I was glad to stay home. If I’d come along, they’d used me as a nanny and their metaphorical punching bag whenever something didn’t go as planned. A few chill days with Netflix, fast food, and Mauro sounded like pure bliss in comparison.
Mauro shook his head again. Sometimes I got the feeling my mother’s lack of interest in me annoyed him more than it did me. It had bothered me for a long time, and it still occasionally did, but I’d come to terms with it. Mother wouldn’t miraculously become more caring or affectionate, and if I didn’t want her neglect to break me, I needed to accept it and move on.
Mother, Alfonso, and the three spoiled little brats finally left the house. Mauro threw the door shut with more force than necessary, shaking his head. Then his gaze settled on me.
“You look as if you got a jail sentence. Is it really so bad to stay with me?”
Mauro ran a hand through his dark hair, those milk-chocolate brown eyes locking on mine. “No. But I hate to be called away from business because of last minutes theatricals.”
“You had plans?” I asked, wondering if he was currently seeing a girl. He couldn’t really date. Women from our world were only allowed to be with their husband, and Outsiders could never be more than an affair. Still, it bothered me that Mauro was with other girls when it decidedly shouldn’t. He wasn’t mine, never would be. The butterflies stopped their maddening fluttering as if someone had ripped their wings off, and that’s how it felt whenever I considered how doomed my feelings for Mauro were.
I couldn’t stop myself from checking him out. He was tall, more than a head taller than me, and muscled but not bulky. He was lithe, deadly, and just ridiculously handsome. His shirt hugged his six-pack, his pecs, and his strong biceps. Because the shirt was white, the outline of his Famiglia tattoo that every Made Man got for his initiation shone through.
Born in Blood. Sworn in Blood.
I enter alive and leave dead.
Why couldn’t I stop looking at him as if I could ever be with him? It was wrong. Our parents would never allow it. Mainly because of the major scandal it would cause. I wasn’t sure how long I checked him out, but Mauro seemed lost in his own thoughts. He was watching me in a way as if I was his nightmare come true, and I didn’t understand it. We’d been so close before he went off to Sicily and we were still close while he was there, but things had become tense, almost awkward at times. I wasn’t brave enough to ask him why. Maybe it was something that happened with all people in my life. They eventually lost interest in me.
Chapter Two
Mauro
I stared out into the night. Fuck, I wasn’t scared of anything, but now I was acting like a goddamn pussy. Too scared of sleep. Too scared of my mind’s torturous fantasies that only got more creative with every passing day in close proximity to Stella. We’d spent three whole days together so far. I was torn between wanting our time alone together to be over as quickly as possible—to prevent a misfortune from happening—and wanting to prolong it.
Stella was my drug of choice. She was oblivious to my dirty thoughts, to all the ways I’d already fucked her in my fantasies. Until today she’d been seventeen, tomorrow she’d finally be of age. Finally? Another barrier crumbling, another hit for my dwindling self-control.
Fuck. Father had given me one job: keep an eye on Stella, protect her physical wellbeing and her honor. The latter probably more than the former. After all, a girl in our circles was judged by her fucking pureness. That was the reason for the disgusting bloody sheets tradition. He still wanted to marry her off to the highest bidder one day. If I acted on my fantasies, that could ruin his plans.
My eyes registered a moving shadow on the premises. At first, I was sure my mind was playing a trick on me. We had an advanced alarm system for the garden and house, which went off as soon as anything bigger than a cat tried to get over the fence. It was necessary because our territory bordered on enemy land, and the Outfit had been attacking frequently since truce had broken.
Another shadow, then another. What the fuck?
Glass shattered somewhere in the house. No alarm. Nothing.
I whirled around, grabbed my Berettas from the nightstand, and stormed down the hallway toward Stella’s room, shoving one gun into the waistband of my sweatpants. I barreled inside and staggered toward her bed, grasping her arm. I jerked her upward, and she awakened with a gasp, her eyes wide with fear. Her lips opened to cry out, but my hand clamped down on her mouth. Finally, her eyes settled on my face and her brows pulled together in confusion.
