10. Marco
CHAPTER 10
MARCO
I walked the hallways blind, feasting on every inch of Gianna’s skin I could reach while she clung to me. The moment our suite door closed behind us, I had her up against it, tearing her tank top from her body and wrestling with the button and zipper of her jeans to shove them down her hips. She helped me along with the task, letting me free my cock so that when she jumped into my arms again, I could fuck into her dripping core.
Her distress through the bond had launched me to my feet, walking out on Bianca mid-sentence while the others stared after me. I would deal with the consequences later. I refused to think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t left.
The keen Gianna made when I drove into her soothed down all my ravenous instincts that called for violence. I had saved her. She was here with me now, ready and willing to let me reaffirm that she was mine. Every thrust into her body leashed the beast a little more, letting me channel that energy into sex instead of death.
Gianna panted my name. Her nails dug into my scalp, her crossed ankles pushing insistently at my hips.
Mine.
Mine to keep.
Mine to ruin.
All fucking mine.
Her scent shifted back to normal, filling my nose with peaches and sweet tea, every breath filled with that syrupy fragrance I had begun to crave like air.
A pounding against the door scared the absolute shit out of both of us, and I pulled out of her, letting her feet settle onto the ground even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I wrenched the door open to see Elio standing there.
“If you don’t get your ass back to that meeting, Bianca’s going to feed you into a wood chipper.”
Fuck.
He cast a pointed glance at my hair Gianna had ruined, and my cock still coated in her juices. “Shower first. I’ll wait here.”
I slammed the door and dragged my omega into the bathroom. I could ruin her just as easily in the shower as against the door. Her nervousness flickered through the bond, but she seemed happy enough to hop right back on my cock. I fucked her until we both came undone beneath that warm spray and I was forced back to that god-awful meeting.
Leaving her behind felt like unleashing ants under my skin, but I couldn’t disobey a direct order, not if I wanted her to stay safe.
“She’s not going to like how bold the omega has made you,” Elio said as we walked.
“If I hadn’t gone, she might be dead now and our alliance with the Mancinis would be over.”
It was a truth and a lie. I hadn’t gone to her because of the alliance, but it was an excuse I would need when I faced Bianca again.
“What the fuck was that, Marco?” Bianca hissed when we re-entered her rooms.
“One of your capos was trying to take what was mine. I’m not going to let him compromise the alliance or undermine any of us. You gave the omega to me, and he was trying to take something that wasn’t earned.”
Something in my memory prodded at me. I’d been so distracted by Gianna I hadn’t even realized at first. If the capo had taken Gianna, he’d likely been the one to take the Conti and Russo girls too. Fucking fuck.
“I think he’s working with the Rossis.”
That got everyone’s attention. Irritation still flickered in Bianca’s eyes. “Which capo?”
“Nerin.”
A muscle in her jaw ticked. “Where is he?”
“Probably still on the floor.”
Bianca snapped her fingers. “Enzo, find him. Take him to the interrogation room.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He rose out of his seat and disappeared out the door.
“Tell me why you think one of my capos has betrayed us,” Bianca demanded.
I moved to the map on one of her walls that marked out all of the territories, pointing to the three segments controlled by the Mancinis, Contis, and Russos. “There were two other omegas with Gianna when we extracted her, all of them from the leading families in territories that control bridges into Rossi territory. If they had the same plan, to traffick those women to Rossi leaders, force bonds on them, and subsequently force alliances with the leaders of territories on our side of the river?—”
“Fucking cunts!” Bianca growled and leapt up from her seat. “Come. Bring the omega.”
I sidetracked to get Gianna.
“What’s going on?” she asked, trotting after me down the halls.
“Torture.”
“Of me?!” she squeaked.
“Fuck no. I’d already be driving you out of here if that was the case. Your abductor is being interrogated.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Do your best not to react to anything.”
When we joined them in the interrogation room, Enzo was busy securing Nerin to the bolted-down chair. Gianna’s eyes were wide, her scent sour with fear, but I kept my arm around her waist.
