Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 37733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
"Tell me something about you."
He blinks at me, caught off guard by the abrupt question. "What do you want to know, Finley?"
"Anything."
"I've been in the mafia since I was eighteen."
I grimace. "Anything but that."
Another simile of a smile. "That's my life, tesoro. It's what I know."
"Fine. Why did you decide you wanted to initiate?"
"My father." He pushes his plate away from him, leaning back in his chair.
"He was in the mafia?"
Domani nods. "I didn't initiate to follow in his footsteps. I initiated to ensure he died like the pezzo di merda he was."
"You killed him?" I'm the one caught off guard this time. He says it so casually, as if he's simply reporting the weather. It's hard to imagine that he's talking about his own father.
"No. But I'm the one who signed his death warrant," he says softly. "I turned over the evidence that ensured he didn't walk away from his crimes."
I don't get the sense he did it lightly. Whatever his reason, he had one. I want to ask, but I don't.
He tells me anyway.
"He deserved to rot," he growls, meeting my gaze. "My mother took her life because of him. My nanny spent hers searching for their daughter—my sister—because of him. Countless women still live in fear because of what he took from them."
"He's the reason…?" I trail off, unable to finish the question. He knows what I'm trying to ask, though.
"Yes."
I nod, satisfied with the answer. It's more truth than I expected from him today. I understand him and the kind of man he is more now than I did five minutes ago. He may think he's a monster—and perhaps he does monstrous things—but this monster has a heart. And it still bleeds because of the man who raised him. He still atones for sins that aren't his and never were.
No, he isn't a monster. He's what a monster creates. I guess I am, too.
"Come." He rises from the table, holding out his hand to me. "We'll pretend the world doesn't exist today, mio sole. And tomorrow, we'll go to war."
I don't hesitate to take his hand.
Chapter Five
Domani
"I'm not getting in there," Finley says, looking at me like I've lost my mind. Sunlight catches in her red hair, turning the strands to ropes of fiery copper. "It's probably freezing!"
"It's not." I crouch beside the small spring a short walk from the cabin, filling my hand with water and then lifting it toward her. "Feel for yourself."
She tips her head to the side, eyeing me hesitantly. And then she shrugs and skips forward, skimming her fingers through the water slowly running out of my hand. "It's hot," she says, surprised.
"It's fed by a hot spring underground. It stays this temperature year around."
"Even when it's freezing outside?"
"Even then," I confirm, rising to my feet. "You should soak. It's relaxing."
"You soak in this thing?"
"I have."
"You? Mr. Thousand Dollar Mafia Suit?"
My lips twitch at the doubt in her voice. Admittedly, I don't fit the mountain man persona. I belong out here about as well as a lion in the middle of a neighborhood park. But I've been shot, stabbed, and sliced all to hell. When I've needed to lie low, I've done it out here. And the spring helped soothe even the worst of my injuries.
That's not why I strip my jacket off. It's not why I pile my weapons on top of it, either. She watches me with wide eyes while I undo each button, slowly stripping my shirt from my body.
"You're getting in?" she asks, a breathless hue to her voice that makes my cock throb.
"Mmhmm." I yank my belt free, dropping it beside my clothes. I had no intention of going in until she got sassy with me. Now, wild horses couldn't keep me out of that fucking water. I kick my shoes off and drop my pants.
She cracks, dropping her gaze from my face. Her sharp intake of breath cracks me wide open. "Domani," she whispers, reaching out to me. Her fingers skim my side, running over a mass of scar tissue across my ribcage. "What happened to you?"
"The mafia happened, tesoro." I grab her hand, pulling her into me before she starts something I'm not nearly strong enough to stop. Her hands on my naked flesh are like brands, searing desire into every fiber of my being. I want her more than I've ever wanted anything.
Cristo. I ache. To possess. To consume. To wreck and ruin and destroy. And when it's over, to own. Not master to slave, authoritarian to subordinate, but two souls tied so tightly together they can't ever be undone. She can't exist without me, and I cease to exist without her. I want to own her and be owned by her in a way no one else ever can. There's some primal, instinctive hunger driving that need and fuck. It's overwhelming.