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In the dead of night, the view is pretty chilly until I put on a couple of outside lights. The pool of amber light transforms the lakeshore into a scene fit for a romantic climax. Not too seriously, I allow my expectations to raise a notch.
On the Kindle, I have a new Clarissa Wild book I only just started and I’m excited to get back to, as well as the Sophie Kincaid series I downloaded. But I can’t settle into any of the stories. As I gaze out over the scene of the lake and sip the cool Italian wine, I wonder if I wouldn’t be better studying up more of the special forces memoirs and biographies I have on the device.
My mind wanders back through the day. I don’t spend too long on the raid on the ballroom, except to linger on my image of Adrianna Bagniola. Seized and taken captive at her own engagement party, yet when she was rescued, she looked like she’d been offered a fresh shit sandwich.
Whatever, she is certainly not my problem. Slinking backward through the day, I remember Bruno. His panty-melting eyes. His evil smirk. The strength of Bruno’s hand in the kitchen and the heat of his body. The taste of his breath and the way his mouth felt on my skin. Bruno is like a big jungle cat. Like he’s made of raw impulse and hard, physical strength. I felt like he could run away at any moment. With me under his arm.
After a while, I think farther back to Alessio. Alessio, who could eat me alive in a single bite. Feeling his strength and his power, in the thickly padded and upholstered, confined space in the back of his battle limo. What would it be like to feel his power in full force? Feel it inside me? Feel him as he let rip with it, feel it explode in me? Being with him feels like being owned. By a man who will not let go, not at any price.
And I saved Carlo for last. Carlo is different. He is swoon-makingly hot and physically powerful, but that’s almost the least of him. He has a mind like a laser. I can never tell what he’s going to say. Or do. And yet, we feel like a fit. Like soulmates, almost.
Almost.
Soon I give up on trying to read. I turn down all the lights except the ones in the wet bar. That’s only because it’s out in the reception and I don’t want to get up. The glow at the front of the summerhouse is down to a glimmer under a fat, watery moon, and now the only light inside comes from the wet bar.
Curling up on the couch, I watch fireflies in the moonlight.
It’s hard to take in and process all that’s happened in one day. One long day that started with me doing what Daddy wanted me to do. Doing his dirty work, trying to get Daddy what he wanted. And being exiled for it.
That burns me so much. But, now that it’s sinking in a little, the burn is dulling to a weary ache. Maybe it’s for the best. The break — I want to say that it’s a clean break, but it’s not. It’s messy and painful. Like having a limb torn out at the socket. But I did feel like I was in a groove there, walking round a trench that just got deeper the more I marched.
Like nothing would ever change, every year would be like the last, and I would never get anywhere. I would go on doing what Daddy told me until it came time for Miko to start telling me what to do. Rinse and repeat. And, eventually, I’d get shoved off or traded or whatever to some other mafia hoodlum, and then he could start telling me what to do.
Well, that was what was supposed to happen to me here. That was the plan.
It could still happen. Alessio could just be jerking me around. Bruno, too. They could be playing with me like cats play with a mouse. Passing me between them. A bite here, a flip there.
Grinning with their teeth bared while they pin my tail with their claws and watch me scratch at the ground. Until they’ve had enough.
Fuck, for all I know, Carlo could be the same. They could all be in it together.
It’s what I overheard them talking about. They said it. What was the phrase they used? Something about keeping me in a locked closet in a basement? Using me for their amusement and pleasure? I’m red-faced, remembering how I felt when I heard that. I’m feeling some of it in an echo of that same buzzing ache again now.
I have no way to know what power games those three might be playing with me. I know what I want. I don’t even dare put those thoughts into words. Partly because I know I would only be setting myself up for disappointment. But even more because the ideas are so filthy.
A second glass of wine goes down slowly and I have no idea what time it is. I dozed on the couch for a while. A sound at the door of the summerhouse jerks me awake, but I’m still pretty groggy as heavy male footsteps resound on the carpeted wood floors.
Moving silently on instinct, I get up and move away from the window, into the shadows. The loud steps don’t sound like Carlo’s feet to me. The tread is too heavy. Too forceful. It’s more like…
“I know you’re in here, Lucy.”
Alessio’s voice comes into the room ahead of him. He steps into the doorway, lit from the reception room behind him. His powerful, elegant silhouette fills the doorway. “Your perfume is unmistakeable.”
A note in his voice betrays tension. Irritation. I wonder if it makes him mad that I have the advantage of him because he can’t see me.
Hoping, I stay quiet in the shadows.
“Look,” his voice is a low rasp, “I know you’re here. I know your scent.”
As if to prove it, he strides right up to me. Takes my breath away as he pulls me by my waist. Slips his hand down to take a lascivious squeeze of my ass. His dark tang makes me hazy and lightheaded.
“You’re expecting Carlo. But you can’t marry him, Lucy.”
What? Has he found something from my history, something that he’s going to try and hold over me? Or has word somehow gotten around that I was responsible for what happened to Gianni Crespi and his son? Surely not.
Mikey is not a rat, and the team are as close to him as they are to the family. It can’t be.
Or maybe he’s simply going to wield family authority. Perhaps he has enough sway that he can tell the don not to permit the wedding.
