Page 49 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
They are both wearing the kind of dresses that look like bandages, all stretch and shimmer and very little fabric.
Pretty, in the way sugar is pretty—fine for the moment, but easily forgotten.
I’m surrounded, of course.
There’s always a collection.
Tonight, there’s a singer from Milan who thinks she’s famous enough not to beg for attention, a blonde heiress with gold-dusted collarbones, and a diplomat’s niece who smells like roses and lies.
They laugh at the right times, pretend to be shocked when I say the things I always say, their hands lingering on my wrists, my shoulder, the small triangle of skin just beneath my collar.
I let them.
Why not?
The music shifts, a deeper beat taking over, and the room seems to exhale in rhythm.
I tilt my head back, close my eyes, and let it wash over me—the rhythm, the heat, the press of want without consequence.
This is what I was built for.
Not strategy, not war, not the kingdom of shadows Luca lords over like some self-appointed monarch.
Let my brothers drown in duty.
Let them bury themselves in logistics and legacy and all the dull little tasks of empire.
I have never needed that weight to feel powerful.
I exist in the margins, in the silences between the moves they make, untouchable because I am not chained to anything.
They used to call me reckless.
Now they just look the other way when I walk into a room and people start to forget what they came for.
It’s a kind of magic.
Or maybe just old money, sharp suits, and the kind of confidence that only comes from never being told no.
A flashbulb goes off somewhere, catching me mid-laugh, my hand wrapped loosely around the throat of a green bottle I didn’t bother to read the label on.
I blink against the light and gesture lazily for another round.
My bottle girl—a sin in satin and diamonds—nods and disappears.
When she returns, I take the drink directly from the tray, fingers brushing hers with the kind of practiced indifference that says I’ve already forgotten her name.
The girl beside me shifts, pressing closer.
She’s saying something about Ibiza, about the summer, about how she knows the owner of a yacht.
I nod at the right times, even lean in, but my attention’s already sliding elsewhere.
It’s not that she’s boring.
It’s just that she’s not Gianna.
Not that I think about her.
