“Do you know something I don’t, sweetheart?” the pet name slithered out of his mouth, oozing with condescension.
I took no offense to it. Some would get irritated by his tone, and throwing people off balance had a tendency to make them talk. A subtle but effective method. It just wouldn’t work on me, no matter how much time out of the mafia had softened me. I didn’t respond to verbal provocation.
I nodded and deadpanned, “Yes.”
My eyes crawled the length of Frankie, cataloging his body language. I wondered if he helped me maintain my privacy in Connecticut out of the goodness of his heart or to gain favor with my family. I never knew if someone was helping me because they liked me or because they wanted me to think they liked me.
The Vitali family governed the Italian crime syndicates across the world after wars had caused massive loss of lives, drawn attention to the syndicates, and wiped out a few families. The underworld needed a neutral party to keep everyone above the line, and my ancestors had the connections and wealth to be elected. We gathered an army, more money than anyone could possibly spend, and networked in all branches of governments in all countries syndicates existed. So, it was very possible Frankie treated me well to gain my family’s favor. It was also very possible he didn’t give a flying fuck. He was a Romano, after all, and they were second only to the Vitali.
He pulled a cigar from his pocket and offered me one. “But you won’t say…”
I shook my head. “A cigar contains as much tobacco as an entire pack of cigarettes.”
Frankie shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He rolled the edges of the cigar over his lighter flame, warmed the cigar, and removed the band.
I studied his movements and elaborated, “No one knew Damian existed. The only way that happens is if Angelo gave orders within his syndicate to keep Damian a secret.” Sequestering Damian in Devils Ridge helped, too. Until he dethroned Angelo, Damian rarely stepped foot outside of Devils Ridge.
Frankie took a drag and puffed the smoke away from both our faces.
It still smelled, but I ignored it and continued, “No one bothered to keep tabs on the De Lucas, because Angelo didn’t hold a candle to the other syndicates and the De Luca syndicate is mostly straight-laced oil money. That negligence is on everyone.” I met Frankie’s weathered eyes past the smoke. “But have you ever wondered why Angelo gave the order to keep Damian a secret?”
He drew the cigar away from his lips and stared out at the crowd that had gathered in the church’s side lot. “He didn’t want us to know he had a potential successor.”
“Yes, but it’s one thing to have someone who can succeed you through lineage. It’s another thing entirely to have someone who others would want to succeed.”
“So, everyone in the De Luca syndicate wanted Damian to take over, which means Angelo’s either an asshole or Damian is that good… and we both know Angelo’s an asshole. He’s not right in the head either.”
Frankie underestimated Damian. Back in Devils Ridge, I’d always suspected Damian saw value in being an unknown entity.
“Have you considered the possibility it’s both those reasons?”
“Truthfully, I haven’t really talked to the boy.”
“The boy is nearing thirty, and he revitalized a failing syndicate in less time than it takes to become a dog trainer.” My tone slipped past my lips sharper than intended. I was being defensive when I was no longer supposed to care about Damian.
After his coup, Damian dredged his syndicate up from the trenches. No syndicate compared to the Romano syndicate, but the De Luca family now rivaled the Camerino, Andretti, and Rossi syndicates.
“You sound impressed. Maybe even a little indignant.” Frankie paused, his cigar hovering at the edge of his lips as he raised a brow. “Or perhaps like you care, Little Ren.”
Well, fuck.
I redirected, hoping he didn’t see through me, “Frankie, I like you. I chose your syndicate to lay roots in, and you’ve given me privacy. So, I’m offering you advice here as someone who has lived in Devils Ridge. As someone who has lived with Damiano De Luca for over a year. He’s not someone you should take lightly.”
“Noted, sweetheart.” He gave me a sweet smile, and given the morose setting, he looked almost at peace. “Just so you know, Renata, you’re not fooling me. Your eyes have been darting to him every other second. You don’t just sound like you care. You look like you care, too.”
