Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
Nero
I watch her disappear towards the stairs, and I’m tempted to sneak after her to find out if she’s going to Sebastian’s room or hers, but I take a drag of my cigarette and suffocate that feeling.
Turning away, I head in the direction of the home gym at the extreme wing of the house. I was doing so well with my plan to avoid Sofia, and then I ruined it in one fell swoop.
I don’t regret saving her tonight, but instead of running in like her knight in shining armor, I should have had one of the guards get her back or prevent her from leaving the gates in the first place. What was that idiot thinking, letting her leave without protection? Anything could have happened to her out there.
Why do you care? A small, vicious voice asks. Isn’t she supposed to be your enemy?
Biting out an irritated curse, I dig out my phone and click one of the numbers on my speed dial.
“Boss?”
“There’s a mess a short distance from the Lucchese house, in the direction of the park. Clean it up.”
“Discreetly?” Davide asks.
I let smoke curl up from my mouth. “Scrape his remains off the road and toss him in the nearest ditch you can find.”
“On it, boss.”
The line goes dead, but just before I can put my phone away, the screen lights up with an incoming call from Tony Guerra. He’s one of the allies I’ve managed to rope into my revenge plot. Even though Tony is loyal to me, he’s still as money-driven as every other mafia man, and the real money won’t start flowing until I’ve taken Sebastian’s throne of deceit.
“Castello,” he sounds annoyed. “I was talking with some of the other men today, and a bunch of them are still on the side of waiting around for you to reach out to us.”
I toss the lighted stick out of the window, and my hands tighten around the
phone.
“I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve changed your mind,” he hums. “Maybe you’ve remembered your family ties to Lucchese and you’re looking for an easy way to let the rest of us down?”
My jaw clenches and I try to keep my tone light. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“It’s been a week, more than enough time for you to get the layout of the land and make a move,” he bites out. “So, what the hell are you waiting for?”
I can lie to myself and say that things have been taking longer than I planned, or that security has been too tight, but the truth is far simpler and far more damning.
Avoiding her has only succeeded in making me think of her more often. She’s a distraction I didn’t plan for. I’m supposed to tear down this bloody Kingdom without a second thought, but every time I think about Sofia being left in the ruins of this life she has been forced into, small and fragile, and that lost look in her eyes, I hesitate.
“Give me some time.”
“There’s no more time. The men are losing faith.” Tony’s word is a warning. “For your sake and ours, I hope you get your head out of your ass and make a move.”
“For your sake, Tony,” I tell him, “I hope you won’t be stupid enough to ever speak to me like this again. I’ll give you a free pass because I can, but the next time, I’ll slice your tongue out of your mouth and force it down your own throat.”
He splutters.
“Tell the men that I’m taking my time because I don’t want to make a mistake.” Lies . “Everything is going according to plan.” More lies .
“Of course,” he agrees easily, and I hang up. And not a second too late because the door flies open, and Sebastian walks in, eyes flying around the room.
“Who were you talking to?” he asks.
I shrug and then grab boxing gloves, sliding them on and taping them up. “I forgot the best part about the city. The girls are insatiable.”
He lets out a booming laugh and then heads to the thread mill. “Tell me about it. I’ll have to live vicariously through the rest of you.”
I stare at him in surprise. “Don’t tell me that you are faithful to your little bride, now. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Sebastian snorts. “Of course not. Faithful to Sofia? My dick would have fallen off because of the chronic blue balls I would have gotten.”
I raise a brow at him and take a boxing stance. “She’s not so difficult to look at.”
That’s an underestimation. She’s the sexiest thing on the planet. With all of that smooth, pale skin and mass of luscious hair. The prim and proper clothes only make me curious about what she’s hiding under. The memory of her pert breasts outlined by the thin nightdress fills my head, and there’s a faint stirring southward.
“She’s okay, I guess,” he says, making a face then looking over at me, a sly light shining in his eyes. “Don’t tell me she’s caught your eye.”
I chuckle. “She’s not my type. Not really into mafia princesses.”
“You’ll like Vittoria then,” he laughs. “Wildest, most invigorating woman you’ll ever meet. She’s a beast in bed. Have you ever been with a woman who likes to take charge? It’s life changing.”
I think about it and immediately divest the thought. It doesn’t sound appealing in the least. I’m more into women who are so secure in their power to let me take control. There’s just something about a woman giving me all that trust.
I imagine Sofia staring up at me from her knees, waiting for me to take care of her, in much the same way she had stared at me earlier and trusted me to get her home.
She hadn’t looked back once to confirm if I was still there.
