10. Niccolò
Niccolò
It takes three days to drown the South Side in Irish blood.
By the time the convoy pulls back through the heavy iron gates of the Severato estate, my hands are coated in a dark, flaking crust of dried crimson.
My knuckles are split. A dull, throbbing ache sits high in my right shoulder from the recoil of a rifle, but the turf war is over.
The message was delivered. The streets belong to me.
"Get the cars washed. Burn the clothes," I order as I step out of the SUV. The freezing morning air bites at the blood staining my unbuttoned dress shirt.
Alessio slides out of the opposite side, wiping a streak of soot from his jaw. He looks energized, like the violence was a shot of pure espresso. Enzo simply nods, his icy demeanor unbothered by the three days of slaughter we just orchestrated.
I leave them in the courtyard. I walk up the stone steps and push through the front doors.
The foyer is silent. It is barely six in the morning, the sun just beginning to bleed through the high windows. The house feels exactly as I left it, cold, and immaculate.
I bypass the grand staircase and take the private elevator up to the second floor. I need a shower. I need to wash the stench of copper and gun smoke off my skin before I sit behind my desk.
The heavy doors to my private suite open quietly.
I step inside, shrugging off my ruined suit jacket. I toss it onto the leather armchair. I am unbuttoning the cuffs of my blood-stained shirt when a slight movement catches the corner of my eye.
I stop.
Livia is kneeling by the fireplace.
She is wearing the black uniform, the white apron tied tightly around her narrow waist. She holds a small brass shovel, sweeping the cold ashes from the hearth into an iron bucket.
She doesn't look up when I enter. She doesn't flinch at the heavy thud of my boots. She simply continues the rhythmic, mindless motion of sweeping ash.
I walk closer. "Livia."
She stops. She places the brass shovel down on the stone hearth. Slowly, she pushes herself up from her knees, dusting off the front of her apron. She turns to face me.
The breath in my lungs evaporates.
I have been gone for seventy-two hours. In that time, the girl who stood in this very room and fiercely dropped a crystal decanter to test my temper has vanished.
She looks like a corpse.
Her skin is a sickly, translucent white, devoid of all color. Deep, bruised purple shadows drag down the delicate skin under her eyes. The black uniform, which was already too loose, now seems to hang off her collarbones as if she has lost weight in just three days.
But it isn't the physical exhaustion that stops my heart. It is her eyes.
When she looks at me, there is no fire. There is no blazing, reckless defiance. There is no hatred. Her eyes are completely dead, hollowed out and swept clean of any emotion. She looks at me like a hollow shell of a human being.
A lethal anger instantly ignites in my chest. I left her here for three days. I left her in my house.
"What happened to you?" I demand, my rumble echoes off the stone walls.
"Nothing, Don Niccolò," she replies.
Her voice is completely flat. Monotone. She uses my title without the usual venom. It sounds mechanical.
I cross the Persian rug in three long strides, closing the distance between us. I stop inches from her, my massive frame casting a dark shadow over her pale face. I am covered in the blood of other men, but she doesn't even blink at the gore on my shirt.
"Do not lie to me," I say, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ache. "You look like you haven't slept since I left. You look like you haven't eaten. Who touched you?"
"No one touched me."
"Did Marta keep you working through the night?" I press, my hands curling into fists at my sides to keep from grabbing her shoulders. "Did someone speak to you? Give me a name, Livia, and I will drag them into the courtyard by their hair."
She stares at the center of my chest. She refuses to meet my eyes.
"I am performing the duties outlined in my contract," she states, her voice devoid of any inflection. "I clean. I organize. I am fine. Is there something you require, sir?"
The subservience infuriates me. I wanted her compliance, yes, but I wanted it given, not beaten into her by a pack of jealous maids. I wanted her to surrender to me, not to the brutal isolation of the estate staff. This hollow, robotic obedience is an insult.
She is building a wall. She is shutting me out, retreating into the same dark, inaccessible corner of her mind she used in the interrogation room.
I need to break it. I need to force a reaction out of her, to drag her back to the surface.
"Yes," I snap, my voice harsh and completely unforgiving. "I require a bath. Run the water."
She doesn't flinch at my tone. She simply nods once. "Yes, sir."
She turns and walks into the massive, open master bathroom.
I follow her, stripping the ruined, blood-soaked shirt from my shoulders and throwing it onto the floor.
The bathroom is clad entirely in black marble, anchored by an oversized sunken tub at the center of the room. Livia walks to the edge of the tub, turns the heavy brass fixtures, and the water begins to roar. Thick, heavy steam immediately rises, filling the cold air with condensation.
She reaches for a bottle of expensive bath oil, pouring a measure into the running water. She does everything with mechanical precision.
I stand behind her, shirtless. My torso is covered in a map of jagged, pale scars, souvenirs from a life spent in the crosshairs. The blood from the night's work is smeared across my chest and abdomen.
"Turn around," I command.
She places the bottle down and turns. Her dead eyes finally flick up, taking in the expanse of my bare, heavily scarred, blood-stained chest. She doesn't gasp. She doesn't shudder in fear. She just waits.
"Take a sponge," I order, my voice dropping to a dark, gravelly pitch. "You are going to wash it off."
For a fraction of a second, I see a muscle twitch in her jaw. A tiny crack in the titanium armor. But she smooths it over instantly.
She walks to the marble counter, picks up a thick, natural sponge, and steps back to the edge of the tub.
I sit on the wide, black marble ledge of the bathtub. My legs are spread, my boots resting on the floor. The steam billows up around my waist, hot and damp. I look up at her.
