Page 19 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

VITALE

I shouldn't have done it. Shouldn’t have pasted my lips on hers, let alone put my tongue inside her.

Fuck. No matter how many fucking whiskeys I downed, I couldn’t wipe off the taste of her.

It was already bad enough that her scent followed my every waking breath.

Now I had her fucking sweet taste haunting my dreams.

She made me mad. Insane. Act like a raging hormonal teenager. One who followed her into dark corners and put his fist through a wall so she’d not spill a tear out of her pretty little eyes.

This wasn’t working. It shouldn’t. She was nobody.

Nothing. She was nothing I could marry, but everything I could fuck.

That realisation was slowly but steadily sinking in.

Mamma saying I couldn’t touch her rubbed me all wrong like a rash I couldn’t scratch.

One I shouldn’t have touched, but now that I had, it was an addiction in my blood.

It broiled under my skin, hot and shimmering, running along my veins, until a sane thought was as far gone as Greek mythology.

Fuck this woman. I wasn’t giving in. I carried enough secrets and sins in my life.

I didn’t need hers to add to the weight bringing me down.

She had secrets, alright. Every blink, every gesture spoke of it.

If that wasn’t enough, she was going to be cloaked in sin.

A man like me, with genes like mine. I would only fill her with my sins.

All that was pure in her would sink to the dark depths of the underworld if I buried my dick inside her.

So I’d stayed away. For a whole fucking week.

Seven days and sixteen hours if we were really counting.

But like an addict on withdrawal, I was weak.

Defeated. I was the fucking don. Supposed to lead an empire.

But I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing my car key and strolling outside.

It had nothing to do with her travelling back and forth with Giuseppe attached to her like a shadow.

She’d do anything to avoid me. Me, though…

at least no one could say I wasn’t a masochist.

“Are you getting Ahana?”

Fuck. I mounted my wary gaze up the steps to find Lia at the top of them.

“No.”

She giggled. “You’re such a liar. Giuseppe told me you’d called him off.”

Shouldn’t have done that.

“I’m coming with you.”

Fuck, no.

“I’m not going to assault her.”

Might. Eat her up.

She frowned. “Honestly, Vitale. You need some training. That’s not something to say around women.”

Wasn’t planning on talking.

“I certainly hope you wouldn’t assault her.”

Okay. So maybe that came across wrong. I turned to walk out. “I’ll manage.”

“I’ll get my bag.”

Goddammit. “Why the fuck are you coming?”

“For a chat! What else?” She frowned at my scowl. “Geez, not you. All you do is talk about assault and guns. With Ahana. She’s been so busy I hardly get to hang out with her.”

She has.

“I have some stops to make.”

“No. You don’t.” She gave a pointed look at the clock on the wall to the right. “One second and I’ll be there.”

But because she obviously knew me better, she ran down to me, grabbed my car keys, and took off. I plotted her marriage. To someone who’d take her far away from Sicily. I needed her out of my house. Pronto. The problem was her fucking temper. No sane man would touch her with a ten-foot pole.

It took fifteen minutes of me pacing the driveway and ten fucking yells from the doorway before she strolled out with her shades and bag. She hadn’t even changed. I already pitied the man I was going to tie her to.

“You planning to drive as well, or are you going to give me the keys?” I growled.

“Geez, Vitale,” she tossed the keys and went around the car. “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed or what?”

“More like a fucking sweet dream and a loaded gun,” I muttered.

“What?”

I pulled my door open and glared at her above my car. “What now?”

Her eyes squinted behind her shades. “Thought you said something.”

“Fuck’s sake. Can’t a man have his thoughts?” I grumbled. “Get the fuck in now.”

I fumed while I drove. Women. The exact reason I avoided them.

Couldn’t figure out why Carlo was addicted to them.

Although if I had cloned versions of Ahana running around.

.. fuck no. One was enough for the clip on the cage to slip.

To fill my brain with a hollow, empty space.

I shivered to think of what two of her would do to me, let alone a dozen or more.

