Chapter 16 Elio
ELIO
Iclose her door with a soft click.
Quiet. Controlled. The same way I’ve closed a thousand doors in my life. After meetings, after interrogations, after putting bullets in men who deserved it.
Walk away.
Three steps. That’s how far I make it down the corridor before my legs stop working, and I lean against the wall beside her door, breathing hard. Lungs burning like I’ve been running. My hand is still wet.
With her.
I bring my fingers to my face. Inhale.
Christ.
Sweetness and salt and something underneath that’s purely Violet.
Heaven and sin wrapped in the same breath.
My cock strains against my trousers, painful now, demanding attention.
I’ve been hard since the courtyard. Since her mouth opened under mine.
Since she kissed me back with her whole body before her mind caught up and ruined everything.
The control it took not to fuck her against that wall.
Not to spread her legs and sink inside while she was still clenching around my fingers, still crying out, still calling me a monster.
My other hand drops to my cock through fabric. One stroke.
I nearly come.
Cazzo.
I should walk away. Go to my study. Handle this like a civilized man behind closed doors.
But she’s right there. Five feet away. Still trembling, still wet, still wearing my dress.
My fingers fumble with my belt. Zipper. Then I’m pulling myself out, right here in the corridor, right outside her door, and I don’t give a fuck if the guards see. Don’t care if the cameras record.
Let them watch.
I wrap my hand around my cock. Relief. Finally. A groan escapes my throat and I bite my lip to stay quiet.
The fingers of my other hand, the ones that were inside her, go to my mouth.
I lick them clean while stroking myself.
Her taste floods my senses. It’s going to ruin me. My rhythm increases. Rough. Fast. Nothing like the controlled release I usually allow myself. This is need, raw and consuming, the kind of desperation I thought I’d carved out of myself years ago.
The images hit me without warning.
Her mouth opening under mine in the courtyard, soft and giving like she couldn’t help it.
That small sound she made the first time my fingers brushed her, surprise crashing into want, all tangled up.
How fucking wet she was already, soaked right through the thin fabric before I even pushed her panties aside.
The way she clenched around my fingers when she came, so tight it almost hurt, gripping like she never wanted to let go. So fucking tight.
How tight will she be around my cock?
Her broken sobs against my chest. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” Clinging to me while she said it. Seeking comfort from the monster who just took her apart.
Mine.
My fist moves faster. I brace my free hand against the wall to stay upright. Close. So close.
I imagine her hand wrapped around me instead. Her mouth. Her cunt.
Fuuuck—
The orgasm tears through me, more intense than anything I’ve felt in years. Maybe ever. I spill into my hand, cock jerking, pulse racing, vision whiting out for three perfect seconds.
When it ends, I’m breathing like I’ve run a marathon.
My hand is covered in my own release. I should feel shame. Losing control in a corridor like a fucking teenager, guards probably watching on security feeds, all because a woman made me come harder than anyone else has in my entire goddamn life.
I don’t feel shame.
I feel dark satisfaction.
She did this. Made me so desperate that waiting five more minutes to get to my study was impossible. Made me lose the control I’ve spent thirty-four years perfecting.
I pull a handkerchief from my pocket and clean up, then adjust my clothing until I look controlled again.
But my hand still smells of her.
Good.
I want the reminder.
Three hours later, I’m sitting at my desk in the study.
I should be working. I have contracts needing review, messages from underbosses requiring response. Ferrantes have been pushing at our eastern territories again. I should do something about it.
Instead, I’m watching the security feed showing her room.
Have been watching for three hours, unable to look away.
She paced for the first hour. Back and forth, back and forth, her shadow moving across the floor like a pendulum. Expected. She’s a fighter. Her first instinct is always to move, to act, to do something.
She cried for the second hour. Curled on the bed with her face in the pillow, shoulders shaking.
That hurt more than it should.
Now she’s just lying there. Still in the dress I chose. Not sleeping. Just staring at nothing. Processing.
Every instinct screams to go to her.
Finish what you started. Fuck her properly. Make her come again, on your cock this time. Watch her shatter.
