he’d been following her around like a duckling from the day Nicola introduced them, apparently.
I knew there was something going on there, but I’d let Pietro decide when to say something.
Mom was also next to Pietro, chatting to Taylor easily. I hadn’t realized the two women had gotten that close.
“When do you think they’re going to admit it?” Sal asked.
“What, to us or to themselves?”
“Both.”
I laughed.
“You know,” Sal said, grinning, “I think enough people have left that we can get out of here ourselves.” I perked up.
“Yes please!” I said. “I mean, as incredible as this moment is, my feet are killing me and also I really want you in me, like, yesterday.”
Sal barked out a laugh, looking around to make sure no one had heard me. As if he hadn’t made me to take off my underwear in a crowded club the first time we had met.
“Oh my god, you are tipsy. Well, I’ll tell you what, since I’m such a loving husband, I’m going to give you to the count of 100 to make it to the restroom.” I looked up at him in confusion. Why the restroom? Was he saying he’d follow me or did he just… want me to go to the restroom? “100, 99, 98…”
Then he gave me a predatory grin, and I realized what he was doing. Giddily excited, I grabbed my skirts and started running.
Salvatore
“73, 72…” I counted to myself, swiveling my head to make sure I kept my eyes on my wife.
Holy shit, my wife.
I wondered how long it would take me to get used to saying that.
“69, 68, 67, 66… Finally.”
If Mary thought I was going to give her a full count of 100 she was very, very wrong.
I couldn’t wait that long tonight, and if I had to guess, neither could she.
So, the second I saw the restroom door swing shut I bolted down the hallway toward it, grinning like a madman.
Mary was already gathering her skirts up at her waist when I burst in, and she squealed with laughter as I pounced on her, barely remembering to lock the door.
This was a long hallway, and the music was loud.
The last thing I needed was my newly minted mother-in-law -who did not like me very much as of yet- walking in on me consummating my marriage to her daughter in an event hall bathroom.
“Oh my god you fucking minx,” I gasped, pinning Mary to the wall and helping her get her skirts out of the way. I barely got a glimpse of what was under them but I knew what I’d seen. “You fucking plugged your cunt on our wedding day?” Mary giggled.
“I didn’t walk down the aisle like this,” she defended.
“No, just danced surrounded by our family and friends for two hours. Fuck.”
“I just wanted to be ready for you, Sir,” she said, entirely too innocently. I growled.
“Well let’s hope you did a good enough job.”
I couldn’t see anything with the dress blocking the view, but it wasn’t hard for me to find the flared base of the plug and pull.
It came out with a wet sucking noise and I groaned. “You’re already so wet,” I panted, frantically pulling my cock out of my zipper.
“Well, I have been dancing with this in for two hours…” she said, throwing my words back at me.
I growled and slammed myself into her. She yelped.
“Be a good girl and stay quiet,” I hugged, setting a brutal pace immediately. She’d prepped herself well, walls soft and giving around my cock as I fucked her. I could feel her cunt fluttering, my little pseudo-exhibitionist. “You can be a good girl, right?”
“Yes Sir,” she said, eyes darkening as I watched.
“Mmmm, good bunny,” I groaned, my balls slapping against her cunt viciously. “My sweet little wife. Fuck. You’re already so close, huh? I can feel you pulsing honey, you’ve been teasing yourself all night with that thing, haven’t you?”
“U-uh-huh,” Mary gasped, openmouthed.
“You think you get to come?” I asked, reaching between us as well as I could to pinch her clit. She squealed. “You stuff yourself full of some fucking silicone and think I’m gonna let you cum?”
“Please,” she whined, meeting my thrusts. “Please let me come Sir, I wanna come for you. Wanna squirt on your cock on our wedding night.”
We’d only just recently found out she could squirt, and we’d only made it happen a few times.
Hearing those words, arousal stabbed through me—yeah, no, we wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
“Hold it,” I ordered harshly. “Good girls don’t come until I say so.”
Mary’s lower lip wobbled, and I felt her tighten her pelvic muscles in an attempt to stave off her rising orgasm. Good.
That additional tightness, that nearly bruising squeeze, was exactly what I was looking for. “Aw, don’t cry, baby, you’re gonna ruin your makeup—fuck—”
“Come in me,” Mary chanted. “Come in me, come in me, come in me—”
“Yeah? You wanna walk out of your own wedding with my cum sliding down your leg?” I grunted, already racing towards the finish line. Well, my finish line, anyway. “You nasty slut.”
