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January 13 - January 21, 2025
We were a good contrast, he and I. He was cold and calculated. I was instinct and hot-blooded brutality. Together, we ran one of the most successful outfits in a country we hadn’t even called our own until five years prior.
I’d do anything for them. Had done anything for them. Without question, without qualm. This was what family meant to Italians. Mafia or civilian, we protected our own at all costs.
I knew all about Daniel Sinclair’s affair with Giselle because Cosima spoke openly with me about everything.
Once, I’d fancied myself in love with Cosima.
A lifetime of deceit, duplicity, and tragedy coupled with a degree from Cambridge in psychology had given me finely honed X-ray vision. It was easy enough to see beneath the skin of a person to the bones of what made them unique. Elena was not such an easy study.
I didn’t mind working with a bitch. In my humble opinion, they were underrated.
after seeing that haunted look in her eye when I’d asked her about sacrifice only hours earlier that Elena Lombardi was a survivor.
“The look of a man figuring out a puzzle,” he surmised. “More specifically, the look of a man trying to figure out a Lombardi woman.”
“A good lawyer in general is not good enough for me. I don’t need a prudish, judgmental woman caught up in Family affairs.”
“But you see, I am not a professional, and there is something about all that studied perfection that makes me eager to break her.”
“You are facing prison, Dante. I say, have fun with the girl. Hell, make her cry, get her to quit, whatever you want. Just don’t let it get back to Cosima, or she’ll castrate you herself.”
“I thought the time when you needed hand holding to seduce a woman had passed.”
I don’t want to fuck her. She doesn’t look like she could even take my cock, let alone enjoy it. I just want to fuck with her. I have a feeling she’ll be a challenge, and I haven’t had one of those in a while.”
But I was a Cambridge graduate in psychology, the son of one of the wealthiest peerages in the United Kingdom.
There was a difference between a bad man and an evil one.
Honestly, I loved life. I love the pleasures to be had in it. The sex, the food, the bloody good wines, and all those highs were only amplified by the edge of danger and fear that my existence in the underworld lent to my life. I lived every day like it was my fucking last, and I’d learned that from my mother.
You might have no problem beating a man or threatening his family if he goes against you, but I’ve been the daughter of that man, and I’ve been that child who was threatened.
“They…They have a mole in your outfit. Apparently, he’s been working for them for a little over a year.”
In the mafia, sometimes the only honor to be found was in revenge. And I was going to make sure whoever the damn mole was would pay with every drop of his blood.
“This is what you must understand, Elena. They are wrong. Women bear the trials of their men, the delivery of their babies, the weight of their families. Women are extraordinarily strong. So, you must trick the men into giving you power. Do not tell them you are strong, and do not fight them with words because words can be undone. Fight the injustice with action, lottatrice mia, because action can be understood in any language, by any man.”
“I’m wearing heels bigger than your dick, so if this is a pissing contest, I think it’s safe to say I win,”
I was the child of a sinner, and sin was in my blood.
I wanted to be the kind of a woman who was called a hero, but I’d spent most of my life being called a villain. If enough people treat you like a villain, you become one.
“Not one for pleasantries? You certainly don’t get that from your father.” “Hopefully, I didn’t get anything from him,”
Any comparison to Seamus Moore was an insult.
Even though Dante was a criminal, a man who deserved to go to prison, I suddenly found myself incapable of wishing him inside a cage for the rest of his life, even if I wasn’t on this case.
“Sometimes, Elena, charm is enough.”
I don’t feel I have to remind you of this, but I will. In this case, I am the one with the power…”
“I am the one with the power here, Elena, not you. And I say, you will come to the party tonight.”
“Because,” he said, his tone rife with dark humor as he bent down to say the words an inch from my open, panting mouth. For a moment, I thought I could taste them, olive bright on my tongue. “I said so, and what the capo says goes.”
“But you will obey me, nonetheless. Not because you respect my authority, but because you won’t do anything to risk your position. One call to Yara and she’d order you to do anything I asked.”
It occurred to me as I turned my back on Dante to leave that Dante’s sunken living room had five people in it.
Dante Salvatore is exactly who he made himself to be.” I am the most honest man you’ll ever meet.
I looked dangerous, dramatic, and powerful. Confident.
Wear it tonight. –– Capo
I sucked in a breath, nearly choking on my wine as my gaze widened at the sight of her. Ah, to think I’d thought she had lacked the inherent sensuality of her sister Cosima. I was more than happy to be proved so spectacularly wrong. Ammazza, she was glorious.
She looked like some heathen goddess of sex and war, conquering the room with her allure with every step she took toward me. Toward me.
“Take your heathen hands off me,” she snapped. “People are watching.” “I bought the dress,” I argued calmly, my fingers splaying over her slight hips and loving the feel of her long, delicate bones. “It’s only right I should enjoy it.”
Despite myself, I wanted to see if the infamous ice queen would melt under my tongue.
The same charm that had seduced Elena’s mama into an affair. Based on Elena’s placid greeting, it was safe to assume she had no idea she was talking to the father of her two youngest siblings.
When I pulled her close, she went as stiff as a board in my arms. “Dancing typically requires coordination,” I drawled. “Are you capable of that?” She blinked at me blandly and rolled her shoulders back as she adjusted her hands on my shoulders. “I was concerned about you. It can’t be easy to move all that weight around.” I tipped my head back to laugh at the ceiling as I hauled her even closer, flush against my chest. Through the thin silk of her dress and the crisp linen of my shirt, I imagined I could feel the hard points of her nipples. “What are you doing?” she demanded, struggling
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Dante wouldn’t look good with a blonde.
God, I was so fucking tired of being alone.
“Thinking about the redhead with the legs?” Marco asked with a waggle of his thick brows. “Damn, but I couldn’t look at her the other night without getting a hard-on.” I was up out of my seat baring my teeth at one of my best soldati before I could curb the impulse. “Stai zitto.” I told him to shut up. “Do not talk about her this way.”
“Am I missing something?” “He wants to fuck her,” Frankie surmised with a slow grin. “I fucking knew it! Lombardi women are your kryptonite, D.”
After studying the particulars of the case, I had to wonder if he wasn’t protecting my sister.
“I’d sooner trust Dante Salvatore to protect me than you.”
“And if you think to fuck with me again, the Devil of New York City himself will come for you, and I won’t stop him when he does.”
“We need you as point person on this, Ms. Lombardi. We need you to move into Mr. Salvatore’s apartment.”
She was fucking magnificent.
