Cage of Thorns and Blood (Shattered Ever After Book 3)

1. Matteo

The manin front of me is a gibbering, sniveling wreck. He should be. This piece of shit touched what is mine.

“You want me to cut his hands off, boss?” Silvio asks.

“No. Just his pinky finger. If he goes near her again, he’ll lose more.”

The man starts to cry. Cry, for fucks sake. It’s only a fucking finger.

“If you keep this up, I’ll change my mind and cut off something far more valuable,” I mutter. “Stop sniveling like a kid; you’re being annoying.”

“I didn’t know she was your girl,” he says.

Girl.She’s not a girl. Renata Andretti is all woman.

She’s also technically not mine, as in she doesn’t know she belongs to me. The facts don’t change, though, just because she’s unaware that she’s tied to me.

I leave Silvio to do the dirty work and head out of the basement and up the stairs of the Mancini mansion. The place is different now to the last time Renata was here.

She hasn”t stepped foot in this house since my eighteenth birthday. Then it was full of glitz and gold. Now, it’s modern, airy, and spacious. All clean lines and elegant design. I paid a fuck ton of money to have the gold ripped out.

My father and his brother, Aldo, had the worst taste. Since I took over as boss of the organization, Clifford now the underboss, we’ve changed a lot.

Clifford wasn’t close to his father, Aldo, because the patriarch was old school, and Clifford likes men. His father would never accept that, so he never really got to be close to his son. Clifford might like men, but he’s the hardest, most ruthless fucker I’ve ever come across. So long as he’s happy to put the fear of God into our enemies, I don’t care where he sticks his dick.

As for me, my father forced me to marry a woman I never wanted. Francesca DeLuca. It was a marriage of convenience, nothing more. I had my women on the side, and she had her platinum credit card, and we were both content enough.

I glance at the picture of her on the hallway table. I don’t think about her often. Is that fucked up? I lived with her for years, and she died right here in this house, and yet, I go days without casting a glance at her picture. Is she up in heaven right now looking down on me and judging me? If she is, I doubt she judges me as I’m no different than her. She married me for the kudos and not much else.

Voices drift to me from the large living room, so I head that way. Inside are Clifford and his right hand man, Vlad. Vlad isn’t Italian, obviously, but he’s deranged and violent and does what we tell him to. He fits right in. To Clifford, he’s like family. Sometimes, I wonder if they’ve fucked, but Vlad has a girl, so I guess not. It’s just that Clifford sometimes looks at Vlad like he wants to eat him for dessert.

“Cousin,” Clifford says in his deep voice.

I nod at him.

“Who is being interrogated? Is it to do with the missing shipment?” He takes a box out of his pocket and pulls a gold tooth pick out of it, then goes to work on one of his back teeth.

I look away in distaste. “No. It’s not business at all.”

“Oh?” He clicks the box shut, and I look at him to catch the deep furrow between his brows.

“No. He touched something that is mine.”

“But not a business something? I didn’t know you had a personal something.”

I shrug. “I don’t exactly have her yet, but I will.”

“Who?” His brow cocks in suspicion.

I might as well tell him. If my plans go accordingly, she’ll be living in this house sooner rather than later. “Renata Andretti.”

“Andretti? You want an Andretti bitch to be all up in our business?” He barks out a laugh. “Fuck you, cuz; who is she really?”

I sigh and head to the bar in the corner of the room and pour myself a drink. I hold the bottle up to Clifford, but he shakes his head.

Taking a seat on the sofa, I let the glass dangle from my fingertips as I watch the amber liquid swirling inside. “I don’t have anything to say about your personal life, do I?” I ask him pointedly. “I’d like the same courtesy.”

“Yeah, but, Teo, I’m hardly mixing with the enemy, am I?”

Teo. The name my family calls me. The name only those closest to me ever get to use. Renata never did. We had to keep our relationship a secret then. Now? Once I have her here with me? We won’t have to.

“I’m going to use her to my own ends.”

He laughs. “Yeah right.”

“What?” I clench my jaw.

“Just that if you’re thinking about her to the point of planning on bringing her here, well in advance of actually having her here, then you’re nowhere near as in control of this situation as you think you are.”

I scoff, “Don’t doubt my level of control when it comes to her. I’ve been watching her for a long time.”

