Chapter 7
Vivi
“THAT’S A LIE,” I called as he hit the threshold of the door. “You do want to kiss me.”
He stopped, while the burn of his stubble still stung my skin. Just as his rejection did.
“So what if it is, Vivienne?” He turned, scrubbing a hand over his sharp jaw, and then up to his hair, where his fingers tugged.
A moment ago, they did the same to mine.
He’d made my body hot, especially at the apex of my thighs, and I vividly remembered the heavy, thick length of his dick and how it rubbed.
“It’s only the first lie I’ve told tonight, but it won’t be the last.”
I pushed away from the wall, straightening my dress.
I don’t know why I wanted to fight for his soul.
Maybe it was his eyes—a deep blue coal—so intense, so hot, I was sure that under all of the pressure, his heart glittered like diamonds.
Or maybe because his darkness held the power to create shadows in my light, adding dimension to an otherwise flat existence, and I needed a new landscape.
But time counted down like the drops of the dirty fed’s blood.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
I only had minutes to stop him from taking the omertà, and he eyed me warily as I approached.
“The greatest lie Satan ever told was that evil doesn’t exist. The second is that our lives hold no value. You matter, Luca. You have a purpose and a future that isn’t fighting the Cosa Nostra’s war.”
“You sound just like Father Bernardi.”
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He sighed. “Stop with the fairytale shit, Vivienne. Do you need me to paint a picture as clear as those that surround you now? Seventeen. I was younger than you when I made my first kill. One shot between the eyes from a distance of 2,000 yards. A world record. My target fell, and I looked for another over years and with countless people. Do you honestly think I have a soul to save?”
I swallowed. “I don’t care what you have done in the past.”
“I do.” He came for me with a predatory motion.
Sleek frame. Broad shoulders. Dark eyes.
He pressed me back into the wall, hands coming up on either side of my face, caging me in.
Ominous and hulking, yet my heartbeat soared as I saw through his lie.
I saw the man and his soft lips. The tenderness in his gaze when it stroked over me.
I heard his gentle tone and felt it like a caress.
This was a truth I’d never witnessed before, and I couldn’t let it go.
“There is always a choice. You don’t have to become a made man.”
His jaw clenched, rippling tension down his throat. “Believe me when I say I do.”
“Why?”
Something flashed in his eyes—something painful and sharp. But the corner of his lip tugged up. “You’re very persistent.”
“Stubborn. I hear that a lot. My worst personality flaw, I assure you.”
He thought for a moment, staring at my mouth. Then he shuddered, dragging his gaze back to mine. “I’m not the hero in your love story, Vivienne. I’m very much the villain. There are a million other men for you to save.”
“You’re the only one who makes my heart sing.”
“That’s because you’re eighteen. Give it time. The monsters will come crawling.”
Somehow, I knew he was the worst one. He’d break me. Yet my own inherent dark side reveled in the newfound awareness.
I wanted him to kiss me—rough, deep, and consuming.
I wanted his hand around my throat as his thumb pressed against my rioting pulse.
I wanted to fall to my knees and beg him to teach me, to touch me, as I fumbled with his zipper.
I wanted to inch closer and mold my body to his hard lines, feeling all of him, everywhere.
A breath shot from my lungs. I wasn’t strong enough to ask for what I wanted. Or what the ache between my thighs insisted I needed. Instead, in a decision that shook through my fingers, I stroked his scar. I did it again when he let out a rough sound of pleasure.
“Please don’t take this vow,” I begged. “Think about who you are.”
He froze. The hand next to me tightened into a white knuckled fist. Then he blinked down with eyes as empty as a glacier in the arctic.
This was the man the soldiers revered, and Sofia wanted.
The ghost.
What had I done? What had he done that made redemption impossible? The question died in my throat as he shoved himself away from me with a snarl pulling at his lips.
“You mistake me for someone who cares for more than the job. Goodbye, Vivienne.”
“What? No—”
He turned, my hand reaching and my fingers slipping off fabric before it could grab hold of his jacket.
