by April Zyon
“Enough talk about women. Let’s get on to business. Do you know if there are any more men willing to join us?” Greg asked his second.
“The bikers are all with you, most of the original Family is with you as well. The only questionable ones are those directly related to the old man, but we know that will change when you take Alessandra as your bride and he steps away.”
“And there aren’t that many of them because he wouldn’t allow them to live. Too much competition.” Greg grumbled. “Family is what makes us so strong.”
“That’s the truth. The family of blood, a family of choice.” Tony echoed Greg’s words.
“Now that I have Alessandra safe it's time to get started, especially with the two larger biker gangs being here as well.”
“You took her home?”
“Yes, for now. It’s time for me to take over. It’s been shown how weak he is and with the Russian’s trying to hurt Alessandra it’s time for me to step into his shoes. I will ensure she’s kept safe and our businesses are never affected by those fuckers again.”
“How will she take it?”
“It doesn’t matter. I am her future. I think she realizes this, but I’m also going to try to do this right. For her.”
“How so?”
Gregorio sighed and looked at his long-time friend. “I’m going to tell her father he has to step down, that it’s time for me to take over. It’s been coming for a while. He’s been grooming me, and he has known it.”
“Are you going to ask her to marry you?”
“I suppose I should ask her, shouldn’t I? I’ve asked her father; I should ask her as well.”
“Yeah, might be a good idea.” Tony was laughing as he spoke his next words. “I wish you luck my friend, because I have a feeling Alessandra is a bit of a fighter. She’s just never had to use it.”
Gregorio grinned. “I hope she is. I look forward to taking her virginity.”
“Do you think she’s still a virgin? Isn’t that a little archaic of you to expect her to be a virgin and you aren’t?”
“No, not at all. And yes, I know she is. I’ve ensured that every little bastard that has come sniffing around her ran for his fucking life. She’s been mine since she was twelve years old and looked at me with those wide eyes of hers.”
“I know you lost your shit on one of the guys because he dared to mention something about how good she looked in her bikini a shitload of years ago.”
“He deserved to die. Fucker shouldn’t have looked at her. She was too young for anyone to ogle.”
“You sure as hell were.”
Gregorio growled. “She’s been mine always. Don’t fucking forget it.” He looked down and realized he had pulled his knife and pressed it to Tony’s inner thigh. Shaking his head, he put it back onto its case and said, “Do not tease or press me when it comes to her. It seems I have no humor on the topic.”
Tony nodded. “I understand. I feel the same for Renee.”
“Exactly.” Gregorio nodded. He ran his hands through his hair and looked across the expanse before them. “Call our men. Meet me at the mansion in two hours. It’s time to start.”
“Two hours?” Tony asked.
“Yes, I need to ensure Alessandra is still safe.”
“Two hours then.”
Without another word both men walked away from each other, both on their own missions.
Chapter Nine
Alessandra couldn’t believe it. Her father was someone she didn’t recognize if Vasily was to be believed. He was a monster of a man that had destroyed lives without compunction. He had killed far more people than her mind could wrap around. She was simply stunned she hadn’t seen what so many had. She hadn’t seen that part of her father, and she didn’t know if she was glad to have never had that part of him around her or if she felt somehow cheated of the truth.
She looked up when she heard someone at the door. Wiping her face with shaking hands, she called for whoever it was to enter. She watched the door open and shifted in her bed slightly.
“Alessandra?” Oh god, she knew that voice. Before he even pushed the door fully open she knew who was on the other side of the door. It was the man she had been dreaming of for far too long. It was Gregorio. When he stepped into her room and closed the door quietly behind him, she could only watch him.
He was powerful. Every inch of his body was tightly coiled muscle, but he was more than that. Gregorio was handsome, even with the scar that raced down his cheek from forehead to chin. He radiated confidence and now that she knew what her father was and the part Gregorio played in that life, she realized he was also beyond dangerous.
“I wanted to see how you were doing,” he said as he approached her bed. He looked down at her feet and the wrappings she still wore.
“I’m alive, thanks to you.” She shifted slightly and gave him room to sit on her bed if he wanted to. “You can sit,” she said softly.
“Thank you.” He took a seat on the foot of her bed. She was shocked when he placed his large hands on her ankles and pulled her feet into his lap. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner.” He spoke quietly as he began to lightly massage her feet.
She felt the shock at the feeling of his fingers as they lightly stroked her toes. She watched him carefully. “You’ve never came to my bedroom. What’s changed?”
“Everything.” He was a massive man, but when he talked to her he spoke as if he were the most considerate man around, even though she knew he wasn’t. “There are changes that will be happening in the coming days, Alessandra. I need you to know I will do everything in my power to ensure you are not harmed along the way.” He moved his hands up away from her foot to her ankles and then the back of her calves. He stroked her calves rhythmically and watched her.
“What’s going to be changing?” She was intoxicated by his very nearness. Everything he was doing right now was going to her very core, her center. It was making her wet and eager for his hands to slide farther up her body.
