Page 4 of The Mastermind (Mafia Rivals #1)

MADDELENA

The first rule for a Mancinelli woman was unbreakable.

Stay away from the Salvatore men. Or else!

It’d been drilled into my sisters and me from birth and enforced with many a backhand from Mancinelli men if we so much as thought about breaking that rule.

But the team was riding high from our third straight win. And winning, especially in Monza, the birthplace of Formula One racing, was like winning every single lottery in the world.

When that happened, there was only one place worth celebrating or you might as well stay home. La Miraggio .

Podium positioning wasn’t something we’d needed to worry about in the past since we’d been nowhere near the podium, never mind winning a race.

And while I’d been disappointed for the team in previous seasons, as the consigliere of my family’s assets and CEO of Furia Racing, in charge of managing the hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed in from both legitimate and more…

creative areas of the business, I couldn’t very well stay in my hotel room tonight of all nights.

But Christ, how I’d wanted to.

Because I’d suspected that he would be here. And I was right.

I could feel the burn of his hatred from the VIP lounge where he sprawled amongst the velvet cushions with the indolence of a panther.

I raised my glass to swallow a mouthful of champagne someone had thrust in my hand. But just like most people reacted when Cesare Salvatore was in the same room, I knew I would choke on it. That my body would refuse the simplest commands.

Case in point – my maddening inability to look away.

So I saw the moment he rasped a command and his brothers and a handful of soldiers made their way to the entrance and left him alone.

With any other man I would’ve raised my expensively trimmed eyebrows at the sheer lunacy of leaving himself vulnerable in a roomful of vicious, cutthroat Mancinellis. To the last man, I knew each of them carried a blade, a gun or a knuckle-duster. Some all three.

But Cesare Salvatore demonstrated not a single ounce of vulnerability.

He met my stare, dominated it until I shivered with the urge to self-preserve, to lower my gaze. Then, only when he was satisfied that his deep intimidation had caused the fractures he sought did he rise, an exquisite marble statue coming to life.

With every step he drew closer, my breath knotted tighter in my lungs.

The heir to the Salvatore throne had turned heads since he grew height and muscles in the summer of his fifteenth birthday.

Those muscles had been honed on the football field of the nauseatingly expensive Calmonte Catholic Academy in New York City.

Then studiously maintained by taking an active part in physically suppressing any challenges to his birthright.

It was an open secret that to tangle with Cesare Salvatore, his brothers or any of his soldiers on a dark street corner was to never see the light of day again.

His breathtakingly good looks were passed down from both his parents, borrowing the square, movie-star heartthrob jawline and piercing charcoal grey eyes of the Salvatore men, and the sensual mouth and haughty cheekbones from his late mother.

At six foot three, he towered over most men in any room, but with the dark silk shirt, darker jacket and pants and thunderous fury rolling across his face, he was a force-five tornado, hellbent on inflicting maximum damage to anyone who dared to cross his path.

It wasn’t surprising therefore that even with my soldiers twitching to reach for their guns, and many members of my family tensing at the very visible threat, everyone still gave him a wide berth, allowing him clear passage to where I stood at the bar.

No one had forgotten the humiliation of being trounced in our last two skirmishes. Least of all my grandfather.

It was why tonight’s win was especially sweet. Why the celebrations were particularly wild. And why no one wanted it ruined.

‘If you’re here to toss about more threats and warnings, save your breath,’ I pre-empted before he could speak, fighting the shock sheeting through me that Cesare planned on speaking to me.

It’d been well over ten years since our last direct interaction, after all.

‘Narciso told me you didn’t take our win well. At all.’

The corner of his mouth ticked up, but it wasn’t from amusement. He’d been practically combusting during the podium celebration. It hadn’t helped that my little brother hadn’t held back from rubbing his face in it.

Standing on the ground beneath the iconic Monza podium, I’d willed time to fly by before Cesare gave in to his worst impulses and pounded my baby brother into the floor.

I’d seen him do it to others many times in the past.

Including that night.

The memory was seared into my brain.

Growing up, I’d thought that as second-generation children of a mafia family brought up in America, they’d be less… aggressive.

Watching nineteen-year-old Cesare Salvatore pounding into a coma the boy who’d dared to brush up against my ass, then following that up with almost killing my best friend’s brother for the simple crime of being our driver and protector that fateful night, had taught me different.

