by Reilly, Cora
Then something shifted. At first it was subtle, a slight hiccup in the perfect composition. Darker notes begged for attention and were followed by short, high notes until they battled each other and what appeared to be a perfect composition. Slowly, I turned, terrified of what I would see.
Nino sat at the piano, eyes closed, head tilted to the side, as his fingers flew over the keys. He was a sight to behold with his gruesome tattoos, countless scars, and that perfectly sculpted, emotionless face. I was sure no matter how long I’d live, I would never see anything more breathtaking than Nino forcing wondrous notes out of my piano.
The perfect composition battled with the unhinged notes, and then suddenly, inexplicably, they were no longer fighting for dominance. They wound around each other and it was more perfect together than any calculated symphony could ever be because it carried longing and hope, fear and resignation, love and hate. It carried it all, and I couldn’t protect myself from it.
The tears I’d been holding back slipped out, and I wrapped my arms around my chest as if that could stop my heart from jumping out of my ribcage. When the last note died off, I stood there shaking.
Nino opened his eyes and looked at me. And I knew then that if what I saw in Nino’s eyes, what I saw on his face, was simulated, then I could live with it because it filled my heart with so much warmth it burned me from the inside out.
“What is this?” he asked in a raw voice.
I took a step toward him. “What is what?”
“Tell me,” he said as he rose. “What is this if not emotion?”
I stared, not able to comprehend what he was saying, not daring to hope. “The song ... that’s what you feel?”
Nino walked toward me slowly and regarded me as if I had shattered everything he believed. He stopped right in front of me, standing two steps below me so we were on eyelevel, and I could barely breathe. “Before you, there was calm. There was order and logic.”
I remembered the beginning of his song, that perfect composition. “And now?” I let out a hoarse exhale.
“Now,” he growled and his expression twisted, “now there’s chaos.”
I swallowed. What was I supposed to do with that kind of revelation? He startled me by cupping my cheeks, bringing our faces close, breathing harshly against my mouth, his eyes almost desperate.
“And you want the calm back,” I whispered.
His brows drew together as he regarded me. He dipped his head and kissed me, soft and slow, nothing like what I’d expected from the look in his eyes. “Yes and no. Perhaps. I don’t know,” he said quietly. “It takes some getting used to.”
And it lodged itself in my heart again, that stupid hope that perhaps one day Nino could ... Nino would love me.
NINO
Remo watched me warily as he put a few more guns into the trunk of his car. He’d be leaving for Chicago in a few hours with Fabiano. We were meeting in the Sugar Trap in thirty minutes for a few last-minute preparations. “I still think I should come with you,” I said firmly. “You and Fabiano are a volatile combination in Chicago.”
“Fabiano knows more about the Outfit than any of us, and you need to make sure nothing happens here. You can keep things in order if Fabiano and I don’t return.”
“Your chances of returning would increase if I came with you.”
“These last couple of weeks, you have been erratic, Nino. I think it’s best if you stay here.”
I frowned. I had a better handle on myself, and the nightmares had stopped. But I wasn’t the same as I had been before. There was no denying it.
Remo touched my shoulder. “What is going on? Do I need to worry?”
“I’m not how I used to be,” I began, not sure how I could describe to him what I could hardly understand myself. “I feel things. It’s still a struggle, still not how normal people feel, I’m sure of it, but it is there.”
Remo had become very still. “It is because of Kiara?”
I nodded. “Because of her. She fought the demons of her past and made me realize that I, too, was shackled by memories, controlled by something I thought I had put past me.”
Remo looked away, fury contorting his expression. “Our mother should be dead. Father should have killed her after cutting Adamo out of her. I should have killed her when I took over, but she is still there. Still fucking alive.”
I touched Remo’s shoulder. “She’s as good as dead. A shadow of a person. She is the past.”
Remo gave a jerky nod and met my gaze, something dark and dangerous in his eyes. I knew that look and had seen it many times before. “Are you still at my side now that you have gone all soft because of Kiara?”
