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I need to fucking come. I need to get my head straight. This time, I don’t bother forcing myself not to think of Estella. It’s a losing fucking battle, so instead I let myself imagine her in that bath, let myself picture her standing up, water sluicing over her wet, damp skin, pink from the heat, her nipples, soft androsy, tightening in the cool air when she looks up and sees me standing there.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, my hand moving feverishly over my straining cock. I won’t last long, not letting my fantasies run wild like this. I imagine her watching me from the bath, seeing the flex of my forearm as my hand runs along my length, the way my stomach muscles tighten with each delicious burst of pleasure, my jaw clenching as that heat builds at the base of my spine. I imagine her looking at my cock the way she did that morning by the pool, her pink tongue running over that plush lower lip as I thumb pre-cum away from the head and slide it over my shaft, and I can feel my balls tighten, my orgasm rushing headlong toward the finish.

I grab the edge of the sink, angling my cock over the edge of it as I stroke furiously, desperate for release. There’s no other way I can go back in that room, no way I can look at Estella right after she got done bathing while I’m rock-hard and foggy-headed with lust.

You’re right there, Sebastian. Come for me.I imagine her sweet, husky voice whispering it, her eyes bright and eager as she watches my cock stiffen and strain in my fist, and then my orgasm erupts, my cock spraying cum against the side of the sink as spurt after spurt erupts from the throbbing tip. I let go of the sink’s edge, pressing my fist to my mouth in an effort to keep silent as the pleasure races through me, every muscle locking with the force of it.

I stand there for a long moment, breathing hard as my cock softens and my senses return. That now-familiar guilt washes over me immediately—that I’m down here jerking off instead of upstairs outside of Estella’s room guarding it, as I should be, because I can’t stop thinking of her in a way that should never have entered my mind in the first place.

“Get it together,” I hiss at myself, tucking my dick away and washing my hands. “Fucking get your shit together, Sinclair.”

I head back upstairs, ashamed of myself and determined to do better. I manage to keep my thoughts clean when I knock on the door and Estella calls for me to come in, and I find her sitting on her bed in a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top. I keep my eyes fixed on her face, and when she looks at me curiously, I don’t say anything at all.

“Can you sleep in here again tonight?” Estella asks softly. “I know it’s probably not very comfortable, but?—”

“It’s fine,” I assure her, dropping into the armchair next to the fireplace without further argument. She nods, eyeing me from across the room, but she slides under the covers, switching off her bedside light. The room goes dark, and through that darkness, I hear her soft voice saying my name.

“Good night, Sebastian,” she whispers, and I swallow hard. Every fiber in my body wants to go to her, to slide under those covers with her and take her in my arms, but I resist.

I do my fucking job, and I stay where I am.

“Good night, Estella.”

8

ESTELLA

The next morning, after breakfast, I’m summoned to my father’s office.

I throw on the same outfit that I wore to dinner that first night, all black, and I go without complaint, because I know now for sure that there’s no point in arguing. I saw how my father was at the funeral—cool, composed, calm. I can’t believe that he’snotgrieving, but he keeps it hidden, tucked away so deeply that not even I can see it.

A man like that isn’t going to care that I don’t want to talk to anyone right now, not even him—not anyone other than Sebastian, anyway. He’s not going to care that I don’t feel like I can handle any kind of meeting, that whatever he’s going to tell me is going to be too much for me to shoulder right now.

He’s not going to care, even though I’m his daughter, and he’s my father, and we just lost his son and my brother. So I go, Sebastian following me down and waiting outside the office as I knock and then walk inside.

My father’s office is one of two rooms in the house that no one goes into unless invited. This, and his personal study, where he keeps all of his favorite books and alcohol and goes not towork, but to just be alone—which he prefers to be when he’s not engaged in work. Divorce isn’t common in mafia families, even less so in old-world ones like my father’s way of running things, so my parents aren’t divorced. But my mother left years ago, unable to stand what she deemed neglect from her husband. Whether she didn’t understand how things would be when they married, or foolishly hoped for more, or thought that she would be okay with it and then wasn’t—I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since she left.

I doubt she even knows Luis is dead.

My father let her go, although he’ll never give her a divorce. He assumed that she wouldn’t go through with it, that she wouldn’t leave her children behind. But she did, and now she lives in France, I think, on money that my father never even notices she spends—he has so much of it.

His office is cold, and I try not to shiver as I walk up to the desk, where two leather-backed chairs sit in front of it. The room is all dark colors, and woods, and heavy masculine decorations, with two large windows that let the light in and soften it just a little. At night, it feels especially oppressive to me, but I’m rarely ever in here at night. I’m rarely ever in here at all—as my father was so quick to point out at dinner, the business of the Gallo family is none of mine. I have nothing to do with this part of things.

Except, it seems, now.

“Sit down, Estella.” My father gestures to the chair directly in front of him. “There are some things we need to talk about.”

His tone is so calm, so emotionless, that I can’t stop what comes out of my mouth next. “We buried Luisyesterday,” I say sharply. “This can’t wait?”

My father’s dark eyes, very like mine, meet mine as he looks up at me. “No,” he says simply. “This is business, Estella. It doesnot wait for personal emotions. You will learn this, as time goes on.”

I press my lips together tightly, my hands knotted together in my lap. “Fine,” I manage. “What ‘business’ do you need me for?”

My father lets out a long, slow breath. “I know you’re grieving, Estella. We all are. But we need to quickly establish what happens next, regardless of our personal grief. Among families like ours, alliances shift all of the time. There are more effects of Luis’ death than just what we feel, Estella. And those other effects could spell disaster for us if we don’t choose our next steps carefully.”

I narrow my eyes. “We? When have I ever been involved in the business side of the family?”

My job, as Antony Gallo’s second child and daughter, is to be beautiful. Ornamental. To show up at parties and let others be impressed by what a lovely, talented, polite daughter he has. To one day marry. Those are the things I’ve been told all my life—and not to concern myself withbusiness. That’s too much for me, a mafia daughter, to handle.