His eyes scanned my face. Ten years ago, I never would have given anything away, but the civilian lifestyle didn’t give me much practice in concealing emotions. I needed to get my shit together if I wanted to survive this weekend.
Frankie shifted his gaze to Damian, who stared at me unapologetically from the opposite end of the lot. “The others don’t take well to him being here.”
I turned my body away, so I couldn’t see Damian in my line of sight anymore because Frankie was right. I had been staring. “By others, do you mean you?”
“No, I couldn’t care less if he’s here or not.” He stressed, “There are more important things in life to worry over than petty prejudices.”
I faltered. He’d just lost his brother, and I hadn’t been watching my words. “I’m sorry, Frankie.”
His loss hung between us like a swaying noose, a reminder that if we ever decided to move on, it would always be there to rob us of our breaths. Vincent Romano’s death had ended the Andretti-Romano war, bringing the syndicates closer than they’d ever been. He sacrificed himself not just for his family but for peace between all of the syndicates. For what? A world I could barely stand? One which forced me to build walls higher than the Great Wall’s?
“Don’t worry about it, kiddo.” Frankie straightened up his bespoke three-piece suit, looking like a black-haired cross between George Clooney and Robert Redford circa Indecent Proposal. A group of women nearby clung to his every move. “For what it’s worth, I’m happy you’re here. You’re always welcome in the city.” He stared past my shoulder before returning his gaze to mine with a smug look pasted on his distinguished features. “As much as I’d like to watch this unfold, I have to head to the cemetery first.”
“Watch what unfold?” I started to ask, but he was already walking away.
Not a second later, a shadow darkened my path. I forced myself not to turn around as Damian’s lips found my ear as he spoke, “Talking to yourself?”
I pictured the barbed-wire fence outside the state prison I usually passed on the drive back to Connecticut. Criss-crossed steel. Spiked metal. Sharp edges. Twenty feet high. I needed to build walls like that within me. Fast.
Pivoting to face Damian, I backed up a little, so his scent wouldn’t make me lightheaded anymore. “Most people can take a hint when someone doesn’t want to talk to them.”
His eyes dipped to my arms when I crossed them, and he looked almost satisfied by the defensive gesture. “You’re leaning into me, Princess.”
I drove my heels into the ground, forcing myself not to adjust my body at his words, because he was right. I was leaning into him, and I hadn’t even realized it. But I wasn’t about to admit he was right.
They say one lie is enough to cast doubt on every truth, yet no amount of lies could ever absolve me of the worst truth of all—Damiano De Luca meant something to me. My brittle heart would never heal. I was condemned to him forever.
We stood so close as he bent forward and continued to murmur in my ear, “The way I see it, I see past your bullshit, your body is speaking an entirely different language than you think it is, and the only person who can’t take a hint is you. So, I’ll spell it out for you, Princess.” He gestured at my body, which was still leaning towards him. “This isn’t the body language of someone who left me. This is the body language of someone who has never stopped wanting me. I’ll figure out why you left ten years ago, and I’ll figure out why you’re here now.”
I couldn’t believe Damian’s audacity. Who spoke like this to someone after a decade apart? Though
I saw traces of the boy I’d once loved in him, he had also changed. Confident, powerful, and unpredictable. The kind of guy my mom would have warned me away from as a kid if it weren’t for the fact that he was exactly the type of man tailor-made for a mafia princess.
I swallowed, forcing down the way his words and presence sped up my heartbeat. I’d forgotten this feeling. Since leaving Devils Ridge, I’d stayed away from the fuck-you-with-his-eyes, take-what-he-wants-with-both-hands, padlocked-chest-full-of-secrets type of guys. I was the goldfish who took her first dip in the ocean, decided it was too big to handle, and begged for a cozy little fish bowl she could swim safely in. I was the anti-Nemo.