I gripped his forearm over the Camorra tattoo, and he mirrored the gesture. “We are brothers. Not just by birth, but by choice, and I will stand by your side until I take my last breath. Nothing will change that. Kiara knows it, and she accepts it. I have your back.” I paused. “And I’m not going soft, don’t worry. These new sensations ... I worried they would weaken me, that I couldn’t be what you needed anymore, but they don’t and they won’t. I still don’t feel a flicker of pity or guilt when I kill and torture for our cause, and that won’t change.”
Remo nodded and released me. For him, it was settled. He knew I was still there for him. “Now that I know you can take care of Vegas while I’m gone, I’ll have to focus on kidnapping the lucky bride.”
I shook my head. Remo was obsessed. I should have been the voice of reason in this and made sure our plan actually worked. Emotions wouldn’t change the fact that I was the voice of logic between the two of us. That I would always be better at controlling my emotions, but Remo would follow his plan no matter what I said.
Kiara had freed me from the shackles of my past, and I wished the same for Remo. But Remo was Remo, and he would never allow a woman to see any side of him that didn’t evoke terror and fear.
When I returned home early in the evening, Kiara was outside in the garden and practicing how to shoot a gun. She had improved greatly since she’d first held a gun in her hand. Adamo was beside her, adjusting her arms every now and then. He’d be inducted in three weeks, on his fourteenth birthday, and now he’d pulled back even further from Remo, Savio, and myself. The only person he still spoke to on a daily basis was Kiara. She shot again, hitting bull’s-eye. Adamo smiled. Then he spotted me and stiffened. After saying something to Kiara, he walked off.
Kiara headed my way, the gun still in her hand. She was beaming, looking fucking proud, and my heart did that strange flip again. It always startled me.
“Did you see that?” she asked as she stopped in front of me.
“You’re a good shot.”
Her brows drew together. “Everything all right? You have a strange look on your face again.”
I took her hand and led her inside the mansion. She followed without hesitation but chanced the occasional confused look at me. When we arrived in our bedroom, I took the gun from her and set it down on the nightstand. Then I pulled her against me and kissed her. Her hands came up to my chest, stroking and tugging, as her mouth moved against mine. She tasted like peppermint and chocolate, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
Lifting her up, I laid her down on the bed then climbed on top of her, pressing my hard cock against her center. She moaned into my mouth and wrenched my shirt out of my pants. I sat up and quickly discarded my shirt before lowering myself back onto Kiara’s soft body.
Her hands roamed over my back up to my neck, pulling me closer, and I kissed her harder and rocked my hips against her pelvis. She gasped. “Nino. I need you.”
I pushed her shirt over her head then sucked her breast into my mouth through her lace bra as my hand traveled down to her shorts. I opened them and slipped my hand into her panties, over her soft hair and between her folds, finding her hot and wet and ready.
Fuck. I ripped her shorts down her legs then made quick work of her panties as well and pushed down my own pants and briefs before I moved back be
tween her legs and thrust into her in one deep, hard move. We groaned and Kiara’s nails raked over my back. I growled as my balls twitched. I guided one of her legs up then began fucking her in slow, hard thrusts. Her eyes remained on mine as I elicited from her lips one moan after another. There was trust and love in her eyes. I could see it now. I wasn’t sure why I ever had trouble reading those emotions in her gaze. My own chest tightened, and my dead heart swelled with fucking emotion.
Fuck, it was painful, but it was the best pain I’d ever felt. I wrapped my arms around Kiara, bringing our bodies even closer, needing her fucking closer because only she filled the hole in my chest. Only she could look down into the black abyss that was my soul and find something lovable in it.
My throat became tight, but I forced the words out that I’d wanted to say for days now. “I love you.” My thrusts faltered when I heard those three words aloud, heard them spill from my lips.
Kiara tensed under me, her eyes widening, and I fucking pulled myself together and thrust into her again. “You do?” she whispered.
