“Of which I’m sure you require your business manager,” I add, because . . .
What the fuck?
I literally take a double look at my father’s easy form. Only a couple of hours ago he was angry that I was within Matteo’s breathing vicinity and now he’s asking him to escort me home?
“I don’t, Sienna. You can go,” he retorts, not giving Matteo another glance or seeing if he agrees.
“Oh, goody. Thank you, Mister,” Brooklyn squeals with giddiness in my father’s direction, then turns her head to look up at me with a big, bright smile. “You can come home with me. Do you like Barbies? Xbox?”
“My granddaughter wouldn’t know what a Barbie was if one fell into her lap.”
“I would too.” I stand, gathering Brooklyn up, and place her on my hip. Turning toward Matteo, I’m caught off guard again when I take in the strange look on his face as he eyes me, or his daughter, or both of us. “You heard Daddy. You’re taking me home.”
“My home,” my father clarifies from behind me.
“Tonight just got way better,” Brooklyn hollers, and the whole restaurant looks our way.
I can’t help but laugh as I pass Matteo, who still hasn’t said a word. “Maybe, kid. Just maybe, it has.”
Chapter 7
MATTEO
SIX YEARS AGO
The back of my neck tingles when I sense someone watching me.
It’s her! I know it’s her. It’s always Sienna D’Angelo.
She looks like a choir girl in her knee-length dresses, a white cardigan draped over her shoulders, and her wild black hair pinned back with a barrette. She does her Italian heritage an injustice by dressing like a forty-year-old schoolmarm.
Then again, maybe she’s related to Principal Harkins. Or maybe she was adopted by an old couple. I’ve never seen her parents at school functions. My mom is at every school activity, which forces me to be at them too. Never seen little miss goody two-shoes at one—not that I’ve looked for her, because why would I?
Leaning back in my school desk, I roll my head to the right and glance over my shoulder. She’s quick, I’ll give her that. Her eyes avert, but not before I saw her head bend forward like she was reading her textbook. She wasn’t. Her dark stare was solely on me, like always.
It was weird in elementary school, somewhat intriguing in middle school, but in high school it’s gotten a little creepy. It’s like I have a stalker that I can’t confront or beat up. Even I have my limits, and hitting a girl is one of them.
Fingers slide over my shoulders and down my chest, her arms wrapping around me, and then I feel Kennedy’s lips next to my ear. “She’s watching you again, Matty. It’s annoying me.”
“It annoys me every time you call me that. It’s not my fucking name,” I bark out in a low tone.
“But I like it. It’s mine, and you’re mine,” she coos from behind me.
Kennedy and I have dated on and off since ninth grade. We’re currently on again, but as our senior year draws to a close, so will our relationship—she just doesn’t know it yet.
“Miss Sellers, please keep your hands to yourself and get back to your schoolwork before I move you,” Mr. Pacini calls out from where he’s seated at the front of the classroom behind his desk.
Her hold slips as she releases me, dropping her hands, but I still feel her head close to mine. “Do something about the little freak. Or I will,” she threatens, and then drops back into her seat, leaving me with a thought.
Maybe Kennedy is my answer. She’s not above getting into someone’s face and tends to be intimidating. I bet all she’d have to do is threaten Sienna once and that would be the end of her weird obsession with me.
Sounds like a win-win for me.
I tip my head backward, looking at Kennedy upside down while giving her a lopsided grin. “You’d do that for me, baby?”
“Yes, Matty, I would.”
My smile drops. I’d take D’Angelo’s eyes on me every minute of every day if it meant that I would never be called by that stupid-ass name again. My mother doesn’t even call me that, and she’s the only woman I’d allow to get away with it.
Righting my head forward, I feel her again, but this time I ignore the pull I always get when she’s watching me.
