As the smoke from the explosion began to dissipate, the aftermath of the long-anticipated mafia wedding stood as a dark, twisted monument to chaos. Entangled amongst the debris and empty stare of terror on the guests' faces, I can feel my blood boiling with rage.
It was supposed to be the first day towards my path to retribution; the day I made Lucia officially mine. Instead, it had become a macabre nightmare with probably a few important, high-ranking members probably dead.
Someone had planted bombs at my fucking wedding, a wedding both secured by Famiglia and Camorra alike.
“Frankie! Dom!” I exclaim, calling to my brothers. I have to know if they survived!
The trembling figure in my arms snaps me out of my thoughts and I see the wide eyes of Lucia staring up at me, clutching at the lapel of my tuxedo. I want to push her away from me, but instead, I push my thoughts down.
I threw her to the ground and covered her with my body without thinking, protecting her with my life without a split second to think about what I was doing. As if she were someone important to me that needed protecting.
Getting to my feet, I take her hand and pull her close to me while surveying the damage around me. There were important as fuck people here today, including politicians and their wives. Once this gets out… fuck, there will be an investigation.
First, I need to get to my father and siblings and make sure they’re alright. Then I can think about everyone else. My kin means more to me than the backlash we are about to face.
“G-Giovanni?” Lucia’s small voice sounds over the din of the screaming and I look down.
She’s peering up at me with those gorgeous caramel eyes as if I’m her savior and the one who will make things right. But she has it wrong if she thinks I’m either of those things.
So why the fuck am I pulling her close to me? Why am I comforting my pawn?
“Gio!” I don’t let myself answer that when I hear my brother, Frankie’s, voice calling out.
My head whips up and I see him running towards me with my men, their weapons drawn and checking their surroundings.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask when I see the blood and soot on his face. His blue eyes are wide with a mixture of anger and confusion matching mine.
He shakes his head. “Let’s get everyone to safety before we get into that. Do you want me to get Emilia to take her home?” he asks, gesturing towards Lucia.
I look down at her again, her eyes are welled up with tears but nothing spills over her cheeks. She would only serve as a distraction right now, and I need to focus since everything depends on this.
“Yes. Get her to the estate and put three men outside my bedroom,” I say as I push her towards him. She’s wearing a look of shock and terror, but I cannot deal with her when I have other things to take care of.
With my gun trained in front of me and my men at my back, I make my way inside what’s left of the restored villa. I was prepared for a backlash, but I never expected anyone to go against this public accord between us and The Camorra.
As I step inside, I see people sprawled out on the ground, groaning in pain, but no one is terribly hurt. The three political figures are making their way to the door and, with a nod in my direction, they silently tell me they’re sorting themselves out.
Good. I don’t want the fucking Feds here in my business.
“Spread out and look for more explosives,” I instructed three men on my right. “The rest of you try to get these fuckers outside the building before it collapses.”
With a ‘yes, boss’ they do as directed while I keep my eyes trained in front of me. I haven’t seen my father or my brother, Dom, yet. With each step, trepidation grows in my heart, because if something happened to them…
“Giovanni,” I turn to my left and see Vito leaning against a wall with a cut on his head and his front drenched in blood. “Where’s Lucia? Is she-”
“She’s been taken to safety, but that’s the least of your worries,” I say tersely as I make my way to him. “What the fuck was this?”
He narrows his eyes in a glare and pushes away from the wall. “You fuckin’ think I had anythin’ to do with this?”
“You tell me, Vito,” I say as my fingers twitch around my Beretta. “Where the fuck are the rest of your people?”
Vito frowns. “They said their goodbyes early, don’t you even fuckin’ remember that?”
“How convenient,” I say, raising my weapon. “You have five minutes.”
His nostrils flare, and his pale face reddens at my accusations. “Why the hell would we try to kill you when we’re fuckin’ relieved this war is over?! Think clearly! I’m a goddamn Underboss, we don’t kill our own!”
As much as I hate to admit it, it’s true. The Camorra are as family oriented as Cosa Nostra, there’s no way they would Vito, a fucking Blue-blooded legend, in the line of fire to prove a point.
Sighing, I lower my weapon and walk past him. “Get that checked out and tell your Boss I want a meeting in the morning. Someone wants to set fire to this fucking alliance and I want to know who,” I say, still pissed off as fuck, but I can’t allow my emotions to control my decisions now.
That’s easier said than done because as I walk to the main table where Lucia and I sat before we took our first dance, that fury is multiplied. The entire wall is fucking gone and splattered with the remains of whoever was close to the area at the time.