“I do, with my fucking dead heart. With every fucking fiber of my being.”
She gasped as I angled my thrusts higher, and her eyes still showed incomprehension, like she couldn’t believe it. I reached between us, touching her clit, and claimed her lips. She arched up, shuddering, and I let loose as well. I kept my eyes open, kept watching Kiara’s gorgeous face contort with pleasure. I’d always enjoyed sex. It was the closest I could come to feel, but sex with emotion was something else entirely. It was fucking perfection.
I remained on top of Kiara even as I began to go soft and kissed her once more.
“You love me,” she whispered. “For real?”
“I love you. For real. No simulated affection or love ever again, because with you, I don’t need to simulate. You dragged that dead part of me out of the past and revived it. I didn’t die fifteen years ago, but I didn’t live either ... until you.”
She held even tighter on to me. “I love you, Nino. A part of me died six years ago, but you helped me live again.”
We had both been scarred by our past, but together we fought our demons and came out as the champions. Never had a victory felt better.
PROLOGUE
SERAFINA
All my life I had been taught to be honorable, to do what was expected of me. Today I went against it all.
Dark and tall, Remo appeared in the doorway, come to claim his prize. His eyes roamed over my naked body, and mine did the same.
He was cruel and twisted. Beyond redemption.
Brutal attractiveness, forbidden pleasure, promised pain. I should have been disgusted by him, but I wasn’t. Not by his body and not always by his nature.
I shut off the water in the shower, scared of what he wanted, completely terrified of what I wanted. This was his game of chess; he was the king and I was the trapped queen that the Outfit needed to protect. He moved me into position for his last move: the kill. Check.
He began unbuttoning his shirt then shrugged it off. He moved closer, stopping right before me. “You always watch me like something you want to touch but aren’t allowed to. Who’s holding you back, Angel?”
CHAPTER 1
SERAFINA
“I can’t believe you’re getting married in three days,” Samuel said, his feet propped up beside mine on the coffee table. If Mom saw she would strangle us.
“Me either,” I said quietly. At nineteen, I was already older than many other girls in our world when they entered the holy bond of matrimony, and I had been promised to Danilo for a long time. My fiancé was only twenty-one himself, so an earlier marriage wasn’t very desirable. I certainly didn’t mind. It had given me the time to finish school and stay home with Samuel for another year. He and I had never been separated for long, except for a few days when he had business to conduct for the Outfit.
Because of his father’s sickness, Danilo was still busy taking over Indianapolis. A later wedding would have been even better for him, but I was a woman and supposed to marry before my twentieth birthday. I eyed the engagement ring on my finger. A prominent diamond in the center, we had to widen the band over the years as my fingers grew. In three days Danilo would put a second ring on me.
Mom came in with my sister, Sofia, who upon spotting us ran in our direction and wedged herself on the sofa between me and Samuel.
Samuel rolled his blue eyes but wrapped an arm around our little sister as she pressed up against him with big puppy dog eyes, tousling her brown mane. She had taken after Dad and hadn’t inherited the blond hair of our mother like Samuel and I. “It’s unfair that you’re leaving right after Fina’s wedding. I thought you would have more time for me.”
I nudged her. “Hey.” I wasn’t really angry at her. I understood where she was coming from. Being eight years younger than us, she had always felt like a fifth wheel, since Samuel and I were twins.
Sofia gave me an embarrassed smile. “I’ll miss you too.”
“I’ll miss you too, ladybug.”
Mom cleared her throat, standing tall, her hands linked in front of her stomach. She was dressed in a fitted, elegant green dress. Her blue eyes lowered to our feet resting on the table. She tried to look stern, but the trembling of her mouth made it clear she was fighting a smile.
Samuel and I dropped our feet off the table at the same time.
“I thought I should warn you that Danilo just called. He’s coming over because he just arrived in town and is supposed to meet your father and uncle.”
Now I understood why Sofia, too, was dressed in a pretty summer dress. I didn’t even know my father was expecting him. I was leaving for Indianapolis tomorrow.
