Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
LORENZO
J esus! I didn’t know where they hid those timid housewives of Sicily, but it wasn’t anywhere near my future wife. She was fucking messed up. And that’s saying a lot, seeing how messed up I was. The difference was that she shouldn’t have been. She was brought up all cocooned and protected, with painted pink toes and not a bust on a single knuckle. She didn’t watch her mamma’s brain explode into a million pieces when she was nine. She didn’t shoot a man and watch his guts spill out when she was eleven. Yet she stood with her eyes squeezed shut like I’d hit her. Like she’d been hit before.
I shoved off in disgust.
“Stefano,” I yelled. I’d heard him come inside and I needed a brother with more patience than me. Because if I was left alone with her, I might not have hit her, but I just might have throttled her to death.
He opened the door to my room in an instant. Too fucking fast. So he’d been outside. Because he feared for me or for her safety? She seemed to be bringing out the protectiveness of my brothers as easily as she gave her virginity to a fucking stranger.
“Keep her with you,” I said darkly before stalking off to the bathroom.
I’d already called her brother to come pick up his runaway sister, who he apparently didn’t even know had run away. Which left me wondering how often she’d done that without anyone knowing.
I shed my clothes right next to hers and kicked them out of sight under the vanity. I couldn’t get myself to touch her stuff that had another man’s juice on them.
“Fuck!” My knuckle hit the tiled wall and finally, the pain in my knuckles brought some kind of relief to me. I braced my hands on the wall and let the hot water wash over me. She’d stood under this same shower and washed another man’s touch off her. Except I could scrub all I wanted, but hell would have to freeze over before I forgot the image of him between her legs.
“ I didn’t want you to own me. ” Her words dripped into my mind as slowly and deathly as poison. What kind of fucked up was that?
She didn’t like her fucking boundaries, and she had sneaked off to a nightclub. Alone. I’d bet my Ducati that it wasn’t the first time she’d done that.
She was brought up all sheltered in the Cosa Nostra but clearly, she wanted out. She called herself loot, and even if I knew she was that, she was mine anyway. Loot or wife.
She didn’t want to be owned, so she let another man fuck her and take what was mine. Oh, Principessa , you shouldn’t have. I’d own you, anyway. Body, mind, and soul.
I donned a pair of black jeans and a black T-shirt and strode out to the living room to find her all curled up on the couch, with her eyes on some soap opera on the TV. The robe was thick and massive on her, draped off her shoulders like a fucking sex invitation. Her eyes were big and blue and too huge on her face. They brimmed with unshed tears like sapphires on her olive skin. The moment she saw me, she sat straight up like I’d shoved a steel plate up her spine. Funnily enough, she had been relaxed with Stefano alone in the room. He gave me a guilty smile from the other side of the couch. I don’t think I’d ever been jealous of my brother before, and I wasn’t going to start now. But he’d always been able to soothe any girl, and apparently, it applied to my future wife, as well. Can’t say I cared for it. She jittered around me like I was a madman, but with my brother, she was all relaxed, like she’d known him her entire life. Annoyance crawled up my spine, and the urge to do something about it hit me hard and fast. Lucky for her, she was saved by the impatient pounding on the door and the voice of another fucked up Di Matteo.
I didn’t even get to open the door before he shoved the door and me hard against the wall. He strode off into the room with wild eyes. He didn’t have to wait too long because she flew into his arms and crawled up his neck like he rescued her from a den of vipers. He physically stumbled back from the force of it. I wondered just for a mere second what it must be like to have that much devotion.
He rolled with her in his arms to find me like he’d crush me with one hand while still carrying his sister, my future wife, in his arms. “What the fuck is going on?”
We were two ticking bombs about to go off. She’d fucked me up with her actions today, and I wasn’t in a forgiving mood. But then again, that was never a mood of mine. I had every right to shed light on her wretched actions and soil her brother’s mood.
“What’s going on is your little sister sneaked off and went partying in a nightclub in Palermo,” I said coldly.
He looked at her in his arms. Surprise and hurt in his eyes. He didn’t even utter a single word to her, but she told him something she’d never told me. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled against his neck, and I swear to God, I wanted to wrench her out of his arms. This amount of devotion was repellent.
“You went with Luna?” he asked her gruffly.
She snuck her head up his neck and nodded.
Who the fuck is Luna?
“Why, Daria?”
Because she didn’t want me to own her. But she didn’t say anything. I caught a mumble of an “I’m sorry, Ale.”