“Attackers are in the house. Come on, I need to get you to the panic room.”
“The alarm?” she asked. I pulled her out of bed when she didn’t move.
“Stella, follow me!” After another moment of hesitation, she finally acted on my orders. Pulling my second gun out, I handed it to Stella. She shook her head. “I don’t know how to shoot.”
“Point at an attacker and pull the fucking trigger, that’s it.”
She took the gun, and I led us into the corridor. “Stay behind me at all times and don’t shoot me in the back by accident. And for fuck’s sake, do what I say, no questions asked.”
She nodded mutely, obviously stunned by my dominant demeanor.
We hurried toward the staircase. Hushed male voices were coming from the living room.
“Quick,” I rasped. I grabbed her wrist because she looked frozen. I hurried down the staircase, dragging Stella after me.
The entrance to the panic room was in Father’s office on the ground floor, the last door on the right, branching off from the lobby. An attacker appeared in the doorway to the living room when we reached the last step. I pulled the trigger and sent a bullet through his left eye. He tumbled to the ground with a resounding thud. I dragged Stella past the body, hearing steps of several more intruders in the living room. I ran faster even if Stella panted desperately behind me. With a hard shove, I pushed the door open, ran inside and entered a code into the keypad beside one of the bookshelves. The floor parted beside the desk, revealing a narrow staircase and an underground panic room.
“Go in!” I shoved Stella in the direction of the opening. She clambered down a few steps.
“Don’t leave me alone.” Her eyes were wide and fearful.
“Down!” I snarled. She disappeared, and I quickly climbed down as well. Only my head peeked out from the hole in the floor when another attacker glimpsed into the room. Like the first attacker, I didn’t recognize his face. I shot, but he jerked back and the bullet collided with the wall behind him, sending plaster flying everywhere. I pressed the close button, and the floor slid shut within seconds, then I punched in a code into the pad that would guarantee no one got down here who didn’t know the correct numbers. A flicker of a face peered down at me a moment before the door clicked shut. Was it the Bratva or the Outfit? Both were giving us trouble.
Gritting my teeth, I turned and tensed.
Stella stood in the middle of the hundred-twenty square foot room, her arms wrapped around her middle, looking completely out of it. Her breathing came out in sharp bursts, panic flickering in her eyes. Her gaze darted around the room restlessly.
“It’s okay. This room is safe.” I tried to calm her, but my words barely registered. She seemed to be going into shock, her chest rising and falling rapidly. I tore my eyes from her breasts, shoved my gun into the waistband of my pajamas and moved toward her, carefully prying the gun from her clenched fingers. Pushing it into the back of my waistband, I touched Stella’s cheek. She tilted her head up, her gaze meeting mine. She was more than a head shorter than me, and my protectiveness reared its head. I stroked a few strands of her caramel brown hair from her sweaty forehead. “You are safe, Stella.”
“You are here,” she whispered as if that affirmed my words.
“I’ll protect you.”
She looked around again. The room was meant for a short stay. Six bunk beds lined the walls to our left and right. The back of the room had a small kitchenette a
nd a narrow closed-off bathroom. Though it was the size of a broom closet, no more. You could pretty much shower while you sat on the toilet.
Right beside the steep ladder was a sofa and a small TV. That was all.
“We’re trapped under the floor,” she whispered, looking up at the low ceiling and swallowing hard. Only a light bulb dangled above our heads.
“Just think of this as a normal apartment.”
“It doesn’t have any windows.”
“A shitty apartment then.”
She giggled nervously. My fingers found her throat and her fluttering pulse beneath her satin-soft skin.
