Page 2 of Massimo

Excitement is back, licking up my spine at the thought of the pampered, spoiled princess hurtling toward her captivity, toward being under my control.

But most of all, the excitement is because I'm striking at my enemy and have just removed his biggest chess piece from the board.

Mancini dangled his daughter and her precious, protected virginity to make a deal with the French mafia that he's been coveting. I don't know why he wants that alliance and marriage to merge their two families, nor do I care, outside of the fact that I just destroyed it.

Nova Mancini will be missing from the mafia world. Most will believe the evidence, which makes it look like she ran. Others, like Mancini himself and my fellow Dons of the 'Ndrangheta families, will suspect I'm responsible and am retaliating because the 'Ndrangheta voted to stay my hand at killing Mancini today. However, they won't find evidence of that, even though my syndicate should never have interfered.

By the rules of our world, Mancini is mine to kill. Yet, the collective of families that fall under the umbrella and reign of the 'Ndrangheta voted for Mancini to live, all because of money. The majority was slight, and I plan to sway that decision at our upcoming face-to-face meeting.

Rage begins to push forth, drowning out my excitement as I think about all Mancini has done against my family. His suspected involvement in the threat against my brother Creed's wife, Sophie. The confirmation that he was involved in the treachery with the Chamber that nearlydestroyed the powerful alliance and peace, and that would've targeted our family for destruction.

Mancini is guilty of more sins, and human trafficking is at the top of the list. He even admitted to trying to set up a site on the West Coast, in Santoro territory, for one of the worst rings I've heard of—one where people are forced to fight for their lives and also involves sex slavery.

Today, he was in my hands, at my mercy. And I had to let him go.

That is the absolutely maddening thing for me. I value control; I value an eye for a fucking eye.

And I got neither today.

But at least the bastard went home in a pine box. Literally.

I smirk, thinking about Mancini stuffed in there, his hands tied behind his back for the flight back to Boston. The temporary coffin left on the tarmac. Then Mancini being discovered—disheveled and, if there's any justice in this world, covered in his own piss and shit.

So, yes, the fucking snake still breathes. The slithering, venomous manipulator who shed what few morals he had a long time ago, and that's coiled, waiting to strike. But I've struck back, in a way I could, while I bide my time before I can end him with my bare hands.

I'll be as cold-blooded as him—I have my own monstrous reputation in the criminal underworld, even if I'm not the kind of monster Mancini is. I'll pick away at his destructioncovertlyuntil the day I look him in the eye while I rip his throat out with a smile.

But until that day comes, I'll have his precious, virginal princess daughter.

My perfect revenge.

Chapter 2

Nova

Myfather'svoicehissesa string of words in my head.

Idiot.

Gullible.

Fool.

Weak.

STUPID.

The words may be in his voice, but he isn't the reason those deprecating words are playing on a loop in my head right now.

No, that's me.

Because Iaman idiot. I am gullible. A fool. Weak and stupid.

Because I've been fooled by a monster—something I should've learned to avoid by now, having spent my whole life with the worst one.

But I was a naïve, stupid fool. I convinced myself that being halfway across the world, far from my father's territory and reign of terror, would make me an anonymous nobody, and the monsters from the mafia world wouldn't find me.

I was just a young woman privileged enough to vacation in Italy's breathtaking Lake Como area. Having shed my identity as Nova Mancini, I was going by my middle name and mother's maiden name—I was Elena Naldi.

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