The things that woman does to me. And the best, or maybe the worst, part is that she has no idea about the power she yields.
“Who is this Vittoria?” I smirk at him. “She sounds delightful.”
“We’ve been together for years. And she’s a jealous, possessive fiend. She gave me hell when she found out about my marriage to Sofia. She’s got a nasty temper.” But he doesn’t sound unhappy about it. If I have to guess, I’ll say that that temper translates to the bedroom.
“If you’ve ever been with her, you’ll never look at Sofia the same,” he says, his face and mouth dragging down at the corners in annoyance.
My fingers curl into fists inside my gloves, and the next punch I land to the punching bag is vicious. I realize I’m angry on Sofia’s behalf. She spends her days being verbally abused by an asshole of a husband and his shitty family. She endures terrible sex from a man who doesn’t give two shits about her, and now she’s being talked about with such derision.
Can’t she catch a break?
The hypocrisy of it all catches up with me, and I shake my head, because I’m yet another person who’s planning to make her life more difficult.
“Vittoria will be back this weekend,” he says, turning off the thread mill and standing there, panting like someone who’s run a thousand miles when, in reality, he’s barely been going fifteen minutes. “I had to pay for her vacation to Korea to appease her after my wedding. I’m sure she’ll expect me to still grovel when she gets back.”
“You sound like you don’t mind.” I fix a smirk on my face.
“Not at all, if you catch my drift.” He winks, and I’ve never wanted to hit someone so badly.
Sebastian mops his face with a towel. “Have fun out here, but I think I’d rather get my cardio fix in a different way.”
His roaring laughter follows him out of the home gym, and as soon as he’s gone, I hurry to the thread mill and turn it on as fast as it can go. There’s tension lining my shoulders, and my head is throbbing with frustration.
Taking those two blondes to bed didn’t do anything at all. The satisfaction from my night with them only lasted long enough till my eyes had landed on her. The her that has gone from a small problem to a major catastrophe.
My legs and arms pump faster and faster as I run on the machine. Sweat pours down my face and back, but no matter how fast I go, I don’t succeed in escaping the thoughts in my head.
I slap my palm over the button, turning off the machine, and even before I’ve caught my breath, I click on Davide’s contact.
“Boss? What’s going on? Are you alright? Do we need to initiate emergency extraction?”
I chuckle bitterly because the truth is that I need to be taken off this mission. Unfortunately, I’m the major part of the mission.
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “I need you to get eyes on a Vittoria, she’s apparently Sebastian’s mistress and will be flying in from Korea this weekend. I want twenty-four-seven surveillance on her.”
“Will she be a threat?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m not taking chances. She seems to have a lot of power over Sebastian.”
I recall his words about a woman who likes to take charge and frown. “Even if it turns out to be nothing, it won’t hurt to have her as a bargaining chip if all of this goes to shit.”
He pauses. “Is there a possibility that it will, boss?”
“Not from my own end,” I admit, “but some of the men are getting impatient.”
“We have eyes on them. We’ll be the first to know if any of them decides to betray us.”
I shut my eyes and sigh. I didn’t want to have to monitor my own partners, but in our world, blind trust is one of the deadliest mistakes anyone can ever make, followed by becoming attached to the wife of your enemy.
“Keep me updated,” I tell him, then end the call.
Most of the lights in the house have been turned off, but I’m too familiar with the house to be bothered by navigating it in the dark. I easily make my way to my room and take a shower, washing away all traces of blood and sweat and lying to myself that I’ll slip right into my bed after my shower.
“I’m not going there for her,” I say as I roughly towel dry my hair after the shower.
Yellow eyes blink at me, and I can swear that the cat is judging me. The little shit is always judging me.
“I’m going to toss you out the window one of these days.”
His only response is a drawn-out meow, and then he turns around and curls up into a ball in the very center of the bed, ignoring me. Why I still keep the cat, I have no idea.
I drag on a dark Henley and dark jeans and dig my almost empty pack of cigarettes into my pocket before leaving my room. I walk past Sofia’s room on my way to the greenhouse and spot light spilling out from under the door.
She’s awake.
I don’t want to think too long about the pleasure that warms my chest at that discovery. Maybe I’m as curious of her as she is of me. It’s just curiosity, no big deal.
I push into the greenhouse and settle into one of the stone benches. From my position, I can see that the roses are beginning to droop a little, and I wonder if Sofia will be sad about that.
I don’t care .
But hours later, when it becomes clear that she’s not coming, I admit to myself that I might care just the tiniest bit.