“We won’t have to stay down here long. Soon reinforcements will arrive.” But the alarm hadn’t gone off. I went over to the small console beside the ladder and pressed the alarm button which was connected to our main security system. A red light flashed. No connection. Fuck. I glanced up the ladder, hearing footsteps above us. They couldn’t get down here unless they blasted the entire house into smithereens. But if reinforcement wasn’t alerted, Stella and I were stuck down here until our parents returned, and that was in three days. A long time to be stuck in an underground room, especially with your tantalizing half-dressed stepsister. My eyes registered Stella’s flimsy nightgown for the first time. This was a nightmare, and not mainly because of the attackers who potentially wanted to torture and kill us.
“I didn’t hear an alarm,” Stella said, searching my eyes.
Damn. I sighed. For some reason, I never liked lying to her. “It didn’t. They disabled it.”
Her eyes darted up to the trapdoor. “But they aren’t going to come in?”
“No, not without a code.”
She nodded, biting her lip, still looking so fucking lost and scared.
I returned to her side and stroked her cheek with the pad of my thumb. Fuck, why couldn’t I stop touching her? “I swear you’re safe.”
Again that small trusting smile, which was giving me ideas and at the same time reminding me that I had a responsibility for Stella. She trusted me, had miraculously done so for a long time.
I glanced at the clock at the wall. It was past midnight.
“Happy Birthday,” I said.
Stella blinked, her brows crinkling. “If the start of my birthday is any indication for the rest of my year, I’d like to skip it.”
I smiled, shaking my head, my fingers still on her skin. My gaze darted to her lips, the way they curved up in a half-smile despite the anxiety in her eyes. I dropped my hand as if I’d been burned and stepped back, clearing my throat. “I’m going to check everything. It’s been a while since I’ve been down here.”
“Does that mean you don’t have a birthday present for me?”
An image of my head buried between her legs popped into my mind. Not the birthday present she had in mind. I needed to drag my mind out of the gutter. “Not down here,” I got out.
Chapter Three
Stella
My heart beat wildly in my chest as I kept listening to sounds from above. Muffled footsteps sounded on occasion, but the door held fast. Slowly, I made my way over to the sofa and sank down, trying to calm myself. Mauro meticulously checked every drawer of the kitchen and the narrow wardrobe.
The muscles in his shoulders and back flexed as he leaned forward. Scars littered his back from knife and gun wounds he’d suffered over the years as a Made Man. Slowly my gaze dropped to his firm ass and a flush heated my cheeks. I quickly dragged my gaze away when Mauro turned, his brows furrowed in concentration. His chest was chiseled, tanned and a small splattering of dark hair trailed from his navel down into his low-cut sweatpants. It was the first time I saw him without a shirt in a long time. He’d always worn a shirt around me. My stomach warmed.
Mauro’s eyes cut to me and I blushed, feeling caught, as if my inappropriate thoughts were written all over my face. I was glad he didn’t know how I felt toward him. He’d think I was being silly. “We’re well equipped with canned food and a change of clothes. A few days down here won’t be a problem.”
I nodded, then flinched when something crashed over our heads.
Mauro narrowed his eyes.
“What was that?”
“I think they threw over one of the shelves. They might be looking for a safe. Maybe this attack isn’t about us, but about information they hope to acquire.”
Again, I nodded. I’d never much cared for mob business. I’d never gotten a taste of what it entailed—until now. Mauro had been risking his life for years, since he was younger than I am now. Maybe that was why the age difference of five years between us sometimes felt so much bigger.
“Try to get some sleep. I can dim the light,” Mauro said.
I quickly shook my head. There was no way I’d fall asleep now. Adrenaline pumped through my body.
“Why don’t you watch some TV then while I try to figure out a way to send out an emergency signal?”
I dropped in front of the TV like a five-year-old, but what else could I have done? My legs were shaking and my brain capacity close to zero. I took the remote and began to mindlessly flip through the channels. But I kept the volume low so I’d hear what went on above our heads, and my gaze kept returning to the trapdoor, the only thing between us and our potential murderers.