Mary whimpered. I fucking loved her degradation kink, almost as much as I loved her praise kink. I didn’t love either of them as much as I loved her, though. “Alright then, you get what you want. Gonna fill you up, cum in your slutty pussy, you fil-ilth-y—”
I choked myself off with a groan, hunching into her as I kept my word.
Mary wasn’t satisfied, still right on the edge of her own orgasm, but when she started trying to move her own hips I pulled out and slapped her cunt hard in punishment. She cried out.
“I don’t fucking think so,” I growled. “I told you not to come, and you’re not going to.” Mary looked at me with wide, watery eyes, and I grinned meanly. I was going to ruin her. “You have until the count of a hundred to get to the car, or I’ll fuck you right on the ground in front of our guests.” Mary’s eyes turned almost completely black.
“100, 99, 98…”
She took off running, and my smile was all teeth.
Mary
One week later
“Excuse me, Mrs. Mastro?” a familiar voice drawled, and I sat up straight at my desk with an excited gasp.
“Sal!” I said, rubbing my sore eyes. Staring at a computer screen for hours could really do a number on the vision sometimes. “What are you doing here?”
“Brought you food,” he smirked, lifting up a white take-out bag. My mouth watered.
“Oh my god, Gorditino’s?”
“You know it,” Sal said, placing the food right in front of me on my desk. “It’s almost midnight, bunny. It’s time to come home.”
Stunned, I looked at the time. It was, in fact, almost the next day. “I’m sorry,” I grimaced apologetically. “I broke a rule.”
“And I’ll punish you for it, once the issue is out and you can take a day off. Right now, I want us to eat.” I frowned at the small bag.
“Did you order enough for two?” I asked. Sal smirked and sunk down to his knees, and my heartrate spiked. Oh, he wasn’t planning on eating food.
“Good thing I wore a skirt,” I breathed, parting my legs eagerly for my husband’s searching mouth.
Mary Mastro, I thought to myself, you are on top of the world.
The Bensons were many things, but quiet was not one of them.
I crashed through mom’s door, carrying a dish of wedged potatoes that was just a little too hot to be holding with my bare hands, as my red hair whipped into tangles from the wind.
I felt like a mess—and I looked one too. I certainly didn’t look like a fashion school graduate.
I shouted out an ‘I’m here!’ into the house, dropping the potatoes -almost literally- onto the table in the foyer.
I expected mom to come around the corner with her oven mitt on, smiling at me and telling me to get in there, or to hear my brother hollering from the dining room about how late I was. A part of me still expected to get swept up into my dad’s bear hug, even though it had been almost four years now.
Instead, the house was silent, and the minute I realized it my spine tingled with apprehension.
It had been a difficult day.
The magazine had me writing an incredibly boring article on the miraculous powers of a liquid dish soap.
I had taken a journalism course in college alongside my fashion design major in the hope that I could work for a prestigious fashion magazine whilst designing my own line of clothes one day. I had yet to write an actual fashion article, no matter how hard I tried, and none of the fashion magazines in the area were hiring. Or at least, they weren’t hiring me.
I’d ended up needing a hot shower to destress, but it stopped being soothing the minute I stepped out and caught sight of the clock.
I’d lost track of time and had only thirty minutes to get ready for the Benson Monthly Family Dinner (trademark pending).
Those thirty minutes were a whirlwind of me dodging from one end of my room to the other, trying desperately to put myself together enough to convince mom and Pietro I was doing alright.
It probably worked, at least for them.
I’d put on a sage long-sleeved dress with gray leggings underneath, which was just the right mix of flowy and flared to create an illusion of the curves I didn’t have, with a chunky, spiced-pumpkin sort of orange scarf keeping my pale neck and collarbones warm from the fall chill.
The slouchy hat matched, but the ankle-boots were a light tan that didn’t fit the rest and I hadn’t had time to put any earrings in, let alone add bracelets or a necklace.
I’d had to tie my hair, still wet enough to look brown more than copper, into a messy braid, and I’d had to try to do my eyeliner on the bus.
If I’d had a few more minutes to put it all together I would have been able to make it cute, and to most people it would probably still be passable, but it felt painfully incomplete to me.
I paused and forced myself to take a breath.
I didn’t want my family to worry, and besides, it was all going to turn around soon. I just had to bear it a little longer and then I wouldn’t have to force a little extra cheer onto my face.
“Mom?” I called again. “Mama, I’m here.”
