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CHAPTER EIGHT

Dario

The water from the showerhead beat at me from all sides, falling down my shoulders, trickling down my back, and then down my legs.

My eyes were closed, one hand wrapped around my dick as I got myself off.

It was a daily ritual now, a ritual I blamed on her.

I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing her. I woke up in the morning, my dick hard for her. If I hadn’t been worried about being arrested, I would have kidnapped her.

Fuck it, I still might.

I braced myself on the cold tile beneath my hands, imagining that the hand wrapped around my dick was hers, imagining that my face was buried in her pussy. And if I breathed in deeply enough, I could smell her in my memory, taste her pussy on my lips.

I could hear the sounds she made when she was about to come. I could feel her ass pushing up against my thighs.

In my imagination, the night hadn’t ended with her running away from me. Not even close. The night had ended with me fucking her until her pussy was almost swollen shut, fucking her on that desk in the room off the balcony, then laying her on the floor and having her kneel over my face, as I impaled her pussy with my tongue.

I pictured her riding my face, her landing strip tickling my nose, her wetness all over my face. My dick grew even longer and thicker in my hand as I let that thought linger.

I could taste her. Her sweetness. I grunted as I came, feeling spent. I let go of my dick and braced my hands against the walls of the shower. I couldn’t keep going on like this.

It had been two months already. I turned off the shower, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around my waist. I grabbed another and wiped my face. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I knew I looked tense and angry. No amount of physical release by my own hands was enough.

Now that I had had a taste of her, now that I knew what it felt like to be part of her, my mind was occupied nonstop by thoughts of her.

Like a fool, I found myself driving by her apartment every day, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. She’d given up running, so I didn’t even get the opportunity to watch her ass bounce up and down in those leggings that didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Sometimes, I would be listening to one of my workers talk about a rival gang or a deal gone wrong and I found myself not caring. Instead, I would be thinking about what she was wearing, how she slept, and whether her mind was as fucked up as mine was, now that we had met.

I knew I was being stupid. To me, we had consummated a relationship that I had already existed in my mind, but maybe to her, she had just fucked a stranger.

This was dangerous. If I couldn’t focus on work, I couldn’t stay in control. And what was there in life outside of control? Chaos? No.

I had worked too hard to have everything in my life exactly where it needed to be. The business. My family. My money.

The only thing I wasn’t able to control was her. I looked at myself in the mirror and rubbed my unshaven chin. What was I going to do about Mya?

The answer was clear as day. I had to have her. And I knew exactly what to say to make sure that happened. Would she hate me? Probably. Did I blame her? No. But her feelings didn’t matter to me.

I didn’t deal with feelings. I dealt with absolutes. And I absolutely had to have her with all my being. Whether I liked it or not, I had to have Mya, no matter the cost. She was the missing piece.

She was my unknown. And now that I’d known her, it was time for her to be where she belonged. With me. By my side.

I dropped the towel, crossed my room toward my closet, and painstakingly took the time to choose what to wear. Today was a big day, after all. Today I was going to go get my soon-to-be-bride.

She had just woken up. I could tell by the halo of messy hair around her face and the PJs that she was wearing when she answered the door. Standing outside waiting for her to answer, I had been nervous that perhaps she wouldn’t let me in.

That she would take one look at me and call the cops. Accuse me of being a stalker or something…which I was.

Instead, she opened the door, looked at me with those big hazel eyes of hers full of surprise, and then stepped back to let me in, not uttering a word.

Everything I had planned to say slipped my mind as I followed her into her small studio apartment. She had moved here just a few months after Jason died. It was even smaller inside than I expected. A makeshift coffee table balanced a few books and a bowl of forgotten fruit.

The walls were empty. A few pairs of shoes sat next to the door. In the far corner was a bed, unmade, covered in pillows of all sizes, and beyond that was a door that I figured led to the bathroom.

The kitchen was comprised of little more than a few feet of counter space, a small refrigerator, and a stovetop without an oven. A microwave sat on the counter, along with various kitchen items that looked unused and dusty.

“Excuse the mess,” she was saying, settling down on a small recliner across from me. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

I sat on the small couch across from her.

Her matter-of-fact tone and the way she eyed me warily caught me off-guard. I didn’t know what exactly was going on. She looked at me like she had been expecting me, but as if she didn’t trust her eyes. It was confusing.

Confusion wasn’t a feeling I was accustomed to. I needed to get the situation back on track. Control. That’s what I needed.

“So, how’ve you been?” she asked like we were buddies, tucking her legs under her. She was wearing leggings as PJs, and the large top didn’t disguise the fact that she was braless.

