Chapter 3
NICOLAS
My entire life had been planned from the moment my parents knew they were having a boy.
From my name, to which school I would go to, who my friends would be and who my enemies would become.
But no one ever planned on me seeing the dark-haired beauty sitting across from the man who was supposed to be my friend.
I didn't expect to see her there with him.
Hell, I expected to see those Mancini fuckers with Johnny boy, stealing from me and my family as if they had any right to do so.
As if they weren't the ones who ordered the hit on my father one year ago, a move that had effectively put me in the position of Capo at just twenty-four years old. No one was more disappointed than me that I’d been forced to take the reins before I was ready.
But that didn't stop the other families from trying to stir up shit or trying to take me down.
Little did they know, I wasn't a kid just because I was younger than them. My father taught me well. Maybe even too well. And ever since he died, I'd been on a warpath, trying to find those responsible for his death.
My mother was a shell of herself, mourning the man she’d spent the last thirty years with.
My sisters looked up to me now, hoping they wouldn't end up in the hands of one of the monsters in our world now that our father was no longer here to protect them.
The weight of the world rested on my shoulders, but the moment I saw that girl—no.
A woman—sitting with Johnny, who was supposedly our finance guy, that weight disappeared.
It was replaced by the need so profound, so fucking vicious, that it took everything in me not to get up and rip him apart just for daring to look at her.
But I couldn't do that. I couldn't do whatever the fuck I wanted, at least not anymore, no matter how much I wished to.
I couldn't promise her a future when I didn't even know if I had one.
I couldn't hold her hand and pretend I was just another civilian when the blood of my enemies rested heavily on my hands.
The blood that deserved to be spilled.
The blood I wouldn't mourn.
One look at her, one look at those bright blue eyes, and I knew she was an angel.
Too fucking innocent to be with the likes of me.
Now the question was whether she knew anything about his dealings?
Was she involved? Could she be the key to figuring out who was behind the entire operation?
Because there was not a single doubt in my mind that someone close to us was orchestrating everything.
I've looked into every family surrounding us and I found nothing. But something in my gut told me it was one of them. It had to be.
What I didn't expect tonight was to be attacked as we were leaving the restaurant. Or for the attackers to be as cocky as they were. I always knew Mancini's were fuckers. Sometimes stupid. But I couldn't predict this.
What bothered me more than the attack was the fact that I couldn't see her anymore.
I couldn't see Johnny either, and I had a feeling I wouldn't be seeing him again.
Ever.. He knew I always had dinner at La Cantina on Fridays.
He knew I would be here. And while it wasn't some closely guarded secret, a gnawing instinct told me he tipped them off. So imagine my surprise when the fuckers suddenly retreated, leaving dozens of their men behind. Dead. Bullet holes peppering their bodies. Leaving us in the middle of the mess I hadn’t foreseen.
But I couldn't leave. I couldn't fucking step out of the restaurant, even if it meant dying right here and now.
My feet carried me to the table where Johnny and the dark-haired goddess sat before the shooting. And before I could talk myself out of it, I lifted the tablecloth, feeling a rush of relief I had no business feeling when those bright blue eyes slammed into mine, making it easier to breathe.
She was hidden underneath, trembling, obviously scared. But something in her gaze made me pause. The defiance. The stubbornness. Her hand clutched a fork to her chest as if that could save her.
My knees threatened to give out as I crouched in front of her.
But before I dared to pull her out or ask her if she was okay, I remembered she was with my enemy.
This could have been an elaborate ruse to get me to lower my defenses so they could attack when I least expected it.
It wouldn't have been the first time they'd had a women to seduce a man and destroy a family from the inside out.
She looked at me as if I was an answer to her prayers.
But against my every instinct, I hardened myself, forcing the ruthlessness into my gaze, the icy stare my enemies knew me by, and leaned closer.
Her doe-shaped eyes widened before an almost invisible flinch passed through her as I closed the distance.
"Well, look who's been hiding here all this time. "
The eyes that were looking almost lovingly at me narrowed as if she had just realized what was happening. "I finally found you, kitten."
She scrambled back, hitting one of the table legs, her long, dark hair falling over her shoulders. I wondered if it was as silky as it looked.