My stomach sunk when no one answered me.
“Mom? Pietro?” I started down the hall towards the dining room as the frenetic energy that carried me in flatlined into something heavy in my gut.
I tried to shake it off. Sure, something unusual was happening, but that didn’t mean I had to teeter down the hallway with my heart pounding like I was in some horror film.
I should check my phone—maybe they had just gone to get something from the grocery store last minute and I just hadn’t seen the text—
Then mom rounded the corner, eyes distant and a letter clutched in her hands. Instantly I knew that something was wrong.
“Mom?” I gasped, hurrying towards her with my hands out. It looked like she would pass out and I knew if she did I’d have to catch her, although I didn’t know how, given that I was the definition of a stick and couldn’t lift more than ten pounds on a good day. But wasn’t that what adrenaline was supposed to do? Make people stronger when they were scared?
I grasped mom by the shoulders, looking up at her. Her eyes met mine and the first sob broke free.
“Oh, Mama,” I whispered, walking her back so she could sit at the dining table.
Immediately, I felt tears burn my own eyes; my mom was an emotional woman but she rarely ever cried in front of us.
The last time was the day dad died. She’d soldiered through the funeral planning and the wake with the people bringing casseroles with dry eyes, sagging like the world was heavy and she was exhausted, but never breaking into sobs.
To see her now, hyperventilating with this scrap of paper clutched tight to her chest, made me feel overwhelmed and helpless—and scared down to my soul.
Pietro wasn’t there, and I feared the worst.
“Mom?” I asked, a sob building in my throat. “Mama, please, what’s…” She shook her head and held out the letter. All it said was:
Dear Mom and Mary—I’m sorry, but I’m going somewhere dangerous and I can’t take you with me. I’m not in trouble, but there’s something I have to do. Mom, I found out but I don’t blame you for keeping it secret. If everything goes well, I’ll be back in a while, but I’m begging you not to call the police. The people I’m with cannot know who I am, and if the police come looking for me, I’ll lose the advantage of anonymity. I know this is scary for you, but the best way to keep me safe is not to tell anyone I’m in danger. If everything goes according to plan, which I really think it will, then I’ll come back to you. I promise. Stay safe, and stay out of downtown. -Pietro
I stared at the words, reading them over and over like they would suddenly say something that made sense to me.
All I was catching was Pietro, danger, might not come back—it spun around in my head senselessly.
Sure, we hadn’t heard from him for a few days, and we’d thought that was kind of weird since we were a very tight knit family, but this terrifying, cryptic message couldn’t be real, could it?
I mean, Pietro could be a total annoyance, but he was never a troublemaker. He’d dodged some classes but never failed any, and he’d thrown some punches but never the first.
He was smart and funny and personable, and he was my big brother.
No, it couldn’t be real. Pietro was fine.
This was a prank, or a joke, or he was filming from around the corner while snickering, or something.
He’d pop out with a big grin, and then see us crying and apologize, saying he didn’t think we were going to take it so badly. He’d comfort us like he had after dad’s death, he’d hug me like he did after my first college boyfriend broke my heart, and I’d smack his chest and yell at him and be so, so glad he was there.
But mom was struggling to reign in her rising fear, clasping her hands over her mouth like that could smother the urge to scream, and Pietro wasn’t anywhere
I read the letter again.
Found out—secret—they can’t know who I am—if the plan works—if the plan works—
I felt like I would collapse.
Pietro was gone. This letter was real.
Pietro was in danger, and he was gone. I’m going somewhere dangerous, and I can’t take you with me.
What was the plan? Where had he gone, why was it dangerous, why could no one know who he was when he got there? Would he ever come back?
What had mom kept a secret, and why did it sound like it started all of this?
It was handwritten, and it was Pietro’s handwriting.
He did that stupid thing where he put a vertical line inside of every lowercase O, because otherwise no one could ever tell his O from his E, and the slant of the Ts and Ds were weirdly severe. I had that handwriting in every one of the 24 birthday cards he’d given me.
There was no mistaking his penmanship.
Mom took deep, heaving gasps, eyes closed, as she tried to pull herself together. As she tried to be the adult.
I was never any good at that, someone else always had to pick up the slack, putting aside their own needs to help me with every curveball that came my way. And here mom was, doing it again.
She pushed the fear, the grief and hysteria, back down inside of her, even though I was sure she wasnted to let it all out, and I needed her too bad to tell her not to.
“Mary,” she croaked. “Ma-Mary.”
