3. Contessa
3
Contessa
In a fit of suicidal bravery, I utter two very dangerous words to Salvatore Mori:
“Make me.”
He makes me.
I don’t know what else I expected.
As far as birthday wishes go, I don’t remember asking to be slung over the broad shoulder of a handsome 6’4 mob boss and carried off, but here we are.
Salvatore Mori is a gorgeous paradox. He wouldn’t look out of place on the front cover of GQ magazine, and he would fit right in on the homepage of the FBI’s most wanted list—mugshot style. If human attractiveness has an equation, some kind of Bad Boy Golden Ratio, this man has cracked the code.
His face is all subtle, sharp angles, with deep eyes and high cheeks, sharp enough to draw the disapproval of the TSA. He’s clean shaven. Maybe it’s because of the scar on his cheek, or maybe it’s just because no man would hide a jawline like that behind a beard. I can imagine him being the kind of man that shaves with a straight razor, old fashioned, dangerous, and elegant all at once.
His black hair is combed back on top, tapering into a sharp fade around his ears and neck, well-maintained, as if he just stepped out of a barber shop and into this very club.
He may have expensive taste in suits and haircuts, but all that luxury style can’t cover up that Salvatore Mori looks dangerous.
Like a snake that can’t hide its nature. Black eyes and a cold smile. Devilish looks that could carry me away without any force at all, if I let them. Maybe I should have let them. It would have been more dignified than this circus act.
He is infinitely stronger than I am.
My cries for help are drowned by the music shaking the building. I beat my fists against his back and kick desperately at the air. One of my brand-new high heels goes soaring, vanishing somewhere along the narrow corridors winding through the back of the club.
I am extra mortified by how blindly turned on I am. Some part of me loves the way he manhandles me; loves the way I am helpless in his powerful grip. Like a child being carried to her timeout. Something wild and reckless has awoken in me under the attention of a man that is truly dangerous. He sets my blood on fire like no one else ever has.
“Sal!” A voice down the corridor calls out.
I don’t recognize it, but whoever it is, his first impression of me is my ass slung over Salvatore’s shoulder.
“Noctus,” Sal answers. He drops me back onto my feet. I cross my arms over the front of my ripped dress, feeling exposed, and it’s not cold enough in here to explain why my nipples are hard.
Near the exit, Lance sits on the ground, dazed and pressing a rag into his bleeding headwound.
Salvatore towers between me and the way back, while this stranger—Noctus—stands between me and the only other visible exit.
“What the fuck happened to Lance? He can barely talk. Did she do this?” Noctus’ eyes flash to me and my disheveled state.
“Your brother put his hands on my property. I corrected him.”
Noctus’ expression changes. Outrage to bewilderment.
“ You? You could have killed him,” Noctus says.
“I still might.”
The baritone threat only riles Noctus up further. I glance into Sal’s face, trying to read him. He has the perfect stillness of a stormy day, just before a tornado rips apart a town.
Though Lance seems younger, he and Noctus share a sibling’s resemblance. Are they both related to Salvatore? God, I wish I had paid more attention when my father talked about the Moris family.
“Your brother is a walking liability,” Salvatore continues. “He was fucking around in the storage room again like a dog in rut. I warned him once not to try that shit under this roof, and I don’t warn twice.” He glances at the bleeding boy on the floor, no pity in his eyes. “That he picked who he did, well…that was his second mistake of the night.”
Noctus looks at me, really looks at me, for the first time. I see the moment the realization dawns on him, recognition washes across his face and brings with it his hatred and contempt for me.
“The Lovera girl?”
My name is uttered like a curse on his lips. Being so familiar and so despised by a complete stranger stings.
“It’s Tessa, thanks,” I say moodily.
Noctus steps closer, offended that I dare to mouth off to him. I shrink back, running up against Salvatore amidst my doubling panic.
Salvatore intervenes, leveraging his height and the severity of his demeanor. His arm drapes over my shoulder, possessive. I grimace at his touch. Though Noctus towers over me, he doesn’t measure up to Salvatore—not even a little. The soft heat between my legs throbs shamefully.
“Is there a problem?” Salvatore asks.
The soft question bristles in the air, a dare.
Like the men in my own family, Noctus wears his emotions in his eyes, and his anger smolders like an ashen pit. As if he can’t stop himself, he finally mutters, “is that what we do now? Defend Loveras, turn against our own? Back in the old days, you would have—”
“Back in the old days, I would have already had your tongue out of your mouth for questioning me. And it’s only my love for you that keeps it there now,” Salvatore interrupts.
Noctus has the grace to look away, ashamed.
