Page 5 of Carlo (Sindicate Towers #9)

C ontrol is like the brass knuckles I use to cover my fists.

Control makes every hit harder and deadlier.

I’ve survived by wrapping it around myself as tightly as a boxing glove.

Valeria unwraps it every damn time. When we returned to the city I moved Valeria and Caterina into my apartment in the Sindicate Towers.

The high-rise building overlooks Chicago’s famous skyline.

More than an apartment, the view from the balcony alone is worth killing for.

The living room windows are floor-to-ceiling.

A life jacket wearer could sink into the carpet and still drown.

The comfortable furniture could put you to sleep by glancing at it.

My kitchen gleams from the stainless steel appliances and the sparkling granite countertops.

Valeria and Caterina have twenty-four-hour access to the Falcones’ private gym and pool.

This apartment is my refuge, my sanctuary.

A place I rarely share with anyone other than family and close friends.

Never a woman, not even Cynda, has tainted my monastery.

Yet, I share it with my bride-to-be. The only price she has to pay is her freedom.

Valeria and her daughter must be accompanied by security as we prepare for our wedding.

I told her a day and gave her a week. Extending the time was my first sign of the damage she’d done to the wall around my soul.

It started with her daughter. If she saw past her stereotype of me she’d see that Caterina is her biggest weapon.

Her heartbreaking Bambi eyes, with their dark brown sparkle, slay me.

When the sorrow in her eyes guts me, I wonder what happened to drive this child into her shell.

When I share a joke with her she’ll grin at me with a smile full of childish mischief.

Suddenly I’m a comic working my one-man show to amuse her.

Anything to keep that smile on her sweet face.

I’ve only known her a little while, and I’m ready to die to protect her.

So will the men I’ve assigned to their security detail.

* * *

My men follow them everywhere they go. This is my only rule.

It has no exceptions. I never leave them unattended.

I never leave them unguarded. Until we are married I can’t take a chance on the Verazanos coming for her.

She shouldn’t take the chance. However, she’s made it abundantly clear that if she has an opening to leave my gilded cage, she’s flying out.

When they first decided I would marry her, I felt the same way.

If only it wasn’t for her fucking eyes. They are the darkest abyss.

Hiding fathoms deep pits of the hell she’s been through—or at least she tries to hide.

Maybe no one notices except me. Maybe everyone falls for the shutters she shelters behind when she slams them down.

Attempting to cover whatever horrors made her want to run and keep running.

Trying to mask whatever made her daughter retreat into her silent world.

I’ve never been protective of anyone who wasn’t a Falcone or working for a Falcone.

But there’s something about Valeria that pulls at me.

When I look into those eyes, I want to save her, protect her and…

fuck her. My desire is the thorn on the rose.

This deal should have been sweet. I marry her, get her pregnant, and then we go our separate ways.

However when I look at her, my mind won’t make her a hit-it-and-quit-it .

My mind sees her at my side, in my bed, in my life. I’m so fucking screwed.

But it’s not just her eyes. It’s her curves.

The way she moves. The way her hair brushes her cheeks.

The way her lips lift in a sardonic smile when she’s trying to piss me off.

It’s the way her hips sway when she walks.

The way her ass fills out her jeans. The way her tits fill out her tank tops.

I can’t stop thinking about her. And it’s driving me crazy.

I haven’t been able to take any women out to meet my needs.

Instead, I’ve had to take care of myself.

A problem I haven’t had since I was a fucking teenager.

I can’t have her. She doesn’t want me. And even if she did, she wouldn’t let me have her.

I’ve held broken men suspended by their wrists who were less skittish.

She practically somersaults in the air when I walk into the room and startle her.

What the fuck did Ben Verrazano do to her?

To them? I’ve taken to announcing my presence before I enter a room—in my own fucking house.

And the look she gave me when I showed her to our bedroom.

Her eyes sliced through me when I opened the door, but her words were even more cutting.

Valeria took one look at my king-sized bed and declared in a frost-tipped voice. “Nice room. Now where will Cate and I sleep?”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Cate down the hall. But you’ll be sleeping here.”

Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Not until after the wedding. And if I get away. If one of your men even blinks while watching me…” She raised her shoulders in a half-shrug. “If that happens, then we won’t ever. "

“You don’t have a choice.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. If there’s one thing my former marriage taught me, it’s that we always have a choice. We just don’t always like what those choices are.” She gave me one last scathing look and left me standing in the doorway like an idiot.