“Mom?” I asked, voice small. “What—what does he mean, he’s gone? What is he doing?”
Another sob half-broke out of my mom’s clenched teeth and she clenched her whole face until the moment passed. “He’s—I think he’s with the mafia.”
As I already said, I had never been very good at handling bad news.
When I was 12 and my bully had dumped her food tray on me I’d sobbed inconsolably for days, and when I got rejected from my first-choice college I’d thrown up. When dad died they’d had to hospitalize me for dehydration because I cried out all the water they tried to give me.
This time I felt the room spin and let my eyes roll into the back of my head.
I wasn’t unconscious for very long, according to mom, but I woke up on the couch with my mother looking near apoplectic beside me.
“Mary!” she gasped, squeezing my hand so hard it throbbed. “Oh my god, baby, don’t do that to me—here, have some water. Does anything hurt?”
“No,” I drawled, smacking my lips as I came back.
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” mom asked, bringing a cup to my face and peeling open my eye like she had the medical training to diagnose a brain bleed or whatever. I pulled back from her, taking the cup.
“I’m fine,” I said, pushing myself up.
The events of my last few waking minutes slowly leaked into my brain. God, Pietro was gone.
He was with the mafia.
“Mom,” I said seriously, looking her in the eye with an uncharacteristic seriousness, “I need you to tell me everything.” She gulped.
“I never wanted you to know,” she said. “Either one of you.”
“Mom,” I said, firmer. Her lower lip wobbled.
“You and Pietro are half siblings,” she blurted, squeezing her eyes shut like she knew my reaction would stop her if she saw it, and she knew I wasn’t going to accept half a story this time.
Then, before I could process the depth of what she’d just said, she dropped the next bombs, one after the other.
“He—his father r-raped me. I was engaged to Dad at the time, and I thought he was going to leave me, but he didn’t. We realized I had got-gotten pregnant, and there was no way it could be Dad’s, but Daddy wanted to tell everyone Pietro was his so no one would have to know what had happened to me. It was a different time, honey, we didn’t talk about these things, and we were scared what would happen if Pietro’s biological father,” she spat the words with disdain, “ever found out.” I was speechless.
“O-okay,” I stuttered, trying to digest all of that. “So what—what does that have to do with now?” Mom swallowed thickly.
“Because,” she said, shoulders rising around her ears as she tensed further and further, “the man who raped me—Pietro’s birth father—is Cristiano Pellico. The mafia boss.”
I stared at her. I remembered a video where someone dropped a bowling ball into jello, and the way the bowling ball carved its way to the bottom, growing slower with every second of resistance but never stopping. At that moment, I felt like I was that jello.
Pellico, Pellico… I didn’t know the first thing about the mafia, but I’d seen that name somewhere recently.
“You think he found out?” I asked, half-numb.
Mom nodded jerkily, eyes frantically pleading with me as we finally made eye contact.
“I don’t know how,” she said. “I thought I’d buried our secret, not even your grandparents know. Daddy’s name is on his birth certificate, we registered him as Daddy’s son, I never wrote it down anywhere or talked about it to anyone but your dad. I don’t know how he knows, but he does.”
“And now he’s… joining the mafia?” I asked, the words fitting wrong in my mouth.
That was ridiculous. Pietro wasn’t a criminal.
He wasn’t a scarred-up thug who roamed the streets looking for fights, he was the brother who had skipped high school parties to watch his little sister swim like the seven years age difference was nothing.
He didn’t do drugs or any other weird stuff, he was just a guy. Just an average 31-year-old.
He worked at a tire shop. He hated pistachio ice cream.
“I don’t know,” Mom said, voice cracking. “The letter dropped through the letter slot maybe fifteen minutes before you got here, I haven’t—I haven’t figured anything out yet, but that is the only thing I have ever hidden from the two of you.”
“But—but why?” I asked, lost. “Why would he join the people who hurt you?”
Mom shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said morosely.
Pellico! The image of my phone screen! My phone automatically opened to a news feed, that is where I had seen, in big red letters, the words “Nicola Pellico Found Murdered.”
I gasped.
“My phone,” I said, trying to stand and ignoring my mother trying to urge me back down. “I need my phone!”
Yep, right there—Nicola Pellico, the only son of suspected mafioso Cristiano Pellico, was found just hours ago in his apartment with four bullet holes punched through him, face down in a puddle of his own cooling blood, gunshot residue on his hands, his gun nowhere to be seen. So far there was no evidence of a forced break-in or a stated suspect. Information was still being gathered from the crime scene.
