Defying Her Mafioso

by Terri Anne Browning

  Refusing to let either emotion show on my face, I gave Papa my full attention. “What was it, Papa?”

  His brown eyes were almost assessing as he skimmed them over my face for a moment. But there was nothing in his voice that prepared me for the next words out of his mouth. “I saw Ciro leaving your room with his shoes in his hand yesterday morning. Care to comment?”

  Hell.

  Before I’d gone to Sicily…

  No, I was done pretending. Before Papa had sent me away at Ciro’s request, I’d made no secret about how I felt for Ciro. There had been no use in pretending I was anything but in love with him. For a few short weeks I’d thought we were getting closer and that it was only a matter of time before he approached my father about it. I’d never dreamed that he would ask him to send me and Victoria away.

  Papa had known exactly how I felt, and I could only assume he’d known about Ciro’s feelings as well, but he’d never voiced his opinion on it. Not until I’d been put on a plane for another fucking country. To me, that had more or less been Papa saying he didn’t approve, which had gutted me. I’d still been in shock when I first got to Sicily, but it quickly became apparent that I’d only imagined how Ciro felt about me. I’d come home thinking I was ready to move on, that I could get over him and find someone else to fall for. It had been three damn years, for Christ’s sake.

  Wrong.

  I wasn’t ready, not by a long shot.

  As for Ciro, he was making my head spin. He practically roared ‘stay away’ only to turn around and pull me close. Now I knew that I hadn’t been wrong when I thought he felt the same way as I did. He was just fighting it.

  I wasn’t sure if fighting his feelings was worse than making me think he didn’t care at all.

  “Nothing happened,” I assured my father, because I wasn’t sure what he was fishing around for. If he’d been too upset about finding Ciro leaving my room like that, he would have put a bullet in the back of Ciro’s head then and there.

  Vito shrugged. “I wasn’t concerned that something had. My concern was for you and the obvious lack of appeal your food currently holds for you, passerotta. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

  “I’m fine, Papa.”

  He easily saw through my lie. “The Scarlett I know and love more than life itself wouldn’t just sit there and let a guy fuck with her head. She’d be out there busting his balls until he either got his head out of his ass or left the country. Don’t let Ciro play with your heart this time around, passerotta. I love that boy, but if he breaks your heart again I won’t hesitate to take care of him personally.”

  Take care of him personally?

  That thought was enough to push all my wrong buttons.

  I pushed my chair back from the table. “Let’s be honest here, Papa. You let him break my heart.” His eyes widened in surprise and I glared at him. I loved my father dearly, but I’d let his part in what had happened slide for long enough. “You sent me away. You knew I loved him and yet you put me on a fucking plane instead of letting me ‘bust his balls or make him leave the country,’ as you put it just now.”

  Tossing my napkin on the table, I stood. “It took me over a year to forgive you for that, Papa. I think I might have forgiven Ciro too, because I was way too young to know how I really felt back then. Coming home has shown me that much at least.”

  “Scarlett—”

  “Excuse me, Papa, I’m not very hungry,” I told him as I left the room, ignoring his appeal for me to stop.

  As I left the dining room, the front door opened and in walked the reason for all my problems. Ciro entered the foyer and stopped in his tracks when he saw me walking toward him. Something in his blue eyes darkened as I stepped past him without so much as a word in greeting, and started up the stairs.

  After the conversation I’d had with my father, I didn’t have the energy to deal with him right then. I was going on only a few hours of sleep because I’d waited up most of the night for him. It was nice to see that he wasn’t dead, at least, although that had been at the very bottom of my list of possible things that had kept him from keeping his promise to come back. I was pretty sure Death was just as scared of Ciro Donati as any other man was.

  “I have the information you wanted.” He spoke quietly, but his words still had me stopping halfway up the stairs.

  Schooling my face to show nothing of the maelstrom of emotions swirling around inside of me, I turned to face him.

  He took the stairs two at a time, stopping when we were on an even eye level. “You have dark circles under your eyes, Scarlett.”

  I shrugged. “Who cares? What did you find out?”

  “Volkov is married.”

  My stomach bottomed out at that news, knowing how destroyed Victoria would be. She had played a good game the day she’d broken it off with Adrian, but I’d seen the way she’d kept looking at her phone the day before. How she would jump every time it would so much as buzz.

  “You’re sure?” I had to know that this was credible information before I told my sister.

  “I had one of my men keep an eye on both Adrian and his sister. Everyone who entered and left their apartment building was checked out, Scarlett. I questioned the woman myself last night.”

  “I bet you did,” I muttered under my breath, but he had the hearing of a predator and easily heard me.

  “What the hell does that mean?” he said with a growl.

  “Nothing,” I snapped and turned to finish climbing the stairs. “Thanks for the help, Ciro. I appreciate it.”

  “That’s it?” he called after me. “Your thank you feels more like a fuck you, Scarlett.”

  “Probably because it is. See you around, Ciro.”

  “What the hell just happened?” I heard him mutter to himself, but I kept going.

  I was done chasing him. Done going to him for help. Done putting myself out there for him to stomp on my heart because he was too much of a pussy to take what I could give him. Done, period.

