Chapter 1 #2
She’d been prepared to consummate her marriage to Niccolo Martinelli and give her father grandchildren with Martinelli blood, had spent months psyching herself up for it.
She’d never felt anything in the way of desire for Niccolo, but he was fundamentally a good guy, and she’d liked him well enough.
The order to hunt him down and kill him after the jilting had come from her brothers.
She’d had to mask her relief when they spared his life.
If her brothers were to shoot Elio down in front of her right now, she’d have to restrain herself from spitting on his corpse, but only because they were in a house of God.
She hated the way he looked at her. His eyes were unique and unsettling, a pale silver so bright she imagined they glowed in the dark. The rings around the irises were as black as the pupils and his heart.
She’d first locked onto those eyes five or so years ago.
She’d been in a nightclub and had felt someone looking at her.
When she’d turned her head, he’d been propped against the bar, openly staring at her.
It had been the most unsettling of sensations.
She’d been even more unsettled when she’d learned who he was. A Ranieri.
The decades-old turf war between the Espositos and Ranieris, triggered by the murder of her father’s oldest, closest friend, was a war that had gone down in Naples legend.
It had decimated the Ranieris and left the few survivors penniless.
For the Espositos, it had been the springboard to their wild success.
Siena had been born at the height of the war. Only recently had she and her brothers learned that their father, contrary to the story he’d fed them and everyone else, had started it.
She would admire Elio for the way he’d dragged himself from a child with nothing to a man with the power to challenge her family if it hadn’t all been done to destroy her family.
The death of Siena’s father had given their rivals the confidence to sniff around for weakness. Their legitimate public-facing media empire was safe, but it was their shadowed world that was coming under increased threat. Without the shadowed world, their whole empire would collapse.
The Esposito siblings had been fighting fires on so many different fronts since their father died that Elio Ranieri had slipped under their radar. Until they’d learned the truth about the decades-old turf war, none of them had realised how seriously they should have been taking him.
It must have taken Elio years to accrue the power he now held in his hands. Bit by bit, piece by piece, building wealth, contacts and an army, and all done under the Espositos’ noses.
She’d known it from the first lock of their eyes.
Deep in her bones, Siena had felt the threat Elio Ranieri held, but because of his terrible reputation with women and the way his presence unsettled her, she’d always thought it was personal to her.
From the groups he mixed with, she’d known he was making something of himself, but had had no idea the extent of it.
Had her father known? Surely he’d kept an eye on him over the years? If he’d known Elio was building his own power base, then why hadn’t he told them? Warned them? Had he been uncharacteristically burying his head in the sand because of the skeletons that would be revealed in confronting it?
If he hadn’t known then that meant Elio was far more dangerous than Siena or her brothers had grasped, because their father had known everything.
The one person who would have known their father’s thoughts was their mother, but when it came to the Ranieris, Siena knew they couldn’t trust a word she said. She’d known the truth about the war and had kept it from her children for decades.
And now Siena was paying the price for it, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that this hellish union was only the first part of Elio’s vengeance.
* * *
Elio’s new mother-in-law was certainly the perfect hostess.
She’d thrown her home open for the wedding party and spared no expense in the catering.
Standing with what was left of his family, the Espositos watching them like wary cats with their hackles raised, Elio relished every mouthful of the exquisite buffet and made no attempt to hide that he was soaking in every detail of Valeria Esposito’s magnificent home.
It was incredible to see what his family’s blood had paid for.
Elio had walked past this house more times than he could begin to count, but this was the first time he’d been invited inside it.
He’d considered, many times, forcing his way in, but this was a gratification he’d deferred.
Shooting his way in would be too easy. He wanted his revenge on the family who had stolen everything and everyone from him to hurt.
Really hurt. Death had cheated him of his revenge on Lorenzo, so he would take it from his grave.
Besides, Lorenzo was just one cog in the big Esposito wheel.
The biggest cog, yes, but there were other cogs too, and he was going to destroy them all, most especially the queen bitch that was Valeria Esposito.
He’d promised his sister that when the time came, she could put the bullet in the queen bitch’s head.
Did they really imagine, after everything they’d done, that his vengeance would be satisfied with marriage to the snooty princess bitch that was Siena?
The Espositos were nothing if not arrogant.
Decades ago, Elio’s father had underestimated the Espositos, and now the roles had reversed, and in their arrogance, the Espositos were underestimating Marco Ranieri’s son.
When Elio was done, this house, with its grand rooms, multiple bedrooms, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and landscaped grounds, would be his.
All the apartments and villas owned by the Esposito offspring would be his.
All their businesses and interests, legitimate or otherwise, would be his.
If any of her children survived their coming fall, and it was a very big if, then they would be his, too.
He was going to take everything. The wheels to take it all had been in motion for a long time, and just as he’d noticed his bride avoiding the eyes of her oldest brother’s right-hand man, Elio made sure not to exchange glances with the Espositos’ lawyer, Vincent Angeli.
Vincent had been one of the most important players during Lorenzo’s reign.
His clever legal brain had helped Lorenzo transform himself from a lowlife gangster into one of Italy’s richest and most powerful businessmen.
When it came to the Espositos’ businesses, shadowed and legitimate, Vincent knew everything inside out.
Mattia relied on him as heavily as his father had.
And now Vincent was working for Elio.
Before Elio took it all, he would enjoy his special prize. His beautiful, sexy new wife. The woman who’d always looked at him as if he were something foul that she’d trodden on, and who’d not exchanged a word with him since they’d exchanged their vows.
Even the most critical of men would consider her sexy.
Where her brothers had all inherited their mother’s height, Siena was short like her father had been.
She was tiny, but with natural curves that could make a grown man weep and large eyes of the softest blue a man could drown in.
Everything about her was full, from her long, tumbling blonde hair to her lips to the breasts that moved so succulently when she walked.
He would bring Lorenzo’s pride and joy to heel. He would help himself to her beautiful body, and imagine her father looking down on them, locked in his circle of hell, unable to do a damned thing about it.
And then, when he’d made her his, he would burn the whole rotten Esposito empire to the ground.