So, I shook my head, denial running deeper in my veins than drugs in an addict’s. And I couldn’t deny I’d always been addicted to Damian, though my words said otherwise, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He leaned back against a random car, not a care in the world as to who it belonged to, despite standing in a lot full of dangerous mafiosos. “There’s nothing cute about this denial act.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off with his hard voice, “Don’t bother denying your denial. It’s an insult at this point, and I may give no fucks, but my soldiers don’t take insults lightly.”
Leaning against his car had put some much-needed distance between us, but I could feel the ghost of his breath across my face as he reprimanded me. I shoved down this stupid lust and mocked, “Touchy, touchy, sweetheart.”
“I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve earned, Princess. If I don’t defend my kingdom, I deserve to be dethroned.”
“You speak as if I give a damn.”
“We both know you do.” His eyes dipped to my wedding ring, and he backed off the car, reached his pointer finger out, and stroked it.
I pulled my hand back, suppressing the tingles of lust that stretched the length of my spine and spun my mind a thousand different ways. “I’m not here to talk to you.”
“Ah, the crux of the matter. Why you left. Why you’re here. Feel free to explain either.”
“It’s been ten years, Damsel. Shouldn’t you be over this?”
“You can lessen what we had all you want, Princess, but it’s never going to change the fact that you loved me so much you used to say my name in your sleep.”
“You’re lying.”
He ran his eyes down my body, pausing a moment on my chest, which swelled with each breath drawn. “If you remember, the air vent on the wall separating our rooms stood above both our beds. I could hear everything, and you spoke my name like it belonged on your lips.”
He was right. I’d dreamed of him. Still did sometimes. I’d always been this unaffected girl. So aloof. So collected. But Damian nicked my armor, and a few years after I’d left Devils Ridge, I finally put the armor down.
So, here I was, with dangerous attraction simmering in the air and no protection against it. The spark between us had always been my problem. I could never truly push him away, so when I left, I knew the only way to succeed was to stay away.
But I was no longer away, and my demons weren’t the type that could be confronted.
The least I could do was try to find my way out.
I stepped back and picked at a strand of lint on my sleeve, doing my damnedest to look unaffected. When I finally returned my gaze to him, he didn’t look convinced. I spat out, “You can rewrite our history all you want, Damsel, but it won’t change our future.”
Taunting laughter rippled out of him, and he looked like temptation in his bespoke guanaco-woven suit and derisive sneer. “You don’t get it, do you? You being here changes everything.” He winked at me—freaking winked at me—and left, his soldiers trailing after him like well-trained lapdogs.
My mom had always taught me that life was a never-ending game of chess. And this game? It felt like he’d just claimed another piece.
Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.
Sun Tzu
Ten Years Old
One spring evening, when the rain had sunk the wheels of our town car a foot deep into mud and I’d run out of books to read in the house, I found Maman in her library, staring over a chessboard.
I liked all sorts of things other ten-year-old kids didn’t—books, debate, and speed math, for instance. Chess had never been one of them. Papà liked to play it in the cigar room when other mafiosos visited. A men’s game, he called it. I wondered what he would say if he knew Maman liked to play, too.
“Come.” She gestured to the spot across from her. “Sit.”
This chessboard was her throne, and it overlooked her empire. A floor-to-ceiling glass wall separated us from the beach. I always appreciated the wealth Papà took for granted. This view, most of all.
I loved this room. Loved everything about it, including the way my mom looked so out of place with her distressed style, which Papà complained made her look like a commoner. In Maman’s defense, there was nothing common about her.
I slid into the seat and hid a grin at Maman’s white Sonic Youth band tee. I wore the same one in gray. “Who are you playing with?”
“Everyone.”
That made no sense to me, but I pretended it did. “Doesn’t that get tiring?”
“Not if you know how to do it well.” A smile curved her lips, and despite the fact that she was the only woman in the Hamptons who sported band tees, loose jeans, and Chapstick (and only on the best of days), Maman was the prettiest woman in the world when she smiled. “Do you see this? The dark pawn is at e5, and the light pawn is at e4.” She moved the white knight. “And now the knight is at c3.” Here eyes met my mine, too serious for a cozy rainy day. “Do you know what this is?”
