Page 236 of Merciless Desires

“Did he need to…accompany you in there?”

“I’m sure you’re well acquainted with my shadow. Wherever I go, he goes, apparently.” Marcella flicked a glare at me over her shoulder. “Or so I’m told.”

“Why are you here?”

The glare melted into a frown, and Marcella faced her papà again. “To see my sisters…and Mamma. You didn’t tell me.”

“It’s not your concern anymore. We have assistance. Real assistance.”

Marcella’s shoulders slouched. Her papà was digging whatever knife he had stabbed in my fiancée deeper and deeper with each word that left his mouth.

I wouldn’t let this continue any further. “Come.”

Marcella backed up and pressed her palm against my leg, searching for my hand. I slid my palm between my leg and hers, and Marcella threaded her fingers with mine.

“Bye, Papà.”

“Marcella!” her papà boomed as we moved down the hall toward the staircase where I had met Marcella’s middle sister.

My fiancée stiffened, but I urged her forward. She didn’t answer to him anymore.

She answered to me.

We paused in the foyer so Marcella could say goodbye to her sisters, but I wasn’t focused on that. I had my eye on the worthless man who thought he didn’t need to do his fucking job. He was hired to guard the fucking door, not let an eight-year-old get shot. He was supposed to get shot.

He was expendable, and I made sure he knew that when I broke his fucking hand in Moretti’s office.

The broken hand was behind his back, and the scared asshole was quivering as we neared. He reached for the door with his good hand, but I shook my head. Slowly, he opened the door with his unwrapped broken hand.

“What did you do to him?” Marcella hissed as I opened my car door for her.

“I made sure he remembered his place.”

“Which is what? Below you?”

I backed her against the car and caged her in. “No, amorina. You’re the only person I want below me. Do I need to fill in the blank, or do you know what I mean?”

“You need to be neutered,” she grumbled.

I barked a laugh. “That won’t change anything.”

“It’s worth a try.”

Sliding down the front of me, Marcella sat in the passenger seat and received a face full of cock barely restrained behind my slacks. Her startled gasp made me even harder than I already was.

I needed to reel it in. There was a plan that needed to be followed. Certain expectations that needed to be met.

Like introducing my new fiancée to my papà.

I hadn’t been surprised when Marcella had all but run upstairs when we had arrived home after visiting her family. I also wasn’t surprised when I didn’t see her for a few days, as she actively avoided being in the same room as me.

I was easy to avoid when I wasn’t around.

Even though I wasn’t a fan of leaving Marcella home without me, I knew she would be in her room and she would be fine. But that didn’t stop my knee from bouncing up and down as I sat and watched my papà continue to interrogate Timofey Dmitriev, who was believed to work for Dominov.

Viktor Dominov was head of the Russian syndicate who was slowly enacting his revenge. Papà had ordered the execution of Viktor’s brother, Sergei—our own retaliation against the Russians for the murder of papà’s consigliere, Angiolo Vecoli, last year.

Dominov had already killed three of our men since March, and with two made men going missing only a few weeks apart, the Russians were starting to pick up speed.

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