Page 58 of Mafia Don's Secret Baby

“Oh,” I whispered, moving my hand to my face and swiping it across my other cheek. It revealed more blood.

Matteo gently gripped my wrist and pulled it between us. He grabbed clean tissue before dabbing the blood from my hand and moving back toward my face. With one hand, he held my chin. With the other, he cleaned my face efficiently, not missing a single spot.

He dropped the tissue, and I realized for the first time how incredibly close he stood. My chest pressed into him, and jolts of electricity felt like they coursed through my veins. His lips came down and hovered just over mine. He surprised me as his tongue darted out and licked my bottom lip.

The gesture felt both shocking and erotic in a way I couldn’t explain.

“Has anyone ever told you how sexy you are when you kill a man?” he inquired.

I shook my head slowly. “No, I definitely haven’t heard that before.”

He smirked and wrapped an arm around my waist, dragging me closer. “I’ve never been so fucking hot for a woman.”

He moved his hips, and I felt the undeniable proof of his arousal. My mouth parted, and he pressed his lips into them in an instant. The touch didn’t last as long as I would have liked. Within a moment, he pulled away, though his eyes still showed the hunger he felt at my proximity.

“We need to meet with the rest of the people who didn’t come tonight and ensure everyone is on the same page. We got your father’s top advisors to attend tonight, but there are more, and many of them will share the same views as these men.”

I patted the manilla folders. “Well, I’ll go through all of this and set up meetings with them then.” I paused as I leafed through one of the envelopes and grimaced. “Hopefully, word will spread about what happened here tonight, and the others will be more keen to meet with me.”

Matteo leaned forward and kissed my cheek with a half-smile that told me he wasn’t optimistic.

At least we’d made it through tonight. That was the first step. The next step…

Well, we could deal with that tomorrow.

Chapter Twenty

Matteo Costello

These fucking meetings would be the death of me.

I’d dealt with plenty of drug and weapon deals, turf wars, and skirmishes between our own people, but the behind-the-scenes work—the work that nobody associated with being a Don—was what had me ready to bash someone’s head into a wall.

Maybe my own.

Lilianna sat at my side, slouched back in her chair as she listened to another one of her father’s men talk directly to me and overlook her entirely. It seemed to be a common way of handling women among our people.

My father had felt the same way about women as her father. Even my people had the same general beliefs.

That a woman couldn’t be Don.

It had never happened, and many of these men didn’t think it ever could.

Lilianna continued proving them wrong, though.

“All the people on the front will support you if you can send aid,” one of the advisors said.

He’d been bold enough to refuse her invitation the first time around. Seven other men sat on one side of the large conference table, most of them having refused the first invitation. Only two of them had been there. Only two had seen what Lilianna had done, but they’d all heard about it.

They all watched her as if she were there for their personal entertainment.

“There will be no aid to the front,” I countered.

The small sliver of territory that butted against the Russians’ territory had been under attack relentlessly for years now, with dozens of men dying each month.

“Then why the hell would we help you? Either of you?” he asked.

Lilianna sat up straighter. “Once we eradicate the problem of the Russians, the front will no longer be a problem.”

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