My mind drifted to the feel of her breasts in my hands. She had large nipples, surrounded by dark areolas. I remembered how they had felt in my mouth. I struggled to concentrate.

I had to get my head in the game. No woman had ever made me feel so distracted.

Getting angry at myself, I dropped all sense of pretense and said, “I don’t have time for small talk. Let’s cut to the chase.”

Her eyebrows shot up at my tone, and she frowned, “Okay….” I could hear the confusion in her voice.

“My name is Dario?—”

“Yeah, you mentioned that already?—”

“Dario di Cecco.”

Something changed on her face. Her eyes hardened, and she scrambled to sit up. She grabbed a remote control and it went flying in the direction of my face before I caught it.

“Get the fuck out of my house,” her voice had barely registered. It was so low it was almost a whisper.

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.

But she would never know that.

“Sit down.” I gestured to the sofa next to me.

She shook her head and crossed her arms. “What do you want from me?”

I shook my head. “Want from you? Nothing. I do have something I would like to offer you.”

She looked confused, and then I saw hatred contort her face. “You, and especially your brother, have nothing that I want.”

I stood up, bluffing, but she didn’t need to know that. “Then, I’ll let the cops know that you tried to kill my brother, not once, but twice. Attempted murder gets you how many years in jail? I forget. Do you know?”

Her face turned white and she placed a hand over her belly as if she were about to be sick. I almost felt bad. Almost.

But now I had her right where I wanted her. Fearful. Fear was the best motivator.

“So, what’s this? Blackmail? Look around, genius. I don’t have anything you could possibly want.”

I smiled then, my eyes holding hers. So quickly, she had figured it out.

“You can’t be serious….you want…me?”

It all seemed to hit her full force. She let out a humorless bark of laughter. “I’m not going to whore myself?—”

“And I would never ask that of you,” I said sharply. I was insulted. I was a kingpin. Not a pimp. That wasn’t my style.

“Then what do you want?”

“You. I want you to marry me.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Are you insane? I wouldn’t marry you if my life depended on it.”

“Well, it kind of does. Unless you feel like doing five to ten and hoping you get parole.”

She swallowed hard, visibility shaken. This time, she wrapped her arms around herself. She looked so tiny then, like a young girl. I felt terrible again, but that didn’t stop me from going for the jugular.

“Marry me and no one needs to know that you were trying to kill Nico.”

“You don’t have proof that I?—.”

“I’m the head of a two-hundred-year-old Mafia family, Mya. You think I didn’t watch you and keep track of the evidence? You think you just happened to break down in front of my house? I know everything about you. I know where you work, how long you sleep, I know where the freckle is behind your left ear.”

She seemed to shrink into herself. I kept going. Showing mercy wasn’t what I was known for.

“Everywhere you went, everything you did, has been watched by myself or a member of my crew for the past two years…”

Her head shot up, the fire back in her eyes. “You’re a sick bastard.”

She moved toward me and raised her hand to hit me. I caught it and pulled her toward me until her body was pressed against mine. She was breathing heavily.

The way her breasts rose and fell under her baggy sweatshirt made me think of that night on the balcony. I felt myself growing hard, and she felt it, too.

She tried to push away from me, but I caught her other hand, backed her up against the wall, and pinned her there. My hips were against hers.

“Let me go.”

“You promise to keep your hands to yourself?”

The fire was still in her eyes, and she took a moment before she slowly nodded.

Reluctantly, I let her go and stepped back, but not before tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear.

I knew she wanted to hit me. I watched her fist ball up, but she was smart. She knew that hitting me would be trouble for her.

“I dare you.”

We locked eyes, and I waited patiently for the slap that never came.

Finally, she looked away and whispered, “I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.”

The joyousness I felt shocked me. She had agreed.

I made myself move away from her, but not before I stole a quick, hard kiss from her. She seemed startled by it, and I felt her relax against me before she stiffened and pulled away.

When she looked at me again, I saw resentment mixed with hate in her gaze. I couldn’t tell who she was mad at, me or her body, for giving in to what it ultimately wanted. I could take her hate. That was okay if it meant that she married me.

There would come a time when she would beg me to take her, to love her, in every possible way. Until that day came, I would accept her hate.

“I’ll be in touch.”

I walked out her door and shut it behind me. As my driver stepped out of the car to open the door for me, I looked back at her apartment. She peered at me through the window, her eyes searching.

I knew she was buying time, thinking of her next move. I was curious what it would be, but also confident in the fact that I had never, and never would be outmaneuvered.

I slid into the car. It was done. Mya would be mine.