No. Stop it.
The fork she held rose between us, and I could see that she no longer saw me as her savior. She saw me as the devil I was. The devil of Redmont City. And I would rather have her fear me than think I’d ever give her my secrets.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice barely above whisper. But those three words hit me harder than a hundred bullets. And I'd be damned if her raspy voice didn't awaken something foreign in my chest. Something I have never felt before. "What do you want?"
You, I wanted to say. But before the words could tumble through my lips, I stopped myself, remembering who I was and who she could be.
I couldn't lose sight of what was important.
My family came first. Their safety mattered more than anything, and I couldn't protect them if I was seven feet under beside my father.
"You already know who I am, kitten," I smirked, crawling toward her. "Don't play coy."
Anger flared in those blue depths, accompanied by a teeny tiny smile that could only be described as slightly psychotic. And before I could utter another word, she lunged forward and stabbed the fork straight through my hand.
"Fuuuuck!"
"Nabijem te na kurac!" she yelled out in a language I didn't know before scrambling out from her hiding spot and away from me.
"Fucking fuck," I cursed, pulling out the fork, tossing it to the side as blood poured from the four tiny wounds. "She's fucking crazy."
And you like it.
Shut. Up.
I got out from underneath the table, cradling my hand to my chest when I saw her dark locks whipping behind her as she ran for the exit. Two of my men still stood nearby, looking at me with wide eyes.
"Get her!" I yelled out, pointing at her.
Gio and Damian intercepted her way without hesitation, pulling her up from the ground just as she was about to reach the doors.
I would never admit it out loud, but I hated their hands on her.
I hated her being so far from me. And most of all, I hated the fact that her little display did nothing to quell the desire waking up in my blood.
"Let go of me!" she shrieked, fighting tooth and nail against men that were double her size. But no matter how much she fought, she was no match for the two of my best men. "I'm going to gut you like fucking rats!" She threatened, and God-fucking-dammit, I wanted her.
The fire in her called to something dark inside me, beckoning me. And the closer I got to where they stood, the more the need to know her, to hold her, to make her mine roared inside me.
I was bleeding all over my shirt, but I didn't give a fuck. I only had one mission—to get to her.
I nodded at Gio to let her down and turn her toward me.
Hatred, anger, fear. All of it mixed in her expression, and the pressure in my chest turned unbearable.
I hated the fact I was putting it there.
Her flushed cheeks, her parted lips, the sweat gathered at the nape of her neck…
All of it just made me want to taste her.
Lick the scent of her and bottle it up in the darkest part of my mind where it would forever stay with me.
I towered over her, even with her high heels on, and the beast inside me grinned when she craned her neck to look up at me the closer I got.
The defiance in her made my cock twitch.
Especially at the fact that she didn't look away or even flinch when I pressed my bloodied hand to her cheek, smearing her with my essence.
"My name is Nicolas Moretti," I said first, hoping my name alone would bring out some sort of reaction. Something to show she knew who I was.
Nothing.
Nothing was there but the building anger that started replacing everything else in her eyes.
"I need to know your name, kitten."
A little smirk played on her lips as her eyes ran over my face, as if she was memorizing it, storing it somewhere in the back of her mind. My thumb took a mind of its own, dragging over her bottom lip, painting it crimson as my blood kept running down the wound and over my hand.
"Tell me," I growled., Desperate to know..
She stepped closer to me, pulling Gio and Damian with her.
"I'm your biggest fucking nightmare, svinjo jedna."
I expected her to be scared. I expected her to beg for her life. But when her lips parted and that little smirk stayed firmly on as she spat in my face, that... That was unexpected.
Gio and Damian looked at each other, then at her, then at me, and I could see the questions popping in their minds. Me?
I laughed. And fucking laughed some more as I dragged my other hand over my face, gathering her spit before bringing it to my lips, licking it away while keeping my eyes at her.
"This," I leaned down, pressing my forehead to hers, "is going to be so much fun."
She pushed against Gio and Damian as I took a step back.
"Take her to the car."
I was nowhere near done with my kitten
Sarai la mia bellissima rovina.