Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Vita
“I killed your second cousin once removed who you met twice as a toddler.”
He radiates anger, so I try to rise from his cock and his lap. His arms become a vise.
“Oh, no you don’t. You don’t drop that little bomb and run away from the explosion. My family knew it was a hit, but no one knew why. What did he have to do with your brother?”
“He was a fucking sore loser in Monte Carlo. He thought he was James Bond at the baccarat table. My brother laughed at someone’s joke about the upcoming Grand Prix and how some driver needed to pray before hitting the Circuit de Monaco.
Rafael thought Filippo was laughing at him for his loss.
Apparently, my brother tried to smooth things over and even left the table.
But that wasn’t enough for Rafael. He followed my brother into a restroom and killed him.
Your piece of shit relative fled that night and went back to Colombia to hide.
Since there’s no specific extradition treaty, your government wouldn’t hand him over.
It could’ve fallen under the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
Neither country wanted the attention. Turns out, neither did I. ”
I don’t disguise the disdain I feel for Alejandro’s relative. He got what he motherfucking deserved.
I sigh, waiting for Alejandro’s condemnation, waiting for the thin thread of trust we created to snap.
Instead, he runs one hand up and down my back while the other sweeps up and down my leg from knee to hip.
He strokes over my ass, and it’s insanely soothing.
My anger isn’t gone. It never is when I think about how I became an only child.
It settles into the pit of my stomach where it can quietly fester.
“Is that why you accepted this assignment? Because I’m Raf’s relative?”
“No. That was about the money and the accomplishment.”
“What was I to you? Your white rhino?”
“Something like that.”
“You’d never be able to claim the clout in public.”
“I don’t need to. Private satisfaction is stronger than public validation for me.”
God, how I wanted to scream from the rooftops when I took out those two murderers.
How I wanted people to know they better stay the fuck away from my family.
The Romans invented the word vendetta.
The modern Italians perfected it.
I’m unprepared for him to lift his chin and sit forward to kiss me. It’s so tender. I don’t know what to do other than return the affection.
“Chiquita, I’m sorry someone in my family wronged you and yours.
Nothing about your story surprises me. He’s barely missed.
Tío Enrique didn’t even go to the funeral.
Rafael was Tío Enrique’s extended family through marriage, but he’d normally attend for Papá’s sake.
They’ve been friends since high school. My tío didn’t even glance at his calendar to see if he was free before saying he was too busy. ”
I feel marginally better, but who knows what Alejandro’s parents will think when they find out. Maybe his father was close to his second cousin.
“Thank you for understanding.”
What else do I say?
“Why did you accept this job?”
“Honestly? Besides the money and knowing I could take out a Diaz without anyone stopping me, I was curious to see you.”
“See me? There are photos of me online.”
“Yeah, some shitty ones from public events. You have next to no social media, and what you do have are profile shots of you at sporting events. It’s just enough to make you look normal without giving away anything about your life.”
“And you have an active social life online?”
“More than you. I hide in plain sight.”
“What did you want to see about me?”
I suck my lips in between my teeth. My cheeks heat, and I try not to laugh as I gaze down at his uncovered abs and pecs.
“I wanted to see if you’re as hot as people claim. Like untouchable hotness.”
“And?”
“And what?”
We’re back to tormenting each other. It lifts a crushing weight off me that’s threatened to flatten me since I agreed to tell him the truth.
“We both know I’m very touchable for you. Am I hot?” He waggles his eyebrows at me.
“Egotistical.”
“Because I’m hot enough to be proud of it?”
“Arrogant.”
“My mother says charming.”
“She does not! There is no way she finds your arrogance charming.”
“Because I hide that and only show her my best manners.”
I laugh hard enough to snort. He groans when my cunt contracts around him. We freeze as desire courses through us. We fight to ignore our urge to move, our need to get off.
“Seriously, chiquita. You said you don’t know who hired you, but you have to have some hypothesis. You wouldn’t take the job if it wasn’t someone you could trust even a little.”
“I’ve ruled out the families here and the Cosa Nostra in Chicago and Boston. But it could be anywhere with a cartel presence. Your family is the Cartel, so you have more enemies than most. It could be Triad or the Golden Triangle. But I suspect they’re European not Asian.”