PRESENT
From what I’ve seen so far, Sienna no longer wears those church dresses she used to wear in school, but tonight, she is a far cry from the hot as fuck chick that walked into Raymond’s like a badass yesterday. She’s still hot, but she’s more beautiful, sexy even, dressed in a cocktail dress and five-inch heels. I can’t seem to keep my eyes off the way her hips glide from side to side as I follow her and Brooklyn to the elevator.
Casa dell’Ariana sits at the top of a thirty-eight-story plaza hotel. The space is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides. You can see the north and south bay as well as Manhattan, depending on where in the restaurant your table is nestled.
I’d like to say high-end restaurants aren’t really my thing, but I’d be lying. I like good food. That’s not to say all expensive establishments produce palatable meals, but this one does, and growing up in an Italian family, this food not only nourishes my body but my soul too.
This place has also become a Saturday night tradition when it’s my weekend with my daughter. She’s my regular dinner date, and I don’t ever plan on giving that up. Besides my mother, she’s the only other person to own my heart. The day she was born, I became a man and a father all at the same time. A girl I dated from time to time back in high school got pregnant. Although I never once considered making Kennedy a permanent fixture in my life, that changed the second I held my daughter. Even at nineteen I knew I’d do anything for those big round eyes that were staring back at me.
The elevator ride to the underground garage is silent until Brooklyn finally opens her mouth. “Can you teach me how to beat my daddy up?”
“Uh, yeah.” Sienna bobs her head. “Piece of cake, kid.”
“Hold up, you two. First, I did not get beat up today. Second . . .” I look at my daughter, waiting until I have her full attention. “You are not allowed to beat anyone up. And third, she tripped me and got lucky.” I laugh. “Beat me? Me?” I flick my gaze over to Sienna’s. “Not in this lifetime, sweetheart.”
“Wanna go again?” Sienna deadpans, her right eyebrow arching.
“No!” I blow out a sigh. “Sorry, but I don’t beat up girls.”
She steps forward, Brooklyn still held securely in her arms. “I’m not a girl, or whatever it is you have in your head that I am, Matteo. It’s like I’m always talking to a brick wall with you and you never actually hear me. So, hear me now, because apparently you’ve taken too many blows to the head. I’m not the woman you think I am, so stop assigning labels to me. I’ll only rip them apart.” She steps away, stopping when her back meets the shiny metal wall inside the small space of the elevator.
I’m left wondering what the hell that speech meant when the elevator stops and the doors open.
“Which way, De Salvo?” she calls over her shoulder as she steps out into the dimly lit, muggy, parking garage.
“Right,” I reply.
Once I take Brooklyn from Sienna, I buckle her into her booster seat in the back of my black onyx Lexus LX while Sienna makes her way over to a car only a few feet across from mine. I’m too busy watching her backside as she ducks her head inside the backseat that I couldn’t even tell you what make or model the machine is, and I have a perfect view from the back glass.
“Daddy, can we take her home with us?” Brooklyn asks, pulling my attention down to hers.
“No.” I lean forward, pressing my lips to Brooklyn’s forehead. “She’s a bad influence,” I say, pulling away.
When I’m in the driver’s seat, I start the ignition as Sienna slides into the passenger seat with an overnight bag and her purse. She places both down on the floorboard between her legs, then she pulls the seatbelt across her body. When I hear the cli
ck, I know she’s secure, and I reverse the vehicle.
“What’s a bad influence?” Brooklyn asks.
Sienna twists around in her seat to look at my daughter. “Someone who teaches someone else to do wrong or have wrong thoughts.” Her head cocks. “Why do you ask?”
“Daddy said you’re a bad influence.”
“Did he now?” There’s humor in her question.
“He said I couldn’t take you home with us.”
“But what if I want to go home with you.” I feel her eyes, and from my peripheral, I see her lips tip up on the sides. “Didn’t you say you had Barbies for us to play with?”
“Yes!” Brooklyn squeals from behind my seat. “You really want to come play with me?”
“Of course. Sounds like the best Saturday night ever.” Sienna sounds like a bratty teenager, making me grip the steering wheel, squeezing the leather as I pull out of the parking garage.
