2. Vito
2
VITO
One month earlier
I really should have just killed everyone to take over this London mafia. Sitting at the head of the long boardroom table and as the head of finance drones on over surprisingly good presentation slides, I consider rewinding the clock. This mafia territory and all the businesses I’ve acquired are a mess, and I think at least some of the staff are still loyal to either the Geracis or the Newhavens before them. I should just dispose of them all, and be done.
But it’s impossible to tell who is lying, because after two take-overs of Esher in two years, everyone in the meeting is visibly nervous, or sweating, or both.
“And you see the projections…” Mr Hathaway mutters some numbers. “So the need for investment is critical.”
Just like that, I’m engaged with this again, because there’s a discrepancy, and that’s why I called this meeting. To give Hathaway enough rope to hang himself with.
“You said there has been stagnation in the last two years,” I snap. “Those slides show an increase. Which is true?”
“Mr Blackwood, I?—”
“Which is correct?” Fury solidifies in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “there must be some mistake in the numbers.”
“You’re giving me wrong numbers,” I state, my voice lowering to the calm soft pitch that everyone in Milan knew to fear. But these men don’t know me well yet.
“Not me, I apologise.” He swallows, but there’s something underhand about him. I don’t trust it.
“Who made the mistake?” I lounge back in my chair. I’m interested to see how this will play out.
“My Junior Assistant Accounting Clerk produced these slides.” His gaze is too steady, and his forehead is beaded with sweat. Something is being hidden from me.
“Bring in whoever made them.”
“But—”
“Now.” I’m not sure if he knows how close to death he is. But perhaps he does, because after only a second’s hesitation he scurries out of the room.
We all wait.
I drum my fingers on the table, irritation spiking through me. Of all the fucking stupidity, I had to give myself this problem. I was fine in Milan. Absolutely fine . I should never have returned to London, because it hasn’t sealed the gaping hole in my chest. It hasn’t made me less lonely.
The worst part is that the eldest of my two identical brothers, Rafe, has a new wife he’s sickeningly in love with. Sev transparently has a crush on a woman, but becomes tight-lipped when asked who. I’m the third kingpin in London with the same face, but a stranger. I have no one.
This whole bloody enterprise—and it has been bloody in parts, despite my having gone about the take-over legitimately—was a mistake.
The glass door swooshes open, and the curvy shape of a young woman draws my eye.
“Good morning!”
The air is sucked from my lungs.
I stare.
The girl—and she is no more than a girl compared to me—Hathaway has brought to take the blame, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Renaissance paintings? Rubbish. Roman architecture? Dull. The Italian sunshine? Paltry.
This girl’s soft, closed-mouth smile as she flits her gaze around the room is stunning. Her pale blue eyes are gentle like a cloud coyly drifting over the summer sky. Her brunette hair—was ever there a word so inadequate?—shines, a tendril falling over her cheek and the rest in a loose knot at the back of her head. My god, I want to take down her hair and see it spread across my pillow as I thrust into her and make her mine more than I want my next breath.
Dressed in a neat pair of loose trousers and a scoop-necked top in a navy that contrasts with her eyes, making them seem even paler blue, she’s professional yet elegant. As she shifts from foot to foot, I notice her practical but worn flat shoes. But even her carefully chosen appropriate office wear doesn’t disguise that she’s got a body made for sin.
She must be more than a head shorter than me, but she’s all curves. Her breasts would be the perfect handful, her hips were made to be held as I take her from behind.
There aren’t words for how lovely she is, or not in English there aren’t. A stream of sensual Italian phrases run through my mind, accompanying imaginings of her naked body. Beneath me, on top of me, her face creased with ecstasy.
“This is Miss Meadows.” Hathaway jerks me unpleasantly from my all-too-pleasant thoughts and back to reality, where I see that she’s nervous, but smiling cheerfully through it. So sweet.
This young woman…
I don’t allow my expression to change, my features steady in a dark scowl.
There are pivot points in life. My first kill. Leaving London to go to Milan. First territory. First million. One billion. The day Miss Meadows walked into my boardroom and stole my heart. Or rather, that previously stoney organ bounced up like a puppy and threw itself over to the Junior Assistant Accounting Clerk.
My employee .
She was probably born around the time I took over the territory on the outskirts of Milan when I was twenty. I ought to be disgusted with that thought, but I can’t be. I can only want.
Amore mio dolce. My sweet love.
Everyone in the room is waiting for me to say something, I realise.
I clear my throat, and Miss Meadows widens her smile.
“Did you make these slides?”
She nods.
“Use your words, Miss Meadows.” I’m coming across as severe. It’s been too long, and I suppose I’m broken now. Unable to express any gentler feeling, even as it overflows, surging out of my ribcage.
“Yes.” Her voice is sweet and higher than I expected, and it makes her seem even younger. Usually, I prefer women my age, but this girl is irresistible.
