Tempting the Irish Mafia's Monster

1. Prologue

Prologue

Iran my finger along the harsh, scruffy handwriting, tracing his initial over and over.

M.

I’d researched as many Irish names beginning with M as I could, trying to decide which one might suit him best. Matthew. Michael. Malachi. Milo. Murphy. It didn’t matter, but it had become a fun way to pass my time.

The Italian piazza hummed. A violinist played near the fountain; the melody not quite in tune, but no one else seemed to notice or care, prioritising their own conversations as their voices rose and fell all around me.

Shifting at my table in the quietest spot of one of Verona’s cafes, my pulse fluttered like a trapped bird in a cage.

I’d waited an entire year for this day. I’d spent all week building up the courage and working through my anxieties to pull something this daring off.

I moved my sunglasses to the top of my head and stirred the straw in my lemonade as I peered nervously across the piazza. As the time crept towards midday, I couldn’t control the giddy feeling in my stomach.

Any minute now.

Across the courtyard, my bodyguard, Ivano, stood stoic under an awning, his gaze sweeping the square in steady, focused patterns.

The blacked-out SUV parked on the road just outside this little cafe was full of Buccini soldiers, ready for action if anything suspicious happened around me while I sat at the single table and sipped my drink in the sun.

Armed men were a standard occurrence in my world. It didn’t bother me normally. They kept their distance while keeping me safe. It was their job, and I was thankful for them, but today I really wished they’d find something else to do.

Hopefully, I’d planned this well enough that they wouldn’t notice it was an actual date.

I’d booked two single tables directly opposite each other, so M could sit on one and I on the other.

Close enough to see the colour of his eyes.

Far enough to look accidental. We’d order our own drinks and just…

stare. And smile. Hopefully. And I’d feel it.

The connection that leapt out of every letter he’d sent me.

Words weren’t necessary today. We’d done enough talking through our letters.

He knew that simply being in each other’s company would be enough of a step for me for now.

If we both still felt the same way after seeing each other, he’d discreetly give his new phone number to the server, who would pass it to me, and we’d go from there.

I might actually have a real-life boyfriend by the end of today. It’s only taken me twenty-nine years, but who was counting?

I smiled into my drink as my mind drifted to all the things that had once felt like distant dreams becoming possibilities. Holding hands in public. Having a plus-one at black-tie events. Being touched. Having my first kiss. Having sex.

Desire curled in my stomach at the thought. I wanted it so badly. My vagina was so sick of my vibrator. He had been a committed companion through years of horniness, but I was ready for an amicable divorce.

Another hour passed, and my anxiety bubbled.

I twisted my fingers in my lap and scanned the sea of faces walking by.

We had no idea what the other looked like.

When we started writing to each other, we didn’t want to know.

It didn’t matter. He had no idea who my family was, and I didn’t know which Irish gang he had once belonged to.

We didn’t give our names either, just our initials, where we lived, and our ages. He was thirty-six and born in Dublin.

It felt ridiculous to think I could have such strong emotions for a man I’d never met, especially because he was an inmate living in one of Dublin’s most notorious prisons for the last five years.

Most women would run a mile. The fact that he was a criminal didn’t bother me in the slightest. My whole family were criminals.

In a way, that would make things easier when I introduced him to them.

They could offer him a high-ranking position or make him a made man. He’d fit in perfectly.

Discreetly, I opened his last letter again to ease the tightness in my chest. I didn’t need to read it. I knew nearly all the letters we’d exchanged by heart, but this one was extra special.

S,

I’m gettin’ out!

My parole hearing’s tomorrow, but I’m certain they’ll let me walk.

There’s somethin’ I need to deal with first. Give me a few days to get shite sorted on the outside, then I’ll come to Italy and find you. Tell me the day, place and time, and I’ll be there. Can you imagine that? Me sayin’ it like it’s real, like it’s actually happenin’. Fuck.

I can’t believe I’ll be seein’ you in person. God help me, I don’t know how I’ll hold myself back from sweepin’ you up and kissin’ the fuck out of you the second I lay eyes on you.

I know, I know—I’ll keep my head on straight. Discretion, yeah? With your bodyguards hoverin’ about, I’ll behave myself. Still wondering why you need them, but soon we’ll know everythin’ we haven’t been able to say yet.

