Page 29 of Princess of the Mafia

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I jerked back to see him striding towards me, dressed all in black. Shirt and pants. His chain was more visible with his black shirt on, which was, of course, not fully buttoned.

“Going out?” My voice sounded rusty, and it skidded like roller blades trying to find ground.

“I am. I was asking about you.” He strode up to me. He’d taken a shower. I could smell it. Something very woodsy. It felt too intimate to notice this. What was that smell?

“Just wanted to see the view.”

He let out a sigh. I wasn’t sure why he was so impatient with me. Turning my back to him, I stepped out and held on to the cold chrome metal bar while looking down. Minchia! It was high. I stepped back dizzily to a wall of hardness that gripped my hip with a tight fist. “Done already?”

I managed a shaky nod. “It’s high.”

“Of course it is,” he chided.

An embarrassed flush rushed through me. I hadn’t felt that ten-year age gap right up till now. He made me out to be a child.

I tottered back inside, and he swiftly closed the door to the balcony.

“The balcony is off limits unless I am with you, Capisti?”

“Whatever,” I muttered before wandering off.

He followed me like a dark shadow.

“I need to go out for some business.”

I couldn’t help the sigh of relief that left me. He must have heard it, too, because his lips thinned into two tight lines. “One of my men, Ciro, is outside if you need anything.”

“Does he speak Italian?”

“What is it with you? You speak English, so what’s the problem?”

I flipped around to find him standing too close for comfort, with his hands in his pockets. My feet backtracked immediately. “But he’s Italian, right? He speaks Italian?”

Another annoyed sigh. “Of course, he’s Italian. How else would he be a made man? But you won’t be sharing much with him.”

My mouth gaped open. How could he not speak his mother language?

“He’s not going to speak your Sicilian, Daria.”

“Yes, my Sicilian,” I muttered angrily.

“You can bundle it all up till I am home and let it loose on me.”

Was that amusement on his lips? It annoyed me that I didn’t know the man well enough to know.

“Can’t you keep Orso with me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He rolled his sleeves up. “Because he’s coming with me.”

“So you always go with a driver?”

“No, I am taking my bike. What’s with the million questions now? The ice dissolving already?”

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