“Stop!”

I braked. Not exactly difficult when you drove in traffic in an ancient city. The narrow roads in Sicily weren’t exactly built for a supercar.

“What?”

“They have the new Dolce out!” She met my stare with a huff. “The handbag from the new collection.”

“Good for you.” I started driving.

“Oh, come on, Vitale. Just park in front. You’ll see Ahana when she comes out.”

I didn’t know why I wanted a woman when I had enough nagging with the women already in my life. But she didn’t nag. She was fucking independent. With a growl, I stopped so Lia could skip out and parked a few meters ahead.

My gaze drifted to the glass doors across the street, but they skidded to the side, catching a speck of brown beyond them.

She was speeding and crossing the street.

Where the hell was she off to? I was out of my car in a second.

My long strides kept up easily with her hurried ones in heels.

I had a bad feeling about this. My heartbeat thumping in my chest was louder than the click-clack of her pumps on the cobbled pavement.

Unease climbed up my throat. It was so instant, it burned a path through it.

There was a good chance she would run away.

Like she’d done before. Without anything tying her down and only a clean slate, she could leave everything behind, and I’d never be able to find her again.

Suddenly, my nickname for her rattled me.

I didn’t want to call her the runaway girl anymore.

Agitation coiled within me as I followed her onto gravel and to the park beyond.

My footsteps slowed as the density cleared.

Her steps were sure. How many times has she done this?

I stopped seventy feet from her. There wasn’t a single sense of remorse as I hid behind the trunk of a tree when she sat down on a bench.

Only frustration that I couldn’t get closer.

It was obvious from the furtive glances she shot three-sixty degrees that she wanted her privacy.

Nervous energy coloured my edges when she pulled out her phone and made a video call.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I didn’t like it. Didn’t like not seeing who she was talking to or not hearing the drift of the conversation.

Didn’t like the secrets she was hiding. Was she even really hiding?

Her laughter carried her happiness and hit me square in my chest. She had a life.

An entire part of her I didn’t know anything about.

In fact, I didn’t know anything about this girl.

Except that she was beautiful and courageous.

Because whatever she was running from, it had required strength to do it.

To break the norm. She was kind. She loved her father.

She was loyal. Optimistic. Smart. Talented.

Hard working. She was—if I really listened to it and dug deep, and I was doing that, her conversation sounded shallow.

As fake as a man holding a gun underneath a table.

Which only left me with one question. Who was she pretending to be happy with?

Fifteen minutes later, she ended the call. Her phone dropped to her lap, and her head along with it. She squeezed her forehead with her fingertips. Her shoulders slumped like a tangible weight brought her down. They shook with the effort of it.

Fuck .

She was crying. Her body trembled, and something snagged in my chest. When her breath hitched and a painful gasp came my way, an icy chill rolled along my spine.

My hands fisted, and something I couldn’t really fathom clenched in my chest. A thick heaviness coiled inside me.

Tension radiated. I didn’t like this. Didn’t like it at all.

I lost track of time as I stood frozen, watching her painfully pull herself together. Stitch by stitch, she closed those open wounds until she was healed to the outside world. But when she stood and walked back, I couldn’t unsee her scars anymore. Nor the tears she’d shed.

Everything felt hollow. I leaned against the bark of the tree. When I lit my cigar, for some reason, my hand wasn’t steady. No matter how many puffs I took, it didn’t fill the vacuum inside. Damn this woman. What the hell was she hiding?

Before I knew it, I had my phone pressed to my ear, my underboss on the other end.

“ Cugino —”

“Find out everything about Ahana. Pronto .”

A pregnant pause later, he came back to me. “She’s good.”

I let out a dry laugh. “Who’s the fucking don here, Sergio? Me or Mamma?”

“Don’t put me between you two, cugino .”

I pushed off the tree and started walking. “You find out everything about her. I don’t care if you have to turn her room inside out. Capisti?”