“You have?” He comes and sits opposite me, and his face is a map of consternation.

I get it, his concern. Our families are ancient enemies, and she was the one girl who broke my heart. What good could ever come of tangling with her again?

Except vengeance … for me. Making her mine then breaking her apart if I so choose. Or keeping her.

“I need to do this.”

“Why, what gives? You haven”t seen her since your eighteenth birthday, right? She saw you with Francesca, left your birthday present in the crapper, and ran away. Then you learned she fucked your best friend. What is there to do? Why the fuck now?”

“I saw her. A while ago. In a karaoke bar. The night I went to meet Vinny, and he never showed.”

“Ah yeah, cause he’d got his throat slit.” Clifford smirks as if Vinny getting a smile from ear to ear is funny. “Is that the night you mean?”

“Yes, then. Anyway, I had waited a long time for him and had settled into a corner with a drink. Just as I figured he wasn’t coming and was about to leave, I saw Jill. She was Renata’s best friend when they were younger. Seems she still is, as not long after I spotted Jill, Renata arrived. She was fucking beautiful. Way more than she was when we were kids.”

“I recall everyone thought she was pretty hot back then.” Clifford crosses his legs.

“This much is true. You obviously know she and I had a bit of a thing. My father hated her family and would have lost his mind if he’d known.”

“Your father would have been pissed; mine would have killed you. I say with all sincerity that Aldo would have taken your balls for that.”

I snort. “Yes, quite. You understand then why I had to play along with the family. Pretend that I was happy to be dating Francesca. I wanted Renata to be mine, and I had to keep us secret for that to happen.”

“We never really talked about it. One minute you and her were sneaking around, all hot and heavy, and then I never heard about her again, after she fucked Duncan. Until now. I don’t get it, though. You were both young, shit happened. Why are you still bent out of shape so badly that you want to use her in some sort of fucked up plan?”

I take a long sip of the scotch and relish the burn as it slides smoothly down my throat. “She came to my eighteenth birthday party, saw me with Francesca, and assumed the worst. Never fucking gave me a chance to explain. A she fucked the bathroom to hell.”

I recall the guilt I felt when I found her discarded gift to me. Guilt that didn’t last long once she hopped into bed with my supposed best friend.

“She fucked Duncan,” I say. “You have to understand how much that hurt me.”

“Well, shit. Talk about a low blow for sure, but come on. It was years ago.”

“Yeah. And? She fucked me over and came between me and a good friend. For a while I was focused on making her pay, but then life happened. Aldo got sick, and Alberto was getting weaker. We lost Bianca.” I sip at the drink again. “I never had the chance to truly teach Renata Andretti an important lesson. I also hate that her fuck face brother threatened your sister before she died.”

Clifford crosses himself at the mention of his sister and her tragic end.

“You and I had to step up at far younger ages than most in this life, and I lay the blame for some of that firmly at the Andrettis feet.” Still, he gives me no response. “We were running things long before most were aware that we were,” I add. “Your father was a broken man after what happened to Bianca.”

He sighs. “Bianca’s death was due to her cheating and her husband, not the Andrettis.”

“They set the entire thing in motion when Nico sent that fucking attack dog of his, James, to visit her and threaten her. Whatever, they’ve been a thorn in our fucking sides for ages. This way, we teach them a lesson.”

He nods, but his face is impassive, a mask. It’s an expression he wears when he doesn’t want to tell a person to get a fucking grip. I can tell he thinks I’m crazy for getting all bent out of shape over Renata again.

“It was a fucked-up time,” I say defensively. “As for the past. I owe that bitch. Yes, I got over what she did, on the surface. I married Francesca as an alliance with the DeLucas was right for our family. Renata was sent away. I slowly stopped thinking about her, until I saw her again. And fuck me, Clifford, she was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“More beautiful than your Daytona?” Vlad quips from the corner of the room.

I had forgotten he was here listening to me bleeding my guts all over the floor. Marvelous.

I shoot him the finger, and he and Clifford both chuckle.

“More beautiful than anything,” I clarify. “I want her, and if either of you get in my way, we’ll have an issue.”

“Like for a night?” Vlad asks, a frown divot between his heavy brows. “You want to fuck her, yes? Then leave her like the nothing she is?”