I jerked to my feet. “When?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Mom!” My eyes widened in horror. “How am I supposed to get ready with that much time?”
“You look fine,” Samuel drawled, smirking, his short blond hair purposefully in a disarray. He could pull off the disheveled look, but I definitely couldn’t.
I narrowed my eyes. “Oh shut up.” I ran out of the room, almost bumping into Dad. He stepped back, looking down at me with a questioning smile.
“I need to get ready!”
I didn’t have time to explain. He could ask Mom. I took the steps two at a time. The moment I stumbled into my bathroom and saw my reflection, I cringed. My God. My skin was flushed, and my hair curled wildly around my shoulders. My simple jeans and T-shirt didn’t scream poised future wife either. Damn it.
I quickly washed my face then grabbed a flat iron. My hair was naturally curly, but I always straightened it when people other than my family were around. This time I had five minutes to do it. I stormed back into my bedroom, tore through my wardrobe. Choosing the right dress for such an occasion would have taken at least one hour. Now I had one minute, if I still wanted time to put on makeup. I grabbed a pink dress I ordered online a while ago but never wore and slipped it on. I was immediately reminded why I hadn’t worn it before: it ended several inches above my knees, revealing more of my long legs than I usually displayed, especially when men were around. Danilo would be my husband in three days. It was only fair that he saw a bit more of what he was getting.
A nervous thrill took hold of my body, but I pushed it aside and quickly slipped on matching heels then hurried to my vanity. I didn’t have enough time to put much effort into my makeup. My skin was quite flawless, so I decided against foundation and only put some blush and mascara on before rushing out of my room and down the corridor toward the stairs.
I slowed my steps considerably when I heard Danilo, Samuel, and Dad in the foyer below. It wouldn’t be wise to appear as if I had rushed to get ready for any man, not even my fiancé.
They were shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries.
I had met Danilo a few times before. I’d been promised to him since I was fourteen and he sixteen, but this time felt more intimate. In only three days I would become his wife and share a be
d with him. Danilo was very attractive and had much success with women, a ladies’ man, but to me he had always been a perfect gentleman. He wore a white dress shirt and black pants, his dark hair immaculate.
I took the first step, placing my foot on the creaky stair on purpose, one long leg extended, my head held high.
All eyes turned to me. Danilo’s gaze zeroed in on my exposed legs, then he quickly snapped his brown eyes up to meet my eyes, smiling. Dad and Samuel both looked briefly at my legs, but their reaction was less than thrilled. Dad was patient and loving with Mom and us kids, even Samuel, which made it easy to forget that he was Underboss of Minneapolis—and a feared one at that. I was quickly reminded just how scary he could be as he put his hand on Danilo’s shoulder, wearing a hard expression on his face.
“I’d like to give you something in my office, Danilo,” he said in a cold voice.
Danilo wasn’t impressed by my father’s mood change. He was going to be the youngest Underboss in the history of the Outfit, and he was practically already ruling over Indianapolis because his father was so sick. He gave a curt nod. “Of course,” he said calmly, appearing so much older than his years. Hardened, grown-up. More man than I felt woman. Danilo gave me another smile then followed my father.
I descended the remaining steps, and Samuel barred my way. “Go change.”
“Excuse me?”
He pointed at my legs. “You’re showing too much leg.”
I pointed at my arms and throat. “I’m also showing my neck and arms.” I lifted one leg. “And I have nice legs.”
Samuel stared down at my leg then up at my face with a frown. “Yeah, well, Danilo doesn’t need to know that.”
I snorted then quickly looked around, worried Danilo was close enough to overhear. “He will see more than my legs on our wedding night.” Involuntary heat blasted my cheeks.
Samuel’s expression darkened.
“Get out of my way,” I said, trying to pass him.
Samuel mirrored my move. “Go change, Fina. Now,” he ordered in a voice he probably reserved for business with other Made Men.