My mouth dried up, and my mom went rigid where she was looking over my shoulder.
Nicola had been 26, just two years older than me, and he hadn’t done anything important or notable. The only reason anyone would target him was because of his father.
His father, who was also Pietro’s father.
If someone killed Nicola in order to get back at Cristiano for something, then wasn’t Pietro living under the same threat? Is that why he left, to keep us from getting caught in the crossfire?
“We have to do something!” I said, shaking my head There had to be something we could do, right? Some way to go back to normal? Mom’s fists wrinkled her work blouse.
“What, Mary?!” she snapped.
I reared back, and she reigned in her voice a little. “What can we do? He’s right, if we go to the police he’ll get killed. With all of… this… Cristiano will be desperately looking for another heir, so if Pietro shows up he’ll probably be welcomed with open arms.”
I tasted bile.
“So—so if—”
“If he joins, he’ll become a mafioso. The police don’t help mafiosos, they shoot them. And if the mafia finds out the police are looking for him they’ll think he’s a snitch, and they’ll do a lot worse than shoot him .”
“But—”
Mom shook her head, holding me tight. “We can’t do anything, Mary. We can’t do anything at all.”
Chapter Two
Salvatore
When people died, they tended to take their secrets to the grave, and I had to know everything Nicola Pellico had up his sleeve.
Usually, when I was staring this intently at a photograph, it showed a crime scene.
Or, occasionally, a future crime scene.
I was not used to inspecting a series of photos of one dead man and a random assortment of people he’d apparently known.
I sighed, rolling my head to loosen the tight muscles of my neck.
Flavio glanced back at me in the rearview mirror; he was a good man, as far as mafia men went, and deeply loyal to me as the last Mastro. He knew better than anyone else how personal this situation was for me, and though he wasn’t stupid enough to tell me to take a break, I could tell he was keeping an eye out for anything he could do to help me.
I returned to the photos in my hands. Each one was taken in a different location, at a different time of day, and even though Nicola was the constant in every picture he was the one thing I wasn’t looking at.
After all, he was no longer a factor.
No, the trouble I had was with the small group of people that seemed to revolve around him, only some of whom I could identify.
Lorenzo Sprezza and Francesco Faci were both soldiers in the Pellico family, but neither of them held any importance within the organization; there were two women, one seen more frequently than the other, that my consigliere was working to identify, and two other men who were also yet unknown to me.
If the rumors were true, and Nicola Pellico had been planning some kind of coup, these were the only people who could tell me about it.
Truthfully, the idea amused me to no end. I despised the Pellico family, in part because they were the natural rivals of the Mastros but more personally because Cristiano had forced me to watch as he ended my family and my childhood in a wash of blood.
The nightmares had never ended, and the rage only grew more bitter with each one.
Nicola was just Pellico’s son, but that was enough for my hatred to extend to him. Nonetheless, that he could have been scheming right underneath his father’s nose, ready to upend his family and possibly send everything Cristiano loved and felt pride in crashing to the ground, brought me incredible joy.
Part of me hoped that Cristiano figured it out before Nicola found the wrong end of the muzzle. The betrayal must sting something terrible.
I wanted Cristiano Pellico to feel true despair before I put a bullet in his head.
How awful would he feel, in his final moments, to suffer as my father did? His children murdered, his lineage snuffed out, his empire left kingless? Everything he’d worked for in his life gone?
I rubbed absently at the scar Cristiano’s bullet had left in the center of my chest when I was too young to even know what kind of life I was born into.
No, killing the man wouldn’t be enough. I had to destroy him.
I refocused myself on the photographs.
If Nicola really was planning a revolt and these people were on his side, then they were more loyal to Nicola than Cristiano and might tell me everything I needed without having to deal with the messy affair of torture.
If they did, I’d offer them a swift, clean death.
The men, at least—not like Cristiano Pellico. He had never held true to the Cosa Nostra law to keep women and children out of mafia business. I had experienced that personally.
Unless the son had turned his back on that, the women wouldn’t know anything, and were more than likely the wives or girlfriends of the other men involved in Nicola’s plot. I wouldn’t go after them unless I had to, and I doubted I would.
Even if the men didn’t want to talk, I had ways to make them open their mouths.
“We’re here, Don Mastro,” Flavio said, pulling me out of my thoughts as the car rolled to a stop outside my home. I pocketed the photos with a sigh.
