Unzipping my purse, I withdrew a tube of lipstick and a compact. Putting my drink aside, I began to put it on.
“Lazy,” Lucky whispered just a second or two before the glass at the front of the store cracked and spiderwebbed with the force of several shots.
Too bad whoever it was that was attacking us didn't know that my father prepared for all things—even the windows of his winery were bulletproof.
I slid the revolver from my purse and dropped my lipstick to the floor, the red-red color rolling toward the circle of candles.
“There are more weapons upstairs,” I said as Lucky pulled a .40 caliber pistol from his jacket and nodded at me. Together, we slipped back through the tasting room and into the back hall where the stairs to the apartment were.
“Shots fired?” Caj asked, almost like he was bored. He stepped aside and let us into the apartment.
It should've been weird, being surrounded by three strangers—three very dangerous strangers—that I'd just fucked, at the same time no less. And yet, I was a mafia daughter through and through. When it came to wheeling and dealing for my life, I could shut down the emotions.
But I knew—I fucking knew—that as soon as this was over, I'd have a whole hell of a lot of them.
“Wow. The world just gets dumber and dumber every damn day,” Caj said, slicking his red-brown hair back with his fingers, popping a cigar between his lips and lighting up. With the dancing flame bathing his face in orange, he looked for a moment like some sort of demon.
A demon you had inside of you just thirty minutes before.
“Only a complete moron,” he continued, sliding a black case out from under the desk beneath the window and flipping it open, “would come here knowing I have access to a sniper rifle.”
“You're assuming they're in the know,” I said, opening the closet and pulling out a bulletproof vest. Slipping it on over the expensive silk of my designer gown felt like the most natural thing in the world. “And tell me, Mr. Bellincioni, how you knew about the rifle.”
I gestured with my chin in his direction, watching as he pulled out the gun, assembled it, and set it on the table. With a flick of the window latch, he shoved the glass up and out of his way—much the same way the men did with my skirts earlier—and took aim.
“Vincent,” he said, and that was all I needed to hear. Caj knew I'd confirm with Vinny to see if that was true; it probably was. “And who knows we're here?” he continued conversationally, his voice as smooth as silk.
Caj was a very dangerous man.
“Not an extraordinarily large number of people,” Marcell said, his smile as sharp as the knife I had hidden under my dress, the one the men hadn't found, not even while fucking me.
I almost smiled.
But then, we were in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation. Later then, with a glass of wine, I'd relive the moment.
“Vincent,” I said, already on the phone. Of course he'd answer on the first ring. “There's trouble at the winery.”
He cursed under his breath in Italian for a moment.
“We'll be right there, principessina, just hold tight.”
I tossed the phone onto the nightstand and left it on speaker, watching as Caj lined up a shot and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening, but it didn't faze me. I'd been around worse.
Glancing into the hallway, I saw Lucky leaning up against the wall just inside the door to the apartment. Outside, I could hear footsteps and the distinct sound of glass breaking.
Those motherfuckers were wasting all the wine …
I pulled the hammer back on the revolver and glanced over at Marcell.
“I'll take the back entrance; care to join me?”
“I'd love to see the back entrance,” he said smoothly, and even though the words were lewd, the delivery was not.
I smiled tightly, lips as red as blood, makeup freshly applied.
The rest of my lipstick … was on Marcell's cock.
He followed me down the hall toward the back, just in time for the door to come crashing in at us.
“Abbassati!” Marcell shouted, and I ducked at just the right moment, narrowly avoiding being shot in the face.
The men that flooded the stairwell didn't look at all familiar, but that didn't mean they weren't working for one of the families. Our rat is here, I thought as I rose to my feet in a single, fluid motion and aimed with both hands on the revolver.
The first man through the door dropped to the rough hewn wood floor beneath my heels.
Group sex and then a firefight.
A day in the life of a mafia princess …
Marcell swung his gun up and to the right, hitting another man in the side of the face. The crack of bone was unmistakable. Blood spattered the white walls behind the stranger's face, red as the merlot I'd sipped that afternoon. And the blows didn't stop—Marcell gave him one brutal bash after another, disabling the man without firing a single shot.
No wonder he'd returned to the car with his hands bloody during our dinner date.
I should've been disgusted. Instead, I was fascinated.
They might've been from different families, but these men … their blood ran as dark as rain, thick with shadows. Their hearts … they beat the same, uneasy rhythm as my own.
Blinking away my thoughts, I managed to spin around at the exact moment Lucky shouted out to me.
“Lazy!” he screamed, drawing my attention to him as he struggled with another man, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He was a sloppy fighter, this man, but he was also a hulking mountain of muscle.
