Page 20

Marcelo

The thick stench of blood mixed with damp sea air from the East River, filling this abandoned shipyard in Brooklyn.

I pulled a perfectly folded white silk pocket square from my three-piece suit and methodically wiped a drop of warm blood from my knuckles, my expression blank.

"Moretti..." The man kneeling on the concrete was a puddle of flesh, his fingers bent at unnatural angles, his throat rattling with wheezing gasps. "Vincenzo won't let this go... The DeLuca family will burn your gallery to the ground!"

I lowered my gaze slightly, my gray-green eyes flat as glass.

"If that's the last words Vincenzo taught you, then you have my condolences." I dropped the bloodied square carelessly into the pool at his feet, my voice low, almost gentle. "You blew up one of my cargo ships at the dock last night. Very uncivilized. I assumed we were all businessmen who knew how to settle disagreements at the dinner table. But apparently you prefer the old country way of doing things."

I turned to Rocco, who stood like a ghost in the shadows.

"Send Vincenzo a gift." I adjusted my cufflinks. "Tell him if he can't keep his dogs on a leash, I'll visit his estate myself and teach him what tradition really means. Clean this up, Rocco. Quiet. Don't wake the neighbors."

"Understood, Don." Rocco's voice was barely audible.

The man thrashed, his broken fingers smearing blood across the floor. I didn't look back. Behind me, Rocco's Italian prayers mixed with the snap of breaking bones.

This was my world.

Blood. Violence. No mercy.

Outside, dawn was breaking. I stripped off my spotted jacket and tossed it to one of my men, inhaling the cold morning air.

Mob business was crude and tedious. After Isabella was born, I'd sworn to distance myself from this filthy work. But sometimes, restraint was mistaken for weakness. To survive in this world, you had to make your enemies understand—crossing the Don of the Moretti family came at a price.

I rolled up my sleeves, exposing the serpent tattoo coiling up my forearm.

"Don, should I drive you back?" Rocco emerged from the warehouse.

"No. I'll drive myself."

I slid into the driver's seat and fired up the engine. The Maserati growled.

Usually after something like this, I'd go to the Long Island estate, shower, pour a whiskey, and stare at financial reports until sunrise, trying to drown out the smell of blood with work.

But today was different.

When I leaned back against the leather seat, what filled my head wasn't the dying man's screams.

It was her.

Little rose.

Her amber eyes reflecting starlight. Her soft curves trembling in my arms. The way she bit her lip through the pain but still tried to respond to me...

My mouth curved.

In forty-one years, I'd seen countless women—socialites, supermodels, actresses, all of them "perfect" by society's standards. But none of them had barged into my life the way she had—clumsy, desperate, brave.

She was different. Fragile but strong. Insecure but stubborn. A wild rose standing in a storm.

I slammed the gas. The Maserati shot forward like an arrow.

I couldn't wait to see her.

"Little rose?"