But I know my prey better than that. Push too hard now and she’ll break. Shatter in ways I can’t put back together.
I don’t want broken.
I want bent.
Her verbal “no” with her body’s “yes” proved something tonight. Her mind hasn’t caught up yet, but her body knows. Knows what it needs. Knows what I can give her.
But I want more than her body surrendering.
I want her mind to follow.
And that requires patience. Requires giving her space to process. Requires white-knuckled restraint when every cell in my body wants to go to her room and bury myself inside her until she can’t remember her own name.
My cock twitches. Half-hard again, just watching her on screen.
I can still taste her on my tongue. Still feel how tight she was around my fingers. Still hear the sounds she made. Those small helpless whimpers that went straight to my cock.
Control.
I force myself to look away. Stand. Walk to the window.
Palermo glitters in the distance, city lights like scattered diamonds against the black Mediterranean. My father’s territory. My future kingdom. Built on alliances, marriages, blood. Decades of careful cultivation. Everything I’m planning to destroy.
The Rossi engagement is one thread in that web.
And staring at those lights, I know I can no longer pretend I’m willing to marry Gabriella.
Not now.
Not after Violet.
The thought of touching another woman makes my skin crawl. Even politically advantageous touching. Gabriella is beautiful. Ruthless. Competent. I’ve fucked her before. It was fine. Bodies doing what bodies do.
It didn’t compare to what just happened in the hallway. Didn’t even come close to my cock in my hand while I tasted Violet on my tongue.
Even recalling the time I used to fuck Gabriella repulses me in a way it never did before.
This is new.
I’ve never been possessive like this. Women were always interchangeable. Bodies. Release. Transaction. Gabriella, and others before her. Pleasant diversions, nothing more.
Violet is different.
I don’t understand why. She’s not mine yet. But my body has already decided, and my mind is catching up.
Mine. Only mine.
The thought of being legally bound to another woman while Violet exists is intolerable.
I could kill Gabriella. Eliminate the problem permanently. But that comes with its own set of complications. The Rossi family would demand blood. Cicero would lose his mind. War, potentially. All my hard work on the side could get exposed. Not worth the risk.
Better to dissolve the engagement cleanly. Trade something the Rossis want more than a marriage alliance.
My phone is in my hand before I make a conscious decision.
Valente answers on the second ring. “Boss.”
“I need information on the Rossi family. Everything. What do they want more than anything?”
Pause. “The Rossis?”
“Find out. I don’t care how.”
“When do you need it?”
“Yesterday.”
He knows better than to ask why. “I’ll have something for you by morning.”
I end the call.
This is strategy, I tell myself. Not sentiment. I can’t properly possess Violet while engaged to another. The marriage is a distraction. An obstacle. Removing it is practical.
Cicero will rage.
Good. Fuck Cicero.
The Syndicate will question.
Let them.
Violet is worth the political complications.
I’ve watched the courtyard footage seven times by morning.
Paused it at specific moments. When she kissed me back. When my hand disappeared under her dress. When her mouth fell open and her head tipped back and she came apart on my fingers.
I’ve come three times. Would be more, but my body has limits even my mind doesn’t want to acknowledge.
The phone rings just as I’m considering another viewing.
Cicero.
I answer on the third ring because ignoring him only makes him worse.
“Father.”
“We need to discuss the wedding timeline.” No greeting. No pleasantries. Cicero doesn’t waste time on social niceties, one of the few traits we share. “A week has passed. Twenty-three days remain.”
“I’m aware of the timeline.”
“Are you? Because I’m hearing things that concern me.”
Of course you are. The old man has cameras everywhere. Eyes everywhere. Probably knows exactly what happened in the courtyard.
“What things?”
“That you’re distracted.” His voice is pleasant. Warm. The tone he uses right before he guts someone. “That the American girl is becoming... problematic.”
“She’s not problematic.”
“Then what is she?”
Mine. The word rises unbidden. I don’t say it.
“A project.”