He'd managed to distract Lucky just long enough to let his companion past. As soon as he saw me, the newcomer switched his gun over to Marcell and took a shot. I couldn't see if the bullet found its target, but it didn't matter. If something had happened to Marcell, it'd have to be dealt with after the fight.
In that moment, I was all instinct and muscles, heated skin and panting breath. My cunt was sweetly sore, and I felt like an animal defending its territory.
Dropping into a crouch—not easy with heels on—I swung my leg out and caught the man in the shins, dropping him to his knees in the hallway. Before he could quite register what was happening to him, I swung my revolver over, pointed it at his forehead and attempted to pull the trigger.
Hands grabbed me from behind, tangling in my hair and jerking me back so suddenly that the shot went wild; plaster crashed to the floor as the bullet buried itself in the ceiling.
My attacker drew me backwards, but I was already in the process of spinning around, ignoring the pain in my scalp and throwing the hardest punch I could manage right to the man's crotch. He howled in agony, but his grip on my hair only tightened. I grabbed at the bulge in his jeans with all my strength and twisted.
They don't want to kill you, I noted in the back of my mind. They want you alive. Why? There are only a handful of people in this world that know where this meeting was taking place, so who fits both categories? Who knows we're here and might want me to keep breathing?
I squeezed harder and then threw myself back. The man's grip didn't loosen, but the force of my movement made him stumble. Putting out a leg, I dropped him straight to the floor, his fingers finally sliding from my hair, snapping a few loose strands.
When I grabbed my gun and stood up, I pointed it down at his face, watched his eyes lift to mine, and pulled the trigger.
Blood spattered my high heels, pooled across the floor in an awful viscous red. I ignored it all, turning to focus on the rest of the men that had been in the apartment with us. There weren't many—maybe six in all that I could see—and they were sloppy.
Too sloppy.
“Whatever this is, it's shoddy mercenary work,” Caj said, appearing with the rifle slung over one shoulder. In his suit, with that smile, he looked like a vengeful god.
“Clearly, there wasn't intent to kill here,” I said as I glanced over and found Marcell shrugging out of his bloody suit jacket and button-up. As soon a
s the fabric came down, and I saw the inked rock-hard abs and chest underneath, I felt a little skip in my stomach.
“A set up?” Lucky asked, coming up from behind me, panting and sporting what looked to be the beginning of a nasty black eye.
“A test,” I said, at the same moment the sound of multiple vehicles pulling up to the winery sounded through the broken window. “Or a warning.”
I headed toward the stairs, my heels slipping in the blood that covered the hallway floor.
Four drivers, one consigliere, and me.
That's who knew we were here.
Clearly, I wasn't a fucking rat.
Vincent … it was possible, but highly unlikely considering his length of service to the family, his marriage to my aunt, and his seeming fondness for me. I wouldn't rule him out completely, but it was a less than one percent chance.
Which meant …
One of the men I'd just fucked was a traitor.
The question now was: which one?
To Be Continued …
To Be Continued in Lavish (Mafia Queen, Book #2)
"Can one of these five rockstars fill the hole in my heart? Or will I stay broken forever?"
"All motorcyle clubs have their old ladies; these officers, they share one. They share me."
"He was darkness, sin incarnate. I loved him anyway."
.
"Dash was the son of my father's worst enemy, but also the man I'd grow to love."
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About the Author
C.M. Stunich is a self-admitted bibliophile with a love for exotic teas and a whole host of characters who live full time inside the strange, swirling vortex of her thoughts. Some folks might call this crazy, but Caitlin Morgan doesn't mind - especially considering she has to write biographies in the third person. Oh, and half the host of characters in her head are searing hot bad boys with dirty mouths and skillful hands (among other things). If being crazy means hanging out with them everyday, C.M. has decided to have herself committed.
She hates tapioca pudding, loves to binge on cheesy horror movies, and is a slave to many cats. When she's not vacuuming fur off of her couch, C.M. can be found with her nose buried in a book or her eyes glued to a computer screen. She's the author of over fifty novels - romance, new adult, fantasy, and young adult included. Please, come and join her inside her crazy. There's a heck of a lot to do there.
Oh, and Caitlin loves to chat (incessantly), so feel free to e-mail her, send her a Facebook message, or put up smoke signals. She's already looking forward to it.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Front Matter Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Signup for my Newsletter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Back Matter Lavish (Mafia Queen #2) Cover
Groupie Cover
I Was Born Ruined Cover
Glacier Cover
Biker Rockstar Billionaire CEO Alpha Cover
Keep Up With The Fun
More Books By C.M. Stunich
About the Author
Lure (Mafia Queen Book 1) Page 8