by Sophia Gray
I stood and marched out of my room and down the stairs. Dad was still sitting in the kitchen, reading a thick paperback. To my alarm, Antonio was cleaning a gun. The shiny parts were spread out all over the table like little toys. A shiver of fear went through me when I realized, suddenly, that this was real. This was my life.
“Yes, Melinda?” Dad didn’t look up from the pages of his book. “I assume you’ve consulted with Cassandra.”
I bit my lip. “Yes,” I said stiffly.
“And?”
“Fine,” I said, gesturing towards Antonio. “He’s fine.”
“Say it, Melinda,” Dad said slowly. He put his book down, marking his place with a chubby finger loaded with gold rings.
“Yes, I want Antonio as my bodyguard,” I said. His name felt odd in my mouth, the way my tongue rolled over the syllables like they were made of marble. “I want to continue to have a private life that includes shopping and going to clubs.”
Dad nodded. “Good girl,” he said approvingly. He reached over and slapped Antonio on the shoulder. “You’ll have to watch out for my princess,” Dad said fondly to Antonio. “She’s a real little spitfire when she chooses to be.”
Antonio glanced up at me. When his dark eyes met my own, I felt a shiver of arousal and fear run down my spine.
“Yes,” Antonio said stiffly, not taking his eyes off me. “I bet she is.”
Chapter 4
Antonio
The first Samuele I laid eyes on Melinda Cantonneli, I knew I was in trouble.
For one thing, she was one of the hottest girls I’d ever seen in my life. Even though she had stereotypical Italian-American good girl looks – big round blue eyes, long brown hair, skin free of blemishes and tattoos – there was a fire in her eyes that made her really stand out. She was short, maybe five-foot-two or less, but something about the way her eyes took in a room made her seem imposing and taller than she really was.
But that wasn’t why I was in trouble. I was used to being around gorgeous women. As a mob bodyguard, most of my life has been spent around the most beautiful girls on the planet. Ever since I turned eighteen and started working out, I’ve been covered in pussy. There was Sandra, the wife of a rich businessman named Armando who was thirty years older than she was. She was a shapely blonde with perfect fake tits, a narrow waist, and the breathy voice of a 1940s Hollywood star. We’d fucked so hard that my cock was sore for days. She was gorgeous, all right. But she was also materialistic, greedy, and obsessed with herself. By the Samuele Benji got back from his umpteenth business trip that year, I quit right on the spot.
Since then, I’d drifted around Wilmington doing jobs for all the big mob guys. And right now, there was no one bigger than Rodrigo Cantonneli. Always impeccably dressed, he was fierce, formidable, and just coming into his prime as the head of the Cantonneli family. The thing about Rodrigo was that he didn’t immediately inspire fear. I’d thought he was soft when I’d first met him – he was obviously educated and cared about his family, he had gentle eyes, and he spoke softly. But Rodrigo wasn’t a man to be fucked with. Trust me.
When his cousin Dominico betrayed him, Rodrigo showed absolutely no mercy. It took days for me to get the bloodstains out of the carpet. I hadn’t been in the room at the Samuele, but the other guys joked around afterwards. They said it was lucky Dominico’s wife had such a thing for purses, because she’d need something to carry her husband around in after Rodrigo was through with him.
And now, I was guarding Rodrigo’s daughter. I’d only met her once before – at some barbecue Rodrigo had thrown in honor of his best friend and consigliere’s wedding anniversary. Marty and Maria had been married for twenty-five years, and the party was like nothing I’d ever seen before. If I closed my eyes, I could still hear the faint piano music and smell the fine champagne as it flowed from bottle after bottle after bottle.
I’d seen Melinda that day standing outside in the garden. She was wearing a white dress, and in the low evening light she glowed like a moth. I’d spotted her when she’d first arrived, thinking of how great a figure she had for a kid. But when I got closer, I realized she had to be a little older. Maybe nineteen or twenty.
“Hey,” Melinda had said. “You got a smoke?”
I glanced behind me, looking for Rodrigo. “I don’t think your father would want you smoking,” I told her, shaking my head. And I ain’t getting my ass kicked if he sees me, either, I thought.
Melinda frowned. “You don’t know anything about me,” she said sweetly. “How do you know I’ll even tell anyone I got the cigarette from you?”
I shook my head and laughed. “No, thanks,” I told her. “I value my life. I don’t really feel like dying today, but that’s on you, princess.”
Melinda glared at me before stalking away. Her white dress floated up in frothy folds like sea foam, and I glimpsed the most perfect ass I’d ever seen on another human being.
That had been over a year ago. This morning hadn’t been much different – except instead of the white dress, Melinda was in a silky robe with ratty pajamas underneath. When she first looked at me, I could tell she didn’t remember me well. She was also nervous, something that was definitely expected where her father was concerned.
After she agreed to let me guard her, Melinda flitted back upstairs. She had a friend over – this girl with a horrible mane of white hair – and I could practically hear their giggling all over the house.
