Page 67 of Wicked Rivals

So engaging and friendly, her smile genuine and warm.

Enzo seemed to like her instantly, not something that happened very often. He talked to customers at the café, and he was always polite, but it took a different sort of person to get him to open up to this level of friendliness and acceptance.

My son was a great judge of character. Always had been.

It made sense. When I’d known Benedetta as a girl, we weren't friends. More like acquaintances with mutual friends, and even then, she was always very sweet.

The type of girl who followed her father’s rules. The type of girl my father had tried so hard to shape me into.

The perfect mafia princess.

Beautiful, demure, and a little weak.

But that was the thing about those princesses. They were always strongest when being underestimated.

Their mothers taught them very early how to put on a sweet smile and use impeccable manners to make people believe the facade while secretly stabbing them in the back simultaneously.

I would know.

Was that what this mafia princess was doing now? Smiling at my son while plotting to kill him?

My hands reflexively balled into fists.

I hid them behind my back.

This bitch would never get the chance to touch a single hair on my son’s innocent head.

She would have to kill me first.

CHAPTER 14

STEFANO

I paced the floor in my study, head down, eyes on the floor, my hand raised in warning for Tony to shut his fucking mouth for a minute.

My patience hung by one last frayed thread.

We had searched the entire city, checking out alibis, looking for clues, doing more detective work than the entire police force in the state of New York.

Still, my men and I came back with nothing.

Soon I’d have no choice but to act.

I knew better than to do anything without the necessary information first, but the clock was quickly running out.

As I took a seat behind my desk, I pushed my hand through the top of my hair. My mind dropped to an image of Enzo, his hair, those little curls. I pounded the side of my fist on the desk.

“How the fuck is this possible? Everyone knows the lengths I’ll go to when I want something, when I protect what’s mine. And yet, nothing. Not a word.”

I had promised Val that our son would be safe, and I wanted to deliver on that promise right away.

She wanted to get back to Con Amore, and while I would restore her business, I needed her out of my house.

In less than twenty-four hours, I would be a married man. Having the mother of my bastard child—who I couldn’t seem to keep my goddamn hands off—under my roof seemed like a terrible idea.

Benedetta might use it to pitch a fit and give me the cold shoulder, delaying consummating our marriage, but in the end, she would live with whatever I told her to.

Her father would use it to threaten me.

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