Jesus. She had riled me up hard and fast all night long, and it didn’t seem to stop. She was all cozy and sorry with her fucking brother and with me, she was stiff, and she gave me all of that ‘didn’t want to be owned by me’ shit. Something green slithered through my veins until all I could think of was breaking this bond between the two. I knew without a doubt he’d break when I told him, because no brother would be okay with what she had done, not even one as understanding as Di Matteo apparently was. The words itched in my throat, crawling to get out. Except, somehow, they clogged in my vocal folds when she begged me with her eyes. Suddenly I owned her again, even when she had given her fucking virginity to another man.
“I was just in time,” I grated out, and the lie sizzled like alcohol on a gunshot wound.
“In time for what?”
“Ale, please…”
“Some guy making advances on her.”
Di Matteo’s look turned black. He gripped her chin and brought her face to his. “What did he do?”
She shook her head to my frown. If only he knew.
“Nothing much,” I bit out the lie. I imagined skinning my skin would have brought me a tad less pain. “But he put his filthy hands on my future wife, so I had to take care of him. You would understand, I’d imagine.”
Stefano gave me a look from behind Di Matteo, and I ignored him. Yeah, bro, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing either. It pissed me off that anyone would know I wasn’t the first man to touch her. It was already bad enough that my brothers knew. Besides, I owned her now. There was no fucking way she was getting out of this marriage now. As loot or wife.
“Anyone who thought touching my sister would keep him alive was a fool to begin with.” He scowled at me. “I’d need his details.”
Of course he would. But it wasn’t his territory. There might have also been a thrill running up my spine when I saw the panicked look on my future wife’s face. I wanted to own her till all she saw was me. Only me.
“No need. I took care of it.”
He glared at me tightly, trying to judge the situation. But I wasn’t spilling, and I would have bet my life she would have done anything to spare her precious brother from pain. He turned to her and cocked her chin up. “What happened to your clothes?”
I would shed them into tiny molecules and burn them together with that boy’s body. Well, what was left of them, anyway.
“She was cold, so I told her to get in the shower,” I answered for her.
Di Matteo frowned at her. “You okay?”
Her hand gripped the nape of his neck. “I just want to go home.”
“Let’s get you home then.” He made to stride away, but I shoved my body in his path.
“She stays with me,” I said tightly.
She crawled in his arms like I’d suggested we have a shoot-out.
“I don’t think so.”
I didn’t like Di Matteo’s tone one bit.
I stuffed my balled fists into my pockets and widened my stance. My glare caught on Stefano before I brought it back to Di Matteo. “Well, forgive me for not having faith in your security, but I don’t want my future wife sneaking off again. She. Stays. With. Me.”
It was not like she was a virgin now.
“No.”
Fucking Di Matteos.
All the air snuck out of the room, and dark tension strode in. It crawled up all the walls, lay on the floor, and hung from the ceiling. While our two egos bristled, Stefano watched coolly with interest. I had no fucking idea where Nico was, but he’d probably found a whore to fuck off his issues. The only innocent in the room was my future wife, if I could call her that. Innocent. She looked like a knife was jabbed to her brother’s throat, and she’d draw it into her to save his life. Just as that thought entered my mind, she jumped out of his arms and pushed herself between us with her back pressed to him.
“I promise,” she whimpered. “I won’t sneak off. It was just a one time thing.”
Well, isn’t that always the case with losing your virginity?
There was nothing to lose anymore. Except there was. I didn’t want her out of my reach.
“It’s just two days, Enzo,” Stefano interjected behind Di Matteo’s back.
I glared at Di Matteo. Something nasty was boiling up within me for a fight. We eyed each other, at odds to protect the woman in between us. I didn’t like this one fucking bit. I scowled at her Bambi eyes. My teeth raked my bottom lip.
“Fine,” I said darkly and stepped heavily aside.
Di Matteo gave a sharp nod and strode out, dragging her with him. He wasn’t happy, and guess what, I wasn’t either, and we both had his fucking sister to thank for that.
I wasn’t even married yet, and she riled me up at every turn. I’d killed my own men without a second thought. Even though it wasn’t anything new, it annoyed me that I had to kill off two of my best men, but they’d let it get too far. They should have fucking called me the minute she stepped out her door. But they hadn’t, and she’d given it all away to a fucking boy, paid to pop her cherry.
My lips thinned as she threw a fearful look over her shoulder. Fucking right that she feared me. Now that I owned her, I wasn’t planning on ever letting her go. This night was the last time she ever had a fucking party without me.