“Antonio,” Rodrigo said, “you better watch her like a hawk.”
I nodded stiffly.
“She’s trouble, Melinda is,” Rodrigo said. “You really have to keep an eye on her at all Samueles. Don’t let her out of your sight for one fucking second, do you understand?”
I nodded again.
Rodrigo slipped a manila envelope across the table towards me. “That’s the first of it,” he said. “That ought to be enough to make us square for a couple of weeks. After that, I’ll pay you based on how much you’re working.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Sir,” I added quickly.
Rodrigo nodded. “Antonio, we’re family now,” he said, waving a hand dismissively through the air. “You don’t need to call me sir.”
But I did, and he and I both knew it. This was all a formality – merely something designed to make me feel more comfortable.
Oddly, I felt more uncomfortable than ever. I knew I was on the edge of something big and dangerous, and unless I really watched myself, I was headed for trouble.
The first assignment came a few days later. Melinda called me at nine in the morning. “Hey, I’m going shopping,” she said. “Meet me at the house in thirty minutes.”
After wolfing down a quick breakfast, I pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a plain button-down shirt. Melinda was waiting for me outside of her father’s mansion, looking luscious in a tight red dress, heels, and big sunglasses that perched daintily on the tip of her ski-jump nose.
“You’re late,” Melinda said. “I’m telling Dad.”
I glanced down at my watch. “You’re wro—”
“I’m fucking with you, relax,” Melinda snapped. She walked past me and climbed into the passenger seat of my sedan without even waiting for me to open the door.
I sighed. I knew it was going to be a long day.
Melinda dragged me all over Wilmington. We went to one store right after another. At first, she was enthusiastic – dragging me over and showing me dresses, asking me which ones I liked. But I knew it was a slippery slope. I couldn’t exactly tell her I thought the green one made her ass look too big, or that her tits looked like they were going to pop right out of the purple silk one. I was walking a dangerous line, and I almost felt like I was being tested.
The feeling only grew stronger as Melinda tugged me past a lingerie shop. “We should go in,” she said. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
I shook my head. “No fucking way,” I told her. “Your dad would skin me alive if he knew what I was doing with you.”
> Melinda licked her lips. They were fuller than I’d first thought, and painted a light, delicate, innocent shade of pink. She opened her eyes wide and batted her long lashes at me. “But, Antonio, what are we doing?” Melinda asked sweetly. “You’re just taking me shopping, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing over her shoulder at the display of skimpy lingerie in the window. “Shopping for clothes, not floss.”
Melinda giggled. She pushed all of her shopping bags at me and tossed her long brown curls over her shoulder. “That’s right,” she said innocently. “We’re shopping. That’s all we’re doing.”
Rolling my eyes, I followed her into the store. I should have known right then and there I was walking right into my doom.
Chapter 5
Melinda
Antonio was impossible. I’d tried everything I could think of – making him follow me around and carry my shopping bags, dangling the idea of lingerie in front of him. Hell, I even made him buy me an ice cream cone on the way home from the shopping trip. But he was seemingly impenetrable from the outside. His dark eyes were ciphers, and I was starting to feel I was never going to be able to really figure him out.
I decided that night, I’d take him to Hurricanes and see how tough he really was.
“Antonio,” I said as soon as he picked up the phone. “I changed my mind. We’re going out tonight – I wanna go dancing, at Hurricanes.”
“Melinda, that place isn’t in a good part of town.”
I rolled my eyes. “Duh,” I said. “That’s why you’re coming with me!”
“Does your father know about this?”
Covering the receiver of the phone, I pranced into the kitchen. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, making a list of figures in his leather-bound accounting book. “Hi, Daddy,” I chirped. “Antonio’s going to take me clubbing tonight, at Hurricanes. That okay with you?”
Dad beamed. “Sure, sweetie,” he said. “You be sure to be good, though. Okay?”
Grinning, I held the phone up to my ear. “Did you hear that?” I asked Antonio sweetly. “Daddy’s fine with you taking me to Hurricanes.”
Antonio grumbled and hung up before giving me an actual answer.
As I got ready to go out that night, I couldn’t wipe the smirk off my face. I knew I shouldn’t delight in tormenting him, but I really couldn’t help it. The idea of sticking it to Antonio meant sticking it to my father, and I was still feeling so resentful of my situation that I barely even thought about anything else, much less talked about it. Even Cassandra and Gloria were sick of hearing me ramble about Dad and how unfair my life was.
“Well, you’re out now, isn’t that the point?” Gloria had asked, narrowing her eyes. “I mean, that’s what you wanted, right? So why aren’t you happy?”
I’d just sighed. Of course Cassandra and Gloria wouldn’t understand. They thought my dad was just being overprotective. They didn’t understand that my life would seriously be over if I tried to do anything without Antonio…or with him.
