Salvatore: a Dark Mafia Romance

by Natasha Knight

  I stood to the side and watched as they set the casket inside the waiting hearse. The Benedetti men flanked me with Salvatore standing too close for my comfort. Some commotion caught my attention, and I watched as four-year-old Effie escaped from her nanny’s grip and ran toward her mother, my sister, and wrapped her arms around Isabella’s legs. All of us turned, in fact, and I took that moment to break away from the Benedetti men and walked toward them, toward my family.

  “Lucia.”

  Isabella greeted me, her eyes reddened, her cheeks dry. She looked different than the last time I’d seen her. She looked harder. Older than her twenty-two years.

  She took a moment to look at me, to take in how five years had made the difference between the sixteen-year-old girl she had known and the woman who stood before her now. She then surprised me by pulling me in for a tight hug.

  “I missed you so much.”

  I let out some sound, and for a moment, allowed my body to give over to her embrace. We’d been so close for so long, but then she’d left. She’d turned her back on me and walked away. I knew why. I even understood. But it hurt all the same, and my anger over everything wrapped even her up into this neat little world of hate I’d created for myself.

  The thought that it should have been her, that it would have been her, blared inside me, even though I wanted it to go away. It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault. In fact, she was the only one not to blame.

  “Mama,” came Effie’s voice.

  Isabella released me from her embrace but squeezed my arms as if willing upon me strength. Did she see my weakness in that moment? Could they all see my fear?

  “Mama,” Effie repeated with the impatience of a child, tugging at Isabella’s skirt. Isabella picked her up.

  “Why did you come back?” I asked, my voice sounding foreign. Cold. “Why now?” It was that or falling apart, and I would not allow the latter.

  She looked taken aback. Her little girl watched me while I tried not to look at her. It was impossible, though. Pretty, blue-gray eyes watched me, seeming to bore right through me. I wondered if they’d come from her father, but Isabella had always refused to tell anyone who that was.

  “This is Effie,” Isabella said, choosing to ignore my question. “Effie, this is your Aunt Lucia.”

  Effie studied me for a long moment, then gave me a quick smile, a small dimple forming in her right cheek when she did.

  “Hi, Effie,” I said, touching her caramel-colored curly hair.

  “Hi.”

  “Why are you back?” I asked again. I felt so much anger, and I wanted to burn everyone up with it. Everyone who had abandoned me. Who had so easily given me up.

  “Because I should never have left. Forgive me.” She glanced at the hearse. “Life is too short.”

  I knew she’d not had a choice. When my father had found out she was pregnant, he’d freaked. Firstborn daughter to the boss of the DeMarco family pregnant out of wedlock. As modern as my family was, there were some things that did not change. I still wonder if my father regretted his decisions. It had cost him two daughters.

  But then again, we seemed to be easy to give away. If he’d had a son, perhaps things would have been different.

  “I’ll come see you next week.”

  “Why? Why bother now?”

  She lifted her chin, a stubborn gesture I remembered from when we were little.

  The sound of a car backfiring made us all jump. The soldiers circling the square all drew weapons until we all realized there was no threat. Before I turned back to her, though, I noticed Salvatore, who stood by his car, tuck the shiny metal of a pistol back into its holster beneath his jacket.

  These were violent men. Men to whom killing was part of life. Part of business. Even having grown up in their world, it still made me shudder.

  Salvatore shifted his gaze to me. From this distance, I couldn’t see his eyes, but he watched me while standing beside the sedan ready to drive us to the cemetery. “I have to go.”

  “Lucia,” my sister started, this time taking my hand. Hers felt warm, soft. It made me want to cry for all we’d lost.

  “What?” I snapped. I could not cry. I would not. Not here.

  “Be strong. You’re not alone.”

  “Really?” I tugged my hand free. “That would be a first.”

  Anger flashed through her eyes. Did she want to slap me, I wondered? Would she? Would Salvatore allow it? For a moment, I thought of him coming to my rescue, of him punishing my sister for laying a hand on me. But then, I remembered who I was. Who he was. What I was to him.