That and Mauro. He was a good shot. He’d protect us.
Mauro
I was interested in modern technology, but trying to send out an emergency signal past whatever block our attackers had installed was well beyond my knowledge.
Stella’s eyes kept alternately following me and checking out the ceiling. She was still shaking and goosebumps pimpled her skin. Her nipples peaked through her nightgown in the most distracting way possible. “Aren’t you cold? You can change into other clothes,” I suggested eventually.
Stella followed my suggestion and surprised me when she put on one of my sweaters. For some reason, the sight of her in my too-big clothes was even more of a turn-on than her flimsy nightgown had been. Damn it all.
I spent the night and most of the day going over the manual for the keypad and turning on heat. More to distract myself than for any practical purposes. I sat on one of the bunk beds while Stella had curled up on the sofa, only her shins and feet peeking out from my sweater.
She dozed off twice but jerked up shortly after, her breathing shaky until her eyes settled on me. “Can’t you read beside me?”
I got up and walked over to her, then sank down next to her feet. Stella propped them up on my thighs, and without thinking, I put my palm on her calf. Her skin was soft, warm and now that I felt it, I couldn’t stop thinking how much better it would feel if I trailed my hand up to her sensitive inner thigh or even higher.
I shoved the thought out of my head and focused on the tiny font of the manual. Stella sat up and caught me off guard by turning around and settling her head in my lap. For a moment, I stared down at her caramel hair, half torn between shoving her away because I really didn’t need additional images of her face close to my dick haunting my nights, and tugging my waistband down and sliding my cock into her mouth.
I shifted when I felt the treacherous blood flow down into my groin area.
“Anything interesting?”
“No,” I gritted out. Stella met my eyes, frowning. My sudden tension didn’t make sense to her. “Did you hear something? Are we in danger?”
I was in danger of losing my sliver of self-control, and she of losing her honor.
Something in her expression shifted, as if she knew what I was thinking.
I’d on occasion thought she’d looked at me with more than step-sisterly affection, but had blamed it on my own forbidden desires. Now I wasn’t so sure anymore.
After an early dinner of a can of cream of mushroom soup and some crackers, Stella slipped into the tiny bath-cupboard. The door was thin and I could hear every muttered curse as she tried to change in the narrow space. I tried not to imagine how she undressed, how she’d look naked.
; “Ouch!” Stella muttered.
I chuckled despite the situation.
Silence followed behind the door.
“Can you hear me?”
“Of course, I can hear you.”
More silence. “You have to cover your ears.”
“Stella, I’m not going to cover my fucking ears. I know how it sounds when someone pees, so get on with it and don’t you dare turn the water on to cover up the sounds.”
“I’m not going to pee if you can hear everything!” She turned the water on. I stretched out on one of the bunks, wondering what the attackers were doing upstairs. Undoubtedly trying to get down here. Why hadn’t Father thought of installing monitors down here that were linked to cameras on the premises?
The door opened and Stella stepped out. My heart skipped a beat. What the holy fuck was she wearing? I sat up slowly, wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me. Stella was in some kind of flimsy red negligee made of a thin silky material. It only reached her upper thighs and clung to her breasts. Fuck.
Stella shifted on her feet, her face turning red under my scrutiny. “Only my mother would choose this as her nightwear for a lockdown situation. The clothes in my drawer are a few years old and don’t fit me anymore.”
I barely registered her words. Most of my blood had left my brain. Of course, I’d noticed Stella’s curves before, but having them shoved into my face like this, it would definitely stir up a whole new onslaught of dirty fantasies I had absolutely no business entertaining.
I pushed to my feet and headed over to the drawer with my clothes, ripping it open with a bit too much force. I pulled out a T-shirt and boxer shorts and flung them at Stella. She barely caught them, her eyes wide in surprise.
“Here. Put that on. It’ll be more comfortable than that thing.”
LOVE IN LOCKDOWN: A Charity Anthology Page 6