“If you threaten Contessa Lovera, you’ll get back twice what you planned for her. She’ll be one of our own within a month, and you need to be sharp. I have a wedding to plan, and you have a war to fight.”
My stomach lurches.
Silence rings through the room.
My father always said people thought gangsters warred over money and drugs. In reality: respect, pride, legacy—those principles are the actual currency of the lifestyle.
It’s one thing to take shots at a rival family. Blood will spill. People will be killed over invisible lines and crooked politicians; that is inevitable in family business from time to time.
But to take a don’s daughter from her family, to erase her last name, bed her, strip her of her dignity and give her children with the last name and blood of the enemy. . .there is no greater offense. Salvatore couldn’t do as much damage to my father if he had a whole army at his disposal.
Noctus stands, silenced by the revelation.
When he looks at me again, he sees something different—the first live round of war being shot across a battlefield.
He ducks his head, avoiding eye contact like a dog backing down from a fight.
“I didn’t mean to question you, sir.”
“Well, it would be dangerously stupid if you did,” Salvatore says, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Spread the word to the others and find Leo. Have him bring the car around.”
Noctus nods as the tread of his boots fades down the hallway.
Salvatore’s grip becomes an iron vice around my arm before I can even scheme about escaping, and any hope I had is snuffed out like an ember again. He drags me toward the door and steps past Lance without acknowledgment.
I still wonder if he’ll be alright.
Outside, Salvatore is washed in neon light, all dark silhouette and sharp, bright edges. I can’t stop staring at him, my captor and my protector in one.
The silence grates between us, my thoughts buzzing in a frantic swarm until I can’t hold them all in anymore.
“You’re just like my father,” I finally say, crossing my arms over my indecency and shivering out in the 2-A.M. breeze. “Everything’s always this stupid balancing act between love and fear with men like you.”
Salvatore scoffs.
“You barely even know your father. You don’t know a man until you go to war with him.”
“…I did,” I say. “Maybe not with guns and henchmen, but I went to war with him in my own way. I know exactly what he is. What you are.”
Salvatore studies me, his gaze intense, as though he can see into me, through me. As if he can burn up all my bullshit in the heat of those eyes and see only the truth. I turn away first, my breath caught in my throat and my belly clenched tight.
“He always said you were insane,” I add.
I hear his chuckle, and then feel it, as the warm breath ghosts against my neck. He leans in, whispering his low words against my ear, “Brave talk for a little girl who can’t even look me in the eye.” I gasp as he drags his teeth up my neck, sucking angry marks beneath my ear. My defenses melt again. “And he was right.”
I want to pull away from him, but I can’t.
“Your father gave me this,” he says, scrubbing a thumb over his cheek, over the scar, “when I was barely more than a boy, before he bunkered down behind a desk. What’d he give you for challenging him? A spanking?”
I glance away, wielding my frigid silence against him.
There are no marks I can point to that show off the damage my father did to me.
They’re invisible, but they don’t feel old and faded the way Salvatore’s scar looks—just a faint, white memory of the past. One wrong move, and my wounds still bleed.
Headlights wash over us. Salvatore doesn’t let me walk barefoot in the lot. He scoops me effortlessly into his arms, carrying me like the bride he claims I am soon to be. As a rule, I dislike the princess treatment, but my belly flutters traitorously and without my permission. With my nose near his neck, I get a hint of his cologne—subtle and deep, accented by expensive whiskey and sweet cigars. I cannot stop thinking about how easily he can toss me around, how he must be all muscle beneath that dark suit. My hands itch to pull it off him and find out.
Maybe I’m the insane one.
I’ve been staring at him, gazing up at him, thoughtless and unguarded, my eyes tracing the faint white scar that highlights his cheek. I feel drunk, though the chaos killed my buzz a long time ago.
“Where are you taking me?”
Salvatore ignores me, like I’m a child asking stupid questions.
A dark Rolls-Royce stops in front of us, reflecting every light in its glossy shine. I grew up with my father’s wealth, had my car seat strapped in the back of armored Bentleys and Mercedes since I was a baby, but this level of luxury is new even for me. The driver opens the door for us.
“You’re driving,” Salvatore tells him.
It doesn’t surprise me that Salvatore usually drives even if he doesn’t have to. He seems like a man who always wants to be in control. But now, he has something else to be in control of—me. Instead of taking the wheel, Salvatore sprawls me across his lap in the backseat. It’s like he really can’t stop touching me, can’t stop looking at me. I’m trying not to be flattered by his sudden obsession, but he’s making it difficult. He looks at me like he’s never seen another woman before. Plenty of men have stared at me, have wanted me. No one has ever looked at me like that.
