Page 3 of Hustler in the Mafia

“Fucking gypsies.” His grip tightened, and his other hand bruised the side of my rib as he pushed his whole body onto my pelvis, his erect dick poking into me. A sharp stab of pain shot up my back as it hit the brass cabinet knob. All I needed was the space to shove my knee into his balls.

“It better be more than a blowjob this time,” he sneered as my vision coloured black around me.

Fuck!This really was the end. The force of his grip on my neck and the big lump of pasta stuck in my throat was going to be my end. They say your life passes before your eyes beforeyou die. The thin, filthy line edging along my eyeballs must have been mine. The harsh thumps of Tata’s foot, Mama’s plastic moans pleasuring a client in the bed next to mine, the first and only boy I fell in love with, especially his words when I opened up to him after he took my virginity.“Wait. You thought I’d love a filthy girl like you?”

“Should I fuck you alive, or should I fuck you dead?” my current lifeline sneered.

Nothing had changed. Years later. It was another man and his cruel words. Only difference was my heart wasn’t involved because there wasn’t anything left to give.

Just like that, I decided it was enough. I had enough of this and was ready to let go. My body went limp, and the fight went out of me.

“Let her go.”

The darkness sucking my energy let go. The grip around my neck released, and Peppe stepped away with a look on his face I couldn’t fathom. I couldn’t give a shit. With a gasp, I turned around weakly to the sink and emptied the rest of the pasta that choked up my throat.

Fuck.It burned. My throat felt like someone poured gasoline and a spark of fire in it and jammed my mouth shut. Hot tears and snot rolled out of me as I tried to get a grip on myself.What the hell happened?

I whipped my tear-filled eyes around frantically, trying to find the source. Because Peppe hadn’t stopped out of his own will. Or had he? My panicked gaze picked up nothing except Peppe. He stood in front of me, glaring at me like a kid who wasn’t allowed to smash his least favorite toy.

“Is this how you get off?” a harsh voice rumbled from the far corner of the dining table. “Preying on fragile women?”

Fragile?I wasn’t fragile. My shoulders stiffened, and my back went ramrod straight. I huffed my breath, and my mouth popped open…

“Shut the fuck up.”

What?How the hell did the voice know I was about to…

“Now, come here and sit down.”

Peppe shuffled his feet.

“Not you, you idiot.”

He meant me?With more reluctance than Peppe, I slowly side-stepped past him and inched closer to the table. I was good at recognising voices. This didn’t belong to theConsigliere.I was sure of it. Not his brother, either. I’d heard him. This belonged to someone else.

The dim, porcelain, bell-shaped light with the painted pink roses hung too low on top of the table to see much other than the scratched surface of the wooden top. Standing a few breaths away from the end of the table, all I could see was the dark shadow of a wide shoulder within a big frame. Not as big as the man who had chased me, but still big.

The chair next to him scraped the floor, the sound crackling in the quiet kitchen.

“Sit,” he ordered, and for a girl who never took kindly to an order, I stepped forward and plonked down on the stool so fast I would have made my dead parents happy.Had they been those kind of parents.

“Now warm that food up,” he snapped at Peppe. He didn’t scream, but the harshness in his voice had the same effect. “And bring her a glass of wine.” A hot drift of air fell on my lips. “Red.”

The air around me shuffled with sultry awareness. So this was the man who’d been watching me. I was sure of it. A warm light flicked on right next to him, and two things became clear to me.

One, it wasn’t only the two Capizzi brothers who were hot enough to burn hell.

Two, I guess I wasn’t done sucking someone’s dick for food. Because the look on his face told me he was anything but a saint.

CHAPTER TWO

MARCO

Isaw her, and I wanted her. Her body, her words, her thoughts. The moment she stepped out of the trees, she crossed the line and stepped into my territory. And I wasn’t talking about the tangible boundary wall made up of barbed wire and metal barricades lining across the Capizzi property. There was something in her that called out to my broken and malfunctioned heart. It wanted her and all the sinful sighs she would echo hereafter. Insanity sputtered in my veins like the hard throb of a pounding headache.This woman was mine. She was weak in her body but a fighter in her mind. Her strong will and determination shone through the grubbiness of filth and starvation like a diamond unspoiled.

For three fucking days, I had watched her. She was like a precious little bird.Il mio passerotto.Always twirling her head around and ready to fly off at the slightest sound. Yet her spirit shone through of an eagle hiding under the guise of a sparrow.

I couldn’t really pinpoint what it was about her. Was it her fucking body? Big tits were my wet dream, and she had that andmore. Or was it because she reminded me of someone I used to be? Or perhaps her strong mind? Whatever it was, it made me want to pick her up and hide her within my suit-clad body.

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