Vlad has the forehead and brows of a neanderthal. I swear you could place his face on the body of one of those mockups of caveman in the natural history museum and no one would notice.

“No, not for a night.” I sip at the drink. “I’m not sure for how long yet. I want to own her. The way you like to own fine paintings, Cliff, or you collect extortionate watches, Vlad. What are you wearing today by the way?”

He glances at his wrist and turns it back and forth, as he admires the watch there. He tosses me a brand name I recognize, and I smile. “So what, about twenty thousand dollars’ worth on your wrist today?”

“Yeah.” He strokes the watch. “Not getting what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that you like to own pretty watches, and you put a lot of effort into that. Well, I want to own just one pretty woman. Leave me alone in peace to do that.”

“Jesus Christ,” Clifford mumbles. “Whatever. Do what you want in your personal life, but don’t let her pussy whip you or have access to our business information.”

“Oh, she’s going to get access to it, as will her family, but it will be the wrong information. And she’ll feed it back to her stupid parents and hopefully her brother. Then they’ll act on that information, and we can trap them in their own stupidity.”

“Wait, you want her, or you want to use her to fuck over her family?” Vlad asks. “This is two very different things.”

“Why not both?” I laugh. “You knew I was talking about doing something like this,” I say to Clifford.

“I didn’t think you meant dragging the Andretti girl here and keeping her as your sex slave.” He shrugs. “I thought you just meant feeding her and her family dodgy intel about us.”

“Hardly my sex slave if she comes of her own free will, is she?”

“It’s fucked up,” Vlad says with a shrug. “But it’s your life, boss.”

Yes, it is.

Clifford says nothing. He can’t point out how messed up it is as that would be the pot calling the kettle. Clifford likes his sex kinky and painful. Don”t want to think about the time I walked in on my cousin doing extremely kinky shit. I shake my head and sip some more drink.

“So just how hot is this woman?” Vlad asks.

“If you find out, you’ll regret it as I’ll have to kill you,” I inform him, only half joking.

The conversation descends into the usual banter until Vlad checks his watch and decides it is time for him to go home to his girl. A woman he met in Spain two years ago, and whom he loves deeply. Clifford leaves as well.

I fix myself another drink, carry it to the far end of the room, and slide open the doors leading to the pool area. The pool is covered for much of the year, but the sunroom overlooking the pool is always warm and bright. Thanks in part to the underfloor heating system I had put in place and the bright solar lights out on the patio, which always make it seem like a sunny day.

Taking a seat on the huge sectional, I bring up the photos of Renata I have saved on my phone. Most are from her socials. Some are from the investigator I’ve had following her.

There’s one of her on a beach. It’s from when she went on a trip with Cindy Andretti’s godmother. Cindy married Nico, Renata’s brother, and Renata seems to have become friendly with her godmother, Carol.

In the picture, Renata is wearing a red two-piece swimsuit, with gold ties at the ends of the string fastenings at her hips. It’s not a close-up, or a posed, filtered shot. It’s a paparazzi shot of Carol, the godmother, which also happens to include my principessa. Renata is not even mentioned in the caption. Why would she be? She’s not a socialite or a model. She’s way more beautiful than any of the women around her, though, even though many of them make a living from their looks.

I stare at her in her sexy red bikini and trace the curve of her hip. The fullness of her breasts comes next. Then I trace her pouty mouth, enlarging the picture until my finger is running around her lips, and I imagining myself pushing my finger into her mouth and her moaning and sucking on it.

Dropping my phone to the side, I let my head drop back against the couch as fantasies of what would happen next run through my mind.

Soon, if my plans go accordingly, she will be here with me.

I’m going to manipulate the situation in her family’s best interest, so they push her to date me. I’m intrigued to see whether or not she’ll betray me a second time by sharing the dodgy information I will be feeding her to feed to her family.

All the while, I’ll have her where I want her. With me. And the most beautiful part of it is she will be with me at her family’s insistence. Then, when she discovers it’s all a ruse, she’ll try to leave, but at that point, her options will be narrowed. She’ll have screwed over her family by giving them false information, and she’ll be very unsafe. Except with me.

She might hate it at first, but I have no doubts I can win her over. Her body at least.

Her mind … well, that might be a different matter entirely.