Annoyance hummed under my skin. Giulia peered up at me calmly, thinking she knew everything. It was the advantage of youth—believing you knew how the world ran and convinced you could shape it to your ideals. She’d soon realize that ideals were just teenage foolishness.
“Come now,” I gritted out, not wanting to release the frustration of the last few months on her. Ultimately, it was my fault for allowing this marriage, for thinking an eighteen-year-old girl could be a wife and mother. The idea that Giulia could become Gaia 2.0 turned my stomach over.
Giulia opened her mouth as if to say more, but I sent her a warning look. She’d need to learn when to shut up. She pursed her lips but remained quiet.
I led her to Daniele’s room first. I opened the door but didn’t turn the lights on. Daniele’s bed was empty.
“Where is he?” Giulia whispered, worried, as she crossed the room toward the bed.
My heart clenched. Turning on my heel, I walked out and strode down the corridor. Steps followed me, and Giulia appeared at my side.
“Cassio?”
I didn’t say anything—couldn’t.
The door to the last room on the left was ajar as I knew it would be. I pushed it open. The light spilling in illuminated Daniele’s small form on the huge king-sized bed. He was curled into himself on top of the comforter, half covered by his own blanket. I took a deep breath, hating the feeling of guilt wilting my insides. Anger toward Gaia was an emotion I could handle better.
I could feel Giulia’s eyes on me, the myriad of questions she wanted to ask. In the silence of the room even her unspoken words frustrated me. She took a few hesitant steps toward Daniele. My hand shot out, clamping down on her upper arm with more force than intended. She winced, looking up at me in a wounded way that had nothing to do with my hard grip. I released her at once then walked past her toward the bed. For a moment, I watched my son’s tear-stained face. He was only two, three in a month, an age when tears were still okay. Soon, they wouldn’t be anymore.
I bent down and carefully picked him up, trying not to wake him. Whenever I did, he’d squirm away and start crying again. He didn’t wake, however. His tiny head leaned against my chest as I cradled him against my body, the blanket swaddling him.
Giulia followed me without a word as I walked out of the bedroom and carried Daniele back to his own room. I put him down on his bed, covered him, then stroked his hair lightly. Feeling Giulia watching me from the doorway, I straightened and headed to her. She stepped back so I could close the door.
Giulia scanned my face, her expression filled with compassion. “Does he always come to your bedroom at night?”
“It’s not mine,” I pressed out. “It’s Gaia’s. I sleep in the master bedroom.”
“Oh.” Confusion showed on Giulia’s face. “You didn’t share a bedroom with your late wife?”
I gritted my teeth, trying to stifle my anger and worse, that heavy feeling of sadness. “No.” I headed to Simona’s room. Giulia hurried after me. She couldn’t let it drop. She was too curious. “Because you don’t want to share a bedroom?”
I glared. “No. Because Gaia didn’t want to share a bed with me. Now stop the questions.” My voice was harsh, threatening—a tone meant for soldiers that displeased me, definitely not for my wife.
I turned away from Giulia’s hurt expression. My grip on the handle was crushing as I shoved open the door. Not waiting for Giulia, I crossed the room and headed toward the crib. Simona slept soundly. Some of the darkness in my chest lifted, never all of it though. I couldn’t even remember a time when my thoughts hadn’t been dominated by darkness. I stroked my daughter’s chubby cheek with my thumb then leaned down and kissed her forehead. I was on the way out when Giulia spoke up.
“What about the baby monitor?”
I froze. She was right. Tonight was the first time Sybil or one of the maids wasn’t staying overnight. They had always taken the monitor during the night. Simona’s cries had still woken me, and she’d only settled down when I’d consoled her. Returning to the crib, I grabbed the monitor from the sideboard. When I stepped back into the corridor and closed the door, I said, “How did you know?”
Giulia shrugged. “I read about baby monitors, and when I saw it sitting there, I thought we needed it.” She bit her lip. “Have you never taken it with you before?”
I stared down at the small device. “No. Gaia or Sybil kept it at night…” I trailed off then held the monitor out to Giulia. She took it with a small frown.
“It should pick up the smallest sound, but unless Simona starts crying, you don’t need to get up.”
Giulia only nodded, not saying anything when I could tell she wanted to. I was glad for her silence. I nodded down the corridor. “Let’s go to bed. I need to get up early, and Simona will probably wake us a few times tonight.”
I led Giulia toward the master bedroom, wondering how long she’d want to sleep in it before she moved to one of the guest bedrooms. I turned on the lights and motioned for Giulia to enter. She slipped past me into the vast room. She looked around curiously. Her three suitcases waited beside the door to the walk-in-closet.