If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend this isn’t just some power grab by a maniac with a blood vendetta.
“Don’t hide from me,” he says, in a voice used to giving orders. I realize my arm is still clamped tight over my breasts. He pries it away, refusing to let me cover myself. He helps himself to my body as though he already owns it, scrubbing a thumb against my exposed nipple just to watch it turn stiff and darker under his touch.
My hitched breathing fills the back of the car.
“Nobody takes care of you, do they?” He asks lowly as his hands take their fill. The fact that he can guess this so easily is mortifying. Embarrassment flares in my face and creeps down my neck. He can’t know how inexperienced I am. The shame will burn me alive from the inside out if he knows.
But my body betrays me, his softest, simplest touches setting wildfires of desire after a long, 23-year drought of being deemed untouchable . The don’s daughter. A pursuit too dangerous to be worth it. I grew up terrified of the damage I could cause to perfectly innocent people.
Even in my one and only relationship, no matter how much I teased him and tempted him, he refused, and even after I had left my father and his way of life behind, I feared what would happen if I ever crossed that line.
The coward.
But Salvatore isn’t afraid, and he puts his hands on me wherever he wants them.
I can’t bring myself to tell him to stop when all I want is more . I have the bizarre urge to tell him to stop playing nice, that I can take him.
I’m definitely the insane one. í.
The streetlights flicker across his face, casting him in half light, half shadow. When I first saw him, he didn’t seem real. A little too old for me, and a lot too dangerous. He has a touch of silver at his temples, and a strong jaw that I would guess rarely quirks into a smile. He is everything awful I crave in a man but have always been too ashamed to admit.
I’ve spent my whole life resenting men like him, denying the way they make me feel. But there is something about Salvatore—I can’t deny him. I can’t hide the way I want him, the things I want him to do to me.
My mind wants him to let me go; my body wants him to hold me tighter.
I am at war with myself and my own shame.
A light flares up in the dark. Sal lights a cigarette for himself, clenching it between his teeth. He offers me one.
“I haven’t smoked since I was 13,” I object. He holds it out regardless. I sigh and take it .
Screw it. Maybe it will help with the nerves. Or maybe I’ll just puke on him. I put it between my lips as he lights it for me, shielding the flame with his hand. There’s an old-school charm in it that I try to resist.
“You’re calmer than I thought you’d be,” he says, as I grimace around that first drag.
“This is the second time I’ve been kidnapped today,” I explain, blowing the smoke away from him. The cold rush of nicotine settles in my veins, helping ease me into this strange reality.
“It gets a little stale. Early bird gets the theatrics.”
“Kidnapped?”
I don’t bother clarifying, instead asking an offhand, “You don’t like Christmas music, do you?”
Suddenly, his fingers are on my jaw. I am forced to look at him, and there is no humor in his eyes when he asks, “Who kidnapped you?”
The possessiveness bleeds into his voice. Goosebumps prickle along my arms, a shudder running through me head to toe.
I shake him off, “No one. My friends, that’s all. It was a prank. A stupid prank.”
The tense line of Salvatore’s shoulders relaxes. He sighs through his nose. The fact that he jumped so quickly to fight—maybe both of us are too twisted up by this life to take a joke. I don’t understand why he cares. I’m not even sure cares is the right word. Insane , my thoughts whisper again, as if confirming it.
“They kidnapped me to bring me to the club.” I hesitate around the truth, but there’s no point in not telling him. “It was a surprise for my birthday.”
“Today?”
I nod, lifting the cigarette in a fake cheer.
“To me, and the end of my 24 years of successfully avoiding men like you.”
His smirk is wolfish as he looks me over, “Are you saying I’m not a good present?” He punctuates the question with a thumb scrubbing over my hip.
“I’m shocked your ego can fit in the back of this car,” I retort. The corner of his mouth only twitches, and I find it irresistible and maddening. I frown and look away from him. “You never answered about the Christmas music.”
“Can’t stand it.”
“Then congratulations, this is the best kidnapping I’ve had today.”
Salvatore studies me.
“You really don’t give a fuck, do you?” he asks.
“…I do,” I admit. “Of course I do. But I’ve spent my whole life dreading this day. My father made sure I grew up always looking over my shoulder. There’s a fucked-up kind of relief in it finally happening. You don’t have to worry about the bad guy getting you when he’s already got you. And unless you’re going to consider letting me out because I scream and throw a fit…”
“I don’t work like that,” he agrees.
“Then there’s nothing left to do, is there?”