“Everything, Bella Mia.” She noticed he let his hand slide to the back of her knee and then down to her ankles again.
“That’s very broad. Can you bring it down any?” Oh god was that her voice that came out all breathy and husky? Holy balls, it had been her talking. Good grief the way this man affected her was incredible.
She watched as Gregorio smiled and had to chew her lower lip to keep from reaching out to touch him as well.
When he moved a hand from her legs to brush at the sides of her lips she was surprised. “Don’t chew your lips, Bella. The last thing you want is to have them hurting as well. I can’t stand the thought of you hurting, even if it is self-inflicted so please, for me?”
Wow, she couldn’t have been more surprised if he had suddenly sprouted wings and a horn. “Why?” She tilted her head slightly so his hand cupped her cheek.
“Oh, Bella Mia, that is not the question to ask me right now. I’m trying very hard to be good.” Gregorio had shifted and moved so he was sitting at her hip instead of at her feet.
She placed her hand on his knee, the expensive silk slacks soft under her hand. “Why?” She repeated her earlier question, because she truly wanted the answer to that question. She was desperate for it actually.
His hand moved down her cheek and to her neck. She was shocked to her very core when with an almost pain filled growl, he pulled her close and kissed her. No, it was more than a kiss, it was a possession.
Alessandra shifted so she could move closer to him. Her hands moved to wrap around his shoulders, and she molded her body as close to him as she could get. His kiss was so much more than a kiss. It was a possession, pure and simple. When he laid her back on her pillows and rose to his elbows above her, she wasn’t certain who was fighting for control more, him or the passionate desire she saw burning in his eyes.
“The things you do to me.” He spoke very quietly, his lips brushing over hers once more.
“The things you do to me.” She parroted
his words back to him because she meant them. He made her whole body ache for more. He made her realize she was a twenty-one-year-old virgin, and he was a very viral and sexy man of thirty-three.
He ran his thumb over her lower lip that was now kiss swollen and then once again brushed his lips to hers in the lightest of touches. “I came in to ensure you were okay, not to molest you.”
“If I asked you to do more than make sure I’m okay?” She had one hand on his shoulder and the other over his heart.
“If only I could right now, Bella.” He did however lean down and kissed her again. This kiss was different. The other had been passionate and consuming, but this one was more. This kiss was like he was branding her as his. This kiss was rough and almost angry. It was him ensuring she knew just who was in charge at the moment, and it certainly wasn’t her. “I will be back. Two days, Alessandra. You have two days to heal. When I come back for you I won’t accept no for an answer.”
“I don’t think I could tell you no if I wanted to,” Alessandra confessed with her eyes locked with his.
“Good.” He leaned down, nibbling along her jaw to her ear. “I have business to deal with; I have your father to deal with. Stay here for me. Stay safe for me.”
“Okay.” She rubbed her cheek to his. She breathed in the scent that was all Gregorio and then pulled back. “I will wait for you.”
The smile he gave her promised of a great many things. “I’m not an easy man, Alessandra. I’ve done things. I’m not a good man. You deserve better, but I would kill anyone that dared try to take you from me.”
“And if I want you?” He said she deserved better, but she knew he was the best. He was the man she had wanted for a very long time.
“You have me.” He gave her another kiss. When he stood, she watched him in fascination as he practically fought with himself to leave her. “Two days,” he said gruffly and then walked out of her bedroom. He left her laying there with a smile on her face and her body aching for more.
“Two days.” She looked toward the door and sighed. She was so screwed. She had lost her heart to a man her father readily told her was technically a bad man, but she couldn’t seem to care. To her he was always kind, soft, and generous. He had been important to her for far longer than she could ever confess to her father. To her Gregorio had been the one and only man she had wanted since the first day she saw him enter her family home looking so pissed off and tough.
With a smile on her lips, she turned onto her side and pressed the remote for her lights. When the room was dark, she closed her eyes to dream of the large man with the light blue eyes, blond hair, and mysterious scar running down his cheek.
Chapter Ten
Damn, Gregorio thought with his back to her door. He was breathing hard and struggling to get his fucking cock in line. He was harder than he had ever been in his life, all from the innocent kisses he’d stolen from Alessandra. Only she could do that to him. Any other woman would have to suck his cock for an hour to get him this hard, but Alessandra with her innocent smile, with her scent could get him hard enough to drive fucking nails into concrete.
He finally wrangled his control into place, tugging at his jacket to ensure he was presentable. With that final thought in his mind, he walked down the back stairs and toward Giovanni’s office. It was time. He had guards he trusted watching over Alessandra’s door now, men that were loyal to him and not Giovanni. It was time for him to take over the family before Giovanni fucked everything up.
Entering the office of the man that had groomed him to be his heir, he stood with his back to the closed door. “Giovanni.” He said the man’s name aloud to get his attention.
Giovanni stood and walked to the bar, pouring himself a glass of wine and offering Gregorio one. When he refused, Giovanni shrugged and walked back to the desk and watched him. “I’ve wondered how long it would take.”
“What’s that?” Gregorio wasn’t in the mood for any of Giovanni’s word games.
