Chapter 10 #2
Here to keep an eye on Narciso for the weekend. He’s distracted. Stefano doing a piss-poor job on keeping him focused on the car. Just making sure he doesn’t get blindsided.
It’s half a lie with enough truth sprinkled into it to make it believable. Stefano, my father’s half-brother, the oops product of a sleazy back-alley hookup with a stripper from one of Nonno’s strip clubs, was born with a Baltimore-sized chip on his shoulder.
His constant clashes with my father and aunt, and wild power-grabbing antics, had forced Bonafacio to find him a role within the Mancinelli Racing Team just to get him out of New York and out of his hair.
Of course, there’d been very little regard to whether Stefano was good for this or any other job.
And shocker, Captain Shitshow turned out to be all about the glitz and glam of Formula One racing and bupkis about the hard work that went into keeping the team running like the relatively well-oiled machine Maddie had kept it before she’d given it up to go play house with the Salvatore heir.
In a rare moment of nostalgia, Narciso had admitted last week that he wished Maddie was still the team’s CEO instead of Stefano. That he wasn’t stuck with Ziu Strunzu.
So I’m praying my father buys my reasons for being here this weekend, and not read more into it.
I return to the living room and my feet stall, my breath strangling somewhere in my midriff.
Rafa’s shirt is off.
Not just off. Discarded.
He’s strutting across the suite in nothing but low-slung black sweatpants, barefoot, towel drying his hair from a recent shower.
His abs gleam, cut and wet, and my brain short-circuits just a little. Every movement is deliberate, smug, male. The kind of man who knows the effect he has and exploits it mercilessly.
Don’t engage. Don’t engage. Don’t— ‘You always put on a show?’ I mutter, trying not to stare.
He tosses the towel onto a chair and stretches, arms overhead, full mouthwatering gladiator. ‘Only when the audience is this hot. You blushing again, bedda?’
‘I’m not—’ I start, too fast, too defensive.
He smirks. ‘Oh, you’re so blushing.’
He prowls closer, eyes flicking to my lips, my throat, the quick rise and fall of my chest. The air between us hums, thick with something unstable and heavy. He reaches out, his fingers barely brushing my jaw, and dips his face close. Too close. His breath is warm and spiced.
My lips part. God, we’re a breath from kissing. Again.
From disaster. Again.
But I don’t move and neither does he.
Until he whispers, ‘You ever been kissed like you deserve, baby assassin?’
I swallow. ‘Don’t call me that.’
He grins. ‘Why not? I have a bruise right here that tells me you’re deadly. But you look like you’d come apart the second someone touched you properly. It’s a fucking sexy combination.’
My cheeks flare again, and it’s not from embarrassment this time. It’s from the low ache between my thighs. The pressure I can’t ignore or control.
He watches me, steps back just slightly, but the mood doesn’t lift.
Then he cocks his head. ‘Wait… don’t tell me you’re actually a—’
I don’t answer.
His grin falters.
‘Holy fuck,’ he breathes, his eyes darting between mine. Alight with glimpses of something I’m terrified to name. ‘You’re actually a virgin. I wasn’t really serious before because… but you are, aren’t you? The real fucking thing. How’s that possible?’ he mutters with a frown.
The silence between us grows teeth.
Because there’s no way I’m baring my truths to him. No way I’m telling him that I learned very fast that pretty girls got noticed. Noticed meant targeted. In high school, on the street. In every workplace across the face of the earth. I made myself useful instead. Safe. Unbreakable.
Nor am I telling him that I’m terrified of anyone making me feel helpless like the way the men in my family made the women feel, especially my mother. Why would I start in bed?
Something primal flickers in his gaze – raw, masculine, hungry. The playful arrogance is gone, replaced by something deeper, darker. He steps forward again, slower this time, like a man tracking prey.
And I should be scared.
I should be.
But Diu miu, I’m not.
I’m wet. I’m shaking. And for the first time in my life, I feel like prey that wants to be caught.
‘Left or right?’ I snap.
‘Left or right what, bedda?’
‘Your balls, Enforcer. Which one are you more attached to?’
A slow, sublime smile spreads across his face. ‘You asking me to choose a favourite? That’s like asking me to choose our favourite child. I love them both equally. Unconditionally.’
‘Then I suggest you keep that thought front and centre the next time you decide to call me beautiful. Or angelic. Or cute. Or whatever the fuck cliché labels sprint into that tiny mind.’