“I told Sybil that you’d probably want to put your clothes away yourself.”
“Yes, thank you. That way I’ll know where everything is,” she said absent-mindedly as she walked toward the window, peering outside.
It was too dark to see much but the general outline of the gardens. She looked petite, and I had to resist the urge to walk up to her and touch her shoulders. Last night she had to accept my closeness, but I wouldn’t force it on her again.
I cleared my throat, causing Giulia to turn. Her gaze fell on the king-sized dark-wood bed on the left. Her expression tightened ever so slightly.
“I’ll get ready,” I gritted out and headed for the en suite bathroom.
I wasn’t even sure what had me on edge tonight. I had been wound tightly for almost a year now. It was getting harder and harder to suppress the flood of emotions. Only once I’d released my frustration, and it had felt good, so fucking good. It had led to this point, had ultimately cost my children their mother. Trying to stop this dangerous train of thought, I started brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. A bed I’d have to share with another woman who didn’t want me.
Giulia still hid her resentment better than Gaia ever did. Yet she couldn’t feel anything but resentment considering she was forced to marry me. Her feelings toward sharing a bed with me again tonight had been clear as day. Trepidation. She needn’t have worried. Despite the dark hunger for my young wife’s lovely pussy, I was a man who could control himself. I abhorred the idea of sleeping with a woman again who didn’t want me. The years with Gaia had been bad enough. Even when she’d approached me for sex—which only happened when she had ulterior motives—she never wanted to sleep with me. She didn’t even think of me when I fucked her.
A new wave of fury twisted my insides. I spit the toothpaste into the sink then washed my face and changed into my pajama bottoms. My anger didn’t lessen as I stepped back into the bedroom. Giulia had changed into a silken nightgown with tiny sunflowers all over it. She stared at a picture of the white beach taken from my summer house on Long Beach Island on a beautiful spring day. A picture meant to call to the calm within me.
In vain. It was unreasonable to be furious over her choice of wardrobe, especially when she looked exceptionally pretty in her gown, but I was. “Didn’t I tell you to get rid of those sunflower atrocities?”
Giulia jumped and whirled around. Her hair settled in smooth ringlets on her bare shoulders. Her eyes were wide—as blue as the sky in the photo above her head.
“Excuse me?”
More anger, which wasn’t even directed at Giulia, still it roared louder inside my chest since I’d seen Daniele on his mother’s bed. Every night he went there, no matter how often I told him not to.
“I sent you new clothes. I expect you to wear them.”
Giulia raised her chin. “While I understand your need for me to look like a lady in public, I can’t see why I can’t wear the clothes I love in private. Only because I’m your wife now doesn’t mean I’m not still me. I won’t become someone else only because you don’t like who I am. You chose to marry me. You can’t form me into the wife you want. You can’t control everything, even if you think you have to.”
What did she know?
I stalked toward her.
She tossed her head back to meet my furious gaze. Goose bumps flashed across her skin and her nipples hardened, straining against the thin fabric of her nightgown.
“Is that so? I control hundreds of men and an entire city, but you think I can’t control you?” I stepped closer, backing Giulia into the wall.
“Stop intimidating me,” she said, trying to step past me. I thrust my arm out, bracing my palm against the wall beside her head, caging her in.
“You will obey me.”
She regarded my arm then looked up. She stepped closer until we were almost touching, throwing me off.
“What will you do if I don’t obey?”
That goddamn strawberry scent filled my nose. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I jerked her toward me and lowered my head for a harsh kiss. She stiffened in my hold, gasped into my mouth. What the fuck was I doing?
Giulia
I froze, caught off guard by his sudden closeness. How could he kiss me when he was angry?
He turned around with a sharp exhale and stalked a few steps away before he slanted me a cautious look. “You don’t have to be scared. I won’t force myself on you. Last night was necessary, but I won’t seek you out again until you want me to.”
He sounded tired again and as if he were certain I’d never want him to. What had happened between his wife and him? I pushed the thought of her to the back of my mind, and with it the accompanying uneasiness.
I should have said something, but I was overwhelmed—by the situation, by the kiss that still echoed in my lips, by the look in Cassio’s eyes. I felt like I was caught up in a current, which spun faster and faster, leaving me disoriented. Yesterday morning I’d been me, an eighteen-year-old girl who loved art and Pilates. Now I was a wife, a stepmother, the society lady at an Underboss’s side. With all my new roles, was there still room for me?