“No,” is all I say, not addressing anyone in particular. They both heard me, and my word trumps theirs. I don’t care how fucking hot this chick is. There is no way in hell I’m bringing her to my townhouse. For years she was weirdly obsessed with me, or something along those lines. For all I know, she has psychotic tendencies. If her actions yesterday are any indication of the type of person she is, then psychotic sounds like an appropriate term for Sienna Caputo.
And that’s another thing—she’s a Caputo. The mob. The mafia. Bad fucking people that I don’t want my kid anywhere near. So really, that’s the end of that. This broad is not coming home with me under any circumstances. I shouldn’t even be giving her a lift home in the first place. And why the fuck am I? is a better question.
My eyes skate to the right, and though it’s dark inside my SUV, those thick, tan thighs are on display in a way that my mouth practically waters at the thought of them wrapped around me. “Where to?” I ask.
There’s silence as I pull to a stop at a red light. It gives me enough time to roll my head to the side, my arm stretched across the steering wheel as I look over to Sienna. Her arms are crossed over her chest, but those dark eyes have me at center focus. “Today would be nice.”
“Maybe you should have asked my father before you carted me off.”
“Real adult of you.” The light turns green and I accelerate, driving through the intersection.
“I agreed to come over and play Barbies with a what?” She glances to the back seat. “A five-year-old?” She doesn’t wait for my answer. “I’m not exactly on an adult level at the moment, Matteo.”
“But you’re going to tell me where you live, right?”
Her sculpted eyebrow arches, but no words fall from her lips.
“Yay!” Brooklyn breaks the silence. “Sleepover at my house.”
“I don’t think so.” I look in the rearview mirror, giving her the same look that I give my opponents in the ring. She just grins even bigger, in no way intimidated by me like two-hundred-fifty-pound men usually are. “No, Brooklyn. It’s not going to happen.”
Chapter 8
SIENNA
Who would have ever thought Matteo De Salvo would end up wrapped around a girl’s finger?
At best the kid is forty pounds soaking wet. With her big, round, ocean-blue eyes, she’s cute, I’ll give her that, but it’s more than that. She seems to have some type of superpower when it comes to her dad. Is it just that she’s his kid? Is that all it takes to get ‘The Beast’—as he’s called in the boxing ring—to bend to one’s will?
He’s different with her, but then again, my dad is different with me than he is with my brothers. I got away with much more shit as a kid than they did. If Dom or Ren had pulled the same things, they would have been beaten within an inch of their life—or so my dad sometimes threatened in order to put them back in line.
Threats never worked with me; still don’t.
It’s interesting to watch Matteo with his daughter. From where I’m perched against the arm of his plush, oversized couch, he almost seems touchable, like I could walk up to him and run my hand down his arm without him flinching. That used to be a fear, and maybe it still is.
I watched him a lot when I was a teenager; even during my younger years, but never once did I have the confidence to put my hands on him. Even now, I still feel that pull. My palms itch at the thought, at the images I’ve conjured up. I don’t want to want him, yet I want him all the same.
“Do I have to?” she whines from where she’s craning her neck back to look up at Matteo. “I wanna play, Daddy.”
“And you can once you take a bath, Iron Girl.” Her eyes light up and her lips spread into a grin at the nickname her dad used. It seems to satisfy her, because without another word, she prances down the hallway that I’m sure leads to a bathroom.
“Iron Girl?” I question.
Matteo laughs, watching her. After a beat, he finally turns his head, his eyes meeting mine. “Just wait until she’s done playing dolls and pulls out her favorite superhero costume. For the past year, she’s been adamant that she plans to marry Iron Man when she grows up, so according to her, she needed a superhero name too.”
“And is she?”
“Is she what?” His eyebrows scrunch together.
“Going to marry Tony Stark?”