But just so you know, the minute I see you, that’s all that’ll be runnin’ through my head. That I want to kiss you and can’t believe you’re mine. I swear I feel like a giddy feckin’ teenager thinkin’ about it, S.

Everythin’ I’ve done in here, every miserable day, I did it with you in my head. You’re the reason I held on. I can’t wait to get the hell outta here and start a proper life with you. Not long now, love. We’re nearly there.

M.

My heart did that little skip again when I read that last line. We’re nearly there. In my response, I told him where he could meet me in Verona, on what day and at what time, and that I’d be wearing a yellow sundress. Something bright and easy to spot.

It’s been a long year since I overheard Sophia, one of our maids, telling another about a rehabilitation pen pal programme in prisons across Europe that her mother had signed her up for.

Because her mother wanted her to learn to read and write in English, Sophia had been paired with an Irish inmate.

It was meant to help the prisoners stay connected to the outside world and feel a sense of hope and determination to stay on track towards early release.

Sophia wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of writing letters to a criminal, but it sounded perfect to me.

I could read and write in English thanks to my sister-in-law, Olivia. The thought of potentially developing a connection with someone outside my family, without the pressure of speaking or saying the wrong thing, was too good to pass up.

I wrote Sophia a letter that night, asking whether I could write to him instead of her and have her bring me his replies.

That way, her mother would think she was in the programme, and my family would never have to know.

My brothers would never allow me to do such a thing.

As a reward for keeping my secret, I’d let her choose anything from my wardrobe, packed full of designer clothes, shoes and handbags, every month.

She’d be the best-dressed maid in Italy.

And so it started. The letters began awkwardly and were overly cautious.

He seemed blunt and disinterested. Neither of us gave too much away until he asked me why I’d joined the programme.

Why I wanted to write to a ‘feckin low-life rottin’ in a cell’, as he put it.

So I told him I’ve had selective mutism since childhood and still struggled to talk and form connections with people as an adult.

Even though my family is wonderful and I love them all so much, I felt lonely and isolated from the rest of the world.

He opened up after that, and things shifted between us. We’d built trust.

He told me his parents died when he was a child, and he was raised in a gang.

How he’d got himself into debt with evil men and had to pay them back, so he worked for them.

Then he got arrested. He wanted to leave the country the moment he was released, to start a new life somewhere beautiful, somewhere like Italy.

That made me smile. After we bonded, we became flirtier and more direct.

I may have had no experience flirting face to face, but I was a shameless flirt behind a pen.

When Sophia would sneak his letters to me, I obsessed over them for days, rereading them again and again and jotting notes in my journal about what to tell him next.

I even started sending him some of my compositions.

He couldn’t play them, obviously, but he loved that I’d created them, and one day he hoped to hear me play one just for him.

A server brushed past my shoulder, carrying a tray of coffees. My mind jolted back to the present as I flinched at the unexpected closeness, my shoulders tightening instinctively.

“Everything okay, Signorina?“ Ivano appeared at my side as the sun dipped below the buildings.

I shivered as the shade fell over me and nodded.

Leaning over my notebook, I pretended to compose.

The familiar position was a shield he knew well.

He stepped back, leaving me in peace, but I felt anything but focused or peaceful.

The violinist packed up. The afternoon crowd thinned and slowed. My chest ached with each passing minute, a slow constriction that made it harder to breathe.

M was four hours late.

Invasive thoughts filtered through my mind. Had he come, seen me, decided I wasn’t for him, and left? Perhaps he was lost in Verona. They never released him. Something had happened. Or… he simply changed his mind.

My vision blurred at the edges as I stared at the empty table in front of me. I didn’t want to give up on this. On him. But I couldn’t sit there all night.

Ivano’s phone started ringing. I knew it was Giovanni, my oldest brother and the Boss of our family, before he even handed it to me. I inhaled, then answered quietly, trying to keep the heartbreak out of my voice.

“Soraya, why are you still in the city?”

“I–I lost track of time. I was composing.”

“Well, it’s getting dark, Raya. Come home now. Mamma’s been asking to see you.”

My chest fractured with indescribable grief and guilt at hearing those words, but there was no room to argue. There never was. That wasn’t who I was.

“Okay,” I breathed. “I’ll leave now.”

The call ended, and I closed my notebook, taking one last sweep of the piazza as I stood. No one could see the pain or the emotional catastrophe unfolding inside me. An entire year of hope and excitement condensed into one unbearable moment.

He wasn’t coming.