Page 7 of Runaway in the Mafia
Couldn’t say he was a terrible father, either. At least for the girls. If you put aside the minor detail of fucking in front of his children. A good example? Fuck, no. Had I respected him? Couldn’t say I had. Loved him? Whatever that was, I’d stopped the second I found him with his dick in a woman’s pussy. For clarity’s sake, it wasn’t Mamma’s.
There were only two places in this house that I felt resoundingly human. Not like a monster rattling the cage from within. I made my way to one of them, the library. Every step I took towards it, I felt like I was walking on my bare feet and treading on edged pieces of glass.Fuck!I hated this place. My gaze caught the white Carrara marble beneath my tar black leather Santoni lace-ups. Almost identical to the floor at my own home. Yet so different.
My breathing eased when the door clicked shut behind me. This had always been my real sanctuary. Dark, all books and leather. I moved to the battered oak desk to the far right and sank into the leather chair of my grandfather.Nonnowas the only man in my family who’d been faithful to his wife. Apparently. I wouldn’t know. I was five when he wrapped up and made it to his grave.
I’d just lit the end of my cigar and taken the first satisfying inhale of pure, unadulterated tobacco when my pants vibrated.Sergio better not be fucking late.
In ritardo.
And of course he was fucking late. My fingers punched out a few curse words and an ‘I’m firing you’ before I threw my phone onto the desk. Why the fuck did I make him my underboss?
I knew why. Aside from not having any other choice, since he was the eldest son of my eldest uncle. The one who played around with a line of whores.ZioRemigio, not Sergio. But it had irked me thatZiowould inherit all this shit if I managed to get myself killed. So I’d made Sergio my underboss. I made up some shit about it being the new generation and all. But in all honesty, I didn’t want his grabby hands on my empire, even if it was tainted with black money and red deeds. It was still fucking mine. At least his son I could trust, unless it came to time. If he had bothered to send me a message, then he was going to be late. And not the five-minute kind, either. One day I was going to have a gun to my head and my fucking underboss was going to be too late.
A quiet annoyance rustled under my skin. The tick-tock of the wall clock above the door screamed. I regretted sound proofing the damn room. I’d done it on automatic, the day that Carlo died, because then I’d been under the illusion that I might have actually conducted meetings in here. Not only did I hardly step foot in here, but without sound filtering through from the rest of the house, my thoughts were too loud for me to consume. My mind rambled in search of an escape route. Mamma was out of the question. I wasn’t in the mood to entertain her today. It was too damn early for her nagging. Lia would have been a good option, but it was too early by Lia’s standards to be up and about, even though it was… I glanced at the clock… fucking ten oh five. My hand reached for my phone and pressed a number. Five a.m. in New York. Probably too fucking early. Not that I cared. But then, I didn’t want Martello down my throat for waking up his wife early. I disconnected and threw the phone on the desk. The fucker seemed to forget that she was my sister way before she was his wife.
With a sigh, I rocked back in my chair. I missed her. The next second, I was up on my feet and taking the steps three at a time.Whenever I missed Daria or it became too quiet to breathe, I found myself in her room, the only place I could relax and think.
I frowned as I closed the door behind me.Why the fuck was this place so clean?My annoyance riled up an inch. Fucking Mamma. Couldn’t she have left it as it was? I liked seeing the room all messed up. Now it was bereft of a comforting past and a reckless sister. I strode to my usual chair in the corner just to the right of the door, sank into it, and crossed my knee to my thigh.
Half sitting, half lounging, I inhaled another breath of nicotine, my only addiction I couldn’t wear off. There was something odd about this room. Aside from it being too fucking neat. The bed was made up, there was a laptop on the desk andfuck me, even the mouse and keyboard were placed like they had been measured with a ruler and set straight. Was Mamma planning on a photoshoot or something?
Unease shifted underneath my skin. There was decadence present. Subtle enough not to notice directly, but strong enough to pull on the hair on my skin. I couldn’t place what it was until I sniffed the air.Jesus!What was that scent? It was sweet... and peachy, but not quite. The bathroom door pulled open, and a storm of heat and brown strolled out. Wrapped in a towel.
My pulse stopped and jackknifed instantly to the south of my belt.What the fuck?She was almost at the closet before she noticed the shift in the air and her eyes skidded to mine. She froze. I inhaled. Soft and sexy. She was all wet and shiny, like warm polished chestnut wood. She was tall for an Italian and definitely for an Indian. And there was no doubt she was that. The sharp jawline grinding on her teeth, the jet-black hair pulled on top of her head, the deer in the headlights, Bambi brown eyes. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. I tracked the movement down her long neck to her smooth shoulders before they dipped down to her breasts, hiding below white and cotton. I couldn’t help it. I rolled my gaze further down, tracing a no doubt smoothbelly to the curve of her hips to inches below her pussy where her towel stopped. It was all smooth, tanned, and oiled. Mile long legs made to wrap around a man’s hip and cute tan painted toenails. She was fucking bronze all over and it made the pulse in my dick tick. To ease the discomfort, I put my foot down and shifted. Unfortunately for me, that pulled her out of her trance.
All the shock wiped off her face and shifted to anger. Her eyes blazed, and her lips moved. I couldn’t fucking hear beyond the pulsing in my ears because her lips were fucking full and plump.Jesus Christ.I’d found my vice, and it was mocha.
Her lips stopped moving and her jaw tensed. Her gaze crackled right before she stalked over and came to stand a few meters away from me. One if I slouched down and stretched my leg out.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Yes,” I growled. Even her voice was fucking sweet and peachy.
A frown marred her face. “What?”
“I heard fuck and you and I said yes.” I ignored her blistering glare and continued, “Now, drop that towel and rock up to me.”
I couldn’t say it was a surprise when her hand flew my way. Which was exactly why I could catch her wrist an inch from my face.
I had a shitload of words to tell a woman who thought to lay a finger on the fucking don. I dipped my fingers on the tie of the towel in between her breasts and yanked her to me. The bud of my cigar burned between us.Fuck.My senses exploded. That fragrance. It was her. I shimmered, and I growled. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I was going to say. Frustration rattled in me. So I shoved her away and stalked out.
It was only when the door slammed shut behind me that I dared to remember how her wrist had felt in my palm. Soft. Smooth.
I was halfway to the kitchen by the time I realised who she was.I have a wardrang somewhere in the hollow of my memory.Just keep your testosterone away from that girl.Fuck! It looked like I’d done a good job of listening to Mamma.
CHAPTER FOUR
AHANA
Hey Bhagwan!
The simple grasp of English and ‘oh my God’ evaded me. I stared at the shut door for nine crawling heartbeats. It took him that long to move away from the door. His fading footsteps echoed through my chest. The further he stepped away, the faster my pulse beat. My heart picked up from its frozen death to panic flight. He had been in my space. Touching me with vulgar words falling from his lips.
There was no doubt in my mind as to who that was. Vitale Di Matteo. Lia called her brother controlling. Ada’s reaction whispered that her son was pure evil. I couldn’t say they were wrong, didn’t know him well enough to, but my God, they’d forgotten to mention the drop-dead gorgeous part.
Shit!My knees gave way, and I collapsed on to the bed. Evil or not, it was definitely a crime to look like that. Someone better put that man behind bars because he was a danger to womankind.
There were plenty of good genes in this house. Lia, her mama, her cousins. If you left the uncles aside with their pot bellies and sleezy looks. But this man.Hey Bhagwan!With a groan, I fell back onto the bed.