The hustle of the street invaded me, and I came to a halt a few feet away from my car. Lia was standing next to it, hands full of bags, Ahana beside her, rubbing her head like she had a headache. “Tell Mamma if she doesn’t allow you to do it, I will, and she won’t like the consequences of it.”

I shoved my phone in my pocket and strode to the car. The frustration edging my skin had boiled over to pure, unadulterated rage.

“Get the fuck in.” The lack of control in my tone mirrored my turmoil.

“Still moody, I see,” Lia muttered, but dumped her bags in the back and slid inside to the back seat when she saw my glare. Ahana hesitated, burned under my gaze for a full minute before she gave in and crept in to the front seat.

She looked over her shoulder at Lia. “You should get in the front.”

“Nah,” she shook her head. “You get car sick. Besides, I’m not sitting next to grumpy here.”

I glared at her. “So how the fuck do you drive with Giuseppe?” I narrowed my eyes. “Or are you taking the fucking bus again?”

“No wonder Mamma tells us you should have permanent soap in your mouth to wash out all your filthy words,” Lia muttered.

I ignored the nuisance in the back and focused on the one beside me. “Well?”

She dropped her hand from her forehead and frowned at me like I’d grown a pair of dicks on my head. “I drive in front with him.”

I ground my teeth. Jesus Christ , this woman. She was going to make me kill someone or myself. I preferred the former.

I reversed my car like I was on a racetrack and pulled out. There was a hot glare burning my cheek. I ignored it.

“You know, you don’t have to come and pick me up anymore.”

“Like hell I don’t. No more fucking sitting in front with one of my men.”

“How old is he?” she threw over the rearview mirror to Lia. “Ada must have given birth to him in ancient times.”

Lia’s giggle was loud and robust.

“Young enough to keep an eye on you. You seem to fucking need it,” I growled through my clenched teeth.

She ignored my insinuation. “Way older.”

I gave her a death glare.

“Whatever, caveman, but besides your attitude giving me a headache, you don’t have to because I’m done going to the office.”

“What?” both Lia and I asked. My tone was annoyed. Lia’s was worried. Why was she stopping work? Thought she wanted independence.

And she had that headache way before she saw me.

She flipped over and answered my sister, ignoring me. One day I was going to pull her on to lap and slap her ass for her sass. I was so turned on by that thought that I missed her next words.

“What?”

“See what I mean?” She nodded to Lia. “Old. Hard of hearing.” She continued in an exaggerated, loud voice. “I said I’m starting my own business, and my bosses are going to be my first clients.”

“Love it,” Lia screamed with excitement like she’d won the lottery. “How cool is that!”

“You don’t even need to work,” I muttered.

She glared at me. “Why the hell not?”

“Because you are under Mamma’s protection. You don’t—”

“Oh, I do,” she fumed at me. “I. Will. Never. Ever. Be. Financially dependent on anyone. Ever.”

Someone was prickly. Was it a time of the month kind of thing? My eyes skimmed to hers. Past trauma reflected back at me. What the hell had happened?

“Well, we are proud of you,” Lia declared. “ Vero , Vitale?”

I ignored her but quiet pride brimmed unwanted within me as she told Lia how she got her papers arranged to start her self-employed business. Forget about asking me. She hadn’t even asked Mamma. Fuck. This woman was smart. That should have been a turn-off. Not make me shift with a semi in my pants.

She had big plans, and as it turned out, not one but three clients already on her portfolio.

“I didn’t know making drawings could get you clients,” I muttered angrily.

She gave me a hurt look before shifting forward and looking out the window.

“I don’t know why you’re so mean, Vitale. Ahana is so freaking strong.”

I glared at my sister in the back seat. Thought she was supposed to be my bloodline, but she sat in my fucking car, dressed in my money, defending the woman next to me.

I was proud. I didn’t know what she was running from, but she needed an army to build her up.

I was actually fucking happy she got my sister on her side.

“I want to be like you, Ahana,” she declared. “Don’t you, Vitale?”

“Not really,” I grumbled.

I’d rather be inside her.