While the boys at my former Connecticut boarding school wore spiked hair slathered with layers of gel, his head boasted a simple gentleman’s cut, hair buzzed short at the sides and left longer at the top. Prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw lined his face, along with a hint of stubble, which made him appear older than he was.
And his eyes… Something about them shook me. Screamed at me to pay attention. I was sure those haunted, panther-black eyes played a good game of poker to everyone else, but to me, they were splashing limbs, begging for a life raft. And I wanted to throw one to him. Wanted to reach out and save him from whatever pained him, but they hardened a second later and cut me out.
He took me in, and I swore, he saw past my façade. Saw past the frumpy attire I had curated for my meeting with his father. Saw past the shitty, dark blonde dye job I’d touched up on the flight; the un-plucked brows; the bitten finger nails and chipped, mismatched polish; and the baggy tee and sweats, which hid my curves.
I’d done this for the past five years, altering my appearance because I saw more worth in slithering under the radar than drawing attention. He was the first to give me this look, one that dared me to question him as he saw past my lies.
At eleven, I’d asked my mother why she never bothered with the spa treatments and pretty dresses the other moms would fuss over. I knew she was pretty. Papà always made sure I knew he would never marry a French commoner had it not been for her beauty.
But as the years passed, the layers of her beauty slipped away like water leaking past a broken dam until only the fractured foundation remained. Maman moved to the Hamptons in New York while Papà remained in Italy, and I wondered why she never tried harder.
When I asked, she laughed, poked my side, and said in her pretty French accent, “I’m going to poke you again. Dodge it.” Minutes passed, and she tried again, but I was ready and easily dodged it. “With warning, your ears are perked, and your eyes are ready. But silent threats do not warn you, ma petite guerrière. They attack, lethal and unapologetic.”
I wanted to be lethal and unapologetic.
An hour later, a screech tore past my lips when she pinched my hips out of nowhere. The next day, I traded my pretty dresses for loose band tees and baggy jeans that hung on me like an oversized condom.
But now, sitting before this stranger, I saw no worth in my mother’s wisdom. My trusty barrier crumbled, and I scrambled to build new ones as his lips curled into a sneer and he eyed where my body pressed against his bed.
“If you want to sleep with me, you’ll have to try harder, Princess.”
Princess.
I hated that word. It reminded me of the role I played in the mafia world, one which included enduring torment from a tyrant father. Petty jealousy came from all sides, and I fielded it like a press secretary at the White House.
I’d been prepared for my mafia princess status to cause friction in De Luca territory, but I hadn’t been prepared for the goosebumps Angelo De Luca’s son elicited when he called me such a ridiculous name in his sparse Texas accent.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say I didn’t want him.
Lie.
But being sprawled on his bed wasn’t a sexual invitation, and I had an endgame to think of. I stood on my feet and met him just short of the doorway. “Just seeing what I’m dealing with here.”
His eyes ran down my body and returned to mine. Maman always referred to them as a rapturous shade of amber, but I was sure that, like mine, his opinion was less favorable. He cocked a brow, and I realized that I was staring, my hand suspended in the air by my side like an idiot.
Had I been about to touch him? I slid my foot back as subtly as I could, taking whatever distance the movement allowed.
His lips twitched, and I felt the most ridiculous urge to touch them. “Have your fill yet? I may have to charge admission, and I guarantee you can’t afford the price.”
Pull yourself together, Ren.
I tilted my head up to meet his eyes. I was tall for sixteen, but he was so much taller. “The most I’d part with for you is the gum beneath my shoe.”
Amusement danced behind his eyes before they slid, once again, down my body. “I have no doubt you’re the type with plenty of gum beneath your shoe.”
What was that supposed to mean?
I reminded myself that I had a goal. “Well, this has been riveting, but I’m jet lagged. Bye.”
I stepped forward before he could answer and bumped into his shoulder on the way out, using the movement to distract him as I slipped my fingers into the pocket of his hoodie. My pointer and thumb fingers swiped his smartphone, and I hid it in the sleeve of my cardigan as I barreled past.
He was right. I was a princess. But sometimes, the princess saved herself. Except, I’d stolen his phone, and just like earlier, I hadn’t planned for the worst that would come.
And making an enemy of Damiano De Luca was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.
A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.
Marina Tsvetaeva
The Present
Liars were a dime a dozen. Good liars, rarer. But the best liars were the ones who lied as much to themselves as they did to others. The woman beside me was a liar. I usually read people well, but with her, I wasn’t sure which category she fit in.
Ariana De Luca fidgeted in her seat, a movement that would have gone unnoticed to the untrained eye. I let the silence simmer a moment longer as I reveled in her discomfort. The wooden pillar dug into our thighs, but I knew it wasn’t the source of her irritation.
“Am I bothering you?”
We were at a funeral, after all, so I kept my voice low and my eyes forward, where Giovanni Romano was giving what was probably a moving eulogy for his deceased twin, Vincent. I wouldn’t know. It was hard to pay attention when the woman that very same Giovanni had been asking around about sat beside me.
