Chapter Eight
Gaetano
I was a man used to hard things. My place in the family was set in stone early on, thanks to my father, who saw me for what I was from an early age, and later to my mother, who carried the torch advocating for me to grow the family’s public image through my position at the hospital after his death.
I’d like to believe that not being a direct participant in the family business gave me a certain level of autonomy, but that was a lie.
While caution had never been my defining trait (we unanimously reserved that title for Massimo), I had a unique ability to process information, studying my opponents in much the same way as I studied surgery, knowing just where to cut.
With anything in life, you can present your narrative and drive the outcome in that direction.
And any opponent, if you knew what buttons to push, could be led to the conclusion you wished, and that was an area in which I thrived.
Had Massimo not been attached to Romeo’s hip from day one, and naturally been next in line, I was certain they would have asked me to be his consigliere.
Thankfully, it never came to that. While I loved my brother, spending that much time with Romeo would be hell.
We weren’t oil and water exactly, but we had our own opinions, and mine were always second to his in the dynamic.
On the flip side, he carried tremendous weight on his shoulders that came with his role as leader.
No matter what, family came first, and taking care of them, nursing them back to health, was my priority.
We were in the war room poring over timelines and geographical locations for the Solntsevskaya Bratva and the Toronto branch of the Siderna empire that belonged to Don Calabretta.
There were many moving pieces at play, and part of that was Sonja Knyazev, daughter of Ivan Knyazev, one of its highest-ranking members.
This wasn’t the world I usually took part in.
I’d never chosen an active role in the family business, but because of my personal enigma, Gabriella Calabretta, I was dragged straight into the middle of it.
Bringing this situation to my family’s door meant I had to participate fully for the first time, helping identify and expose the larger issues at hand.
Six months ago, if someone had told me a nurse from Toronto would drag me into the middle of an international mafia conflict, I would have laughed them out of the room.
My life was structured. Predictable. Hospital. Family. Club. Repeat.
I preferred it that way.
People assumed surgeons thrived on chaos. The truth was exactly the opposite. We spent our lives restoring order. Identifying problems. Eliminating complications. Putting things back together.
Chaos belonged to Romeo. To Giovanni. To the men who spent their days navigating alliances, betrayals, and power struggles.
Not me. Yet somehow one stubborn, infuriating woman had upended all of that.
What started as a misplaced surgical tray had become a tangled web stretching across multiple countries, two organized crime syndicates, and enough secrets to destabilize families that had existed for generations.
And at the center of it all stood Gabriella Calabretta.
The irony wasn't lost on me. For years, I'd successfully avoided becoming entangled in family business beyond patching up the occasional bullet wound and lecturing my brothers about seeking medical attention before they were halfway to death.
Now I was sitting in the war room voluntarily.
Worse, I cared.
Every new piece of information felt personal.
Every lead.
Every threat.
Every unanswered question.
Because somewhere along the way, this had stopped being about organized crime and started being about Gabriella. That realization should have concerned me far more than it did.
Our large overhead screens had a picture of Gaby front and center.
Could one bratty nurse really be the catalyst that brought down the mafia families?
A marriage to the daughter of even a small Italian family in Canada gave the Russians a foothold on this continent.
If we were unable to stop their spread, then there would be war on multiple fronts in a dozen countries. The death toll would be extremely high.
The worst part was, we didn’t dip our toes in the same pond scum with them.
We didn’t engage in human trafficking. We stuck mostly to shipping, gambling, and underground clubs for our questionable business practices.
Legally, we had casinos, bars, and restaurants all over the country, not to mention our wineries in Italy and California, and our pharmaceutical investments.
Gaby stared out at me from the center of one screen and, almost as if manifesting her, my phone pinged with a message from Vincent.
Sorry, sir. Your presence is required immediately.
That didn’t sound like Vincent, unless he’d been possessed by the ghost of an English butler since the last time I saw him.
Explain! I typed and hit send.
She got a hold of my gun and threatened to blow my brains out unless I summoned you.
I swore under my breath, glaring at her picture on the screen. What could be so important that she threatened to kill the man assigned to protect her?