"My back," I say.
She steps between my spread knees.
The proximity is instantly suffocating. The hem of her black uniform brushes against the fabric of my trousers. I am entirely consumed by the scent of her.
She dips the sponge into the hot water. She leans over me.
When the hot, wet sponge makes contact with my bare shoulder, every muscle in my back locks.
Her touch is painfully gentle. She drags the soapy sponge across my skin, wiping away the dried blood.
The heat of the water, the slide of the soap, and the small, trembling pressure of her hands against my heavily scarred flesh creates an agonizing, electric tension that hits me straight in the groin.
She works in silence. She cleans the blood from my left shoulder, moving slowly across the broad expanse of my back.
I close my eyes. I can feel the erratic, shallow puffs of her breath ghosting over the back of my neck. She is trying so hard to remain detached, to act like I am nothing more than a piece of furniture she is assigned to polish.
But her hands are shaking.
The sponge slips from her fingers, dropping into the hot water with a soft splash.
She leans over me to retrieve it. As she reaches down, her chest accidentally brushes against my bare shoulder.
An animalistic groan vibrates low in my throat.
The contact is brief, but it is enough to snap the fragile thread of my control. I am exhausted, running on the high of a mafia execution, and the woman I have been obsessing over for a week is standing between my legs, entirely at my mercy.
My hand shoots out. I grab her left wrist in an iron grip. Livia gasps, the sound tearing out of her throat as I yank her forward. The sponge falls back into the water.
I pull her down until she is practically kneeling on the edge of the tub between my thighs. I twist my body, bringing my face mere inches from hers.
"Talk to me," I demand, my voice is a harsh, desperate rasp.
Her eyes are wide now, the dead, hollow look finally shattered by the sudden violence of my movement. Her chest heaves, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts.
"Let go of me," she whispers, struggling weakly against my grip.
"No." I pull her an inch closer. The steam swirls around us, isolating us in the humid heat. "I want to know who put those shadows under your eyes. I want to know who told you to stop fighting back. You submit to me, Livia. Only me. You do not let my staff turn you into a ghost."
"They didn't do anything," she cries out, a furious, hot tear finally breaking free and spilling over her lashes. "They are exactly what I expected. This entire house is exactly what I expected."
"Then why are you looking at me like you’re dead?" I growl, my grip tightening marginally on her delicate wrist.
She stops struggling. She goes completely limp in my grasp.
She looks into my eyes, and the weight of her emotional ruin crashes into me.
The tear slides down her pale cheek, dropping onto the white collar of her apron.
It isn't the physical exhaustion. It isn't the maids.
I look deep into the broken, shattered depths of her dark eyes, and I realize she isn't hiding from them.
She is hiding from me.
Something in this house broke her trust. Something convinced her that the tiny, fragile sliver of vulnerability we shared in the study three days ago was a complete lie. She is looking at me not as a savior, but as a warden. A man who plays games with her sanity.
The absolute desolation in her expression guts me.
My chest tightens, a sickening wave of guilt mixing with my possessiveness.
I wanted to conquer her. I wanted to break her fierce independence so she would rely on me.
But looking at her now, trembling and completely devoid of hope, I realize that breaking a shattered girl isn't conquering. It is just cruelty.
I am tearing her apart.
The beast inside me screams to pull her into the water. It demands I press my mouth to hers, to forcefully remind her that her body belongs to me, to wipe away the despair with pure, blinding lust.
But the man looking at Livia Marino's tears cannot do it.
I slowly, reluctantly loosen my grip on her wrist.
My fingers uncurl. I let her go.
"Get out," I say.
Livia doesn't hesitate. She scrambles backward, nearly slipping on the wet marble floor. She clutches her wrist to her chest, her eyes darting to my face one last time to make sure I am not going to grab her again.
She turns and flees the bathroom.
I hear the heavy oak doors of the suite open and slam shut.
I am left alone in the suffocating steam. I look down at the water in the massive black tub. It has turned a faint, murky pink from the blood washing off my back.
I run a wet, heavy hand over my face, the exhaustion of the last three days finally crashing down onto my shoulders like an anvil. I slide off the edge and submerge myself in the hot water, letting it burn against the cuts on my knuckles.
My Consigliere’s voice echoes in my head, a conversation from weeks ago.
The Falco family expects a formal dinner. Don Roberto has already arranged the catering. Caterina is expecting a ring.
I rest the back of my head against the cold marble lip of the tub and stare up at the ceiling.
Caterina. The political alliance that guarantees my control over the eastern seaboard. She is coming to the estate this weekend for a formal engagement dinner.
A wave of revulsion rolls through my stomach.
I can barely stand the thought of Caterina's name, let alone the reality of her sitting at my dining table. The thought of another woman acting as the Lady of this house, sleeping in my bed, wearing my ring... it makes my blood run completely cold.
But worse than that is the thought of Livia.
I picture Livia in that oversized maid uniform, carrying a silver tray, forced to stand in the corner of the dining room and watch me parade an arranged fiancée around the estate.
I picture the humiliation it will cause her.
I picture the staff whispering, reminding her that she is nothing but a temporary whore while the real Queen holds court.
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth grind together.
I slam my fist down into the water, sending a violent splash of pink foam over the edge of the marble tub.
I can't do it.
I don't care about the shipping routes. I don't care about the treaty with the Falco family or the millions of dollars tied to the alliance. I don't care about my father's wrath or the syndicate's traditions.
If Caterina Falco sets foot in this house and looks down at Livia, I will pull my gun and shoot the princess at the dinner table.