Chapter Thirteen Raffa
Chapter Thirteen
Raffa
When I went downstairs the next morning after a sleepless night, I was surprised to see Guinevere already awake and sparring with Ludo outside the kitchen window as I made an espresso.
The gunshot wound had been a through and through without hitting any major organs, but he still had his side wrapped, and he was moving carefully to protect his left torso.
It was not his first bullet, and it would not be his last. It was impossible to expect Ludo or any of my soldati to take any kind of bed rest unless they were unconscious or unable to walk.
“They do that every day,” Carmine said as he trailed into the kitchen in an immaculate three-piece suit. Even I did not dress so formally at the villa, instead wearing trousers and a thin cashmere sweater the same color as the Chianti wine we had drunk last night.
I watched as Guinevere ducked under one of Ludo’s meaty fists and planted a jab to his kidney.
Even though I could not hear them, I could see Ludo laugh and give her a fist bump at the move.
Beginning a new sequence, he seemed to be teaching her to climb a bigger opponent by bracing a foot on his thigh to get enough height to land a hit to his face.
“She mentioned she had taken some MMA classes in Michigan, but she seems proficient,” I admitted as heat kindled in my gut.
She was fierce as hell in black spandex, taking on my soldato like she had been born to do it. Even though she was slight, she was quick, easily evading the bigger man’s slower movements.
“Saw you have a tiff on the dance floor last night. Everything okay?”
I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my face before shooting him a look. “Why is it never easy with women?”
Carmine guffawed. “You find the answer to that question, you’d save a lot of men a lot of issues. Guinevere, though, well, you did it to yourself, boss. Should’ve been honest the moment you started to fall for her.”
“It took me by surprise. I was in love before I could guard against it.” I downed my espresso and turned away from the window. “Did you set up the meeting with Drita?”
“This afternoon at five,” he confirmed. “You wanna head out now? Leo asked me to tell you he went into Rome for a meeting for the Romano Group today, so he’s out.”
“Where are Renzo and Martina?”
Carmine pulled a face that made me chuckle.
“Go knock on their door,” I told him.
“I don’t want to be within sixty feet of my brother in bed naked with Martina,” he grumbled as he moved out of the kitchen to do as I asked.
I was still grinning when the front door crashed open and Guinevere darted inside, Ludo hot on her heels.
She cried out in an approximation of a warrior as she spun sharply, leg raised to deliver a kick to Ludo’s uninjured side.
Only, he was ready for it, and because of her short stature, it was all too easy for him to clasp her foot and hold it hostage in the air.
My chuckle made them both pause, gazes snapping to mine.
“Buongiorno, ragazzi,” I greeted them, crossing my arms as I leaned back against the counter.
“Oh,” Guinevere said before blowing an errant lock of hair out of her face from where it had escaped her ponytail. “Good morning, Raffa.”
“Boss,” Ludo grunted, still holding Guinevere’s foot.
“Let Vera go, Ludo. Ren, Martina, and I are heading out in twenty minutes, so you’ll need to be working from here today.”
He dropped her foot without a care, sliding out of her vicinity when she reached for him to balance herself. His faint snigger trailed after him as he climbed the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Guinevere asked, walking on her toes into the kitchen to pull a pitcher of water with lemon out of the fridge and pour herself a glass.
I watched, a little distracted, as she tipped her head back to gulp down the entire contents, her throat working the way it did when she swallowed around my cock.
“Firenze,” I said, clearing my throat with a rasp. “I have work in the city.”
She tilted her head, dashing the back of her hand over her wet mouth.
Cazzo, why was even that attractive?
“What kind of work?” she asked innocently enough, but there was calculation in those occhi di cerbiatta.
“The kind you do not want to hear about.”
She had made that clear enough last night.
Her small white teeth clamped into her plush bottom lip. “Will you come back?”
“No,” I said simply, because she knew why.
There was no way I could be in her orbit and not be drawn by the gravitational force of our shared attraction into kissing her, fucking her, loving her even more than I already did.
And I loved her enough that I felt it in my lungs with every breath I took.
“I’m coming with you,” she announced, throwing her shoulders back pugnaciously. “To Florence. I haven’t been back yet, and I would like to visit.”