“I’ll be back later,” I announced. “I have to run and check on someone and then head to the hospital to check in on a few patients.”
The guys didn’t even look up but waved me off. Since I could be at risk, Romeo had finally gotten his way, and I now traveled with a bodyguard. Paulo was in the car, ready for me when I arrived.
“To the safe house,” I ordered and sat back with my phone, scrolling through urgent emails from my secretary, Rita.
I quickly typed that I’d be arriving in a few hours to check in and tucked it back in my suit pocket.
The city blurred past the window as Paulo navigated traffic. Ordinarily, I would have used the drive to review patient files, answer emails, or prepare for whatever waited for me at the hospital. Today, I found myself staring out the glass instead.
A week.
Seven days since I'd left Gabriella at the safe house.
Seven days of security updates.
Seven days of guard reports.
Seven days of telling myself that distance was necessary.
Every morning, someone sent me a summary of her activities.
She ate. Slept. Argued with the guards. And demanded a phone. Then argued with the guards again.
The reports should have been tedious.
Instead, I read every one.
Twice.
The realization was irritating. I told myself it was my responsibility. That I was simply ensuring the safety of a potential witness. A woman connected to an active investigation.
A woman who might unknowingly hold information capable of starting a war.
The explanation sounded reasonable. But it was also complete bullshit.
If one of Romeo's witnesses spent three hours complaining about the quality of the coffee, I wouldn't care.
Yet somehow I knew Gabriella had managed to convince Vincent to play cards twice, insulted Paulo's driving without ever meeting him, and attempted to negotiate for internet access three separate times. I knew because I'd asked.
The fact that I kept asking was becoming increasingly difficult to justify.
I rubbed a hand across my jaw and looked back out the window. A week should have been enough. Enough time to regain perspective. Enough time to remember who I was before she barreled into my life and turned it upside down.
Instead, the distance seemed to have the opposite effect.
I missed her.
The admission sat heavily in my chest.
And judging by Vincent's message, Gabriella had apparently decided she'd waited long enough.
My thoughts immediately strayed to Gaby.
She frustrated me in ways no one else ever had.
In all fairness, my time was so divided that seeing her had been shuffled to the bottom of the priority list, yet I found myself missing her anyway, which only irritated me further.
I told myself the distance was practical.
The fact that I checked the security reports every night suggested otherwise.
She was a weakness I couldn't afford, or so I kept telling myself whenever I considered driving to the safe house instead of the hospital or Malvasia.
Why did I feel so drawn to that damn woman? A curvy woman’s body in a tiny frame like hers never held an attraction for me in the past. Yet now, her sexy little body had my cock straining in my pants. Add to that her huge mane of hair in my favorite color and the fire in her eyes.
Mamma Mia! She’d gotten under my skin in record time. Being with her was such a great pull that I’d purposely chosen a safe house that took some time to get to, just so I couldn’t drop in whenever the urge arose to sink my cock inside her hot little pussy.
We pulled up out front, my gaze immediately drawn to the light in her bedroom. I stormed inside, shaking my head in disgust at Vincent, and opened the door to the bedroom.
“All right, Miss Cala, what’s so urgent that you have to—”
The words died on my lips. Gaby stood naked on the bed with one leg wrapped around the bed post. Now I knew why she’d chosen the room with the birch bed, as it had almost ceiling-tall posts at all four corners.
“Tano,” she purred, her pretty red lips in a practiced pout. “It’s about time you got here.”
I closed the door and locked it, leaning against it with crossed arms. The little brat made a booty call through her guard. Fine, I’d play along.
“Play with your nipples, Gabriella.”
Using her leg to stay secure to the post, she cupped her large breasts. Her eyes narrowed and a whimper escaped from between her lips as she squeezed and massaged herself.
“Tweak those nipples, naughty girl.”
Her pupils dilated as she gripped her hardened buds between her fingers and tugged on them. With her leg cocked up, it was easy to see the excitement glittering along her swollen lips.
“Roll them, Gaby. Teach them a lesson. Show me what I would do if my hands were on you right now.”