“Grazie, Flavio. Will you be using your room tonight?”
“No, sir,” Flavio responded. “If you don’t need me, I’ll spend the night at my place.” I nodded, sliding out of the car.
“Very well. Goodnight, then.”
“You too, Don Mastro.”
My house was beautiful, and it was one of the reasons I pitied the bosses who were stuck in places like Chicago and New York, where the height of luxury was a penthouse suite.
Nothing would ever match up to a freestanding home. I was often grateful to have been born into Buffalo—a city of significant size, yes, but with a far more suburban feel. The buildings here had individuality.
I left my shoes and coat in the foyer, unsurprised by the silence that greeted me.
It was far too late for the maids or cook to be here, and the house was far larger than I needed for just myself.
For now it felt empty, but someday I’d fill it with my children.
It was my job to revive my family, so I would need at least four kids to secure our lineage for the future.
In the meanwhile, I had the space to have overnight rooms for my underboss or consigliere should our business run particularly late, so it worked well for now.
I followed the curve of the stairs up to the second floor, deciding to head straight for the shower and neatly peeling my shirt and belt off on the way. My bedroom was massive, with high ceilings and enough space for two beds, but I barely glanced at it.
I’d bought this house the day I turned 18, selling the home where my family was slaughtered, and had lived here since.
Nothing about this opulence was unusual to me—if anything, I had downsized from the mansion I’d grown up in.
I stepped out of my dress pants and dropped my clothing into my dirty laundry bin, not sure if the cleaning service could salvage them now that the blood spatter had dried into hard brown scales. If they couldn’t, no biggie, they’d provide perfect replacements.
I didn’t care much about clothes, luxury cars, watches, or private jets.
Money couldn’t buy me what I wanted.
Sure, by most people’s standards I was living like a king, but it was all surface level.
Until Pellico’s head was served to me on a platter, using my father’s fortune felt like spitting on his grave.
I entered my bathroom, moving past the full-length mirror to start the shower. I barely bothered looking at my reflection.
My body, like everything else, was a tool.
My slightly above average height made it easy to blend in to crowds, my black hair just long and shaggy enough to help cover my facial features if I needed it to but could just as well be slicked back into the sharp, clean visage expected from a Don.
I kept my body muscular so I could handle any situation with force, but leaned into a wrestler’s physique more than visible muscle definition, because defined muscle was intimidating but not as useful.
I was less threatening this way, clearly strong and capable, but not in the way that made people stare.
Staring meant you were noticed, and being noticed meant you’d lost your element of surprise.
Being underestimated, would only ever work in my favor.
I had my father’s tan skin, and my mother’s blue eyes. My mother’s father had passed down the square jawline to me, and I never knew where my thick eyebrows came from.
I knew where each scar came from, though.
One long one running down the outside of my thigh marked where the surgeons had to cut me open to bolt my broken femur bone back into place, and both my knees were heavily scarred from repeated abrasions, and nearly invisible at this point was a small line across my forehead where I’d been pistol-whipped as a teen.
Then, of course, the starburst of gnarled, darkened skin sitting low and tight on my sternum.
Without any of my trappings, I looked more like a street rat than a Don. It was my favorite version of myself.
I stepped under the warm spray and started kneading at my shoulder muscles, pondering over those photos again.
The most recent one, in particular, had my eye; in it was Nicola, sitting at a table with two men on either side.
I recognized Faci and Sprezza, but then there was another man with strawberry-blonde hair and lastly one with a tattoo on his neck. They were sitting at a table in a darkened venue that I couldn’t place, which meant it had to be owned by the Pellicos.
There was a crowd, what looked like several tipsy people holding drinks and laughing, but the mood at their table was serious and tense.
They were clearly talking business, and based on the somber looks on everyone’s faces, it looked like a war meeting.
I had worked towards my revenge for more than two decades, and I was so close to finally looking Cristiano Pellico in the eye as I tore down his empire.
Whether Nicola had really been trying to overthrow his father or something else was going on, I didn’t know.
I could not let unforeseen circumstances derail me from my quickly approaching justice.
I was going to hold Cristiano’s life in my hand, show him how useless it was, and then crush it. And no one else would distract me while I did it.
I kept my shower short and utilitarian, dried off briskly, and didn’t bother to redress as I made my way to the kitchen.
If I was going to be up all night trying to find these mystery men, I was going to need the fuel.
I had one goal, one single-minded purpose, and I was too close to seeing it through now to waste time sleeping.