The point of explosion - whoever planted the bomb wanted to kill me, but it looks like their timer went off late.
“Mother-fucking…” I trail off, clenching my jaw. There’s no other explanation for what I am seeing now, no more bombs went off after this - just the one meant for me and my Camorra bride.
Turning around to walk out, I see the empty hall with the last of the stragglers walking out. Frankie assured me he would call for medical attention for the rest of the guests, so I’m not too fucking worried since the important people got out in time.
But even as I think this, it occurs to me that I still haven’t seen my father or little brother. I’m about to pull out my cell phone to call them, when my head whips up as Frankie walks towards me.
His eyes are wide and bloodshot as if he’s been crying. I don’t want to fucking ask what’s wrong because I know once I hear it then I would rain down Hellfire on anyone in my way.
“Gio…” he murmurs, placing his hands on my shoulders. “It’s Papà-”
“Don’t fucking say it,” I growl, shrugging him off and taking a step back from him. “Don’t you dare fucking say it, Francesco.”
There’s no way anything would happen to my father. He’s Emilio Vittori, the fucking unkillable! No one would dare go up against a man as great as him with so many kills under his belt, there’s no fucking way!
Frankie doesn’t say a word, instead, he walks away from me and I know to follow him. He walks behind the villa where the bomb took out the entire back section, but that’s where I see him.
Laying in the fucking gutter like he was not a predator, shot in the head while the rest of his body was caught in the bomb. His cold gray eyes are staring up at the night sky, vacant where it used to brim with the Vittori fire.
“Who the fuck would do this, Gio?” Frankie asks, his voice choked up with tears.
I get down on my haunches and look down at the man who shaped me into the person I am today. His cruel hand, the daily torture to make me stronger and cut off any empathy I could have had.
My twin sister wasn’t the only one who died that day; my father made sure he killed the child left in me as well.
“They killed him and the bomb was planted underneath where I sat with Lucia,” I say as I reach out to close my father’s eyes. “They wanted to take out both the head and his protégé in one shot. This wasn’t just an attack on our family, Frankie.”
No. This was a fucking attack on the Cosa Nostra and even I know The Camorra wouldn’t rock that boat so openly. So who, then? Who would do something so fucking stupid?
To say I am trembling in fear is an understatement. One second I was dancing with Giovanni, my heart beating so close to his, and the next I was thrown to the ground, shielded by his body. My ears are still ringing from the explosion and the palms of my hands were tender from scraping them against the floor as I went down. Now I’m in the back of an armored SUV, sitting next to a mean-looking woman wearing a scowl similar to Giovanni’s. She’s wearing a red dress and high heels, is tall and slender, with short blonde hair and tattoos that look like feathers creeping into her neck. I hug my body and feel the ripples of fear still coursing through me. I suspected that a lot of people weren’t happy about this marriage, but I didn’t expect a hit right on our wedding day. Wouldn’t this be the highest disrespect to pay the son of a Capo dei Capi? Wait… wouldn’t this cause a war? As soon as we hit the cobblestone driveway, I know we’ve arrived at Giovanni’s estate. I don’t think I’ll ever
My heart is thudding so loud in my ears that I can barely think, and when he puts the tip of the weapon to my breastbone, I flinch and close my eyes.“Relax, I’m not about to murder my bride on our wedding night,” he says and when I hear the tearing of fabric, I open my eyes to feel the fabric of the negligee pool at my feet. “That’s for later.”Later? What does he mean that’s for later?!Cutting off the straps of my thong as well, he takes a step backward and removes his bowtie, which was already loose and hanging around his neck. As he gets to work unbuttoning his shirt, his eyes do not leave mine and even as they’re filled to the brim with anger, I can see the hunger.I was right about his body being covered in tattoos, but in this case, only his back and sides, save for one tattoo over his left pectoral, right over his heart. It is a black heart with a dagger with the words SANGUE PER SANGUE.A shiver shoots up my spine as it feels like an omen meant just for me.“On the bed, Mice
I wake up and stretch, hyper-aware of the soft body laying at my side. Opening my eyes, I see Lucia still asleep and laying on her back with one leg over mine, her bare pussy still exposed. One hand is over her full, gorgeous chest while the other is splayed above her head.She must have fallen asleep while still covered in my cum and her blood, and I don’t know why, but that doesn’t sit right with me. Actually, it pisses me off at what I’ve done.When I came back to the room, I had every intention of sleeping and not touching her after what we discovered. Especially since I was so angry about the entire thing. Dom is alive, just shaken up, and no one died at the scene except for the server pouring wine.But seeing her in that little white negligee had me thinking with my fucking cock. Why did my enemy’s daughter have to look so fucking beautiful?I get up from the bed and walk over to the bathroom, but something on her nightstand gets my attention - a pill. When I pick it up, I notic
