Page 49 of Princess of the Mafia

My fingers strummed on the seat between us. I’d have done anything for some nicotine in my lungs since my first stress relief, sex, was out of the picture. My eyes slid closed as the image of how her lips had touched mine the other day tainted my vision. Fuck! She’d tasted good. My tongue slipped out to skim my lips as if I could still taste her on mine.

The car slid to a halt, my eyes slid open and landed on hers. Hers were dazed and pinned to my mouth. Tension crackled like wet wood in the fireplace. Victory, as I’d never known before, gushed into every pore and rushed through every vein in my body till I was floating like a fucking helium balloon. She is drawn to me. She may not trust me yet, but this. This was a huge step in closing the gap between us. I was beginning to doubt my charms and if I even had them, because she didn’t seem to budge in that department. It seemed she wasn’t as immune as I’d thought her to be. I sucked my lip in to her soft moan. I didn’t think she even realized she was doing it.

I felt the bite of the leather on the door as my hand fisted on the handle. All I wanted was to yank her over my lap and ravish her on the napa leather of my car. For once, I didn’t even give a fuck about getting it dirty. I’d coat my cum all over it if I could get her beneath me. But I fought the urge as hard as I would fight to live, and shook it off. It has to be her decision.

Besides, I wasn’t going to fuck her in the car for her very first time. Except it wasn’t her first time, was it? Acrimony rushed through my body, and my vision colored with crimson. Before I knew it, I was out of the car and slamming the door shut on her and the loss of her fucking virginity.

I rested my forearms on the hood and inhaled and exhaled sharply. I wished I’d kept the kid alive. Then I would at least have the pleasure of killing him again.

“Are you praying?”

The tinkling of her voice stiffened my shoulders.

“What?” I snapped.

She stood next to me on the sidewalk and nodded at my hands. Jesus! My hands were clenched like I was down on my knees and praying to a fucking god I didn’t believe in. Unless he took away this ache in my chest every time I thought of another man in between her legs. Then I might build a church in his name.

A split-second realization zapped through me. Blood, thick and heavy, bubbled in my veins. If it ached so much to think of one man within her legs— the pulse in my jaw jerked violently— how must she feel at the thought of the countless women I’d fucked? Unease strained in my veins. Rage boiled in my pulse.

“Let’s go,” I muttered as I grasped her elbow and crossed to one of my clubs.

My eyes narrowed as we approached one of my men guarding the door. I didn’t care for his filthy eyes on my wife’s body. I’d made her change into a long fucking dress when she’d come out in something skimpy. She complained New York was colder than Sicily, but she strolled around in short shit like she had to save on fabric, or she wanted to taunt me with what I couldn’t have. Even then, I’d die before I let her walk out of my home in anything other than a long fucking dress.

I pushed her gruffly behind me and walked up to within a breath of my man. His greasy eyes finally shifted away from her. Realization dawned, and he recoiled from me. Too fucking late. I didn’t know how it happened, but my hands were around his neck, and I’d pushed him into the open door within a matter of seconds. “See anything you like?” I snarled in his face.

She stiffened behind me, and a soft whimper left her body. I wanted to stop. But couldn’t. Until his body was blue and limp before my feet. Did I enjoy killing? When his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his skin turned clammy in my hands, I’d have to say I did.

“Enzo.”

A hand on my arm that yanked. Only two men would dare to do that.

“Let him go.”

With effort, I pulled my gaze to Stefano. His eyes were calm with intention. “I’ll take care of him. You take care of my cognata.”

I blinked with effort. My senses returned when I felt the quivering body behind me pasted to my spine. Fuck! My hand released, and I stepped back. I ignored the looks of my men in the dark shadows as I pulled her behind me and ran down the steps to my office.

Agitation crawled under my skin, and frustration pulled at my edges. Fuck! I had to change too much, and I didn’t like it one bit. Why had I brought her here and tainted her with the presence of my men and my fucking business?

I found the cigarettes in my desk drawer and stuck one in my mouth. It took me three tries to light it up because, for some reason, my hands were trilling like a jackhammer on fucking concrete. One puff and a long exhale. I eyed the gray cloud forming because I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. Another puff and another exhale. Didn’t want to read what would be painted on her face. After the third puff, I gained the nerve, turned to her, and exhaled. The gray haze wrapped around her, whirled, lifted, and vanished to leave her before me, looking… confused.

“What did he do?”

Jesus! Was she that fucking innocent? When Mamma was blown up with her car, the only innocent female in our lives went up in smoke with her. I’d forgotten how protected they were. And she married me. I’d already killed men while she was sitting outside in my car, and I’d almost killed another one with her watching. A harsh laugh spilled out of me. Fuck if I wasn’t the monster in this equation. I wanted to tell her to run. Run away from me because I wouldn’t stop killing any man who looked at her. I couldn’t. She should run to her brother. He would protect her. Was probably the only one who could when it came to me. But I didn’t. I was many things. Selfless wasn’t one of them. Not a fucking selfless bone in my body, even if you scraped every last one out. I was the monster, and I’d be the only one to eat her up alive.

“Nothing to worry your pretty head about,” I muttered before I took a sweep of the room with my cigarette-held hand. “So, what do you think?”

She frowned as she followed my finger. “About what?”

“My office. One of them anyway.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Why am I here, anyway?”

Fuck if I know. She looked too fucking out of place in here. A cloud of pink in black mirth. “I want you to know where I am, Principessa.”

“Why?” She crunched up her shoulders.

“So you know where I am.”

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