“Please!” Nerin cried. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know she belonged to someone!”
“Shut the fuck up, you oozing pustule.” Bianca yanked his head back by his hair, flipped open her Swiss army knife, and plunged the blade into his thigh.
Nerin screamed like he was dying, and to be fair, he probably would be before long. Gianna shook in my embrace. There wasn’t much I could do to soothe her in these circumstances, but afterward I could.
“Did you think we wouldn’t find out?” Bianca hissed.
“Please! Don’t?—”
She dragged the blade down his leg, blood gushing from his thigh as he bellowed.
“Why were you trafficking girls in the border territories? Who were you sending them to?”
“Fuck! Fuck, I don’t know! They just paid me.”
“Elio,” Bianca growled, “rip apart his accounts and trace where the money came from.”
“On it.” Elio left us to start his task.
Bianca twisted the blade, carving deep. “Did you truly believe I’d let you live when I found out?”
“Bianca—” Nerin wept. “Please, I never wanted—I never thought?—”
“That’s a fucking problem, Nerin.” She yanked the knife out and slammed it back down into his forearm. His shrieks filled the room. They didn’t mean anything to me. I’d seen so much blood these past decades and this man had targeted my mate. He deserved every bit of punishment Bianca wanted to inflict.
Bianca turned to us and Gianna froze like a deer in headlights.
“Come here,” Bianca ordered.
Gianna moved toward Bianca and I could see her tremors from here.
“He’s the one who took you?” Bianca asked.
“Yes. He came to the warehouse and told me like he was proud of it.”
Bianca grabbed Gianna’s hand, wrapping it around the knife with her own hand on top. The next strike was with their joined hands, Nerin screaming bloody murder when it sank into his shoulder, the two of them carving down his arm.
“There’s your blood owed,” Bianca said. “Back to your alpha.”
Gianna retreated immediately, sinking into my arms. “What the fuck,” she whispered, luckily quiet enough that only I could hear her.
Once Bianca was covered in blood and Nerin had gone quiet, she finally stepped back, admiring her work. She’d made sure he suffered, and he certainly wouldn’t be troubling us anymore.
“Marco,” Bianca said. I tensed sharply at the sound of my name on her lips. “Did you train him?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Hmm. Santo, comb through my people. See if there’s anything that indicates another rat.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Bianca turned slowly to face all of us. “Our meeting wasn’t over. Back up to the suite.”
I wasn’t a stranger to Bianca’s turning moods, so it wasn’t strange to me that she would have worked out her aggression and vengeance and then simply returned to the business at hand.
Bianca went first, then Santo. Enzo was left with the cleanup. I stripped off Gianna’s blood-soaked socks and scooped her into my arms to carry her back to the suite.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?” she chanted.
“I know.” I purred for her as I walked, and got a bath running for her when we re-entered the suite. I held her tightly, giving her what comfort I could, even if all it did was calm down the bond needing us to be closer. “Rest. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I don’t want to end up in that chair for pissing her off.”
Gianna’s bottom lip trembled, but she nodded. “Go. I’ll be okay.”
Bianca had a chart on the table when I entered, Santo at her side.
“The Rossis are expanding their network,” said Santo. “From what we can tell, they’re doing it under the radar.”
“How so?” Bianca asked.
“The Rossi brothers don’t have the capacity to form their own alliances anymore since they’re all mated, but the Brunos and the Carusos have been marrying into the families that have balked at joining us, effectively bringing them under the Rossi banner. There’s only one substantial family left that’s big enough to be a threat to both sides.”
“The Romanos have been reluctant to get involved with any of us,” Bianca reminded us. “I thought they would be tempted with a direct offer, but they refuse to answer.”
I sat up straighter. Bianca had never offered for anyone and had no heir of her own. I had always wondered what she planned to do with the future, but maybe she didn’t expect to see it.
“You offered for one of the Romanos?” I asked.
“Ludovico’s granddaughter,” Bianca replied. “The only omega of her generation.”