  “I have to go.” I took a step back.

  Isabella’s eyes filled with tears, sadness replacing the momentary anger, and I turned away.

  Show no weakness. Not an ounce of it.

  I faced Salvatore, the man who owned me. Surely the contract we’d signed wouldn’t hold up in any court of law. But it wasn’t the contract that dictated my life. I knew what would happen if I didn’t do as I was told. I knew who would pay.

  I glanced at Isabella and her daughter again. At my uncles and aunts and cousins.

  No, they wouldn’t need a court of law to ensure I cooperated. The contract was simply another means of humiliation, like the examination had been.

  No. Block that memory. I would not have it.

  Salvatore straightened to his full height, standing nearly a foot taller than me at six feet four, and opened the sedan door. Even from across the square, I could see he waited patiently, and I thought he might be trying to be civilized, polite. For the sake of the gathered reporters? Surely not for my benefit. I wondered for a moment if he wanted this. If he wanted me like this, knowing it was not my will.

  But then again, owning another person? That had to be the ultimate high.

  I glanced back once more at Isabella. I couldn’t help it. For the last five years, I’d been shut away at school. I’d lived at St. Mary’s and received private tutoring to earn my high-school degree before attending the small college there, studying, free—to a point. But now, it was time to enter the den of the wolf. My schooling was complete, and it was time for me to assume my place as Salvatore Benedetti’s possession. For one moment, I tried to imagine that it wasn’t true. That it was all a dream, a nightmare. That I could look at my big sister and know she’d make it all okay, like she always did. Just one moment, then I’d be able to do this. To go to my enemy, to enter into his house, knowing I would be an outsider forever. Hated. My presence like a living trophy of their victory over my father, my family.

  What would Salvatore expect of me?

  I steeled myself and faced him, determined to hold his gaze as I crossed the square. Eyes burned into my back, and the crowd hushed, watching me go to him. He didn’t smile as I neared. Nothing changed. His face seemed to be set in stone. I reached him and stopped just inches from him, our eyes locked on each other.

  “Lucia.”

  Salvatore said my name, his voice low and dark, making me shudder.

  I didn’t know what to say, even though I’d practiced this moment in my mind for months. Years. Now, I simply stood like a mute thing.

  But then his father, Franco Benedetti, head of the family and a man I thoroughly despised, approached. He didn’t even try to hide his enjoyment of the situation.

  I cleared my throat, finally finding my voice. “Why are you here? You have no right.” I heard my question, knew it was the same one I’d asked my sister.

  “I came to give you my condolences.”

  Franco leaned in, looking around as if we were somehow coconspirators.

  “Actually,” he started, his tone lower, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  I didn’t think. I didn’t do anything but feel the anger, the hot rage as it bubbled over inside me. My hands clenched into fists, and I spat at his shoe. Except he moved at the last moment, and I missed. When I looked up, Salvatore’s face showed his shock, and Franco’s was quickly reddening, showing his fury. Al
though I stood my ground, my heart jackhammered against my chest. I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t hit me. Hell, between this and my comment to Isabella, maybe that’s what I was going for.

  Salvatore gripped my arm. “Apologize.”

  “No,” I replied, my eyes locked on his father’s black gaze.

  Dominic, Salvatore’s brother, who’d stood watching from a few feet away, approached. He had a smile on his face as he put his arm around his father’s shoulders. Salvatore tensed beside me.

  “We’re getting some attention. Come on, Paps. Let’s go.”

  I met Dominic’s gaze, and I would have sworn he was enjoying the spectacle.

  “Apologize.” Salvatore’s grip tightened around my arm.

  I cocked my head to the side. “I’m sorry I missed,” I said, a grin spreading across my face.

  Dominic’s eyebrows shot up, and Salvatore muttered a curse under his breath.

  “Let’s go,” Dominic said just when I thought his father would explode.

  “In.” Salvatore’s other hand gripped my waist as he pushed me into the sedan.