The infamous Vienna game.
Papà had shown this to me a few years ago when he caught me staring at one of the many chessboards he kept in the house. “The King’s Gambit is an aggressive attack. The opening of petulant kings trying to prove their worth.” Indignation coated his voice, and even at seven, I heard it. “The Vienna game is a delayed King’s Gambit. Slower play with the same result.”
Years later, I still remembered his words. “Papà said the Vienna game is the opening of kings who do not understand that patience is wasted time.”
Amusement swam in Maman’s eyes. “Your papà can be a fool at times, pretty girl.”
My jaw dropped. “Maman!”
I’d never heard anyone speak of Papà like this. He was the head of the Vitali, for goodness sake!
“Oh, hush, my love.” She winked at me. “You won’t tell.” Her thin fingers, weighed down by an enormous diamond ring, moved a piece on the board. “Your father can learn a thing or two from the Vienna game.” Maman met my eyes. “White plays quietly, and the dark king?” That unassuming smile filled her face. “The dark king never sees her coming.”
It was a lesson I should never have forgotten.
Self-deception is sometimes as necessary a tool as a crowbar.
Mosa Hart
Seventeen Years Old
The workers in the De Luca household liked to gossip in Spanish, which was close enough to my native Italian that I had an idea of what they said. Señor Damian, as the maids called him, came home more often than usual lately, and they blamed me.
I loathed the sense I saw in their logic.
If ever there was a cold war between two strangers, this was it. I’d stolen Damiano De Luca’s phone. That didn’t exactly set a remarkable first impression. He hadn’t confronted me about it, but I knew he knew.
After sending Maman an email and erasing my digital tracks, I slipped the phone on the floor by his bedroom door. Maybe he would think he had dropped it.
A girl could hope.
That had been three days ago. Days passed, and tense silence thickened each time I heard him walk by my door. Thing was, I knew the heavy footsteps held intent. Syndicate royalty didn’t make noise as they walked. Training took care of that.
But each firm step Damiano De Luca took
was deliberate. Like a move made on a chessboard, thought ten steps ahead. In fact, life in the De Luca household felt exactly like a chess match, in which I held no control over the board.
Maman always had the Vienna match laid on the chessboard in her library. Every now and then, she’d move a piece. Sometimes, a week apart; sometimes, a year apart. The dark king never sees his demise coming, she’d tell me each time I noticed a moved piece.
But I’d spent enough time looking at that chessboard to see my demise coming. Heard the breaths of impending doom each time I left the confines of my room. Felt the ironclad fingers of vengeance wrap around my neck whenever I dared to sneak food from the kitchen. Smelled the metallic blood of ruin trickle down my body whenever I dodged across the hall to use the bathroom.
I sensed it now as I grabbed a change of clothes and darted to the bathroom I shared with Damian. Like the other houses in Devils Ridge, Texas, the De Luca household was antiquated. Built in the 18th century, the house had been renovated only twice—once during the Victorian era, so it matched the aesthetics of the other Victorian-style homes in town, and once again a few years ago when the contractors had decided that introducing anything more than the minimal number of modern amenities would jeopardize the historic integrity of the home.
Historic integrity, my ass.
The East Wing bathroom had three rooms—a toilet room, a vanity room, and a bathing room. The door to the bathroom led to the bathing room, where a small bathing pool laid in the center, like I was on the set of Game of Thrones.
It occurred to me what a waste of water filling and draining this pool was, but I wasn’t going to bathe in Damian’s soiled water. I slid my silk robe off my shoulders and hung it on the hook beside the door, along with my change of clothes.
One of the maids had warmed the pool and filled it with bubbles earlier, and I dipped a toe into the water, exploring the temperature. My waist barely kissed the water before the door swung open.
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 3