“For you to come in here and take over. I thought for sure you would have tried last year when the Hell’s Sinners swore their fealty to you.” Giovanni laughed, which pissed Gregorio off. “You aren’t the only one who has spies around, you know.”
That pissed Greg off. Someone in his inner circle was running their fucking mouth. He would take care of that later. “The time wasn’t right then.”
“And it is now? What’s changed?” Giovanni asked as he took another drink of his wine.
“Alessandra is now of age.”
“Ah, so that is it.” Giovanni watched him and that pissed Greg off even more. “And if I don’t give you my blessing?”
“I kill you. That simple.”
“You would kill the father of the woman you are lusting after?”
Gregorio was across the room in three strides and slammed his hands down onto the desk. “Never think to use her against me, because you will find you will come out bloody from it.”
Leaning back in his large chair, Giovanni laughed. “So it is what I thought.” He crossed his hands over his stomach before he spoke again. “I have wondered for a couple of years if it was true and now I know. How long have you been in love with my daughter?”
“None. Of. Your. Fucking. Business.” Each word was forced between clenched teeth. Greg’s hands shook with the need to wipe that smug fucking smile off of Giovanni’s face. “I’m taking over. Step aside or I’m going through you. With what the Russians did on top of several other blunders you’ve made, it’s time for new blood to run the business. You have fucked up one too many times. First allowing Alessandra to get kidnapped and then taken a second time, but those are both personal. Those aren’t the biggest fuck-ups, if that’s possible. You came perilously close to bringing the business out of the shadows where we operate the best and into the sights of the Federal Agencies that would love to put every fucking one of us in a cage.”
“And you can keep from doing that?” Giovanni asked curiously.
“I can and I fucking will. I’m the one who dealt with the agent sent here a couple months ago. I will deal with anyone that dares to try to disturb my life, my family, and my interests.”
“And what will you tell Alessandra? She knows now what I am thanks to the Russian fuck that took her.”
“The truth. Since she now knows, I will tell her.”
“And you think someone like my daughter will accept a killer in her bed? How many is it now?”
“That’s not important because when I share my bed with her it will be the two of us, not the ghosts of those I’ve killed.”
“So you think. They will always be around your neck. They will always be waiting in the shadows.”
“And you are being overly dramatic.” Greg growled. “Answer the fucking question.”
“I’ve been grooming you to take over for me since you killed Romano for peeping on Alessandra when she was sixteen.” Well that shocked the shit out of Greg. He hadn’t thought the old man knew that. “I will step aside, but know this…” Giovanni stood. “If she even gets so much as a hangnail I will ensure you are the next lesson to be taught to others. I was the butcher before you, boy. Never forget who taught you.”
“I learned a great deal from you, but I’ve also learned from others. You might have been the first Butcher, but I’m the one they will all remember. I will never stop leading my men by stepping out first. I won’t sit and hide behind a desk while my men do my dirty work.”
“You will. One day,” Giovanni said.
“I doubt that. I fucking love the killing far too much.”
Giovanni bowed his head. “My last act as Boss” —He stood and walked to his bookcase— “will be to give my daughter away at her wedding. The wedding will bring in all of the families that report to us. They will all come to honor not only me, but to meet you, their new Boss as well. Just be warned you might have to fight for your place. Are you ready for that?”
“I am. I will kill anyone that dares try to ruin her day. How lon
g?” he asked.
“Thirty days. I will have the wedding set up, and we will ensure the passing of the torch is done in a way that none will ever question your rule.”
“If they do I will kill them.”
“It’s more than that,” Gio said and turned to Gregorio.
“No, it's not. I will destroy them, their families, everyone that stands in the way of me running this Family and having Alessandra as mine.”
“It’s about respect.”
“And that’s something I have. Unlike you I have continued to speak with those in other parts of the world. I’ve ensured they understand they are a part of this organization, of this Family.”
“You think that I’m weak because I haven’t?”
“Yes. I know you are. When I brought in the Clubs you fought that with tooth and nail.”
“Because they are vagabonds with daddy issues.”
Gregorio snorted. “And that’s where you are wrong. They might not live in a palatial mansion like this one, but they are far from vagabonds. They have homes. They have home bases and clubs. They aren’t what you think, but you never let go of your prejudice to see it.”
“This could be true,” Giovanni said simply. “Have you asked Alessandra if she will be yours?”
Greg hadn’t expected that turn of the subject. “Not yet, but I told her in two days I was coming back and claiming her.”
“And how did she react to that?” Giovanni asked with a frown.
“She seemed to be fine with it.” Greg smiled. “In two days, I will be back to take her home with me. You have your thirty days to prepare the wedding and the get-together, but I will not wait thirty days to have her in my bed, to have her safe and know nothing and no one will hurt her.”
“And what of other lovers? Are you going to take them while you are with my daughter?”
“What business is that of yours? Didn’t you have three mistresses while married?”
“I did, but then again while I cared for Anna she wasn’t it for me. I truly did marry her just to keep her from wedding that Russian bastard.”