And it hadn’t even been that he’d done it because he was interested in me. Oh no. He’d made his scathing feelings clear that night when he’d discovered his mistake. He may have battered the poor boy with his fists, but me he’d battered with his words.

From then I’d earned myself the dubious title of Most Hated Mancinelli.

I clenched my fist around my glass of untouched champagne as he stepped far too close, saturating me with the scent of smoked wood and wild thunderstorms.

That my first, unchecked instinct was to step closer, bury my face in his throat or his wide chest and just…

breathe him in was appalling and bracingly disturbing.

So I was eternally grateful when my knees obeyed my command to remained locked, my body as still as I could maintain it in the presence of a feral predator.

I wished I could say that was an exaggeration. The smouldering glare I’d sustained from across the room for hours now bore down on me with naked fury and dislike.

‘Enjoying your win?’

‘Any reason why I shouldn’t?’

‘Absolutely,’ he breathed. ‘It wasn’t earned honestly, and you know it.’

Anger stiffened my spine. ‘Any win that isn’t achieved by Furia Racing must be manipulated somehow, is that what you’re saying?’ I tossed back.

He stared at me in silence, his gaze drilling deeper. I couldn’t help myself. I slowed my own gaze to trail his face, over the fierce slashes of his dark eyebrows, past the silky fans of his eyelashes to the chiselled cheekbones and severe jawline, ending at the sensual dark red curve of his mouth.

That mouth had haunted and titivated thousands of my dreams. I hated and desired it in equal measure, a secret I intended to take to my grave.

‘What?’ I snapped when the silence stretched my nerves.

‘I’m trying to work out if you’ve developed a good poker face or if you’re really that clueless. There was a time when I recall you weren’t so skilled at hiding your true feelings,’ he mused.

‘I was a teenager. And if my memory serves, you hadn’t quite gotten a handle on that infamous Salvatore temper. Oh wait, what am I talking about? You still haven’t, have you?’ I was belly-dancing with ten-foot-high flames. Any minute now I was going to be devoured in an inferno.

He didn’t fall for my taunt.

Cesare inhaled, slow and steady, his broad chest expanding until it seemed to fill my vision.

Control locked into place as smoothly as a gear shift on his powerful racing car.

Pivoting slightly, he dropped an elbow onto the bar countertop, his body relaxing as he studied me like a specimen beneath his microscope.

‘Believe me, sweetheart, when I truly lose control, you’ll know about it.’

The silky-smooth warning of danger tunnelled through me, straight between my legs in a shockingly invasive caress I couldn’t bat away.

My thighs clenched as I scrambled to drag my brain from images of a wild, out-of-control Cesare Salvatore. In my bed. Pinning me against a wall. Bending me over a table.

‘Are you going to get to a point anytime soon? You’re harshing my vibe. And in case you haven’t forgotten, my kind isn’t supposed to mix with yours. Somebody might just tattle to your precious Nonno . Then where will you be?’

Anger flashed across his face, but he throttled it almost immediately. ‘Anywhere I fucking want. I’m a grown man. And leave my grandfather out of this.’

A flash of bleached-blond hair darted across my vision and I almost groaned when its owner cut through the crowd, making a beeline for me.

‘Come to offer your congrats? Only I don’t think I heard you give it over the sound of the tifosi roaring my name,’ Narciso said with a full smirk and twinkling eyes, right before throwing his arm around my shoulders.

‘Is he bothering you?’ He didn’t bother to keep his voice down.

A few heads turned our way, tension rising.

Under normal circumstances, I would’ve welcomed my baby brother interrupting an unwanted conversation. But my heart lurched with fear for him beneath the livid gaze Cesare slanted him.

‘Fuck off, picciruddu ,’ he growled. ‘The grown-ups are talking.’

Ciso’s face reddened. He was about to lose his shit. Unfortunately, the Salvatores weren’t the only ones cursed with violent tempers. Another reason I needed to end this conversation asap.

Besides, while I was sure I could talk myself out of confrontation with my father and grandfather, especially if I exaggerated how sorely the Salvatores were taking their loss today, a prolonged conversation with the enemy wouldn’t be as easy to explain away.

I held out my glass to Ciso. ‘Get me another one, please? This one’s gone warm.’