Page 7 of Where the Wicked Reign

As if that wasn’t already bad enough.

I’d screwed up.

I’d allowed him to get under my skin in a way I shouldn’t be allowing anyone, especially not right now while I was embarking on building my own empire.

I couldn’t… I couldn’t allow it.

That was why, as he shifted his weight, easing off me just enough for me to suck in an unencumbered breath, I thrust my knee up right between his thick, muscular thighs.

He grunted and fell back, clutching himself.

That was all I saw before I pushed away and made a break for the door.

A creepy, dark laugh echoed through the room as I staggered away, my limbs shaky from that heady and insane turn of events.

Growled words sounded then, sending a shudder down my spine, “This means war, principessa.”

1

~Nico~

Present Day

Honor.Loyalty. Blood.

Earn for the Family.

Bleed for the Family.

Live—and die—for the Family.

That was the credo that I lived by.

It had been instilled in me from an early age.

And so had all the brutality that came along with being the son of Marco Marchetti, the Boss of the Marchetti Syndicate.

I’d lived and breathed it.

I’d believed in it.

I’d espoused it and upheld it.

And now, if I wasn’t careful, I was going to fall by it.

I cursed under my breath, then took another drag of my smoke as I stood in the shadows watching the one thing that could break the malicious cycle.

At least temporarily.

Her.

The object of my fixation.

The focus of my obsession.

The target of my twisted games.

I watched her sleek, black Liberty Walk Lamborghini Gallardo, complete with gold rims, pull into the staff parking lot of her impressively successful nightclub,Luster.

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