I didn’t blame Ludovico one bit for hesitating to hand his granddaughter over.
“If they ally with us, we stand a chance of wiping out the Rossis for good,” Santo said. “The city would be ours.”
As much as it would enrich everyone in this room, I dreaded such a thing occurring. Power was a corrupting force, and heaven knew Bianca Gallo didn’t need anything else to push her in that direction.
Eventually Enzo joined us, still covered in blood like Bianca was. “He’s ready for dispatch. One of our associates will pick him up.”
Bianca nodded and turned back to the chart we’d been slowly filling in with all the alliances on both sides of the river. She kept us for another two hours even though we had completed everything useful within the first hour. It was undoubtedly spite that had her deliberately separating me from my omega just because she could.
Eventually she said, “Enzo, Santo, leave us. Marco and I have personal matters to discuss.”
Enzo cast me a sympathetic glance as he passed by, but neither of them said a word as they left me with her.
“On your knees, Vero,” Bianca demanded.
I steeled myself and slipped out of my chair, dropping to my knees before her.
“Apologize.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left earlier without your permission.”
The backhand wasn’t a surprise, but my body jolted nonetheless, the taste of copper bursting over my tongue.
“You’re fucking right you shouldn’t have. You undermine me again and I’ll give your omega to all of the capos. I’ll tie you up and let you watch to show you what happens to people who cross me.”
“It won’t happen again,” I swore, even though it probably would. For Gianna’s sake, I held my tongue. Bianca wasn’t embellishing. She would break us both without any guilt and take pleasure in it.
She sat down on a chair in front of me and slipped her foot out of her shoe. “Kiss it. Show me that you can obey.”
I swallowed down the bile rising my throat. It was all I had done for the last twenty fucking years. Kissing the top of her foot was an exercise in self-control. The spine I had bent so often for her already felt stiff and unwilling now that Gianna’s mark was on my throat.
Once my lips had made contact with her skin, Bianca tilted my chin up with her toes, the malice in her eyes turning my stomach. “Good boy. Now go back to your whore and send Santo in here on your way back.”
I backed away slowly, never turning my back on her, just like I had heard people did for monarchs. Bianca wasn’t a queen, though, at least not yet. And I never wanted to see the day this city put a crown on her head.
Elio was waiting in the hallway when I emerged.
“What are you hanging around for?” I asked. “I thought you were working on Bianca’s orders.”
“Enzo told me she kept you back, and also I wanted to let you know I took your omega to see her father. I made her position here clear with the guards and told them she has free access to the compound.”
I was surprised he had gone through the effort. “Thank you.”
He shrugged and gestured for me to follow him. “We both know what it’s like to serve Bianca, and I would imagine that having a fresh bond is chafing a bit. I thought she could use the comfort of family since Bianca was keeping you from her.”
“That’s…more thoughtful than I expected.”
Elio snorted. “I can be thoughtful when I feel like it. Whose turn is it tonight?”
“Santo.”
“She’s been asking for him a lot,” Elio commented.
“Better him than us.”
Elio laughed. “I can’t disagree.”
We paused in front of Santo’s door and Elio kicked it, only tilting his head back in Bianca’s direction to tell Santo he was wanted. The two of us continued onward, heading down to the kitchen.
“What are the odds of us getting Gianna’s restaurant back for her?”
“I think that entirely depends on how it’s pitched to Bianca.”
“How do you think I should do that?”
“I don’t think you should at all. You’ve already pissed her off. She won’t want to see you trying to do anything for your omega. Let me handle it.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Elio shrugged. “Think about it. What would make Bianca approve of Gianna having that restaurant?”
I sorted through the question. “I don’t suppose it’s as simple as the fact that Gianna would be busy and Bianca doesn’t want me distracted?”
“I think it’s exactly that simple. We put Gianna in charge of that restaurant and she’ll be gone for long hours, she’ll have something to occupy herself with when you’re on jobs, and it still gives Bianca a leash on her. The trick is to make her think she’s the one who’s thought of it.”