Cassio looked at me, nodding slowly, as if my expression gave him an answer to a question he hadn’t even uttered. He walked over to the bed and sank down. His broad shoulders and back were covered by long, thin vertical scars that I hadn’t noticed before. Many of them.
I approached him to get a better look. Cassio didn’t say anything, only looked at me. I pointed at one of the scars then lightly touched it but pulled my hand away after a moment.
“You can touch them,” Cassio said calmly, but his voice had an edgier note to it. I brushed my fingertips over the scars on his shoulder blades and back. Some fathers tortured their sons to make them strong. Cassio was strong and brutal. Was his father the reason for it? “Who did this? Your father?”
Cassio shook his head. The way he was watching me made me blush. I wasn’t even sure why. “When I was around your age, a few of my men and I got captured by the Bratva. They whipped me before they moved on to other torture methods.”
My mouth ran dry at his clinical tone. “My God, that’s horrible.” I sank down beside him on the edge of the bed. His musky scent made me want to lean closer, to run my nose along his skin and taste it. What a ridiculous thought.
“Why did you think my father did it?”
“Because that’s how many Made Man make their sons strong. You know my uncles… abusing their children is their favorite sport.”
Cassio’s eyes lingered on the small scar on my knee then moved up to the one on my outer thigh and one on my upper arm. They weren’t prominent, but sitting as close as we did, they couldn’t be missed.
“I have one on my shoulder too,” I said, twisting to show him the scar there. “Four scars. Not much in comparison to yours.”
Something in his gaze made my pulse pick up, something dark lurking in its depth. “Those scars,” he murmured. “Did your father create them?”
Oh. Now I understood the look. “No,” I said quickly and without thinking put my hand on his. His eyes cut down to our hands then back up to me. “He never hit me. He wouldn’t. He adores me.” That sounded vain, but it was the truth. My father was certainly a violent man, but not at home, not to my mother and me.
Cassio chuckled. “I can see why he does.”
I bit my lip, surprised by his words.
“Who gave you those scars then?”
“When I was young, I loved to climb trees. We had a few old tall trees in our garden. I loved to climb them. I wasn’t supposed to, but I snuck out all the time. One time I didn’t pay enough attention and fell down. I broke a few bones and got cut up by a thorn bush beneath the tree. That’s it. Dad cut down all the trees after that.”
“You make it sound as if Felix is a good father, which contradicts the opinion I’ve gathered on him as a human being in general.”
I wasn’t offended by his words. Dad didn’t have the respect of his fellow Underbosses. Christian had complained about it more than once. “He doesn’t like you very much either.”
Cassio laughed, a deep belly laugh, which made me grin. “He gave me you. What a strange way to show me his disdain.”
Our arms brushed lightly. He was so warm, so tall, so strong. With his stubble and the square jaw and sharp cheekbones, he was the epitome of manliness. I’d always considered myself a girl who’d go for the ballet dancer type, the nerd with glasses, the sophisticated chess player. I had been so very wrong because Cassio’s body hit all the right buttons. My eyes lingered on the Famiglia tattoo on his chest, right over his heart.
Born in Blood, Sworn in Blood
I enter alive and leave dead.
I traced the intricate letters, not even thinking about it. His chest hair tickled my fingertips and sent a thrill into every nerve ending of my body. Cassio stilled under my touch, but his eyes burned me. I wanted him, wanted to feel his strong body on top of me again, his stubble scratching my inner thighs, his lips hot between my legs.
Heat flooded me.
I looked up. Cassio’s chest heaved. He didn’t move. He was waiting for me to say something, do something, but I didn’t know how. Again, this sense of being overwhelmed hit me.
I dropped my hand.
Cassio cleared his throat. “I have an early morning. We should sleep.”
“Yeah,” I said quickly then got onto all fours to crawl to my side of the bed.
Cassio’s sharp exhale made me cringe, realizing my thoughtless move. I’d practically jutted my butt out and knelt on all fours right beside him. I could practically see Cassio’s restraint snapping. With a groan, he slung an arm around my hip and pressed a kiss right on my ass cheek before he pulled me on top of him. My lips were already parted with surprise when his tongue plunged into my mouth. His big hand covered the back of my head, holding me in place.
My pulse throbbed right between my legs at the fiery heat of Cassio’s kiss, at the feel of his muscular thighs under my ass and the growing pressure of his desire for me.
A shrill cry burst through our bubble. We jerked apart. Cassio glanced to the baby monitor.
“Simona.”
I pushed off his lap. My legs felt like rubber and my panties clung to my center.
My arousal evaporated the moment I realized that it was my job to console the crying baby and to do whatever else was required in a situation like that.
