Chapter 4
Sophia
The minute Jimmy drops my friends off a troubled feeling settles into my bones.
Just because he’s been nothing but nice, doesn’t mean that he’ll stay that way now that we’re all alone.
I sit back in my seat, ready to use every trick I’ve learned from years of self-defense training if he does one thing that I don’t like, even knowing the drugs in my system have made me weaker then hell.
But Jimmy doesn’t try a thing, as I call out a left, or a take a right at the next light, he simply does as I ask, slowly weaving through the heavily tree-lined roads that lead to the outskirts of Jersey and our villa nestled into many acres.
Jimmy makes a turn onto the winding road leading from the main road to our gatehouse where the perimeter soldiers reside. The sound of the car, maybe the lights, or both, alert the family guards to our approach, and four men with semi-automatics suddenly appear right in front of us.
This is not going to be good. In fact, hardly anything could be worse than arriving home, when no one knows I’m out, with a strange guy my father will probably order to be whacked.
“I’ll handle this from here. Leave as soon as I get out of the car, and thanks for the ride, Jimmy.
” I get out of the back seat and stand in front of his window until he backs out and guns it down the road.
Just in case our soldiers have itchy trigger fingers tonight, or someone has told them I was missing, and they suspect the poor driver of that car.
Because then, they’ll kill him themselves, no order needed. Papa would expect it.
Papa’s soldiers glare at me. “Who the fuck was that?” one of them asks.
My first instinct is to tell him to mind his own fucking business.
I’m twenty-three years old but with him, there’s only one way to get him to keep his mouth shut.
Loyalty, not to my father, but to his team.
“If you don’t want my detail to get fired, you’ll keep this to yourself.
No harm, no foul. I just needed a ride, the guy gave me and some of my friends one, that’s all.
No cardinal sins committed, okay? You’re just going to get Delz in trouble for letting me sneak out. ”
His eyes narrow, but they know all know the wrath of my old man and not one of them wants it directed anywhere near them or one of their buddies. And he’s no exception. “Flash the light in your room once you’re upstairs and settled in,” he barks.
I give him my best smile. “I’ll do it. Thank you,” I tell him to soften his worry.
Now all I have to do is hope that Papa’s not up eating a midnight snack.
Hopefully he’s fallen asleep during a good movie which is becoming more and more frequent these days.
I peek into the small comfy den that he still likes to hang out in, the one place in the house he was permitted to smoke his cigars when Mamma was alive.
And there he lies, sprawled in his recliner while an old black and white movie plays on the big screen over the fireplace.
“Good night, Papa,” I whisper, turning quietly to walk softly over the marble floors of the great room while trying to prevent my heels from clicking on its hard surface and waking him up.
The minute I’m upstairs and in my room, I flash my lights for the guards.
I really should feel bad about sneaking out.
Any number of things could have happened tonight while I was out without my details.
I’m lucky that I am alive. How many times have they tried to drill that point into my stubborn head?
But yet, I go out to a club without any security at all, only proving their point.
The worst almost did happen. And it would have too, if the dark-eyed god with intense looking eyes hadn’t intervened.
The severity of just how close I came to being kidnapped sinks in and sends a shiver of apprehension snaking down the length of my spine.
I peel out of my clothes, far too tired to shower, emotionally drained and still almost numb.
I switch into a strappy nightgown that reaches the top of my thighs before heading into the bathroom to brush my teeth and then retire for the night.
Sleep should come easy. It’s not every day that I venture out into the world and getting drugged should have left me in a half comatose state.
Only my body hums with energy, but not the kind you can put out simply by going to sleep.
No, those dark intense eyes focused on me, the way he rubbed the sensitive pads of my fingers, and then my arms. That man almost put me in the most delicious trance just by holding my hand.
And the simmering heat at my center is simply not going away without some well needed care.
My finger slips past the lacy band of my panties, sliding gently over my mound, slowly exploring what I already know I’ll find.
Pretending the fingers don’t belong to me, but to the dark-haired god who wet my panties just by the sound of his voice.
This pure silky wetness is all for him. One light stroke over the sensitive bundle of nerves, and I know there’s no turning back, this is going all the way.
My body knows exactly what it likes, over and over, gentle touch and then firm strokes, letting it build, thinking about nothing but the man who I woke up mesmerized by and has ignited my passion like no one else with only a single caress and a touch in the most decent of ways.
There’s nothing decent about what I want him to do, and I stifle a moan of pleasure.
Dream, fantasy, call it what you will, but I can’t get the way he looked at me in the car out of mind.
His brooding eyes all full of heat, smoldering for me, sinful…
And that’s what I focus on as my finger slides through my wetness and sends me over the edge quicker than it’s ever happened before.
His name spills from my lips while I’m still breathing hard, just lying in the quiet, thinking about the night as my body calms with release. “Massimo.”
The pace of my breathing slowly begins to return to normal.
I gather my pillow to me, drawing it closer to get comfortable, hoping that now I will be able to sleep.
But of course, my mind returns to him. Such an unusual name for someone in Jersey.
Of course, there are a lot of people who came over from the old country, generations of people who hand down their names to children no matter where they are born, but I’ve only ever heard of one other person named Massimo.
My eyes blink open, staring straight at the wall, while my heart, just moments ago beginning to calm, suddenly begins to pound.
There’s no way. There’s no fucking way. Destiny would not be so cruel, but yet … those eyes. It’s as though a memory pulls me toward an image I recall. Think, think, think. Where did I see it?
I grab my phone from the nightstand and start searching frantically, page after page until I find an entertainment piece, one where he and his family made a charitable contribution.
I scroll without reading, down, down, down to where a picture of Massimo Roselli and Desiree Amorte stand presenting a huge endowment to a worthwhile hospital charity event, just one month ago.
My heart pounds, and there is no fucking stopping it.
Massimo fucking Roselli, the first-born son of our lifelong rivals had his hands on me, saved me no doubt from being kidnapped, and probably saved my ever-loving life.
My chest heaves with the knowledge of what this means.
What the hell am I supposed to tell my father if it gets back to him?
I inhale small shallow breaths in an effort to remain calm.
My father will be indebted to his age-old rival.
Maybe the fact that I got out will stay contained after what I told the guards, but if I know my own detail, once he learns I was out, he’ll have the guards give him the number from Jimmy’s plates which the perimeter guards no doubt took down.
And then we’re all absolutely screwed.
You don’t fucking bring a Cassone daughter home after midnight in a strange car without his soldiers tracking down just who you are so they can learn everything about you.
And so they can beat you to within an inch of your life if you didn’t have Papa’s permission.
If you’re lucky they let you live, if you’re not, no one will ever hear from you again.
I can hardly believe it, but then I look at the image again.
The one that tells me there’s no doubt in the world.
Massimo’s staring straight at the camera but it’s as though the dark-eyed devil himself is staring right through my very soul, taunting me with that famous smirk.
What are you going to do now, Sophia Cassone?