Chapter 22 Massimo #2
She gives me a wink and disappears, heading toward the galley.
I head outside, taking my laptop to the table, and watch from a distance as she moves around opening doors and drawers in her hunt for something to eat.
Not once has a female other than my relatives been on the yacht while it’s moving.
Maybe a few models for a few photo shoots to ensure our name was comingled with something important at the time, but not once has a female really ever been in my domain, not here, not my estate, and certainly not my bed.
Their bed, a hotel, the penthouse I keep in the city, yes. But never in the places that mean anything at all to me.
Until her, until the light of Sophia’s smile caught my attention, and hasn’t left my mind for a moment since. And now she is as necessary as the air that I breathe, walking around my kitchen as though she’s always been here.
Mine…
And no one will keep me from making her mine, even that little wager of ours, because this I will win.
She will succumb, because the attraction between us is not merely a passing fancy and far too great to deny.
I’d bet tons of money on it, and that’s exactly what I did.
Millions of dollars will need to be paid to my father in order to make this debt go away, money that I’ll gladly pay, but nothing is ever that easy.
I glance at the latest stock numbers, the revenue streams coming in, and the turmoil that these hijacks have caused.
The money is nothing, but reputation, respect, and not allowing anyone to step on our family or diminish our power, that’s what this debt is really about.
Yeah, he’ll take the money, but the Cassones will learn a horribly hard lesson too, of that, I have no doubt. Because father will not let it go.
I hit the button to connect with Leandro, as his ringtone comes through the speaker. I don’t even have a chance to say hello. “Where are you?” he asks.
He may have more liberties than anyone else in the family, because of the closeness in our age, but even still I’m not accustomed to having to report to anybody. “Why?”
“Father dearest is looking for you and he’s in a fucking mood. Desiree’s father called him, that’s all I know. Thought you might like to know.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, those eyes we always think are on us? I’d say they are, but who, that’s the question.
Most of our men have been with us a long time, loyal to all of us, but the old man has to have someone watching us.
We’ve got a couple new drivers, and Snake, but he’s out of commission for a long fucking while after what you did to him.
Put my money on Georgeo. I think he’s a fucking weasel. ”
“I’ve never trusted Georgeo or the new guys. If we didn’t hire them, we don’t trust them. One day this is all going to be different, Leandro. We’re going to trust every one of our men, capische?”
“I’m waiting for that day, brother. In the meantime, I think Dads got spies on both of us, right now.”
“I’ve always thought it was true, but what makes you think so now?”
Leandro clears his throat. “He asked me outright about the Cassone girl, why you brought her to your estate and not the warehouse and where you took her today. He said he already knew, just wanted to see where my loyalties lie. You know they lie with you, Massimo. Don’t ever fucking doubt that.”
My jaw clenches with irritation. “Well, at least he didn’t have me followed all the way to the boat, but still. I would have known that, and my men would have let me know, but still fucking annoying. If he ever wants to retire and let us run it, then he’s going to need to ease up on the reins.”
Leandro laughs. “That may never happen, Massimo. He may put you in charge and want to drive from the backseat for his natural born life.”
“Yeah, and with him, he’ll find a way to do it from the afterlife too.”
“What are you doing with the Cassone girl, Massimo? Is it really a thing?”
I lower my voice, so Sophia doesn’t hear me from the kitchen. “Fuck, it’s more than a thing, Leandro. You know how our parents always said they knew the moment they met, that they didn’t have a choice, the chemistry drew them together, no matter what?”
He whistles. “It’s like that, huh?”
“It is, from the moment I saw her across the fucking room.”
“What are you going to do about Desiree, more importantly her father, who has had plans to retire on the money dad will give him when you marry and take over their territory?”
I exhale a deep breath and run a hand through my hair. “We’re still working on it, but Desiree and I both want the same thing, out. We both agree on that, no matter what we have to do.”
“If Desiree’s father has anything to say about it, you’ll be chained to his daughter for the rest of your natural born life and she’ll be in a living hell,” he says.
“Yeah, and I also still need to tell Sophia about the Desiree issue. There’s no relationship, but still I’d feel better if she knew the score.”
“Fuck, big brother. That’s a whole lot of relationship trouble for someone who doesn’t do relationships.”
I laugh. “Don’t I fucking know it.” I don’t tell him that my plans for Sophia are contingent on a bet, one that at the moment she’s not willing to concede. But I don’t fucking lose. Especially when I’m taking the gamble of my life.
I disconnect as Sophia comes outside with two plates of food that look fit for a king and queen.
I pour each of us a glass of wine while we enjoy our post-coital bliss and pretend that we’re no longer enemies, and what we’ve done today won’t start a fucking war.
Oblivious to everything as we prepare to enjoy the evening, pretending to be two normal people watching the sunset as it descends into the horizon over the Jersey shore.
A few drinks and rounds of sex later, I stroke the dark-haired beauty before I get out of bed, contemplating everything light and beautiful about her and everything dark and ugly in this world, the world I’m about to tie her to for an eternity.
She has a chance to get out, if my father will forgive the debt and I’ll make damn sure he does because I’ll pay it, and if her father will allow it, she could finish school and be allowed to disappear from the drudgery of this world, at least as the younger sister.
Sophia’s sister Anna though, as the oldest daughter of the Cassones, will be used as a bargaining chip to secure the position of the family for years to come, just as Desiree’s father is using her.
Our world is not for the faint of heart.
Someday, I will be in charge, and someday if I have a daughter, I will face the very same decisions.
Even in the shower, all I can think of is the plan. The one that has to work in order for me to keep Sophia protected in my arms, with my ring on her finger, while protecting Desiree from the wrath of her father and an all-out war starting between her family and ours, and ours and the Cassone’s.
Being at odds with the Cassones is proving troubling enough. I step out of the shower and towel dry myself before heading into the bedroom and pulling on a pair of jeans and T-shirt.
I smile at the little kitten curled on my bed, exactly where I want her to be, where against all the obstacles in the world, I will make this work at least for a year.
But first, she has to cave and say my name. Something that in my mind I saw happening last night, or at worst tonight, but my little kitten is ferociously holding on to her vow not to let my name fall from her lips in the throes of passion no matter how many times I make her come.
She shifts in her sleep and the sheet falls, exposing the creamy roundness of her hip.
The tilt of my lips is hard to control, because I’m the fucking mafia…
. I have ways of making her crack … and torturing my little kitten with the most exquisite torture is something that I am not opposed to in the least in order to get my way.