Page 3 of Cruel Heir

2

ANDRE

I’ve spent two god-forsaken years in this place with nothing to show for it. But now, my time to shift the game back in my favor has come.

It’s been two years since Don Fontana ordered my father’s execution for conspiring to make Gianna Mancini my bride, and absorb the Mancini family name into ours. Two years since the upstart Alessio Moretti decided to swoop back into Chicago, take her under his protection, and then marry her himself. Two years since my father tried to kidnap her and force her into a marriage with me, only to be caught in the act.

The price he paid was a bullet in the back of his head, delivered while he knelt between two men at Don Fontana’s feet. I know, because I was there. I watched him spit in Fontana’s face before he knelt. I heard his last words, delivered not for Fontana’s benefit, but mine.

Just because I am forced to bow to you does not mean the Leone family will.

As I heard the muffled gunshot and saw the blood spatter over concrete, I watched my father’s body slump forward towards Fontana’s boots as if in mockery of what he’d just declared; I thoughtI would be next. I had hoped that I would die with as much courage as my father had, if Fontana chose to put me on my knees.

I had half a mind to try to take one or two of his men out, before I went down.

But Fontana had other plans. He was hesitant to kill me, clearly, though he didn’t deign to share his reasons. What hedidtell me, as two of his guards led me away from my father’s body and into a waiting car, was that I was too dangerous to the stability of the Family to be allowed to do as I please. My name, my blood, and my rage at my father’s fall were all points that could destabilize the structure of the Family that Fontana leads. So, instead, the car that he had me bundled into took me to a waiting jet on a tarmac outside of Chicago.

That jet brought me to Sicily, to one of Fontana’s estates. And I’ve been there ever since, as his ‘guest,’ under house arrest while he decides what to do with me.

Or, as I suspect, has forgotten about me.

At least, I hope that’s the case.

The adrenaline that floods me when I wrap my arm around his daughter’s waist and pull her close to me is better than any high I’ve ever had. Better than drugs, better than sex, better than the feeling of being behind the wheel of a fast car. It’s a feeling of triumph that trumps anything I’ve ever experienced in my life, particularly when her blue eyes go wide as I lean down to whisper in her ear.

“Oh no, Lucia.” I feel her stiffen when I breathe her name. “You’re not going anywhere,principessa. Except for whereIchoose to take you.”

Her chin tilts up defiantly, and I see that there’s fire in the little princess.All the better,I think with an almost ravenous desire as I tighten my grip on her.It will feel even better when I douse it. When I break her to my will.

This moment is one that I’ve been planning, sprouted from the seed that my father’s dying words planted. The Leone family willnotfall to Don Fontana’s whims, not while I draw breath. I am my father’s only heir, the last hope of our family name. And the girl in my arms is the first step of my revenge.

For two years, I’ve gone along with Fontana’s wishes. I’ve languished in my gilded prison without complaint, eating his food and drinking his wine, reading every book in the massive library of the estate where I was kept, and enjoying whatever entertainment was on offer—including most of the maids. And the entire time, while Fontana left me there to rot in a velvet-lined coffin of a house, I planned my revenge.

I planned how I would make my father’s last words a reality. How, in the end, Fontana would bow tome.

It was an easy plan to formulate, once I heard through the staff’s gossip and the careless pillow talk of the maids I fucked, that Fontana had a daughter. A daughter who would turn eighteen before too terribly long, and for whom he would throw a lavish party, one that would attract so many guests that I might be able to slip through them undetected.

I grew up in a home just a few steps below this, in terms of scale, grandeur, and staffing. I knew how much security Fontana likely had, how easily I might or might not be able to avoid them. I spent two years memorizing the patterns of the security guardingme, so I could slip away in the first place. And after two years of my good behavior, they’d started to grow lax in how well they watched me. I’d shown no signs of trying to escape before. Why would I now?

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She hisses the words, her full, rosy lips pursing with anger. “Let mego! Someone is going to see you, and—”

“No, they won’t.” I haul her around the side of the fountain, deeper into the shadows, away from the lamps illuminating the sides of the path. I know I shouldn’t linger, that I could begin the next part of my plan at any moment, butthismoment feels too delicious. I want to prolong it a little bit more,savorit. Her fear is the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted, and I haven’t even kissed her yet. “I’ve been very careful,principessa.No one saw me come in, and no one will see me leave.”

“Then leavenow.” There’s still a trace of that haughtiness in her voice, that sense of pride that she has from beingDon Fontana’sdaughter. I want to destroy it, the urge rising up in me like a physical thing, and I grasp her chin in my other hand. I turn her face towards mine as she squirms in my arms, my thumb pressing into her soft, plush lower lip.

“You don’t tell me what to do, Lucia,” I murmur her name like an endearment, letting it roll off of my tongue sweet and thick. “Iwill be the one tellingyouwhat to do.”

“In your fucking dreams.” She spits the words, wrestling in my grip, and my hand slides downwards, gripping her lightly by the throat. She goes still in an instant, fear glinting in her blue eyes as I apply the slightest pressure to her windpipe.

God, I’ve never been so fucking hard.

“You have a filthy mouth for such an elegant, well-bred lady.” I look down at her blue gaze in the near-darkness, looming over her. “Fortunately for you, I intend to do all of thiscorrectly.By the book, as it were. Otherwise, I’d put you down on your knees right here, and show you what better uses I have for your mouth.”

“You—” She chokes on the word as I tighten my grip, sucking in a sudden breath as if she’s afraid I might cut hers off forever. For a moment, I consider doing just that. It would still be vengeance, if I left Don Fontana’s daughter dead on the cobblestones in his own garden, while he drank and rubbed elbows with his power-bloated compatriots inside.

A life for a life. It would settle the debt between us.

But it wouldn’t beenough.