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It was my first time seeing her angry. Her eyes seemed to glow at me, and her pupils dilated. Her hands were balled up in fists at her sides.
If she had her gun on her, I would probably have been filled with bullets.
Speaking of which…
I lazily sat back against the couch and stretched out my legs. “This couch is comfortable.”
“I said, get the fuck out! Did you hear me?”
She stood up and marched over to her door. She held it open.
“Get out now, or I’m calling the cops.”
I shrugged, getting comfortable, “Call them.” I fluffed the pillows next to me and looked back at her like the asshole I was. “I can tell them all about your little revenge plot.”
Her face fell and she growled, “Get out. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I told her a date. It was a date from two years ago. A date I knew she would remember.
It was the date of the trial, the day my brother was sentenced, and the first day I saw her.
She looked like she was about ready to crumble. For a moment, I felt like the worst human being on the planet. It had been an emotional low blow. But I did what I had to do.
Sometimes, control had to start emotionally. I had her where I wanted her. She looked defeated. I’d done that to her.
That didn’t sit well with a part of me. I told myself that the ends justified the means.
I didn’t mind hurting her if that meant that I would have her.
“Close the door. You’re letting in the cold air.”
My tone was nonchalant. It belied the seriousness of the situation. And I knew she was probably thinking I was an asshole. She was right. I was an asshole who would do and say what he needed in order to get something he wanted. What I wanted was her.
“So, who are you? His cousin? A brother?” she said, closing the door, but not moving away from it.
“Brother,” I responded.
I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t know about me. I kept my family’s business out of the paper. I had quite a few different names that I went by: Ghost, Phantom, The Fixer. The criminal underworld knew me by reputation.
I was ruthless and invisible. It’s what made me so frightening to the opposition, and it’s the reason I was able to control the empire my father had built. No one knew what I was after or when I would strike, and only my closest men knew my real identity.
As far as the world knew, there was never a Dario di Cecco. Nico and Matteo had been the only sons my father had claimed. Imagine the surprise on their faces when it was me who had inherited it all instead of them.
What a twist that had been.
My father’s last words to my brothers were to call them fools—fools who didn’t deserve the empire he’d sacrificed for and built one brick at a time. To appease them, I kept them on, but I kept them at a distance. That only served to alienate them more, but they weren’t a threat to me.
They never were. My father had been right; they were fools, ruled by ego and power. But not me. Order was my master, and control was my mistress. There was only one exception to that rule.
It was Madame Destiny, and her name was Mya.
The first time I saw her on those steps outside the courtroom, I believed that fate had brought her to me. I hadn’t planned to show up for my brother’s trial. I was okay with him rotting in jail, but something told me to go to the courthouse that day.
And I had seen her, not knowing then that she was the woman my idiot brother had made into a widow.
As I looked at Mya today, I saw that same vulnerability in her eyes, that same fragility on her face as that day on the steps. That look in her eyes caused me to yearn for her like I had never yearned for anything else.
There was beauty and perfection in her fragility. And it was the perfection in her sorrow, in her brokenness, that had stolen a part of my heart.