That night, I dressed more wild and slutty than I ever had before. I wore a red dress so tight I couldn’t even wear a thong with it, and I made sure to pull it down low. My black lace bra peeked out of the top, and when I leaned a certain way, I was sure the dark skin of my areolas was visible. I made my hair as big as possible, teasing it to the sky and securing it with a handful of rhinestone-spangled pins. My eyes were ringed with jet-black liner and dark eye shadow, and I put on the brightest, shiniest shade of red lipstick I owned.
When Antonio saw me, though, he merely nodded. “Come on,” Antonio said dutifully. He jerked his head towards the door. “You ready to go or not?”
I sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I grumbled, pushing past Antonio and stalking out of the house. His luxury sedan was parked in the driveway with the headlights on and soft music playing inside. By the Samuele I crawled into the passenger seat, I realized the leather beneath my ass was heated. “This is a nice car,” I chirped as Antonio drove me downtown. “How did you buy it?” Slouching down in the seat, I spread my thighs as widely as I could in the tight dress. Antonio didn’t look at me. I coughed, arching my back and sticking my breasts into the air.
Infuriatingly enough, Antonio still wasn’t looking.
“I earned the money working for a friend of your father’s,” Antonio said evenly. Even though he looked like a gangster, he drove like an old man – we didn’t break fifty miles per hour the whole damn way. “I did some similar work for him, with his stepfamily, while he was on vacation in Italy.”
I licked my lips. “You mean Leo,” I said. “And his wife, Utka.”
Antonio nodded.
“What did you think of her?” I asked pointedly. Leo was one of Dad’s business partners, and he’d always given me the creeps. After his wife, Terri, died of breast cancer, he’d married a woman from Slovenia named Utka. Her features were sculpted almost entirely of silicone from plastic surgery. Her almond-shaped held a constant look of indifference, and her lips never seemed to move, even when she was talking. Her I didn’t like at all, but I hated Leo. He was one of those adult men who always kisses women on the mouth, and I’d been dodging his advances since middle school.
Antonio shrugged. He navigated the car into a parking lot attached to the club. “She was fine,” he said.
“Really?” I widened my eyes and pulled down the makeup mirror to tousle my hair even more. “She seems like such a gold-digging bitch to me,” I said. “She’s, what, like twenty years younger than Leo?”
Antonio sighed. “It’s not my job to judge,” he merely said. “And you’re not going to goad me into saying anything that’s going to get me into trouble.”
I glared. “You’re no fun,” I said, pouting. “Hey, thanks for the lift!”
Before Antonio could finish parking the car, I leapt out of the passenger seat and darted across the parking lot. My heels almost caught on a crack in the pavement, but I managed to make it inside the club before Antonio had even climbed out from behind the wheel.
I smirked as I handed over my coat to the coat-check girl. I knew I was playing with fire, but what other choice did I have? If I wanted to tempt Antonio, I was really going to have to figure out a way to push as many of his buttons as possible.
“Hey,” Antonio growled from behind me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” His voice was quiet, but still loud enough for the coat-check girl to hear.
“Don’t talk to your girlfriend like that,” she said flippantly in a thick Jersey accent as she handed me my ticket. “She’s a woman. She deserves respect.”
“She’s a fucking little moron,” Antonio growled back.
For a moment, I thought the coat girl was going to slap him. But after a few seconds of staring at Antonio, she narrowed her eyes, tossed her hair, and walked off.
I turned around, glaring. “Why the hell did you have to do that?” I hissed as Antonio and I walked into the club. Just like before, the matte black interior assaulted my senses from every direction. The music was blasting, and I let my body move to the beat as I walked over to the bar.
Antonio grabbed my shoulder. “If you try anything,” he snarled in my ear, “you’re gonna seriously regret it, Melinda.” He glared at me. “I know you’re trying to test me.”
I grinned. Was I really being that obvious? I didn’t have to ask – I knew the answer. “I love this song!” I cried as the music changed and a popular song from a few years before blared through the speakers. This song had been popular during my senior year of high school, and hearing it now brought up tons of memories.
It hit me in that moment that I’d turned into one of those girls who goes to the club and screeches like a banshee whenever she hears a favorite song from high school. But I didn’t want to dwell on anything depressing just now – I was here to have a good Samuele…and torment Antonio.
“You go dance,” Antonio said. He gestured towards the floor di
smissively. “I’m getting a drink.”
Obeying, I moved out into the middle of the floor. But I kept one eye on Antonio – I wanted to see what kind of thing he’d order. Was he the kind of guy who went for a rum and cola? Or what about cognac, neat, just like my dad?
But when Antonio emerged from the bar and sat down at the edge of a black velvet booth, I laughed. He was carrying a can of soda in his hand – the lemon-lime kind with no caffeine.
“You’re so boring,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t even hear my own whispers; it was so loud in the club that my head was throbbing and I wasn’t sure if it was pain or just from the massive bass speakers perched at the edge of the dance floor.
A guy walked over to me, shaking his body and moving his hands to the rhythm of the song. He grinned at me and I grinned back – I wasn’t so much excited by his presence as excited by the fact that Antonio was watching me in his presence.