* * *

The look still burns in my stomach. It’s our wedding day, and it’s the last thing I should worry about.

But damn her, she is like a prisoner trying to dig his way out of his way out of his concrete cell with a plastic spoon.

It shouldn’t work, but with enough stubborn determination, that fucker escapes.

I grit my teeth and gulp more of my drink.

Bruno frowns, but fuck him. They’ve all gathered with me before I walk down the aisle.

We did the same for Mariano and Matteo. Today is different.

There are no jokes that would scorch a virgin’s ears.

No pre-wedding cheers or toasts. Instead I’m handled like a ticking time brom.

Cautiously passed from one brother to the next as they weigh their words.

Mariano, the lawyer-slash-peacemaker, pats my back. “You ready?”

“No.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “You’re right. You can’t be. It’s like the first time you kill a man. People can tell you what it does to you, how it changes you. But until you do it…”

I raise a brow at him, and he trails off.

He’s as much Falcone as the rest of us. Mariano’s done his share of dirt, but, he’s never been in the field.

He typically fights for the Falcone family with words and courts.

He’s not wrong, but his words don’t hit with the impact he wants so he backs off. As he should.

Matteo gives it a try, and like Mariano, he’s shed and spilled blood for our family, but he protects our family’s money from his computer.

Watching over our dollars in and out so we don’t get fucked like other families have in the past. It’s true you can’t escape death and taxes.

With him having our backs, we’re safe from the taxes part.

Before he can speak he reads my look and simply mutters.

“Just give her a chance. It wasn’t easy for me and Jaleesa at first, either. ”

I hate my brothers treating me like I’m a rabid animal.

I get why. For the last decade, I’ve been building an angry bridge to nowhere.

Losing my mother, and watching my father parade around his mistress while leaving me to raise Mariano and Matteo built that bridge brick by brick.

But I’ve built it from one furious side—leaving myself stuck in the middle.

I can’t complete the bridge. I can’t get over to the other side.

There’s nothing I can do but sit here with no way to move forward and no desire to go back.

When I lost Mama, I lost my father too. Lost my childhood, my innocence.

Because without my mother shielding us, we were all swept into my father’s brutal world and expected to perform at his vicious level.

A level that requires a lot of damn drinking and fucking to survive. Hell, maybe that’s just me.

Bruno, Sal jr, squares off with me. He’s the oldest, and he takes the brunt of my father’s hits. He’s lost as much as I have. Forced to give up school, leave the woman he loved, who wasn’t acceptable to my racist father, and step into his anointed position. “Carlo, what did you do with Cynda?”

My thumb flexes and rubs the sides of my fist. “What the fuck did you ask me?”

“You can’t marry and keep her on the side. We swore we would never be like Father is. We would never do to a Falcone bride…”

“I know what we swore. I know how his life killed her, even before the cancer. I don’t need a fucking reminder.”

“Good, and I assume you also know that this deal hinges on a solid marriage. We can’t build ties to them if their daughter is running home crying.”

A sharp laugh breaks out before I can restrain it. He obviously doesn’t know my bride-to-be. “She won’t be running home.”

“And the crying?”

I narrow my eyes. He forced me to marry her, but he can’t force how we feel about each other. “Any tears will be between us. You gave her to me, and I’ll keep her. How I treat her is not your concern.”

Bruno steps into my space. I’m a big motherfucker, but Bruno is bigger.

Still, I meet him toe to toe. More than willing to release some of the steam boiling like a kettle inside.

Until Mariano steps between us. “Stop it. This isn’t the time or place.

” He scowls at Bruno. “He’s right, and you know it.

You can’t tell a man how to treat his wife.

” Burno bristles until Mariano continues.

“Besides, has Carlo ever let this family down? He always does what he needs to do,” he swivels and stares me down.

“And this will be no different.” He traps me in his gaze and doesn’t release me until I nod.

Bruno’s jaw tics, and his hand fists, but he turns away. “Fine. Let’s get this marriage started. We’ve wasted enough time. I just hope she’s fucking ready.”

He turns to the door of the suite we’ve been waiting in. Is he referring to the wedding or the marriage?