20. Matilde
Matilde
Maddalena had initially been too fascinated by the finely dressed people drinking and smoking around the wine-dark leather booths to consider the grim reality of the steel cage in the center of the room.
That fascination ended when Dante snapped his opponent’s wrist like a dry twig and ripped a chunk of his earlobe off with his teeth. “I feel sick,” she admits, embarrassed over not relishing the bloody sport. “Aren’t you sick, Mat?”
Shaking my head, I pat her hand. The stories I overheard our father and the other Cosa Nostra soldiers telling would send most children diving for their blankets. It was normal to me. “I do not enjoy it,” I reply. I hate Giacomo for bringing us down here.
The sweaty, bloody men grapple in the cage.
It rattles threateningly every time one of them is thrown against it, like wild animals that might escape and attack the rest of us.
The referee keeps just out of their reach.
There don’t seem to be many rules for him to enforce beyond making sure they're still lucid enough to continue.
The rage in Dante’s dark eyes is frightening to behold, and there’s a triumphant roar from the crowd when his brutal high kick makes contact with his opponent's skull.
Maddalena winces as though she felt the impact when the fighter lands with a heavy thud before staggering to his feet again.
“Please, stay down,” she whispers as if the poor man can hear her.
At least Nico’s brother is too busy fighting to have noticed me. If I can convince Maddalena to go now, I may be able to scale the garden wall and slip up to my bedroom tonight without Nico ever knowing about any of this.
Beside us, Giacomo is yammering on, convinced we’re impressed. “The cage fights always bring a lot of money. Of course, death matches bring the most-”
“Death matches?” Maddalena gulps, turning pale.
“Yes, but no one’s dying here tonight.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” a familiar voice rasps behind me.
My knees are jelly as I turn, dreading what I know I’m going to see. “Nico.”
His name was barely more than the breath leaving my lungs, but his slate gray eyes slam into me at the sound.
Even in my high heels, the top of my head barely reaches his chin, and I’m at eye level with the sliver of his chest his shirt doesn’t cover.
I watch it rise and fall steadily with his deep breaths, always so controlled.
“Nico? This is a surprise,” Giacomo says before he glances my way. “Did your nanny not have your permission to be here? I swear, if I had known she-”
His words end in a yelp when Nico moves suddenly, pouncing like a jungle cat. He throws Giacomo against one of the tables, shattering glass and looming over him before pulling his scary knife. The crowd grows hushed.
Maddalena takes one step forward, but I drag her toward me. “He’s going to hurt him,” she protests.
“He is the Capo.” I know she likes Giacomo, but I suspect whatever Nico’s going to do to him will be earned.
“What did I tell you about underage girls?” Nico asks, his voice deadly soft yet clear.
“They’re not underage! And I haven’t touched them! They were only standing beside me! They must have snuck past Bobo and-”
“Bullshit. You vouched for them to come down here.” The tattooed giant has joined us. He must’ve called Nico after my threat. This is all my fault, though part of me is glad Nico's here.
“Maddalena cleans my house. She’s just a maid.
Nothing more. She begged me to get them into the club tonight, a pesky kid wishing to play at being a grownup.
I brought them down here so they wouldn’t be alone upstairs while I watched your brother’s fight.
I planned to drive them home after. I swear to you, Capo-”
With his hand gripping Giacomo’s throat, Nico looks back at me. “Has this man touched you?” My nose scrunches up in disgust as I quickly shake my head. He nods at Maddalena. “Has he touched her?”
My sister rapidly shakes her head, so I do the same, hoping she’s telling the truth.
“Very well, Giacomo,” Nico says, turning back around. “You get to keep your balls tonight, but I warned you at Matilde’s birthday party to stay away from her.” He did? I didn’t know that. “Since you did not listen, I must ensure you won’t forget again. Are you right or left-handed?”
Bile stirs in my stomach. I take Maddalena’s arm, trying to back away, but Bobo is behind us, blocking our path. Giacomo gulps, staring at Nico in disbelief. “I… I am right-handed-”
Pinning Giacomo’s right hand to the table, Nico’s deadly blade flashes like a silver cobra striking, and Giacomo howls in agony when his pinky finger is chopped off.