“And the data shown in the presentation, where is it from?”
“I, er…” Her gaze slides to the side to her boss, Mr Hathaway.
“Look at me,” I bark and her chin snaps back, her eyes meeting mine. “Where is it from?”
“I ran the analysis myself.”
“And is it correct?”
“Well, it can’t be,” Hathaway blusters.
“Shut up.” I don’t move my focus from the girl who has captured my attention, and I suspect, my heart. “Is it right, Miss Meadows?”
There’s a long, fraught silence. She blinks several times, the delicate fan of her lashes shadowing her cheek.
“I believe so,” she whispers, smiling nervously.
The head of finance is a treacherous coglione. I’d be angrier, except he brought me her . I might not have known that the creature who could touch my soul existed if she hadn’t walked into this room.
This girl…
She’s been here alive, for what—twenty years maybe?—and I haven’t known her. I’ve lived forty fucking years missing out.
I wonder if this is why I’ve felt so lonely. I’ve never lacked company, and I returned to London to see if spending time with my brothers would help fill the void. But now, it’s as though she’s a bright furnace and I’m broken glass. She softens all my edges, reforming me into… Okay, I’ll always be a demanding bastardo, but for her, I’d melt.
I take a few minutes to ask her more about the company’s financial situation, and the more I ask, the more confident she becomes as she recognises I’m not going to brush her off. She knows her stuff, and I think is used to being ignored.
“Miss Meadows says you’re lying, Mr Hathaway,” I say eventually. I don’t take my eyes off Miss Meadows.
She lets out a terrified squeak. “No! I?—”
I put one hand up to silence her, and good girl that she is, she cuts immediately. “And I’m inclined to believe her. You think I wasn’t aware that you were skimming off the profits from my predecessor?”
Admittedly, it was a hunch. But Miss Meadows has confirmed it.
“That’s a serious and unfounded accusation.” Hathaway tries to sound authoritative, and fails.
“It’s also true.”
“Tony,” I say softly to my second-in-command.
“Capo Mandamento.” He replies with my honorific rather than my name and several people shift uncomfortably. Apparently, it’s not done in London to admit you’re a mafia boss. But it is by me. My capo bastone, brought from Milan, steps forward from where he’s been standing at the back of the room.
“Tony, take Mr Hathaway to retire to Naples .” I’ve always thought it was unfair to use Naples as the code for hell. I quite like Naples and have a villa just outside the city. I’d love to take Miss Meadows there one day… Except that’s as likely as Hathaway actually going to Naples rather than being murdered by Tony.
“I can help you!” Mr Hathaway protests as Tony quietly and efficiently removes him from the room. Everyone else watches, but I can’t look away from Miss Meadows. She’s stunning. She’d look even better with my baby swelling her midriff.
The door shuts behind Hathaway, and some of the tension flows with him.
“Now, Miss Meadows.”
She pinkens, but there’s steel in that adorably short spine of hers. Her chin tilts up. “Yes, Mr Blackwood.”
I love the way she says my name. It would be even better if she said it while on my cock. I lean forwards to disguise the untimely turgidity in my trousers.
There’s a muffled sound from outside the room, followed by an audible, “No, please!”
I sigh. Tony is reliable and efficient, but sometimes he lacks finesse.
There’s a shot, and a thud.
“Oh my god,” a woman on the left whispers.
Turning, I glare at her.
“I don’t like being lied to, and I don’t like incompetence,” I say.
There’s a murmur of submissive agreement. No one wants to be the next to be removed.
To Miss Meadows, I say, “You’re the new head of finance.”
She gapes.
“You can do it, can’t you?”
Her shoulders go back, and while she’s shaking, I admire her courage. The last person in her job role was shot, and she doesn’t know that she is under my protection now. “Yes, Mr Blackwood.”
“Good. Take over the presentation, please. Since you prepared it, I’m sure you can.”
Her pretty, pale eyes go wide and there’s a moment when I think she might run away. Her gaze flicks to the rest of the people in the room, as though for approval, and her expression drops as she finds nothing there but fear.
“You’re not talking to them.” Her head snaps around. “Just talk to me, Miss Meadows.”
“Yes, of course, Mr Blackwood.”
She works for me. I’m going to exploit that shamelessly. I’ll be her work daddy. Whatever she needs. I’d also be her lover, her husband, her everything, but there’s no chance of that.
Whether she likes it or not, I’m going to nurture her. First, I’m going to find out everything about her, then, I’ll give her everything she’s ever wanted.
I thought I’d be ignoring this company? Just goes to show what an idiot I was only an hour ago. I’ll be working night and day to ensure Miss Meadows has a long, happy, fulfilling life.
There’s only one thing I want to achieve now: care for amore mio dolce. My forbidden girl.