Page 27 of Luciano (Belles & Mobsters 1)

Crossing borders was always my biggest fear. Yes, we invested a lot of money into our new identification, but neither Ella nor I were experts. I couldn’t tell the difference between a good fake travel document and a bad one.

But I should have known that Luciano would bribe whoever so we’d never have to go through any security or border patrol.

“Oh, wife, you look so disappointed,” he taunted me as we all crammed into a large vehicle, his guards packing two vehicles in front of us and behind us. He probably knew exactly what I hoped for. “There will be nobody to check your travel documents. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let my wife get put in federal prison for traveling on falsified documentation.”

“Ex-wife,” I barely choked out.

“Not yet.” His cold gaze was on me, chilling me to the bone. And the smile on those sinful lips was cruel. Still that sweet spot between my thighs throbbed. I tried to justify to myself it was deprivation. My body would react like this to any man. The last time I had sex was with him, the day he pressed his gun onto my temple. It was only natural that my body finally wanted a release. Though I suspected I was lying to myself.

Maybe I am just plain stupid.Only a stupid woman would feel any fucking tingling on her pussy at seeing a man that played Russian Roulette with a gun against her skull.

There was nothing natural about this. My body should be repulsed by him. He put a fucking gun to my forehead and would have killed me. He pulled the trigger, and the only reason I lived was because of some sheer, dumb luck.

I fucking hated him. My husband, my uncle, and my grandmother were all competing for the first spot on my hate list. I should kill all three of them. At least, I was smart enough to learn some defense skills over the last few years. And I learned how to use a gun.

Maybe it will come in handy,I thought to myself. And I could rid this world of three parasites. But even as I thought that, I knew having Luciano’s blood on my hands would shatter me. I could never look my son in the eyes, if I murdered his father. Regardless if he deserved it or not.

I hate his guts.

“Mamma, ho fame.” Matteo’s voice pulled me from my hate tantrum. I blinked my eyes, looking at my son.

“What?”

“Ho fame,” he whined. I glanced at Ella in exasperation, but I knew she didn’t understand him either. I had to learn Italian.What kind of mother doesn’t understand her son?

“Matteo, in English please.”

I felt like shit asking him to say it in English. I should know my son.

“He’s hungry.” Luciano chimed in, and the fact he could understand my son and I couldn't, made me hate him more.

I dug through my bag but before I could pull out a snack for him, Luciano handed Matteo a Kinder Bueno. My son’s eyes got big, and before I could even open my mouth to reprimand Luciano for giving a kid chocolate to sate his hunger, Matteo was tearing into it, struggling to open it. His eyes met mine, begging me to open it.

I took it with a sigh and opened it for him.

“Just one bar,” I told him. “We’ll have lunch or dinner once we get to our pris-” I cut my word off. I almost said to ourprisonbut that would be cruel. I didn’t want to put Matteo in the middle of my disagreements with Luciano. “To our destination,” I murmured.

I refused to say home. That was not our home.

“Grazie,” Matteo told Luciano and pride swelled inside me. My son will grow up to be a good man. We’d start with his manners and end with his compassion.

“Prego,” Luciano answered him. I pulled my phone out and instantly downloaded Rosetta Stone. There was no chance in hell I would ever not understand what my son was saying.

“Get me one too,” Ella muttered under her breath, her eyes on my phone. I nodded, and once I purchased for both of us, I started the download process. I would learn perfect Italian, if it was the last thing that I did.

Chapter Eleven

Luciano

Iwatched Matteo devour the chocolate and held back my grin. Grace’s attention was on her phone, and I could see the reflection of it in the car window. She was downloading the Rosetta Stone app. It bothered her that I could understand her son and she couldn’t. The frustration was written all over her face. She was so focused on Rosetta Stone, she missed Matteo glancing his mother’s way before he devoured the second chocolate bar. It wasn’t pure chocolate anyhow. It was more cookie crumbs wrapped in chocolate.

His eyes traveled my way and realizing he had been caught, regret entered his eyes. I winked at him, trying to assure him his secret was safe. A smile spread over his face, and suddenly jealousy hit me. Matteo didn’t look like his mother, but he had her smile. It lit up his whole face.

Something in my chest shifted, cracking the hard ice my heart had become. I decidedly shut it down. It was nothing; I certainly wasn’t turning soft for a boy that wasn’t mine. He was just a kid, and I happened to grab the snack on my way out of the plane. The kid slept the entire fight, so I grabbed it because I wanted to make sure I didn’t have a screaming kid in the car during our two hour drive.

Glancing in his mother’s direction, I watched the reflection in the glass as she shifted from her language app to her emails. She didn’t know that Massimo had put a trace on her and Ella’s phones. When we went through security in the airport, her and Ella’s electronics were given to Massimo by the guard. It took him all of two minutes to add a tracing bug while Ella and Grace were being patted down to ensure they had no weapons on them. We would see everything they do on their devices, and who they talk to.

My lip tilted up remembering how Grace spat at the security guard.“My ex-husband is a criminal, not me.”She was pissed off they pulled her and Ella out of the line to check.

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