I sighed, running my fingers through my hair and rubbing at my scalp to dispel the growing tension there. “That was never one of my strengths.”
“Bianca appreciates you for your blunt honesty. The rest of us have practiced these two decades to get what we need without giving too much away. I think if we were all like that, she might notice.”
The two of us stopped outside the kitchens, and I looked through the tiny round window in one of the doors to see my omega and her father leaning against the counter. As if she could sense my presence, her gaze lifted and locked onto mine. Her attention struck me like a heartbeat head to toe. Her smile was small, tentative.
I turned briefly back to Elio. “Keep me posted.”
He clapped a hand down onto my shoulder. “I will, and don’t think I’ll forget about this. I’ll collect eventually.”
I shook off the vaguely ominous promise and slipped past the guards and into the kitchen.
Joe Mancini stood sharply, looking from me to his daughter and back again. “My daughter tells me you’ve taken care of her.”
“Is that what she said?” I surveyed her, taking in the tension around her mouth and eyes, the stiffness of her posture. “Have you been behaving yourself?”
“As well as can be expected,” she replied.
“You need to rest. Say your goodbyes.”
Relief slipped through the bond. Gianna hugged her father before stepping up next to me.
“I’ll see you soon,” she told him.
I guided Gianna out of the kitchen with a firm hand on her lower back, and once we were out of earshot, I asked simply, “Is something wrong besides what you witnessed?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that, considering what came through the bond after you were with Bianca. What happened?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be?”
“How are you expecting it to be?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Forget it.”
Once we were secured in the suite, I pulled her to me, gratified when she relaxed almost instantly. “I paid a small price. Not anywhere near as costly as it could have been. If you concern yourself with every price I’m going to have to pay when it comes to you, you’re never going to stop worrying.”
“Bold of you to assume I was worried .” She chuckled quietly against my chest but I still gave her a swat on the ass for her sassing. Gianna lifted her head and those blue eyes froze me in place.
“Do you want to tell me why you were so tense with your father?”
“I can love him and be pissed at him at the same time,” she replied. “I know I would’ve been completely fucked if he hadn’t gone to Bianca for help finding me, but he’s been waiting for an opportunity. He tried once before.”
“Tried what?”
“To give me to her. He made a bad gamble around when I turned eighteen, and he tried to give me to her then. I’m just kind of coming to terms with the fact that I can love him and have no respect for him. He got what he wanted in the end, I guess.”
“Well, for one, Bianca’s an idiot for not wanting you, but I’m glad she didn’t because then I never would’ve gotten you.”
“That’s weirdly sweet.” She nestled closer and was quiet for a few beats before asking, “Can we trust Elio?”
I shrugged. “I like to think so. Did he do something to make you think we shouldn’t?”
Gianna shook her head and tucked back against me. “No, I was just curious. I don’t know anyone here. How am I supposed to know who you consider an ally or enemy if I don’t ask?”
“Enzo and Elio are about as safe as you can get in this place. Anyone beneath us will listen, but their loyalty is to Bianca and would take the chance to replace us in a heartbeat. The only one above us besides Bianca herself is Santo, and he’s her current favorite, so I wouldn’t take any risks there.”
“That’s a short fucking list, Marco.”
“Were you expecting the list to be long in the viper’s nest?”
“Less expecting, more hoping.”
“The people here have a chance to rise from nothing under Bianca. They owe her a lot. Most wouldn’t get that elsewhere.”
“Do you mean with the Rossis?”
“Yes. Their allies are already powerful. There’s not a lot of room in their ranks for the bottom of the barrel to take positions. I don’t blame them. Smarter and safer to rely on old alliances than to hope the new ones you bring in will give you what you need.”
I sighed and tipped her face up, looking at those perfect pink lips I had promised her I wouldn’t kiss. Honestly, it was criminal for lips like that to go untouched. I traced my thumb over the bottom one, savoring the rise of her scent and the flush of lust through the bond.
If I stayed here right now, I’d break my promise.
“I have a job to go out on. Don’t leave the room while I’m gone.”