“Luca, wait!”
He didn’t listen, grazie a Dio (thank God).
Dante showed up just as Luca met the doorway, where he stopped and straightened his shoulders.
My brother motioned for him to leave with a sour expression, his gaze lingering on my hair hanging past my heaving breasts when it had been in a bun moments before.
“Did he try something?” he growled.
Acid stung my throat, and I closed my eyes where the darkness said the last hour didn’t happen. Yet the truth burned into me like permanent identification, a stroke of hands and lips rebuilding my soul into someone new. “No, he didn’t.”
Dante’s brow crunched into deep lines. “Did you?”
“Did I try to seduce Father’s prized recruit?” I laughed at the hypocrisy. Luca was everything I never wanted, and I practically threw myself at him anyway. Fool. “Don’t be silly. Neither of us crossed a line.” Lie. “I just don’t want him to take the vow.”
Dante chuckled.
“La mia dolce sorella, he’s already made—omertà or not. Some of us are born into the family, and some are drawn to the life. Luca Mancini had no choice in either. Come on, we only have a few minutes.”
He took my hand, leading me outside onto the veranda, where lights from the party danced shadows on the pavers.
My brother was just as bad as he was good, and he had a few vices.
At the top of the list were women and cigarettes.
He lit one now, the end flaming red as he pulled in a lungful of smoke.
All at once, he was Stefano, Vigo, and every other made man walking the earth, covered with the splatter of blood in dots under the stars.
But Dante’s kindness shone through his long exhale.
“You’re not all terrible people,” I said more to myself than to him.
“Jesus, Vivi. You like that guy? His face.” He made a slashing motion, and I glared him into silence. He still smiled, then took another hit.
“You should quit,” I said absently, while looking through the windows and into the blur of people enjoying the party.
“So you say every day. It’s under consideration. Back to Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding. He’s not right for you.”
I scoffed and pointed out one of the bleached blondes he’d disappeared with earlier. “And she is for you? Classy, Dante.”
“I didn’t say I wanted class, sorella. I’m too young to settle down, you are not. Choose your actions wisely, or Father will intervene.”
As he dropped his cigarette butt to the ground, my chin notched up.
He was years older than me and a foot taller.
Damn genetics. Damn mafia dictating when and who a woman should marry.
Luca wasn’t wrong. If he and I were ever caught in a compromising position, the direction of his life would change forever.
“I’d never force anyone, and I’m not choosing. I just…”
“Have feelings.”
“It’s not even that.” And it wasn’t. Luca was a stranger. I shook my head, wrapping my arms around myself to stave off the goosebumps even though heat and humidity clung to my skin. “It’s a feeling. I don’t know. I can’t understand it myself, let alone explain it to you.”
“Lucky, then, that there’s time for you to think, but the clock just ran out for these goons.”
Silence greeted us when we entered the ballroom.
I found Mama, and our hands locked as we stood side by side.
Dante took his place next to our father, Stefano, to his right.
Zio and the rest of the family filled in around the recruits who lined up in front of Vigo.
One by one, they kneeled, ancient words of fealty tumbling from their lips before kissing the ring.
The last soldier remained. Sleek frame. Broad shoulders. Dark eyes set squarely on mine. Air escaped my lungs. The intensity in his gaze was like staring at an eclipse—blinding and dangerous. But his focus shifted to the king when he kneeled to give the vow.
“You have my loyalty to the crown.” The strength of his voice was unmatched and resolute. Luca belonged to the mob. Then his hand rested on his chest to finish the pledge, and those dark, bottomless eyes flickered with wild flames. In that moment, I knew. I knew he wasn’t the ghost after all.
Something boiled beneath his surface—something hot, volatile, and passionate. Feelings that he hid from the world.
When it was over, he stood and turned.
I didn’t stop him. Not from taking the vow. Or leaving.
But this wasn’t over.
Stubborn as I was, I began thinking about how I could prove he cared—for more than the Cosa Nostra.