Page 70 of Princess of the Mafia

I wanted to ask him, so why did you? But I didn’t. It was better to hold on to hope than ask and be disappointed.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

DARIA

Soft music trailed along the marble-clad walls of the hallway. It trickled underneath the door and crawled on the beige carpeted floor of our bedroom.

I dabbed at the final touches of my makeup and pretended everything was fine. The rage ebbing off my husband from all the way across the living room couldn’t touch me in here. But when I traced my lips in crimson, my hands trembled. So what? I had told him I was going out with Emily. Pushing it too far? Definitely. But he was becoming an addiction in my veins. There was an urgent need pulsing inside me for distance. I wanted to take a step back, ten preferably, and see him differently. He wouldn’t be that appealing with a void between us. Besides, there was a tiny part in me, maybe the Cosa Nostra part that the girls in our family had been born with, that made me wonder how far. How far could I push him before he melted like iron set on heat and molded himself into the perfect Cosa Nostra man? Unfaithful to the bone.

I was wrong about one thing. I had thought I was pure, and he was the darkness in our marriage. Turned out, the malicious side of Papà burned inside me too. I had an itch, and it was to see him fall. Sooner rather than later. It would save me from heartache. I was choosing myself before him. Because I could feel my heart trembling as he tugged with his sweet words and lustful eyes. But one thing was set in stone. I would never be Mamma. If I had to push him away to save myself, I would do it. I would die before I let a man degrade me like the gum beneath his shoes.

Minchia! My hand shook, and my eyeliner colored outside the line. It had been such a great idea to say yes to Emily’s invitation to go clubbing. Because I liked her. I think. Vaguely. It had more to do with the fact that I didn’t know anyone else here. She had been nice to me the last time I saw her. Although there was a coldness to her, one she would show when she thought I wasn’t looking. I bit my lip and took a step back. She reminded me of someone, but it slipped my mind who it was.

I had obviously lost my mind to go ahead with it and lost it even further to walk up to him and tell him my plans boldly when I shook inside like sand falling on a sifter.

I had thought he would be mad. But the fury that had climbed his body I had never seen before, and I was born among made men. My eyes slid closed as the image of his body shaking with fury floated in front of my eyes. I thought he would hit me. My feet had pulled back, and my eyes had shut in anticipation. But he had balled his fists and stormed away. Since he didn’t exactly say no, I just assumed it was a yes and went ahead and got dolled up because it was ages since I had done that, and God, did I love getting dressed up. Is it stupid? Is it naïve? Like I said, the Cosa Nostra part itched to push back. Who was I kidding? This illusion was never going to last, anyway.

I whirled in front of the mirror. A black silk top and a leather miniskirt draped on me like a second skin. Topped off with knee-high boots, and I was good to go. It was a pity, though, that the ghost of his fury hung on me like bats to a damn tree. My instinct told me to stay. But it was the same one that pulled me closer to him. So I ignored it and walked on my tiptoes, hoping to hit the front door before he blocked me.

LORENZO

Nico glared at me like I had blown my own fucking head off. Well, it definitely felt like it. Rage fueled my movements as I paced the length of my living room. My hot Martello blood crawled up my body and rattled every cell within it. I would die trying to win my wife over, or I would kill again in her name. I preferred the latter.

“You can’t be serious?”

I was incapable of answering because animosity held every nerve in my body prisoner.

“Fuck! You are allowing it!” he muttered darkly, his wrath burning the skin on my face. I knew why Stefano was mad. He wanted to protect his fucking cognata. But Nico, he didn’t give a fuck about women. He just didn’t want her to be out without me.

“She going alone?”

I skidded to a stop. My gaze was on the floor because it didn’t help to see his fucking face. Besides, no one knew more than me how much worse this was than going alone. I forced words out through my blood-fueled throat. “With Emily.”

“Fuck’s sake, Enzo, you’re messed up. You’re allowing your ex to go out with your wife?”

A gasp fell on the room right after his words. My eyes shot past Nico to spot my wife standing behind him. Fuck! A rush of hot awareness hit me right before our eyes met. Rage, pure and unbidden, sparked off her frozen stance and hit me like an ice-cold fist in my chest. It was like she had forgotten to move, and I had forgotten to breathe. One heartbeat and two. I could have shot Nico for his foolish timing and put a knife through my fucking past in the meantime.

I knew it a second before she did. She was going to run. My foot hit the ground the second she flipped around to move. She was fast even in those fuck me boots she was wearing, but I caught her right beside the front door and slammed her between the wall and me.

Our breaths were heavy, mixed in a hot mess as she struggled to get out of my arms.

“Let go of me, you brute.”

A sharp-edged kick landed on my inner thigh. Fuck! I smothered her with my body and gripped her chin in one hand. “It was over long before I met you, Principessa.” She clawed at my face with her fucking long nails. I grabbed her arms and pinned them on top of her head. “She’s a fucking ex. I am not fucking her now,” I growled as frustration rolled off my words. “I told you I’m not cheating. Believe me, for fuck’s sake.”

“Enzo!”

Nico’s voice slicing through the air stilled me. Fuck. I was shaking her like a rag doll. I stopped instantly. I took a shaky breath as her chest pumped harshly in and out. Guilt thawed behind my rib cage. “Mi dispiace, Principessa.”

“Yeah? Show me,” she spat out.

“What?” I knew what was coming because I was the one who had started it.

Her eyes glittered. “Show me you are sorry.”

My lips thinned. I already knew I wasn’t going to like it. “How?”

She shoved me back with her palms on my chest. I edged back, my palms held up on either side of me. “Let me go and party. After all, if you aren’t fucking her now, you have nothing to worry about. Right?”

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