Page 16 of Italian Mafia Boss's Virgin Lover
As if on cue, one of my shooters looses a spray of automatic bullets. They hit the cobble, flicking up broken stone. A couple of Gregorio’s men shift, startled. But he stands dead still, not blinking as he looks at me.
“I’m giving you a chance, man,” he says, but there’s nothing wry in his voice. I’ve obliterated his bravado. “You don’t want to end up like your brother, do you, Santo?”
My blood runs cold. Fuck restraint.
I slam my fist into Gregorio’s jaw. He staggers, actually shocked, and lunges for me. I sidestep a swing, a second, but he catches me around the middle on the third and takes me to the cobblestones hard. We roll, wresting for the advantage. He nails me in the face as I get him in the ribs, a fast, furious exchange of blows that ends with me on top of him. I shake blood from my eye, raining down punches on Gregorio’s face, his chest. It only lasts an instant, before I’m dragged off by his men or mine, my hands reduced to pulp.
I stalk away, spitting blood. Gregorio is being helped to his feet. He shoves the man who assisted him, grinning at me with bloody teeth.
“It’s on now, Amata,” he says. “Next time we show up here, it’s war. We’re taking this fucking castle. We’re gonna slaughter your pathetic excuse for an army. And we’re gonna share that pretty little American of yours like a good vintage.”
I lunge again, triggered by that nightmarish image of Dani at his mercy. But Dario and a few others restrain me like a dog, and Gregorio chuckles as he climbs into his sports car. There’s a taut air of tension, too many fingers on too many triggers, but when I drop my hands and my men release me, there seems to be a collective sigh of relief.
The cars slide out of the drive one after the other, a glaring procession, a declaration of strength.
“Should we follow, sir?” asks Dario. His face is a mask of barely-contained rage. I’m touched by his loyalty.
“No. Not tonight. Double the guard.”
Dario nods sternly. I head inside. As I go, I see the faces of so many of my men, and I expect to find fear in them. All I see is rage, black and writhing. Many of these men knew or served my brother. Their hunger for vengeance still burns in them, like it does in me. It makes me grateful. It makes me want to act. Do something stupid.
But if I die, as I’ve imagined doing since my brother died—hunting down every man who betrayed him, finally succumbing to their force, which would surely overwhelm me—who will carry on the Amata name? Who will rebuild this empire we have lost? Who remember the men who died defending it?
The man I was before my brother’s death wouldn’t have cared. He would have flown solo, died fighting, in gunfire and glory. But I’m a different man now. A man with pride, with fight in him and patience too.
I’m a man with something to lose.
And that angers me more than anything.
Chapter 9
Dani
“But will he be OK?” I ask, pacing as Sabine and the maids attempt to dress me for dinner. “We should call someone. The police, or—”
“The police have no place here,” says Sabine, catching my elbow in a vise grip and forcing me to stand still. “The sooner you learn that, child, the better. In this world, the men make their own justice.”
I shiver, thinking of my father, of the trade that bought his life, and sold mine. “And the women?”
“The women serve,” says Sabine severely, snapping at a maid to address my hair. “As best they can, wherever they can, however they can. You play as big a role in keeping the master alive as his soldiers do. They protect his body. You protect his mind and heart. Do you understand me?”
I stare at her, feeling helpless. I haven’t seen Santo in days. And the last I did…well, I couldn’t even convince him to sleep with me. I have no idea how to get close to him.
“Whose room is it, in the west wing?”
Sabine casts her eyes skyward. “You are an impertinent little thing, Dani. Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“I just want to help,” I say, truthfully, desperately. “How can I, if I don’t know him?”
Sabine looks openly surprised, but only for an instant. “He will tell you what he sees fit to tell you.”
“Please,” I say, catching her hand, meeting her eye. “He’s closed off to me. To everyone. To the world. I just want to understand who he is.”
Sabine hesitates, then dismisses the maids with a cut of her hand. As soon as they’re gone, she starts in on my hair, brushing out the tangles and curling the ends deftly with an iron. “It was his brother, Vittorio, who lived here before him. Vittorio was a brilliant man. In another time, he’d have been a fair king, or a military general perhaps. But he believed in family above all else, and he trusted too easily.
“He was killed last year, by a man he believed to be his closest ally. Santo…Santo was never the kind to stay in one place. He is brilliant in his own way, of course. But he never did care for the wars of families and houses, and he never had to. It was Vittorio’s duty, as the eldest brother.
“But when he died, Santo had to return. To this castle that was not his home, to this cold, foreign land he did not know. He’s worked ceaselessly since then, building new alliances, building an army, building a sword with which to execute his and his brother’s enemies. The Amata name is so precarious. It holds esteem and unbelievable wealth, and as you know, royal blood. A family can’t be killed so easily; but if a family is just one man?”