“But I told you I was right-handed?!” he screeches in pain and mortification.
“You did,” Nico agrees, coolly wiping his knife on Giacomo’s suit before deftly concealing it again. “Your left hand might not have got my point across.”
Maddalena vomits the fruity cocktails she consumed, ruining her designer heels. Turning back toward us, Nico jerks his chin at my sister. “Bobo, get her out of here.”
The guard obeys at once, tugging my sister by the elbow toward the exit. She’s too shocked to resist, but I’m not. “Stop!” I shout, running after them. “You cannot-”
The words are chased from my mouth when powerful arms surround me. I suck in his woodsy fragrance greedily despite my confusion and concern. “He can and he will,” Nico assures me, his warm lips grazing my earlobe before I’m thrown over his shoulder for the second time in my life.
My anger ignites, causing me to furiously beat at his back with my fists. I may as well be a fly buzzing around an elephant. Nico carries me from the VIP room with his brother’s maniacal laughter following us.
I lose sight of my sister and the giant in the long hallway because Nico takes another route. “If he hurts her…”
“Bobo will not hurt your sister. She is your sister, correct?”
There’s no point in denying it now. “Yes.”
“We’re going to have a talk about that later.
But first, you and I have other matters to settle.
” His words aren’t even strained as he carries me up a set of stairs, but I’m seriously starting to wonder how much trouble I might be in.
My bedtime fantasies seem ridiculous in the face of this cold-blooded killer. Will he simply fire me? Or worse?
Outside, my eyes struggle to adjust from the basement’s variety of darkness to this alleyway, when he opens a car door.
A limo. Nico heaves me into the back. Primo’s astonished eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror for half a heartbeat and then I’m scrambling across the leather seat to the other side, intent on escape. “Oh no, you don’t,” Nico says, sharply.
My hand has barely closed around the door handle when I’m jerked backwards. The door locks click while I’m sliding across his lap on my belly. Heat blasts my face, knowing my short dress has surely ridden up to expose my blue cotton panties with the little red cherries on them.
“Christ,” Nico huffs, making my nipples tighten with humiliating desires in this vulnerable position.
But that’s not the end of my embarrassment.
“Where is my sister?” I shriek as the privacy screen between us and Primo starts to close. “Why are you here? What do you-”
“I will ask the questions, Matilde. How many times must I warn you not to disobey me?” The privacy screen is still closing, and he doesn’t wait for a reply before he’s spanking me. "You." Swat. "Will." Swat. "Obey." Swat. "Me." Swat, swat, swat.
“Nico!” I yelp.
His grip loosens, unexpectedly. Faster than I thought I could move, I tear at his shirt, grabbing anything solid I can reach while savagely digging my knees into his lap until I’m upright and facing him.
I manage to get my knife out during our grappling, but I wind up straddling his hips.
Oh Dio. Thank God the privacy screen is finally raised.
“I’m not a child! You cannot do that, Nico! You-”
“At. Fucking. Last. You’re finally saying my first name.” He doesn’t even seem to care that I’m holding a switchblade to his chest.
“I did not-”
“Say it again,” he growls, the rumbly, pleased noise shooting straight from my ears to my pussy.
“It was a mistake. Sir.”
“No, not sir. You will never call me sir again. Say my name, Matilde.”
This man and his orders, always so bossy. “What if I do not… sir?”
“If you act like a child, I’ll be forced to treat you like one.”
He spanks me again – three more swats – but in this position, with us facing one another, the effect is entirely different. Yes, my bottom burns, but something inexplicable twists my insides with sinful yearning. “I hold a knife,” I warn him.
“Do you want to poke me full of holes with that or would you rather I poke you?”
I scowl at him, confused by his tone and how unbothered he is by the knife. He seems… quite happy. As happy as Nico gets.
Then, he pulls his own knife. Oh Dio, maybe I've misread everything.