He staggers back a step, clutching his chest. ‘Ouch. I’m not sure where to start with that one.
That you’re calling me cliché or that you think I have a tiny mind.
’ The smile slowly wipes off. ‘Or that someone’s taken a hammer to your self-esteem and done such a good job.
Who did that, baby? Just give me a name and they’ll cease to exist by sundown. ’
It’s my turn to stagger. I barely manage to catch my jaw before it drops and smashes my sprinting heart. Because that hammer he just mentioned? He might as well be wielding it because he’s just smashed through the outer layer of a terrifying truth.
I yank my gaze from his. ‘You’re insane.’
‘Undisputed. But just because I’m mental doesn’t make it not true,’ he slides in softly, deadly as a poisoned dagger. ‘I’m waiting, bedda.’
‘And you’re testing my fucking patience.’ I reach for rage to cover the flanks he’s torn wide open.
He folds his thick arms over his thicker chest, a hint of a smile returning. ‘It’s okay if you need time to regroup. But I’ll have the name one way or another. In the meantime, feel free to come for my balls. I’ll be my pleasure to introduce them to that beautiful, hot little mouth.’
The sound that ripples from my diaphragm feels just as unhinged as the man planted before me. Absurdly, it widens his smile. Like I’ve just given him exactly what he wants.
‘No, duci, I’m not going to stop showering you with sentiments from our beloved homeland. You’re fucking beautiful. Fuck diamonds and pearls. You deserve worlds conquered and laid at your feet.’
‘And let me guess, you’re just the man to do it?’
He stops, shrugs. ‘In another life, maybe. In this life, we have the small problem of you being my mortal enemy. And my maybe mentee.’ His face hardens a little and his brown eyes dim. ‘One of you lot over on our side is fucking bad enough.’
My skin chills with the naked fury pulsing in his words. ‘That better not be a threat against my sister I hear in your voice, Salvatore.’
My voice is ice. Sharper than it should be. Sharper than I feel. But something about the way his eyes shuttered when he said ‘one of you lot’ sends fear crawling up my spine like it’s wearing a silk dress and stilettos.
Rafa’s jaw flexes. A long pause hangs between us, charged and brittle. Then he speaks, his voice lower now with something dark threading through it.
‘Maddie is an Untouchable now,’ he says. ‘She’s Cesare’s wife. That means she’s under family protection, for life. No one touches her.’
My mouth opens. Closes. I feel relief slam through me so hard my knees nearly buckle.
It’s instinct, pure and irrational – the same protective reflex that used to have me sneaking into Maddie’s room when we were kids after one of Papà’s rages, curling against her back and whispering made-up stories until she stopped shaking.
And he sees it. He sees all of it.
His gaze sharpens like a scalpel. ‘You didn’t know if she was safe, did you?’
I try to school my face. To recover. But the damage is done. The little flicker of raw, involuntary emotion has already sliced through the wall I spent years building.
Rafa steps closer. There’s no smile now. He’s just watching. Way too closely. ‘You thought I’d hurt her.’
‘I didn’t know what you’d do,’ I snap. It comes out too defensive, too quick.
‘No,’ he says, deadly quiet now. ‘You thought I was a fucking monster. And you’re right in every aspect but one, bedda.’
I suck in a breath, but he’s already shaking his head, jaw clenched like he’s swallowing something bitter.
‘I don’t harm women. Or children. Not even when they deserve it,’ he says. ‘I’m not El Topo. I don’t terrorise. And I sure as fuck don’t use my fists to feel powerful.’
Something about the fury in his voice makes my throat tighten. Because he’s not just angry. He’s… wounded. Like the thought that I might’ve lumped him in with the real monsters eats at him deeper than it should.
‘I didn’t think that,’ I lie. My voice sounds small, even to me.
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t have to.
His silence is punishment enough.
Rafaelle
I shouldn’t be thinking about it.
About her.
About that one devastating fact now burned into the folds of my fucking brain like a brand.
Not after the nasty assumptions she made.
But… Sofiya Mancinelli is a virgin.
Unbedded. Untouched. Unclaimed.
I’ve tortured men for intel. Disposed of bodies so thoroughly their own mothers couldn’t recognise them. But nothing – nothing – has ever possessed me like this.
I don’t want to be the next man who fucks her. I want to be the first. And the fucking last.
The one who ruins her for anyone else.