Cicero’s laugh is soft. Knowing. “A project. Is that what you’re calling it?” Pause. “Careful, Elio. Don’t mistake obsession for necessity. Pussy is replaceable. Political alliances are not.”
My jaw tightens. “The Rossi alliance will be maintained.”
“Through marriage.”
“I’ll find another way if it comes to that.”
Silence. The dangerous kind.
“You’re thinking with your cock, not your head, boy.” His voice hardens. “That’s how men die. Handle your obsession. Marry Gabriella. Or I’ll handle it for you.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone.
Or I’ll handle it for you.
The threat is clear. Indirect enough to be deniable, clear enough to land.
Rage slides through me. Cold. Calculating.
Cicero doesn’t understand. This isn’t an obsession I need to handle. This isn’t distraction or sentiment or thinking with my cock.
This is something I’m keeping.
And if my father threatens her again, directly or otherwise, I’ll show him exactly how his lessons took root.
I give Violet space for the rest of the day.
Don’t go to her room. Don’t demand her presence at lunch.
Just watch the monitors while I work. While I plan. While Valente sends preliminary reports on Rossi weaknesses and I start to see the shape of my escape route.
I’m giving her time to think. To come to terms with what happened. That’s all.
Meanwhile, I’ve come four more times. Eight total since last night. Just to take the edge off. Just so I can function without going to her room and finishing what we started.
It’s pathetic. I know it’s pathetic. I don’t care.
By dinnertime the patience I’ve been forcing all day is gone. I just want her in front of me again, want the daggers in her eyes, want to feel that sharp spark of being hated and still wanted. I sit at the table and wait.
She might not come. Might stay locked in her room, refuse to face what happened. I pushed too far in the courtyard. Took something she wasn’t ready to give.
But she gave it anyway.
The clock ticks.
Eight o’clock passes.
Eight-oh-five.
Eight-ten.
Then she appears in the doorway, and my breath catches.
I never lose control like this. Never let anyone see me caught off guard.
But she’s wearing the dress I’ve imagined her wear a thousand times.
The green one with the low back. Silk the color of deep emeralds, shifting with each movement. I chose it because I knew it would make her eyes luminous. Knew it would turn her auburn hair to flame in candlelight.
She’s never worn something I selected voluntarily before. Never chose my offerings without being told she has to.
This is a choice. A statement.
She could have worn anything else. The gray dress. The cream sweater. Any of the practical items she gravitates toward when she’s asserting independence.
She chose mine.
Message received.
She stands in the doorway, watching me watch her. Chin lifted. Defiant despite red-rimmed eyes. Still beautiful. Still sharp.
Not broken.
Good. I don’t want broken. I want her fire. Her claws. Her fight.
I stand. Gesture to the chair beside me.
Not my lap. Not yet. Let her choose the distance tonight.
She crosses the room slowly. Every step deliberate. A woman walking into battle, not a prisoner being summoned.
She sits. Smooths the silk over her thighs.
Neither of us speaks.
I pour wine. Slide the glass toward her.
She takes it. Drinks it in one long swallow.
Still not looking at me directly.
I pour another.
She drinks that too.
Then her eyes finally meet mine, head held high, exposing the mark I left on her neck.
It’s there.
She’s not cowering. She’s thinking. Planning. Studying me like I’m a crumbling cathedral she needs to understand before she can decide whether to restore or demolish.
Choosing to engage rather than hide.
The shift is subtle. Seismic.
My cock stirs. Christ. Control yourself.
But this is better than submission. Better than surrender. This is her intelligence turned against me. Her restorer’s eye scanning for weaknesses, searching for cracks in my foundation.
She wants to understand what makes me work.
So she can... what? Fight better? Manipulate me?
It doesn’t matter.
Because I want to be known.
The realization is terrifying.
I’ve never wanted that before. Never wanted anyone to see past the monster. Never invited scrutiny. I’ve spent my entire adult life ensuring people see only what I allow. The ruthlessness, the control, the calculated violence that keeps them afraid and compliant.
But with her...
With her, I want to be studied. Dissected. Understood.
Even if understanding leads her to hate me more completely.