But he doesn't hurt me. He slowly slides his blade against mine, the scrape of steel on steel almost erotic in a way, like a dance, when he's staring at me so intently. His other hand is warm, cupping my ass cheeks, and I don’t want him to move it. This is all very… peculiar.
Deciding I won't cut him, my knife falls to the floor of the limo. He carefully sets his aside. Our eyes are still riveted on each other, and I squirm in his lap. Our rapid breaths mingle; our faces draw nearer. For several seconds, I study his firm lips, so curious to feel them pressed to mine.
Just as I ponder acting, he mutters, “Don’t,” warily.
“Don’t what?”
I start to move again, so he grasps my wrists in one of his strong hands, but I’m not fighting him.
I’m seeking something. One experimental roll of my hips and I find it.
Feeling the heat of his groin and his thick, firm cock this close, an answering ache awakens inside me.
I whimper, convinced I will die if I can’t get even closer to that heat.
“Stop it, Matilde.”
“Stop what?” I ask, boldly rolling my hips again, grinning with satisfaction when he grunts.
“You know what,” he accuses. I bite back a giggle when his hand finds my ass again because he’s not spanking me.
The power dynamic has shifted somehow. He’s holding me.
Closer. Squeezing and caressing my butt as his eyes bore into mine.
“You are so willful and frustrating,” he complains, even as he keeps his hand there and his eyes drop to my lips.
I lick them, watching his pupils dilate in response.
“And you are a cold ass.”
“A cold ass who managed to warm yours,” he murmurs, still caressing me.
Then I realize what he means. “You warmed my… oh, I see!” Startled laughter escapes me, causing me to rock forward. My breasts brush against his chest, and his other arm loops around my waist, his lips twitching for an instant before he shakes his head.
“Matilde…”
“Nico…”
Face to face, straddling my employer in the back of a limo with someone else mere feet away, I did not see my night going in this direction.
I am not complaining. This is like something dirty and forbidden I’ve imagined in my bed at night, ever since the day I first wandered into his bedroom uninvited.
‘There is a wildness in you,’ echoes in my mind.
It’s a wildness I want to explore when it comes to him.
One of his fingers slides inside my panties, getting steadily closer to places I want him and no other to touch.
I can't breathe. I can't break away from his intense stare.
I wait for him to show me a paradise I've only imagined.
A light teasing brush of my inner thigh, another just a bit closer.
I squirm impatiently, wanting more, always more with him.
"You didn't seem to enjoy what you were doing last night," he hums. "Would you enjoy this?"
"I will not know until I try."
I can feel the heat of his finger, so close to touching me there but…
"You will with your husband."
His words are ice cold water dashed on my desires. After my stepmother's constant harping about a girl's honor and duty and a husband's expectations, I'm overcome with shame for wanting what I want.
Swallowing hard, I free one of my hands and reach up, wanting nothing more than to touch his face, to trace his scar with my fingertips.
He jerks back immediately, shoving me off his lap and into the seat across from him. The warmth in his eyes vanishes so quickly I wonder if I imagined it.
“Do you realize how dangerous that was? Do you have any common sense at all? Didn’t your abduction teach you anything?” he scolds. Back to the club and me sneaking out, I see.
“Why does that matter to you? I could disappear forever, and you would be relieved.”
He stares at me like I’m raving mad. “Why would I be relieved if something happened to you? When have I ever suggested I wanted you to be hurt?”
“The day we met!” I remind him fiercely, glancing down at his knife. “You said if any harm came to your children, I would come to know your knife innately.”
He rolls his eyes. “In-ti-mate-ly.”
“Don’t correct me when-”
“I didn’t know you then. Now, I know you would never harm them. And your safety is important to me. If something happened to you…”
There's something a little bit lost in his tone. He’s been going on about my safety so often. I thought it was more about protecting his children while also controlling me. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe what I shared with him really did make an impact.
“But you do not like me,” I say, challenging him to deny it and ashamed by how much I want him to deny it.
“I don’t have to like you to marry you.”