And if some other bastard even thinks about touching her, I’ll carve them into pieces, dump them into a pine box and bury them under the Monaco circuit.
She steps out of the bathroom now, lips glossed, dark sunglasses perched on her head, her black slacks hugging every inch of those hips like they were made to test me. The silk blouse she’s chosen dips at the collar, just enough to show the faint flutter of her pulse.
‘We need to head to the track,’ she says, pulling her blazer on with military efficiency.
‘I know,’ I mutter, still watching her like a man starved.
She looks up. Sees it. Feels it.
Her expression tightens. ‘I’ll go separately.’
‘Fuck no,’ I growl before she can take another step.
Her hand freezes mid-button. ‘Rafa—’
‘No. You’re not walking out of here or going anywhere without me.’
‘Like hell I’m not. I’m not a child.’
‘No, picciridda,’ I say, stepping into her space. ‘You’re worse. You’re mine. Under my control and my supervision. And I’m not letting what’s mine fuck off anywhere alone.’
She glares. ‘Then I’ll walk in front of you.’
My eyes drag down the length of her body. ‘Fine. I’ll stare at your ass the whole way like a pervert.’
‘You are a pervert.’
‘How are you going to stop me?’
She opens her mouth. Closes it. And fuck me, it’s another near-kiss with her breath hot, that chin tilted, those perfect lips a heartbeat from mine. My blood surges.
I don’t touch her. I can’t or we’ll never leave this suite.
So I let the truth slide out of me instead. ‘This little news about your virginity’s driving me insane.’
Her eyes widen, shock and… something else in her eyes. Intrigue?
Fuck, now it makes sense. The way she blushes. The pockets of wonder when she looks at me. When my natural don’t-fuck-around-ness adorably disarms her.
I’m not sure why I’m shocked as fuck. She bears all the hallmarks of a natural rebel with the sometimes pixie haircut and the constant disappearing acts and the fire and the utter lack of self-preservation that makes her slap a deranged psychopath with very little thought of consequences.
And… fuck me… but her purity just flings another log onto the obsession inferno. At this rate I’ll be entirely under her thrall by nightfall.
‘It’s front and centre now,’ I admit, voice gravel dark. ‘I want it. I want you. I’ll do anything for it.’
She recoils slightly. ‘It’s not a piece of panaru d’u mercatu you can bargain over at the local market.’
‘Then I’ll give you something more,’ I say, dead serious now. ‘A villa in Lake Como. A racing yacht. My next kill. Whatever currency makes you feel like you’re not being bought.’
She stares at me – and laughs. Sharp. Disbelieving. ‘You’re serious.’
I don’t blink. Surge closer. Revel in the warmth of her delicious skin. ‘Deadly.’
The laughter fades. She’s not smiling any more. Because she knows I’m not talking about something as trite as sex.
I’m talking about claiming. Conquering. Fucking pillaging.
The kind that comes with a predator’s roar and white sheets unfurled at sunrise to show virgin blood.
And it shakes her.
No one’s ever offered her anything like that, I know.
Not with reverence or with desire.
Her father and grandfather are the old-school assholes who would only ever offer her body like a blade – a deal to be forged, a prize to be used.
I’ve done my own research on Sofiya Mancinelli in the last year. I know her skills are frequently farmed out to other Cosa Nostra families for money. Know that she firmly stipulated maiming on those jobs, never kills – a shot-out kneecap or lost fingers here, a low-calibre gut shot there.
Which is why her body count is relatively low.
But regardless of the dubious intent, it’s the same way they tried to trade Maddie like cattle last year. The same mistake that led to her rebellion. That pushed her into Cesare’s bed and ignited the latest Mancinelli-Salvatore powder keg.
And now here I am.
A Salvatore.
Doing the same thing.
But it’s not for power.
What I’m offering doesn’t end with a ring and an old Sicilian padre mumbling words from the Old Book.
This is just for the one prize. For her.
Sofiya tears herself out of my space, her breath ragged, her cheeks flushed. ‘We’re supposed to be at war,’ she hisses, like saying it aloud will undo whatever the fuck is happening between us. ‘And you think I’m going to hand myself over to you to conquer? Dream the fuck on.’
My head drops against the wall she just vacated. Chasing her scent. Savouring possibilities.
But I don’t chase her. I don’t need to because I can already feel it. The inevitability of it. And the panic rising in her like smoke.
She’s not running from me.
She’s running from herself.
And she has no idea that I’ve already started hunting.