Chapter 14
Vivi
AN HOUR AFTER my father commanded an assassin to become my bodyguard, I was more prisoner than I’d ever been before. I resented the hell out of both men, cursing Luca when he showed up at my suite with a bag slung over his shoulder.
“This is not necessary.” I made a great exclamation to that statement by slamming the door.
His foot slid next to the jamb, and then he pushed into my home with sparks shooting from his eyes.
Another weapon to use against me. I spun on my heels, fiery butterflies tormenting my heart as he followed me in.
For God’s sake! I hung my head and pinched my nose.
I hated this man, but my body absolutely did not.
He sighed. “Turn around.”
I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I stood my ground, then edged over to the opened bottle of wine on the counter.
“Look at me, Vivienne.”
When the weight of his gaze became uncomfortable, I dragged my eyes from the Cabernet swirling in my glass to his legs spread a foot apart.
I drank him in as much as I swallowed a little salvation.
His black slacks were tailored perfectly to his thick thighs.
A belt looped around his waist, accentuating the subtle V-shape of his torso hidden beneath white cotton.
Luca was tall. I was not, so his trim physique dwarfed my petite build.
As much as I wanted to deny the attraction, it was there, zipping around my insides.
But he was one of them. The enemy. I reminded myself of that while finishing my wine.
More importantly, he didn’t want me. My brain understood he was off-limits, but the junction of my thighs had a completely different idea altogether.
Still, I lied in order to set the tone for this endless confinement.
“I don’t want you here.”
A derisive twist curled his lips. “You’re not part of my plan either.”
“Good, perfect,” I snapped. “We’ll tell my father to make security adjustments.”
His gaze flicked over my shoulder. “I’m fairly certain he’s aware of your preference.”
I turned, looking for whatever he alluded to. “What do you mean?”
He stalked by me, proceeding to search the furniture and fixtures, scanning the ceiling and exposed beams. It was a calculated sweep, and I stared at his shoulders flexing beneath his shirt as he moved into my room.
He stopped in what would become his en suite, where he dropped the duffel bag, then checked the lavatory.
I leaned on the jamb, appreciating his ass as he bent to run his fingers under the freestanding porcelain tub. “Find whatever you’re looking for?”
He stood and faced me. Darkness pooled in his eyes, and then he strode forward.
My pulse erupted. I backed into the hallway, but not fast enough to sidestep his advance or his hand wrapping around my neck.
I hissed his name, struggling against his grip and his scent.
Luca was the sun, that sweet scent of sweat, fresh air and exhilaration, and I almost groaned when his mouth landed by my ear.
“Ten cameras, Vivienne. There are two in each room, all with microphones. They’re watching you. Listening too.”
My knees crumbled, and I fisted his shirt to keep myself upright. “Vigo wouldn’t.”
“Because he loves his only daughter? He trusts you, yeah?”
The rough sarcasm in his tone drew my attention from the stubble on his jaw to the angry flush burning into his cheeks.
But I couldn’t concentrate on him while my mind raced through the days and what I had done.
Oh, dear Lord, and the nights where I satisfied myself with a hand between my legs or a toy stashed in the nightstand behind the Glock. Security saw it all—everything.
My fingers curled tighter. “Make it stop, please.”
“Vigo believes you’re involved with whatever’s happening—”
“So, he’s watching me. You’re watching me.”
For all the wrong reasons.
The edges of my vision went black. I swayed on my feet, and Luca’s grip tightened as I did. He wouldn’t let me fall. He’d hold me up for my father to push me down. Luca’s allegiance belonged to the Cosa Nostra, not to the king’s daughter.
I shoved him and ran, pushing out the door and into the night. A rush of cool air hit me, and I managed a shaky inhale. A second breath got stuck in my throat as I stumbled through the grass, dropping to my knees by the loose dirt of my mother’s grave.
The wind rustled the budding leaves, shaking through the rosebushes like one of her silly signs. A sardonic laugh caught somewhere in the web of emotions inside my chest.
“Tell me what to do,” I pleaded to the sky, to Mama, and to God, because I needed something. I needed someone, but all I had was him.
The soft tread of Luca’s soles stopped when he towered over me.
His stare prickled along my skin, but I didn’t acknowledge his presence.
“I’ll take care of the cameras, but that means I’ll know where you are every second.
Vigo will demand your complete compliance,” he said with dry indifference, as if my mental breakdown was as insignificant as I was.