“Over my dead body.” His sudden seriousness has my shoulders shaking and a laugh rattles out of my throat. “So . . .” Matteo pushes his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “Where’s Vin?”
“Probably nursing his wounds if I had to guess.” I haven’t called him today. I’m giving his stupid ass time to process how badly he fucked up by trying to bring Levi in. I told him no, but he kept letting his brother-in-law tag along on jobs anyway. It’s not that he ever did anything illegal, and he wouldn’t have. My father doesn’t allow anyone but himself and Dom to do dirty work.
I’m not naive. I know certain shit goes down in my father’s line of business. He typically keeps Ren and me out of it. Dom being the oldest, he’s privy to things my twin and I aren’t. The only reason I knew Levi’s life was going to come to an end last night was because Tony Caputo doesn’t allow loose ends or men on his payroll that have ties to families we’re not on good terms with.
He doesn’t take chances—not anymore.
Just because my father does less than honorable things doesn’t make him a bad person. Like I said, he’s ruthless in his pursuit of the truth. A truth I’m not sure any of us will ever find out.
“And the other guy you bloodied up? What happened to him after your brothers dragged him out of the bar?”
I shrug, not giving him an answer. “How do you know Vin anyway?” I ask, because it’s something I’ve been wondering since I walked into Raymond’s yesterday.
“I’ve known him for a few years. We met my senior year of high school. He started training at this MMA gym I’d been going to since I was a kid. Said he wanted to box, but after a month or two he just up and quit. He wasn’t very good, and I guess he knew that too. Now I just see him from time to time when I go into Raymond’s for a beer.”
“Hmph.”
“What?” Matteo asks, his eyes scrutinizing my thoughts.
“When I met Vin, he told me he’d never boxed or kickboxed and didn’t have any interest in it whatsoever. I met him my freshman year of college at the university’s gym. He liked the weight machines, so did I, actually. That was the only thing I used there, and it was just to keep my strength training up since I couldn’t train often during the week with my workload.”
“Like I said, he wasn’t any good. Vin probably didn’t want to mention that he sucked at it.”
“Maybe.”
“The way you say that makes me think you don’t buy it.”
“Just cautious of people’s motives.”
“Does your brother put a blade to your throat often?” Matteo’s face hardens like he’s suddenly pissed off. “That cut wasn’t that wide or bruised when you left Raymond’s yesterday.”
I can’t co
ntrol the slow smile that spreads across my face. I’m sure I’m giving the Cheshire Cat a run for his money. I’m good with makeup and I have it mostly covered with concealer and foundation. He’d have to look hard to see the blueish coloring or the cracked skin underneath my makeup.
“Why is your elbow bruised? It’s not the one you used on that guy,” he keeps going, and I’m guessing he takes my silence and smile as playing it off. I’m not. I’ll tell him the truth. I’m not ashamed; quite the opposite.
“This,” I start, pointing to the skin under my jaw on the left side, “was courtesy of Ren. He wanted to see his cut bleed more. The elbow is from hitting Dom in the back of his hard skull.”
“Your brothers fucking beat up on you?” He sounds exasperated.
“No.” My nose scrunches up and I shake my head. “If anything, I beat up on them. A lot of times it’s equal blows—them not being pussies and all.”
“So, you just like hitting men then?”
“I just like hitting period. And kicking.” God, do I love the feel of my flesh hitting other flesh. It’s like an itch I need to scratch. If I leave it be, the itch only intensifies. My brothers know this, my dad even knows this, so they give me an outlet.
Flipping my wrist, I eye the time on my smartwatch. “Do you have a second bathroom where I can change out of this dress?” I ask, grabbing my tote bag from where I placed it in the corner of the couch.
“You’re not staying the night,” he deadpans.
“I’m not staying the night,” I mock. “I’m meeting my brothers in an hour and a half. Don’t worry, Matteo, I’m not going to rub off on your little angel in that timeframe. Jeez.”
Bad Princess: A Mafia Romance Page 5