I arched a brow. “I have work in the city. I will not be able to join you. With someone after me, and by extension you, I do not relish the idea of sending you off into the city alone.”
“I’ll wait while you do your business,” she offered hastily, and I had to wonder at her angle here.
Did she want to go into the city that badly, or was she reluctant to see me go?
“We leave in twenty minutes,” I said, against my better judgment. “Will you be ready?”
In answer, she ran to me, raised to her toes to press a kiss to the hinge of my jaw, and whispered, “Thank you,” before she darted up the stairs.
I pressed my fingers to the place her lips had touched and shook my head.
It was almost impossible to keep my hands off Guinevere on the train to Florence.
She was dressed in uncharacteristic black, a tight pair of trousers that tucked into black Ferragamo riding boots she’d borrowed from Delfina and a silk shirt that closed in a series of red ribbons from between her breasts to the bottom of her belly.
I wanted to rip those bows open with one flick of my fingers, lay her out on the table in the first-class train car, and feast on her again until this rapacious hunger in my gut slackened.
We were only taking the train because of Guinevere, who had told Renzo and Carmine train travel was one of her favorite things.
Peaceful, she’d said wistfully while we waited for Ludo to bring the car around for us.
A quick change of plans, and Ludo was dropping us off at the local train station.
The look of delight on Guinevere’s face was more than enough to warrant the irritation of traveling by train. Which did not help the aforementioned problem of keeping my hands off her, even though our relationship seemed to have hit an impasse.
Fortunately, we were surrounded by people, including Martina, Carmine, and Renzo.
Carm was trying to help Guinevere improve on tresette, a complicated Italian card game, with the other two while I took calls and responded to the dozens of emails I had not seen to yesterday because of the harvest celebrations.
One of the calls was to the deputy director of the DIA, Sansone Pucci.
“Signor Romano,” he answered. “What can I do for you? Ready to come in and confess all your sins?”
“Are you a priest now, Pucci? I have to say, you might be better suited for it. After all, I heard the Greco clan was given to you on a shiny platter and not thanks to your own sterling police work.”
The pause was ripe with fury.
“What do you want?” he repeated.
“Merely a favor,” I corrected mildly. “No, it is not illegal. I just want you to look into someone for me.”
It was annoying that our search had come to this, but I had to use every resource at my disposal.
“Have you heard of a mafioso who calls himself the Venetian?”
Sansone scoffed. “You gangsters and your monikers. No, I have not.”
“Keep an ear to the ground,” I suggested. “He has been ruffling feathers for some of my father’s old associates.”
There was a note of interest when he replied, “I will. Does this have anything to do with the Greco case?”
“It could,” I said, unwilling to spoon-feed him the intel. “Look into it and let me know if you find anything of note.”
I hung up without saying another word, but I knew I would hear from him after he conducted his own investigation. Now that Sansone could confirm I was a potential tap for inside information, he would not be able to resist getting my input.
“It seems dangerous to use the police,” Guinevere murmured as the train pulled to a stop at the Santa Maria Novella station in Firenze. “Why bother?”
“Raffa likes to live on the edge,” Carmine quipped as we stood to get off the train.
“Do you really want to hear about this?” I asked Guinevere. “Perhaps it is simpler if you stay removed, given where our . . . friendship stands.”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and looked almost shyly up at me as she said, “I would like to know more about your . . . business, if you trust me enough to tell me.”
“There is a reason to every aspect of my madness,” I told her after a deliberative pause.
There could be no harm in her knowing more about the outfit. She may not have wanted to be my Regina Inferna, but there was no path in Guinevere’s future where she would ever betray me or mine. This I was willing to bank my life on.
I let Renzo and Martina step in front of her, Carmine and me at her back.
“Most people believe I never recovered from my very public falling-out with my father. They believe I came back to Italy to set up shop after he died just to be close to my sisters and mother. Tonio and Leo run the Romano Group, and I do not even sit on the board of directors for the company. By all rights, I am completely removed from Aldo Romano’s ties to the Camorra. ”
“Did people know he was a capo?” she asked softly.
“Not really, but those who did suspect something did not suspect the same of me.” I shrugged. “Hush now. Such conversations can wait until we are in the car.”