Page 19 of Made to Sin

Even if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone back downstairs anyway. Seeing Luciano or Sofia— or both of them together— would be my breaking point today.

Marco had to understand his wife’s evasion after an incident like that. If he didn’t, I would push him into the pool with thick wedges to show him.

IWOULDHAVELAUGHEDATthe situation if I wasn’t busy wanting to shoot myself for it. The hottest woman alive was slack against the wall, waiting for me to make a move on her, and I left like an idiot.

The soft look in her eyes told me she would have let me do whatever I wanted, and that shit scared me. It was unlikely that I was afraid of anything, but at that moment, I was afraid. I was afraid that if she had let me take her, I wouldn’t have returned her. Afraid that if I touched her, I wouldn’t have stopped.

The only explanation for this mess was that she was my personal hell sent from the man above. Couldn’t he have sent something easier, like a group of hitmen, instead?

She was a walking wet dream, and I had a literal image now. The lack of clothes she had on left little to the imagination, and almost everything to my dirty mind. Each dip, each curve was so fucking perfect, the thought alone made me hard.

To say I was displeased with Sofia for pushing her into the pool was an understatement. When Katarina erupted from the water, I wanted to shoot every man there, family or not. With the thin dress clinging to her skin, there was nothing that wasn’t on display. Hell, if anyone had looked close enough, even the points of her nipples were visible against the fabric.

I knew my family well enough to know that while they were good at their jobs, they were a horny lot— they looked close enough.

Unjustifiably, a ring of possession branded through my chest until I saw red. It was fortunate for all of us that a maid had hurriedly brought her a towel before I did something I would regret.

Something else I would regret.

When I found out Katarina donated the diamond necklace without Marco’s knowledge, I nearly choked on my saliva. She donated it without a second thought, helping a cause that had little to no association with her, even when the fear of her husband loomed over her head. She sacrificed her peace of mind for others. Not a lot of people, including myself, could say the same.

Marco loved to show her off to theCosa Nostra,but he was weak for hiding her personality. I would have respected him a lot more if he treated her as a weapon instead of an enemy. The only reason I was working with him was because of her anyway.

I couldn’t risk a war with the Camellos, but if I could distract him, it would give Katarina some breathing room. I couldn’t stop my father from beating my mamma, but I’d be damned to see it happen again in front of my face.

—

Thinking about Katarina’s situation reminded me of someone I hadn’t visited in a long time, so I dragged myself away from the piling manila files to drive across town. It was hypocritical for someone like me to fight against violence, but even villains had sob stories to look back on.

In my case, with the help of a sweet, old lady by the name of Eda, I was able to make use of the trauma. Eda used to be Mamma’s caretaker when Mamma was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was one of the many who saw what my father did, but one of the few who had anything to say. Though my father refused to listen to anyone but himself, I was still indebted to herfor risking her life trying.

She stopped working for my father when Mamma passed but still opened her home for Sylvio and I when the abuse turned to us. It was our safe place in the blackened sea of the Underworld.

As a sign of gratitude to her and a tribute to Mamma, when I started making decent money, I helped her create a charity against abuse. It was nothing at first, the two of us buying and donating resources to safe houses. As time passed, more people became interested in our mission, and it became larger.

We branched into creating and supporting shelters. This one off of Manhattan was my favorite. It was one of the first ones we founded, and it housed the most victims, including Tori.

Tori was hardly older than me when she joined the organization. In the beginning, given her situation, she avoided me at all costs. Yet there was something about her that reminded me so much of Mamma, I didn’t give up. I kept trying to gain her trust piece by piece until one day, she finally came and sat next to me for lunch. The rest was history, and like Eda, she became another mother figure the depraved, younger me longed for.

“Hi stranger, remember me?” I asked, coming over to hug the middle-aged woman sitting in her leather recliner.

Tori’s lavender essential oil crept up my nostrils as I buried my head by the side of her hair. She gave me a rough kiss and patted my back. I didn’t see her as much as I should’ve, but whenever I did, it was as if no time had passed.

“Who could forget you, Luciano?”

The corners of my lips tipped up as I sat down on the foot edge of her bed. “I’ve been busy taking overhisplace, so I didn’t get a chance to visit. What have you been up to?”

She focused her attention on the jigsaw puzzle she was building. Tori didn’t need to ask who I was referring to, considering she was one of the few whom I told about my father.

“The usual: eating, sleeping, trying not to go insane.”

I chuckled at her pessimistic joke. “Accounting not working out for you anymore?”

Tori was young, in her forties or so, but she never quite got over her social anxiety. I had shot her deadbeat husband in passing, but if she wasn’t ready, who was I to force her back into the cruel world? The shelter didn’t house people for more than six months at a time, but in cases like hers, we made an exception. To pay for her stay, she made her weight back by doing some odd jobs here and there when the shelter needed it. The last time I saw her, she was doing some accounting work.

She fitted a puzzle piece by the corner of her picture. “I could say the same for you. Do you enjoy paperwork?”

I shrugged. “A break from smuggling contraband and murdering is always good for the soul.”

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