He tilts his head back and exhales a heavy sigh.
“It’s either your family or the Torettas.”
“Why them?”
“Because they’re in a feud with Jorge’s fiancée’s brother-in-law’s family.”
“What?” And this is why I gave up trying to create family trees for these fucking orchards.
“Anneliese’s new brother-in-law is connected to the Camorra branch in Germany.”
“And they’re allied with the ’Ndrangheta. The four Mafias are in a proxy war funded by the bratva and mob here in New York.”
“Yup.” His tone’s sarcastic, but his expression’s resigned.
“Couldn’t the Kutsenkos or O’Rourkes have put the hit on you?”
“No. Definitely not. We might wind up killing each other in a fight one of these days, but no one in a leading family is putting a hit on a member of another leading family. It’d be Cold War level MAD.
No family would survive that mutually assured destruction.
It’s in no one’s best interest to spill that much blood.
It’s messy. It draws too much attention, and the potential power vacuum will invite pretenders to the throne.
Death by accident is fine. Death by hire is not. We have lines we won’t cross.”
“Scrupulous syndicates. I doubt anyone would ever believe me.”
“You know our ethics are situational in the outside world. In ours, they’re absolute.
The rest of the world believes we’re—at best—morally gray.
You know our morals are fucking crystal clear among us.
We all take oaths that are basically the same regardless of the language or motherland.
It’s how we keep each other in check. The bratva and mob might not stop an outsider from killing me, but they wouldn’t hire someone to do it. ”
“Because of all that politics or because they know your mother?”
I jest, but he looks me dead in the eye.
“Mamá. And she doesn’t travel alone.”
He warned me about the women in the Four Families, but his reaction is chilling.
What the fuck will she do to me when she finds out?
“Chica, I can read lips just like I suspect you can. You didn’t keep that thought to yourself. She’d be more pissed than a shaken hive if she met you without me. But once she knows I’ve accepted you and that I won’t give you up, she’ll understand.”
He won’t give me up?
That sounds like a declaration of love from a man like Alejandro. The men in his family might have subs, but they don’t keep mistresses.
He already said I won’t be his sub, and I doubt he’ll become the first to have a mistress.
“Chica.”
“Hmm?”
“The gears are spinning hard enough to put out steam. Do you really think you’re sitting on my dick because we’re just fuck buddies for a few days?”
“Nooo.”
I draw out the syllable because I know that’s the expected answer, but I’m not convinced it’s true.
“Vita, you might already be part of this world, but you aren’t part of my family.
Yet I’ve told you things about my family’s past. I let you get close to my cousin rather than just our men.
I brought you to a safehouse rather than giving you a plane ticket.
I stayed in this safehouse knowing you might still try to kill me.
You said it yourself. I’m hot. If all I wanted was pussy, I wouldn’t go after the one belonging to a woman paid to kill me. ”
“Maybe you have a God complex. Maybe you’re a narcissist or a megalomaniac. Maybe you believe your size is enough to stop me.”
I don’t believe any of those things.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You wouldn’t have told me about your past or your family if I was just a guy to fuck and forget. Why do you think the sex is so good? Because we’re both hot? Hardly. You know it, and I know it.”
“What the hell are we supposed to know?”
“You already claimed me. You said I was all yours.”
“During sex.”
“Don’t lie.”
Do I want this?
Yes, but—
Your family will never accept this. You’d turn against them for what?
A chance at happiness.
More like a chance this’ll fucking explode in your face and leave you with nothing.
“I’m not.”
His hands grip my ass like steel claws. In a weaker person, it would be excruciating. He’s not careless. He knows what I can manage. He brings our lips together, and I don’t stop him when he practically swallows me whole.
I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
He doesn’t relent, not even when I give in and let him take control. With an arm around my waist, he flips us, so I’m lying on the sofa.
“If sex is all I’m good for…”
He thrusts into me over and over.
“Daddy, please!”
His smile is pure sin.
“Now you remember. You’d never call me that if this was just about getting off. You have two hands and a vibrator for that. I liked the purple.”
Of course, he found that when he searched my room. I was mortified but said nothing. There was no point. He couldn’t unfind it.