“No.” Her voice wasn’t clipped, but it didn’t welcome conversation either.
I suppressed my smirk, quelling the part of me that loved stirring up shit. Really, Ariana De Luca was the shit-stirrer by entering Romano territory with my last name. Did she think either family wouldn’t notice?
Silence spilled between us, no doubt heightening her discomfort. I studied her as she sat beside me. Looking at her was like looking at a picture of a younger Nana. Un-fucking-canny. Same Italian features. Dark hair. High cheekbones. Upturned nose.
Little Tessie Romano made her way to the seat between us, scrambling over a few laps along the way. If Dad were here, he would have dripped disdain. As far as I was concerned, everyone here could thank me for his absence—though bloodstains littered my path to the De Luca throne.
I allowed Tessie a small smile. “Ciao, piccola. Come ti senti?” When Ariana stiffened, it occurred to me that she didn’t speak Italian. Because riling women up was a specialty I took pride in, I continued in the language, “Your uncle was a good man. He will be missed.”
Tessie turned to me. “Grazie, Damiano.” Her somber eyes squinted in a sudden smile, and she waved at a brunette as she walked past.
Fuck. Me.
Nope.
This wasn’t happening.
Ripples of shock trickled into my bloodstream. The brunette turned, but I already knew who she was. Remembered the words she had speared me with before she’d left me. She’d promised revenge, and I’d been patiently waiting.
Renata Vitali was still the siren she’d always been—only different. Gone was the out-of-a-bottle blonde, replaced by a torrent of chestnut waves, which she had confessed was her natural color all those years ago. Full lips, the same come-fuck-me shade that laid squarely between ruby-slippers red and raspberry pink. Seductive eyes—part honey, part copper, framed by lashes thicker than Warren Buffet’s bank account. In the sea of heavily made-up women here, it struck me that she was still comfortable enough to wear her face bare.
Since she’d left, she traded her rich-girl sweats for a fitted black
dress with a slit, barely-there pencil skirt. It was intoxicating. It was toxic. It was lethal. Even in ratty jeans and a hoodie, she attracted attention. Never on purpose. But this… this held purpose.
I had waited years to see her again, and now that I had, I didn’t know if I wanted her to stay or leave.
“Tessie, I’ve missed you.” Her smile flattened as she met my eyes. “D.”
D for Damsel.
She’d given me the nickname ages ago, and I was thankful she still abbreviated it in public. Small mercies.
Ariana started, which was a fair reaction. I was the new head of the De Luca family. Not many dared to use a tone with me, but Ren wasn’t just anyone. If anything, she had more power than everyone in this room—me included. It suited her. Damn, did it suit her.
I debated calling her “Knight,” but it was too intimate a first greeting for nearly ten years spent apart, so I settled for the nickname she loved to hate. “Good to see you, Princess.”
To be fair, she was a princess.
A mafia princess.
Ren’s eyes narrowed, tracking my every breath as I said goodbye to Tessie and followed her out the side of the church. It wasn’t lost on me that I was always following Ren, even when I didn’t realize it.
She reeked of strength. Wore it like a little black dress, hugging every delicious inch of her skin. Back when syndicates worldwide had engaged in costly, deadly wars, the Vitali family had been elected to run peace talks. Then, they became the mafia world’s government. The most powerful family in the underworld. Renata wore that power well.
It was weird seeing this side of her in public when she’d done everything she could to hide her strength back then. Most guys weren’t into girls who were smarter, more formidable, and just plain better than them. I was almost thankful for those douches.
That mentality had kept Ren single my junior and senior years of high school. Now, I guessed not. I eyed her ring finger, where a rock the size of the emerging hole in my gut rested. She followed my gaze to her finger, then lifted her chin and cocked a brow.
I met her stare. “Unapologetic and defiant as always, I see.”
“Because I’m wearing a ring, and you didn’t put it there?” She crossed her arms, and that damned ring teased me as it glinted in the light. “Save the chauvinistic bullshit for a damsel that would swoon.”
Her pun wasn’t lost on me. Neither was her attitude. I wouldn’t win this argument with Ren, so I didn’t bother trying. I reached for the door, one-hundred percent sure it was rude of the De Luca head to miss the funeral. Probably a thousand times worse for the Vitali representative—still couldn’t believe it was her—to miss it.
The door was locked. I pulled on it harder. Still locked. I’d never wanted to be a tight-wearing superhero and walk through the door’s metal more than I did now.
“Fuck.”
My eyes shifted to Ren and narrowed at how calm she was. It always unnerved me how cool and collected she never ceased to be. Like that time I’d caught her snooping in my room. Or when she’d pickpocketed my phone moments later.
I crossed my arms. “Did you plan this?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Da—” She cut herself off, but I knew what she’d been about to say.
When we were good, she was Knight, and I was Day.
When we were bad, she was Princess, and I was Damsel.
Needless to say, she was usually Princess, and I was usually Damsel.
I started to walk away, making my way to the front of the church. She made me feel unhinged, like the body my soul occupied wasn’t mine. We’d been away from each other for about ten years, but somehow, we’d instantly reverted to how we’d been.