When I finish in the shower, I hear the bedroom door closing and know Giovanni has left for the day. Careful of hurting myself, I dry off and wrap the towel around my body before walking to the closet.The bloodstained blankets catch my eye and I push down the shame threatening to strangle me. I don’t ever want a repeat of last night… I’d rather die.My mind is a mess. From what happened last night, to the rough way Giovanni took me and now finding out his father was killed last night, presumably by my missing father. I don’t know what is going to happen now, and I don’t want to find out.I catch my naked reflection in the mirror and my eyes widen when I see blue dots on my thighs, right where Giovanni held me. There are three similar-looking dots on my cheek when he had his hand over my mouth. I swallow hard while trying to keep my emotions down, then I walk to my clothing rack.I am not going to cry; I will not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he truly terrifies me.Aft
I should be mourning my father and am expecting family to arrive any minute now. But Lucia standing up to me, nearly raising her voice, showing me her claws…Cristo, if that didn’t get me hard as a fucking rock.Now I’m sitting in my office, watching that door and pretending I’m not thinking about spreading her wide on this desk. Shit, I need to get this woman out of my head, now is not the time to be thinking with my dick.There’s a knock on my office door and I tell whoever it is to enter, knowing it’s Lucia. I brace my elbows on the desk in front of me and watch her walk inside. She’s wearing a black dress that hugs her sinful curves well, and those heels only make her legs look sexier. I didn’t manage to fuck that innocence out of her, though and somehow it pulls me in even more.I swivel in my chair and unbutton my suit jacket before leaning back and patting my hand on my lap. “Over here, Micetta,” I say, watching as her eyes widen. “Sit down.”Her cheeks take on a gorgeous tint
My heart is beating so loud as I rush out of Giovanni’s office that I didn’t even notice someone coming around the corner. Plowing right into them, I yelp and nearly lose my balance, only for them to grab me by the waist and pull me to my feet.“I’m guessing you’ve just come from my brother’s office,” a female voice sounds and my eyes shoot open. “Would explain why you’re in a rush to get away from here.”I take a step backward and take in the woman in front of me. Wow, she’s beautiful; even more so in the light. There’s a confidence about her that I wish I could have. Then again, she knew who she was all her life and I’m only just learning.“Uhm, yes. I’ve just come from Giovanni’s office,” I say, clasping my hands in front of me. “If you’ll excuse me-”“Wait, Lucia,” she calls my name as I walk past her and I immediately freeze up. Wait, she knows my name?Tentatively, I turn around to face her and watch as she crosses her arms over her chest. Wow, she exudes the type of confidence
The air is thick with tension as I walk into my club knowing I’m about to deliver some news that will fuck up an alliance. I’ve gathered with my brothers and three cousins for an urgent meeting. The dimly lit room, filled with the smoky haze of cigars, served as the backdrop for this critical discussion. Last night while at one of my clubs, I received damning information about a fucking traitor within the family, and it's time to address the situation.It’s my father’s funeral tomorrow; this needs to be sorted out right fucking now.My three cousins, Alessio, Allesandro, and Anthony, are my capos. They’re brothers and oversee Brooklyn. My brother Frankie is my Underboss and Dom is my consigliere. They know I’ve taken over as the boss in our family and they’re one hundred percent behind me. It’s been a week since my father died and although I have been accepted as the Capo dei Capi, I know a few people still think the title was handed to me.As if I didn’t bathe in blood to get here.
I slip the black dress over my head and smooth the soft fabric down my legs, then I slip into a comfortable block heel platform pump that ties at my ankle. It’s raining today, which is quite apt for a funeral, I must say.While I’m doing my makeup, I try not to look over my shoulder at Giovanni getting ready behind me. He’s just walked out of the bathroom and he’s choosing a suit, but gosh he is so handsome. Tall and lithe, not too muscular but sculpted perfectly. I felt his body weight on top of me last night, sunk my nails into the dips and planes of his gorgeous back. A shiver runs up my spine as I remember the way he moved inside of me.How he was gentle after the initial rough first time, how he pleasured me until I saw stars, and how he …kissed me. I didn’t expect him to kiss me and by the shocked look on his face, I don’t think he expected it either. It might just be that he was overwhelmed by what we were doing, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t affect me. How that small