  If he wanted me, then he had to be the one to do the chasing.

  Upstairs, I paused outside of Victoria’s door. I knew she was in there, that she’d been more or less hiding since she’d made that call to Volkov. It had hurt her then, but I was sure she hadn’t taken it nearly as seriously as she had put on. I didn’t know what was going on with her. Part of me suspected that she was even still talking to the Russian.

  Now that I knew what Anya had been warning me against, I knew I was about to destroy my sister.

  Clenching my jaw, I prepared myself for what was about to happen, and knocked on her door.

  “Just a sec,” she called.

  Yeah, she was definitely hiding something. If I’d just walked in like I normally would have, I knew I probably would have caught her on the phone with him, or texting.

  Moments later, the door opened and Victoria stood there looking rumpled. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkling with a banked excitement I knew I was going to completely snuff out before this was over.

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded when she saw it was me. “You look like you want to kill someone.”

  “I do,” I muttered. “I have to talk to you. Can I come in?”

  Her entire face seemed to fall. “What did you find out?” she whispered.

  I glanced behind me, saw a guard doing his hourly rounds, and then pushed her back into the bedroom. Shutting the door and locking it so that Cristiano or anyone else couldn’t walk in on us, I took her arm and pulled her over to the bed. Pushing her onto the end of it, I crouched down in front of her, holding her hands that seemed to grow colder by the second.

  “You’ve been talking to him, haven’t you, Tor?” If anyone but me had asked the question I knew she could have kept the perfect poker face and told a bald-faced lie. Instead I watched as pink filled her cheeks and she glanced away, unable to meet my eyes. That was the only answer I needed. “So he didn’t explain to you that he’s a ma
rried man?”

  Brown eyes identical to my own snapped back to my face and I watched as every drop of blood seemed to seep from her skin, leaving her as pale as a ghost. “No, he’s not,” she whispered. “He can’t be.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tor, but he is.” I tightened my hold on her hands when they started to tremble. “Ciro wouldn’t lie about something like that. He talked to Volkov’s wife personally last night.”

  “No.” She shook her head and jerked her hands away before standing. Crossing to the window, she glared sightlessly out into the sun-filled back yard. “No!”

  I didn’t speak, knowing she didn’t need me to do anything but be there when she finally let herself believe the truth.

  She stood there for more than ten minutes, her anger seeming to fill every inch of the room. This Victoria was dangerous and I almost pitied Volkov for what she would do to him in the end. Almost.

  Turning from the window, she wrapped her arms around herself, almost as if she were trying to hold it close so that her anger wouldn’t turn into the pain I saw darkening her eyes.

  “Who is she?”

  “I didn’t ask, because I knew I would tell you if I did,” I told her honestly. “His wife isn’t your enemy, Tor. He is. He played you, and if you have still been talking to him, knowing that he had a secret like this—”

  “He told me it was a mistake,” she bit out between gritted teeth. “A mistake. Right. I’m so fucking stupid. And naïve. How did I let some guy make me that gullible, Scarlett?”

  “Because you fell for him and women do stupid, naïve things when they’re in love,” I told her point-blank and watched as she flinched but didn’t deny it. She loved him, and once the anger passed she would be shattered.

  Chapter 12

  Scarlett

  “Well, this place looks fun.” I tried to smile for my sister, but she only gave me an uninterested nod of her head as she looked around the crowded club.

  It had been my idea to sneak out for a little fun. I hadn’t been able to watch my sister fall into a deeper depression a second longer and had hoped that a little time in a club dancing and letting guys drool over her would cheer her up. Instead it had only made her sulkier.

  If this was what it felt like to deal with my moodiness, then I was sincerely sorry for every time I’d acted this way. I hated seeing my normally sunshine-happy sister being swallowed up by the darkness of a broken heart.

  “Let’s get a drink,” I urged as I took her elbow and practically dragged her over to the bar. “We need a buzz going on.”

  I wanted more than a buzz so I could forget about my own aching heart, but knew I needed to keep a clear head to watch out for Victoria. I hadn’t seen Ciro in days. I’d stuck to my new decision to keep away from him and make him come to me if I was really what he wanted. No more chasing, no more putting my heart out there for him to walk all over.

  He hadn’t come looking for me. Hadn’t tried to call. It was like I was an afterthought and that hurt. Bad. My anger was all gone now, the only thing left was a big bruise on my cracked heart and I hated that he could make me feel so damaged. I’d thought a night out would do not only my sister good, but me as well.

  After two shots of tequila each, I pulled her out onto the dance floor. Of the two of us, Victoria was definitely the better dancer, but I still enjoyed it. When I was dancing, I let go of everything that felt like it was weighing me down and just let the music lead me. It was kind of cathartic and peaceful, even when surrounded by hundreds of strangers.

  It took a few songs, but Victoria started to loosen up enough to enjoy dancing with me. Guys came up to us several times, but I sent them packing before they could even open their mouths. If anyone tried to get between us, I pretended to be drunk and ‘accidently’ clipped them in the balls. After the second guy got nut-punched no one else was brave enough to so much as approach us.