“Damsel!”
Nope.
Don’t even think about it.
Keep walking, Damian.
I turned around. “What are you even doing here?!”
I’d thought she was gone. Escaped from the mafia world, like only a Vitali or someone like Asher Black could get away with. She sure as hell did a good job of staying off my expanding radar.
Fuck. My chest heaved up and down, each breath more cumbersome than the next. I needed to leave before I did something that piled on the mountain of broken glass between us.
Placid as ever, her attention wandered to a cat that sprang across the alley before returning to me. “Representing the Vitali family.”
“The same family that sent you off to boarding school at eight years old?”
She crossed her arms. “My mom moved nearby.”
I ignored her. “The same family that sent you to De Luca territory and left you there for fourteen months?”
Yeah, I knew sending people off to live in De Luca territory was considered punishment in the syndicates’ circles. After all, I knew what we’d once been. The De Luca name was a stain on the Five Syndicates. From my dad’s unhinged behavior to the notorious story of my great-great-grandfather killing my great-grandfather, we were the laughing stock, like the extra character writers threw into horror flicks for the sole purpose of killing off later.
I was trying to give the family a better reputation, but I couldn’t build a reputation on what I had yet to do. One bad deed was enough to ruin a million good ones. Unfortunately, the roads in De Luca territory were paved by bad deeds. Bricks made of poor decisions, mortared together by blood. I wasn’t sure I was capable of enough good to offset the bad.
Just one of many reasons why I was personally in New York City to attend Vincent Romano’s funeral. That, and I actually respected the man, which was more than I could say about most people.
Ren straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Papà had his reasons.” Her thumb twirled that offensive rock around her finger like a nervous tick that served the sole purpose of transferring her anxiety to me. Except I knew firsthand that she had no ticks, and if she had any anxieties, she held them closer to her chest than heat to a flame. Renata was a Vitali, after all, and she’d trained every flaw out of her body by kindergarten.
“Did they involve my father and his hands?!” I sucked in a breath and swore. I knew what had happened in the bathroom hadn’t been illicit, but she didn’t know I knew. “That was uncalled for. I apologize.”
And still, she remained unfazed. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think I stood in front of a sociopath.
“If you can’t control your emotions, there are treatments for that, which don’t involve tormenting me with your juvenile behavior. I was going to suggest a truce for this weekend, but I now see there’s little point in that.” She stepped around me like I was an overeager dog she could sidestep. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a funeral to attend and a name to represent.” Her heels click-clacked with every step she took toward the front doors.
Just like that night she’d left me, she was unapologetic.
Just like that night, she didn’t look back.
Just like that night, she smeared my heart across the pavement with each step.
And just like that night, I still wanted her.
All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.
Robert Southey
“Miss Vitali, I haven’t seen you in a while.” Frankie Romano approached me after the closed-casket viewing ended, clasped my shoulder with an over-sized palm, and kissed me on the cheek. Dark gray colored his hair at his temples, and he looked every bit the refined mafia leader he was. “What have you been doing with your time, Renata?”
Frankie led the Romano syndicate, which ruled northeast America. He was stern but fair and only resorted to violence when other options had been exhausted. I respected him for that and for leading the strongest of the five Italian-American crime syndicates without heavy bloodshed.
Dragging my eyes away from Damian, who stood beside one of his soldiers, I flashed a polite smile at Frankie and took a step back from him. “I graduated from college early through an accelerated prog
ram, and I’ve been an elementary school teacher for a while now.”
“An elementary school teacher…” I doubted much dumbfounded Frankie Romano, but I guessed the mafia princess becoming a teacher did.
“Yes.” My lips quirked upward, though I tried to smother the smile. Gosh, life outside the mafia had chipped away at my hard edges. Except when it came to Damian. Around him, I could fortify my walls quicker than a fired bullet slipped past its chamber.
“A Vitali schoolteacher.” He shook his head, but it was lighthearted teasing. We had an odd relationship. We weren’t close, and we didn’t see each other often, but when we did, it wasn’t strained. Kind of like his brother, Vince, he adopted the father-daughter vibe with me better than Papà did. “I suppose crazier things have happened.” Frankie’s eyes drifted to Damian, and I read the subtext.
I’d been prepared for Damian’s rise. Yes, his existence had surprised me when we first met. Yes, Devils Ridge did a good job of hiding Damian’s identity under Angelo De Luca’s orders. But living in Devils Ridge gave me perspective, and I knew without a doubt that Damian would take over his father’s throne. It was never a matter of how but when.
On the other hand, the other syndicates had no warning. Not only had they not known he’d take over the De Luca syndicate, they hadn’t even known he existed. Damian had to unease them.
“It’s not crazy,” I offered Frankie. “If you know Damian, you wouldn’t think it’s crazy.”
I told him this because I might have been avoiding Damian, but he still deserved respect from other syndicate bosses. And Frankie deserved a warning, too. He let me live in Connecticut— Romano territory—without asking what I did there or invading my privacy. Granted, my last name probably helped convince him.
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 2