“It’s a fair trade, Vivienne. Their eyes for mine. ”
A shiver ghosted through me.
Their eyes for mine.
I had wanted Luca to see me for five years, but never like this.
The order from Vigo didn’t break my heart.
The mandate forcing Luca to pay attention to me did.
No one ever wanted me. I existed for la mia famiglia.
My father was the king of Cosa Nostra, and I was his bargaining chip.
That truth burned like hot animosity in my veins.
Luca squatted beside me, studying the ocean spanning beyond the compound. His elbows rested on his knees, and he rolled the gold signet ring on his left pinky.
“You’re just like Vigo,” I pointed out.
The words were spoken softly, but his clenching jaw confirmed they hit the mark.
“How so?” he asked.
“You’re power-hungry like he is. Don’t deny it,” I said when his mouth thinned into an angry line. “Vigo has controlled me my entire life; now you want to do the same. Different man, similar circumstance.”
He scoffed. “To keep you safe. There’s a distinction.”
“Because he hates me, and you don’t?”
“We’ve already covered this,” he said through his teeth.
“Exactly,” I snapped. “So why should I trust you now?”
His eyes swung slowly to mine. Intense. Burning. Blue. “Who else do you have?”
The pressure in my lungs released, deflating my frustration into the same indifferent tone he had used. “No one. I have no one in a house that’s a fortress, and I’m a prisoner.”
By way of a distraction from his heated stare, I worked a red rose from the bundle at the top of Mama’s grave. My focus was centered on the smooth but prickly stem under my fingers.
“Careful, bird,” Luca warned. “That has—”
“Thorns,” I said as my thumb caught one.
The pain reminded me that I was alive, and this was my reality—locked up, suffocating, and alone.
All alone with the brutally handsome man who kept me up late at night, creating X-rated content for whoever watched the video feed from my room.
Mio Dio. The life I led was insane, and Luca reaching for my hand complicated my feelings even more.
His skin was scarred from years of hard living.
Yet there was a softness in the way he touched and held me, gentle enough to coax my confession.
“I don’t want to live here without my mother,” I whispered as my chest nearly cracked open and bled in a slow drip, drip, drip onto dirt familiar with violence.
“I know,” he sighed, studying the tiny pinprick of blood the thorn caused—a crimson stain against an ivory canvas.
“But you won’t help me leave.”
His jaw tensed, but he said nothing. He kept my hand in his, a prisoner of circumstances, just like me, while he remained mute, as if he didn’t have anything to say on the matter. Every second of his silence flared my temper into sharp resentment and even sharper words.
“You know what my future holds if I stay here—marriage by contract. I’ll trade one prison for another, and in the next I’ll be forced to put out for some pig who’ll expect babies and dinner on his table every evening at six.
I’d rather die than be raped by a man society calls my husband.
That’s what I have to look forward to, Luca.
The virgin bride draped in white, legs spread, ready to bleed out my innocence. ”
“Stai zitto,” he growled.
“Why?” I goaded. “It’s the truth. The only person protecting me from that fate was Mama, and she’s gone. ‘There are new rules, Vivienne.’” My tone dropped to mock his brutal honesty. “I’ll be under contract within a month. Want to take bets on who wins the king’s daughter?”
When his heavy gaze dragged up to my own, dark, terrifying clouds rolled over the blue.
My heartbeat spiked.
I tugged to free myself from his hold. His grip tightened, and he inched closer, eyes flashing like lightning through the storm.
“And you think I can help with that dilemma?”
“I know you can,” I breathed.
He shifted even closer, squeezing my hand and pulling me in until we were eye to eye, breath to heaving breath. The air grew thick with tension, my lungs constricting.
“Do you know what I do?” he asked.
I shivered.
Men talked about Luca with a reverence few ever had. Stefano and Dante especially. He was a marksman. A sure shot even from the longest distance. He was an assassin, and the lonely corner of my heart wanted him despite his profession.
I nodded.
“Say it out loud,” he insisted.
“Sicario.”
“Again, in English this time.”
“Hit man.”
He sneered. “A killer, Vivienne. I eliminate problems. People problems. Human problems. La tua famiglia (Your family’s) problems, and then I bury their bodies where they can’t be found. The correct term is monster.”
“You. Are not. A monster.” The vehemence in my voice stopped us both. Anger slipped from his features; surprise burned through mine. “I just can’t believe that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know exactly.”