Page 63 of A Beautiful Crime

And while Luca’s views on women in the Sicilian Mob are barbaric and archaic, my selfishness believes that Carina was born to be my wife.

Not to any Don but me, Constantine Donati. Carina was always meant to be mine.

“And a wife of a Don she’ll be,” I agree with him. “But I’m not just any Don, Luca and you and Savio know this very well. I’m Constantine Donati, the most feared and respected man across the east coast. And if not for your dear sister there would be no union,” I remind him not lightly. Wrapping my fingers around Carina’s arm I pull her to my side. I don’t miss the puff of air that escapes her lips nor how her skin burns beneath my touch.

With a smile that’s cruel I order in a tone not meant to be disobeyed, “Thank her.”

Luca swallows thickly as his body stiffens. His eyes sharpen like knives and I have no doubts how much he would love to inflict the literal weapon upon me.

This is the only thing we have in common, our restraint in killing one another.

I hope for his sake that the day he gives into his urges, the day the restraint has snapped, he doesn’t miss.

“Thank you, Carina,” he responds in a steel voice that sounds the furthest from appreciative.

Carina simply nods her head in acknowledgment, her hand flexing around her neck involuntarily.

Soon her hand will collar her neck when memories of me balls deep inside her consume her, not because of protection.

She will wear my marks with pride.

Oh, I have no doubts she will have her aversions to it at first. The battle within herself to accept her wants and needs of the pleasures my touch will bring. For her to accept to be claimed by me the way she’s always wanted to be claimed.

Carina Fiore is a woman who can have anything that money can buy, but the one thing she truly desires only I can give her.

And rest assured I will.

She will accept the darkness that lives and breathes inside her, and what’s more, she will love what it’s become of her.

In time Carina will be the most powerful woman of the east coast. A woman men will fear. A woman women will admire. A woman who will lead with the respect of my men and have from all that know her name.

The world will know her for what I have known since the first moment I caught a glimpse of her, of not as a pawn, but a queen.

And it won’t be because of my doing, it will be because of her.

CHAPTER 12

Carina

Once upon a time I had believed I knew the world, naively so. And with it, I had believed I had known the people who inhabit it.

Before my rebirth everything had been crystal clear. The world, my world, as I had seen it, was done so in black and white. A clear division on good and evil, right and wrong.

And I had still believed the world was so clearly divided after my re-birth. I then became the part of the world my mamma had warned me about. I became evil. I had done wrong.

All the goodness I had, all the rights I had done, died that fateful night.

There was no going back. No resurrection to bring back the girl who believed the world would be good. Humanity had been lost and in turn so had mine.

I died.

I died and became a dark empty void.

And yet here I stand with Constantine’s arm wrapped around my waist, his hand resting on the flare of my hip, igniting sparks that burn my skin, and the world I thought I had known, the world I believe to see, has never existed at all.

Constantine Donati has forced me to see the world in an incredibly harsh and confusing new color. A color that is equally confounding and morality questioning as it evokes the feelings of righteousness and startling clarity.

He’s a man who criminals whisper of in fear, afraid if his name is spoken too loudly he’ll take their souls. A man who is infamously known as The Devil of the East Coast. A King to the underworld. Powerful. Corrupt. Morally skewed and not politically correct. He’s a man known for his ruthlessness as much as he’s known for his violence.

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