Page 1 of His Wicked Wants (West Coast Mobsters #6)

BEFORE

He’d meant to destroy only the abandoned building where his enemies slept, but the flames spread faster than he expected, licking within minutes at the adjoining palazzo.

Good. Let them see what he could do. Let them all see.

At ten years old he was already forging a reputation on the streets that made him proud. Last week he’d been tracked down by the men inside that building, beaten by them. Now they would learn what happened when they crossed him.

The Renaissance facade was already blackening like the bruises his enemies inside had given him. From his place in the shadowed doorway down the street, he heard the screams of those frightened men as they woke—ah, delicious—and knew it was time to go. His friends had agreed to stand watch for him, but he could already hear sirens.

But the hungry dance of emerald and sapphire-tinted flames entranced him, their heat caressing his face like a mother’s touch. He’d added something special to the accelerant, a copper and saltwater compound that allowed the yellow streetlights to bleach the heart of the fire black, while the tips of the dancing flames flickered blue-green and haunting against the night sky.

Why shouldn’t death and destruction be beautiful?

It was time to leave. Regretfully, he slipped out into the shadows and sprinted down to the corner.

The hard hand that closed on his skinny upper arm as he rounded the wall seemed to come out of nowhere. All his thrashing and kicking had no effect on his captor, a man three times his size with the strength of Hercules, it seemed. Nor was this behemoth alone—another, and another, all strong and silent, crowded around him.

He caught a glimpse of the frightened faces of his friends, watching from across the street.

Saw them turn and run.

The men pulled him through the streets, past sleeping cafes and shuttered shops, and when he tried to call out, an iron hand clamped over his mouth. They threw him into the back of a van that smelled of oil and cigarettes, and his head cracked against the cold metal floor, stunning him?—

—his sleeve yanked up—a sting—and then?—

Nothing.

He woke to a face swimming out of an ancient dream: cold, patrician, beautiful.

Cruel. Cruel and haughty, even as the red lips turned up in a smile.

She wore blood red from head to toe, with a string of black pearls around her throat that were so dark they made her skin seem like marble.

“You’ve caused quite the stir this evening.” Her voice was cultured, precise, pure ice.

He blinked, sitting up in the leather wingback chair where they’d placed him, but his feet still dangled above the floor. The room spun slightly as he turned his head to take it in. It was an office. A study? But there were so many books…

A library. A private library. She was rich, this woman.

He said nothing, fingers digging into the leather armrests. He’d learned on the streets that it was better to keep quiet and observe when he sensed danger.

The woman was still smiling, moving around the edge of a massive mahogany desk. A heavy glass paperweight caught the light from the window, scattering rainbows across the wood.

So it was morning. He’d been out for a while.

He watched her walk toward him, then sit opposite on a two-seater, watching him right back. And there were others in the room, he noticed now. The three men who had grabbed him.

“Nothing to say for yourself?” she asked, and his attention snapped back to her. “Well, then, I shall do the talking. You, little arsonist, have interrupted my business. So now you must make amends.” She smiled with her lips, but not her eyes.

“I’m just a kid. I don’t have any money,” he said, and despite his better judgment, he smiled back. But his bravado felt hollow in this room that reeked of old money—and more. Power. Old power.

Still—was this woman a fool? Did she really think he had anything to give to her?

“There are many ways to recover money. The more important cost to me, however, is time—and time is irreplaceable.”

The danger, he knew, was getting deeper. “I didn’t know the place belonged to you. My sincere apologies, signora .”

She made an impatient flick with her fingers, a gesture somehow more threatening than a raised fist. “I don’t care about the building. I care about the interruption to my business, as I said before. How do you propose to resolve this issue?”

“I could…rebuild it for you,” he tried. “My friends and I?—”

“You have no friends. If you did, you would not be here now, because your friends would have alerted you to my guards. Whomever it was that agreed to watch your back…well, they didn’t.” She paused to let the familiar sting of abandonment sink in. “But I see potential in you, little arsonist. A creative talent for destruction. It would be a shame to waste that potential.”

She stood again and came closer, closer, looking down at him where he cringed away, her shadow falling across his face as she stood with the window behind her so that he could see her only in silhouette. She reached out a finger and tipped his face up, turning his chin this way and that. “How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Don’t be ridiculous and don’t lie.”

“I’m ten,” he admitted.

“I have a son about your age who has just started at a new school. Perhaps he could be your friend. Would you like that? He’s very loyal, unlike those Roman gutter rats you were running around with. My Alessandro understands loyalty to the death, in fact. Once you are friends with him, you will want for nothing and you will be under my protection, too. The world could be yours, little arsonist. My world could be yours.”

He hated school. He’d given it up long ago, along with his home and his family. “I don’t know your son,” he said cautiously, his toes curling into the soft, expensive carpet. “Maybe he wouldn’t like me.” There was some undercurrent here that he didn’t understand. He could not place her tone or her intention.

“Oh, I think he’ll like you very much,” she sighed, letting his face go and returning to her own seat. “He’s a troublemaker, like you, and he does not like being told what to do by his mother. I think you’d make a fine friend for him. And in any case, that is my price for your release, little arsonist. What do you say?”

Something inside him still protested. “You don’t know who I am, you know nothing about me, you don’t even know my name ?—”

She laughed at that, one of those lilting, musical laughs that he only ever heard among the very wealthy, just before he slid his hand into their purses or pockets as they came out of the opera or playhouse. “Stubborn and selfish, an unruly, black-haired fire-lighter—I know your name as well as anyone in this city would. You are Nero reborn. All you needed tonight was a fiddle as you burned down Rome around you. No—” she said, as he opened his mouth to contradict her. “I don’t know or care what your name was before. From now on, you are Nero Andretti, and you are the grandson of one of my recently-deceased Capos here in Rome. It will be easier if Alessandro believes you to be…understanding.”

The tempting bait dangled before him. A name. A friend. Belonging . But everything had strings attached, and besides?—

“What if I don’t like him? ” It was a rat’s squeak of protest, useless and pitiful.

“You’re free to refuse my offer. But I don’t think you’ll enjoy the alternative.”

Looking deep into her flat, onyx eyes, which held none of the lovely colors of those flames last night, he believed her.