Chapter Eight
Vito
‘Do you wish me to carry her to the plane, padrino?’ Lorenzo murmured softly in Italian through the car’s partition.
I shook my head, my gaze fixed on the woman beside me as the car stopped in the airport hangar, where my private jet stood fuelled and waiting to fly us back to Naples. From there we could travel by helicopter to Isla Donna.
‘No, I will do that.’ Because no man touches her but me.
I did not voice the thought. Lorenzo did not require an explanation to obey me. Unlike the woman who had consumed my thoughts for months now. Ever since I had recovered from the gunshot wound which had nearly killed me.
I had lied to Mia about the severity of the injury.
It should have been no more than a scratch.
But fighting off Dante and the small army he had brought with him that night had taken precedent over everything else.
As a result, I had lost more blood than I could afford to lose by the time I had received medical attention.
Add to that an infection which had lasted weeks, and my recovery, once we had secured the estate, had been frustratingly slow.
Dante had gone to ground now, but once he reappeared, I would kill him.
What other choice had he left me—now he had challenged my rule of the Rocco empire so openly?
When Dante had chosen to attack us, the feelings I had for that boy, my half brother—who had once followed me around like an eager puppy, before our father discarded him so brutally—had died.
But as I had lain in seclusion on Isla Donna, my body wracked by fever, directing the business from my sickbed while my consigliere kept news of my condition secret—feeling weaker than I had as a boy after a beating from my stepfather—my mind had drifted too many times to the other events of that night, before the bullets had started to fly.
Lorenzo had got Mia out of Italy before anyone had identified her as I had ordered him to do…
Seeing her so vulnerable, terrified and naked in my bed as the bullets rained around us, missing her by millimetres, had affected me in a way I had not expected.
Violence and death were a hazard of my profession which I had accepted long ago—not just for myself, but for anyone connected to me.
Except I had not been so accepting that night with her…
Which was why I had been determined never to see her again.
She was artless, innocent, a tourist, with no clue who I was.
And no understanding of the omertà that bound my family and my men.
But why then had I been unable to forget her?
She was just another of the many, many women who had warmed my bed.
Perhaps it was the delirium, the night sweats which I had endured in the early weeks after the gun battle.
Or even those titanic orgasms—our insane chemistry, the scent of her arousal haunting my dreams and waking me heavy with need.
Even my doctor had commented on the fact that in the throes of the fever I had mumbled her name, while my cock remained impressively hard.
The man had thought it a sign of my virility. Me, not so much.
Even after four long months, when I was finally recovered enough to resume full control of the Rocco Syndicate and begin hunting down Dante and his men, I continued to dream of her, constantly, forced to take myself in hand most nights to fall into a fitful sleep.
Eventually I had conceded Mia was a distraction I could not afford. Losing focus was dangerous to me and my men—not to mention my business interests. But the only way to free myself from this obsession was to get her out of my system.
Our one night had been cut short too soon, that was all.
I still had the sultry taste of her on my tongue.
I still yearned to feel her clenching around my cock.
Once I had ridden her hard and long, the hold she had over me would be gone.
Only then would I be free of this addiction, free to concentrate again on the only thing that mattered in my life—ensuring the empire I controlled continued to thrive, and I put an end to any threat from my half brother.
So I had arranged a clandestine flight to London to see her one last time.
But of course, when she walked into her kitchen, and I saw her condition, the damn obsession had become turbo-charged. Mia had taken a piece of me with her. A piece which I would never knowingly abandon. Any more than I could now abandon her.
As the mother of my child, she would be a target.
That she had not contacted me and told me of the pregnancy—and demanded my protection—infuriated me.
Her resistance had left me with no choice but to bind her wrists and ankles.
I had not intended to hurt her—but the sight of her raw skin had triggered something I had buried a long time ago…
the brutal image of my mother bruised and bleeding, her eyes tired, her spirit broken, just before she had taken her own life.
My gaze drifted over the mound of Mia’s belly, and those full breasts.
The spike of lust, the brutal blow of memory and the possessive fury tangled into a knot in my stomach.
I decided once we were on Isla Donna, I must make Mia submit to me, to force her to accept I controlled her future now.
Any threats against me could threaten her now too, and our child—and I would not allow her na?veté to put either herself or the baby in jeopardy.
I climbed out of the car, spoke briefly to Lorenzo—instructing him to inform the pilot not to initiate take off until our passenger was secured aboard the plane—and walked around the car to open Mia’s door.
Then the hollow ache appeared in my chest. The ache from my childhood which I had destroyed, until that night in Naples when Mia had been shot at.
The ache I hated, because it made me feel weak, made me feel like that broken boy again who had been unable to protect his own mother.
I would have to destroy that ache. But Mia was mine now—the fierce attraction between us even stronger and more intense than ever.
Eventually I would tire of her, because no woman had ever held my attention for long. But until that happened, I would exploit that attraction.
I unstrapped her seat belt and lifted her as gently as I could so as not to wake her. My arms tightened around her as I strode to the jet.
She sighed and snuggled into my chest, her body becoming limp and pliant. The tidal wave of lust was joined by the swift wave of protectiveness.
It is only because she carries your child.
It meant nothing, I decided. I was not a soft man, given to sentimental emotions.
But even so, I found myself cradling her as I climbed the plane steps and walked to the bedroom at the back.
I placed her on the bed. She rolled over, her knees rising to her chest as if she were protecting our child—my child.
The hollow ache expanded as I noticed the marks on her wrists caused by the bindings when she tucked her hands under her cheek.
‘You should not have defied me, Mia,’ I murmured.
I grabbed a couple of silk ties from the wardrobe of suits I kept on the plane and returned to the bed. Holding her bare foot, I wrapped the silk around her ankle and secured it to the bed. Then I took the other tie and secured one hand as loosely as I could to the top of the frame.
I stared at her, lying there bound to my bed. But as well as the familiar heat, was the sense of something lost. I shook off the unfamiliar feeling of regret.
She must accept my dominance—just like everyone who had sworn allegiance to me. By going through with the pregnancy, she had made that choice.
I walked out of the cabin and locked the door. If she started to yell, no one would listen. And she would not be able to hurt herself secured to the bed.
She would be mad when she woke. But there would be time enough to address her attitude problem once we arrived on Isla Donna.
Desire surged into my cock at the thought of the battles ahead.
But as my body heated, I forced the coldness into my heart to destroy that hollow ache. The same coldness which had kept me alive as a boy and eventually made me as ruthless and successful as my father. My true father, Don Salvatore Rocco.
The man my mother had thought she was saving me from when she had run from the Rocco family. Just as Mia had attempted to do when she kept her pregnancy a secret from me. I let my anger at that decision return to destroy the pointless regret.
My father had been my salvation. Just as I would be my child’s.
I owed it to Salvatore Rocco and to my legacy—not to mention that beaten, terrified boy—never to allow what was mine to be threatened.
And that included Mia now. And our baby, whether she liked it or not.
I would be the victor. Because unlike my father, I would never make the mistake he had—of trusting anyone too much, least of all a woman.
And certainly not a woman who had already betrayed me once by not informing me she carried my child.