  That at least had my twin smiling, but only for a few minutes. Her phone buzzed from time to time and I knew it was Adrian, with the way her brown eyes actually had flames in them. The flames quickly died down each time when her phone would stop and her voicemail alert would make her phone vibrate. Her inbox must have been overflowing by now because she hadn’t listened to any of them.

  She hadn’t shared with me how she’d broken it off with Volkov after I’d told her about his wife, but I knew she’d locked herself in her room for twelve hours and I’d had to get one of Papa’s guards to pick the lock so I could get in to check on her and make sure her blood sugar was at a safe level. It hadn’t been and I’d had to force-feed her juice and a sandwich.

  I’d been terrified for my sister because she had acted like she had wanted to die. She wouldn’t talk to me and if I wasn’t there to keep an eye on her I knew she would just let her diabetes win.

  Adrian had a lot to answer for. The next time I saw him, I was going to end his miserable existence.

  After an hour of dancing, I had to use the bathroom. I took Victoria back to the bar to hydrate and told her I’d be right back. She was looking miserable once again and I figured it was time to go. The club was crowded so it was a workout just to get to the bathrooms. Two women a little older than me came out of the bathroom as I reached for the door, both of them stumbling drunkenly and giggling.

  Rolling my eyes, I waited until they passed before going in. An arm around my waist had me freezing up, but before I could reach for the knife or the gun attached to the inside of my thighs, a hand came around my mouth with a dirty cloth.

  The loud music that was pounding through the building suddenly felt like it was pulsing in my head. I struggled against the stranger’s hold, trying to push his hand away, but he was stronger than me and whatever was on that nasty cloth was making me weak. I screamed, but it was muffled.

  Suddenly, everything was dark.

  Ciro

  “No one has seen him, capo. He’s gone completely ghost on me.”

  I didn’t have time to worry about Volkov disappearing off the face of the planet. It had been three days since I’d told Scarlett about Volkov’s wife. Three days since I’d last spoken to her because she’d been avoiding me. Three days in which no one had seen Adrian.

  Part of me wondered if Victoria had killed him and dropped his body in the Hudson, but a bigger part didn’t give a fuck if he was dead or not. I had too much shit to take care of so I could have five minutes alone with Scarlett and figure out what the hell had happened between the time I’d left her bed and then delivered the information she’d wanted.

  “Vito’s lost his eyes on him too and I couldn’t care less about that motherfucker. Get out there and help the MC assholes find Santino.” I didn’t wait for him to speak before I hung up and pocketed my phone.

  “They’re only assholes seventy-five percent of the time, you know.”

  I ignored my cousin’s teasing tone as I paced across my mother’s living room to look out at the night sky through the window. It was raining and any other time I liked the kind of storm that was brewing, but tonight I felt like the thunder and lightning that were building up was inside of me.

  “Relax,” Felicity urged from her seat on the couch. “You’re giving yourself premature gray hair by worrying.”

  That she could pick up on my unease meant I hadn’t been able to mask it, and I couldn’t afford to let many people know I was worried.

  “Call her. You’ll feel a million times better once you’ve heard her voice.”

  She was right. Part of my problem was that I hadn’t heard Scarlett’s voice in three days. I’d gotten used to seeing her, talking to her daily in the short time she’d been home. My obsessive addiction for her had only doubled since she’d gotten back and having to be without her presence was wearing on my nerves. If I’d had any lingering doubts that I should finally take what was mine, they were gone now.

  Instead of reaching for my phone, however, I just glared out at the rain-filled night as my mood turned dark
er and darker with each beat of my racing heart.

  Felicity went back to reading the book she’d been interested in when I’d arrived, ignoring my presence in the room.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket and without taking my eyes off the night sky, I pulled it out and lifted it to my ear. “Donati.”

  “Ciro?” I heard loud music in the background so it took me a moment to recognize the voice. When it did, my blood ran cold. She never called me. Unlike her twin, Victoria didn’t seek out my help. She went to Cristiano because she could manipulate him into almost anything. If she was calling me, something was definitely wrong. “Ciro, I can’t find Scarlett.”

  “Victoria, where the fuck are you?”

  “Some club downtown,” she snapped, sounding stressed. “Scarlett went to the bathroom more than fifteen minutes ago and I can’t find her. She dropped her phone.”

  “Are you stupid?” I roared.

  “Don’t fucking yell at me. Nothing’s ever happened to us before. Just…please, come help me find her, Ciro. I’m starting to get worried.” There was a slight quiver in her voice now and I realized she was scared.

  “I’m on my way,” I told her as I jogged out of my mother’s house. “What club?” She named it and I gritted my teeth when I realized it was one that Santino was known to pick up women in. “Don’t move, damn it.”

  “Hurry,” she commanded, and I ran faster.

  Scarlett wouldn’t just wander off from her twin. If Victoria couldn’t find her there was a reason, and every one of them had my heart turning to ice in my chest.

  My car was parked in front of the house and I got in and left tread marks as I pulled out into traffic. Fifteen minutes, that was how long Victoria said Scarlett had been gone. Fifteen fucking minutes. That was a lifetime. She could be anywhere by now.