My explanation doesn’t seem to satisfy him. He stares at me like I’m a child hiding the truth behind my back.
“What?” I finally demand, exasperated. “What do you want?”
“I want you to admit you enjoy it.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Your dad never taught you how to lie?”
“Shut up,” I finally snap at him, only for his huge hand to curl around my throat. My breath stutters, pulse pounding against his hard fingertips. I stare up at him, mouth open around a breath I can’t take. Just clenching my legs makes a constant, hungry pulse rocket through my belly. Want, want, want it sings as he holds me like that, like something he wants to break.
He sees what he wants in my face and lets me go.
“Fuck you,” I snarl at him, between breaths.
“Can you wait until we’re out of the car, princess?”
His confidence radiates. Nothing I can say will shame him. I shake my head and look away. He sees too much when I look at him.
“So, there’s some fight in you after all. Everyone says Contessa Lovera is a little lamb. No claws.”
“Is that what mafia bosses do? Sit around and gossip about little girls?”
“We keep tabs on our enemies, even the women, in case they grow up to be a problem.”
I glare out the window, sulking, my pride scalded.
“Being a problem was never my style,” I whisper hollowly, glaring into the dark at something more than the world just flashing by.
“Oh, you were a problem. Just not ours. And the more grief you caused your daddy, the better for the rest of us.”
“Stop it,” I whisper. I don’t want to hear about it anymore. Is that my reputation among mafia men? The daughter who wasn’t fit for the family? The one who couldn’t stomach it? “I told you I put all that behind me, I’m not going to relive it now. I got out of there, and I’m not—”
My eyes turn to the road ahead of us.
I am going back there, whether I like it or not.
I thought I made it out.
I finally have a life. Friends. I went to art school; I have my work hung in prestigious galleries. The fact that my father only nurtured my talent to launder his money on expensive art pieces, well—it only diminished my pride in my work a little.
“I always wondered how he fucked up on you so badly,” Salvatore continues, conversationally, pulling out and unraveling my deepest insecurities with the most casual, emotionless statements. “He had twenty years to turn you into one of us.”
“He tried,” I mutter.
Salvatore looks me over, and I know exactly what he sees— he failed .
From the time I was just a little girl, when I couldn’t get more impressionable, more vulnerable. He tried to toughen me up. He tried everything, everything in his power to get me to be like him. My soft heart was treated like a disease, a defect. Something that needed treatment and correction.
When he blamed my mother for it, he took her from me, too. I was only eight. She overdosed by the time I was twelve.
None of it helped me become his perfect ruthless little princess. Sometimes I fantasize about how much easier my life could have been if I had just been cruel. If I had that in me.
We smoke in silence for a while, two strangers with nothing more to say to each other. A light rain falls, drumming its fingers on the hood of the car. We ride along in a nightmare that feels like a dream.
I’m surprised that I’m not very afraid. Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe I’ve run out of emotions for the day, my spirit running on empty. I dread the chaos that will come of this, and I regret ever stepping foot in that club tonight, but I don’t fear him the way I should.
I think I’m more scared of myself than I am of him.
I wonder what my father will do when he finds out. Will Salvatore care if he doesn’t come after me? If he just abandons me here with him? Do I only appeal to the madman because he knows he shouldn’t have me? What happens to me then?
I block out the frantic swirl of my thoughts.
My father will fix this. He’ll come save me, somehow. He’s no hero, he’s not even a good man, but he’s still my father. He won’t just leave me; his pride won’t allow it. All I have to do is survive long enough for that to happen.
“You don’t have anything out there to miss, do you?” He asks suddenly, his keen question blooming in the dark.
The words are like a switchblade, quick and unexpected, slipping between my ribs and plucking right at my heart. It only hurts because it’s true. I don’t answer him. I just watch the world outside flicker by like old, washed-out film. The silence is enough.
“Good,” he says, the pleasure rumbling in his deep voice. His fingers knot in my hair, pulling my scalp taut to draw my eyes up to his—just enough that it almost aches. We stare into each other’s faces, burning in each other’s heat. My anger meets his ice. “With me, there’s no room for anything else.”
It’s not true.
I had everything. For the first time, I had normalcy. I didn’t have my father’s money or his power anymore, but I also didn’t have his shadow looming over me. I had a little apartment, a career, and a handful of normal friends—
I fight tears as Salvatore Mori takes them all from me, kissing me for the first time in the smoky back seat of the car. I have no desire to kiss him back, but that doesn’t matter—not with him. He kisses me as though he’s claiming my soul.
The car continues through the city, and my old life fades in the rearview mirror.