  “Get your hands off me,” I said, trying to force him off.

  He climbed in beside me and pulled the car door shut. The driver started the engine. Salvatore transferred his grip to my knee, his eyes burning a hole through me. “That was a very stupid thing to do.” His fingers bit into my flesh.

  I had nothing to say. In fact, all I could do was shake violently. I wrapped my arms around myself.

  “Turn down the air conditioning,” he told the driver, his gaze still locked on mine.

  I wished it were the cold that had me shivering.

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said.

  Being so close, seeing him again, it was too much, too intense. It brought too many memories back and foretold a future I did not want.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Salvatore blinked, as if processing each word I spoke one at a time. He shifted his gaze to where his hand gripped my knee. I held my breath, feeling powerless, knowing I was entirely at his mercy.

  Knowing this was only the beginning of my hell.

  2

  Salvatore

  I looked down to where I held her, how hard my fingers were squeezing her. It took some effort, but I released her and sat back in the seat, my gaze still on her, on this rebellious, courageous stranger.

  Courageous. Lucia was courageous.

  She was also a stranger.

  I knew nothing about her. Only her name and her face. Her signature on a stupid piece of paper.

  I had never seen a woman stand up to my father like that. I’d never seen a man do it either—or, I should say, when I had, it had been the last time I’d seen that man alive.

  I looked out the front window. “Don’t antagonize my father. He always wins.”

  “Everyone loses sometime.” She turned away and folded her arms across her chest, watching the streets pass by as we drove to the cemetery.

  The black veil of her hat had shielded her face from me in the church, but her whiskey-colored eyes had shone through, bright, strong, angry. Very angry. I refused to let the image of how those eyes had looked at me the last time occupy my mind. I would know only this new, angry Lucia.

  The one I needed to control.

  Her interaction with her sister had been stiff. I’d seen it even from the distance in the courtyard. I knew she hadn’t seen either her sister or her father—even once—in the last five years. The day she’d signed the contract, she’d been sent away to finish her schooling. A year-round, all-girls Catholic school chosen by my father. A small institution hidden away in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where she’d lived comfortably but was under strict supervision. Her movements had been monitored, and at least one bodyguard had accompanied her wherever she went. I had monthly updates on her comings and goings, and not once had her family come to visit her. Well, her father had tried, but she’d refused to see him. She’d chosen to spend the holidays at school.

  I glanced at her, wondering if she regretted that now.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Her body stiffened, and the only sign that she might be crying was when she moved her hand toward her face, pretending to scratch her cheek after swiping it under her eye.

  “Are you?” she asked, her voice strained, her face still turned toward the window.

  “I know what it’s like to lose someone you’re close to.” I knew firsthand, in fact. My brother, Sergio, had been my best friend. It had never once, not even in the world we lived in, occurred to me that he could die. My mother had died soon after him. Her death, thankfully, not as violent as Sergio’s. Although cancer brought its own sort of violence, snuffing out a human life as efficiently as a bullet did.

  She turned to me and lifted her veil, tucking it behind the small hat fitted on top of her head. She was stunning. When I’d first met her in person, she’d been sixteen. She’d been pretty, but now, five years later, she was no longer a child. Her features had sharpened, her lips fuller, her cheekbones even more prominent. Her eyes…even more accusing.

  She studied me, a slow, steady perusal from head to toe. When her gaze met mine, I swallowed, uncertain. Uncertainty was not new to me. I lived with it daily. But this? This was new, this was something—someone—I knew not at all.

  The day we’d signed the contract, the day I’d stood by and allowed her to be humiliated, something had happened to me, some obligation had formed, some bond between us. Maybe it was the disgust I felt for myself for standing by and letting it happen. At the time, I told myself, I’d had no choice, but I tried not to lie to myself. Not anymore. After that day, something had changed. I owed her something. What that thing was, I did not know. An apology? Seemed stupid, a waste. My protection? She would have that, she already did. But she was my enemy and the spoils of war. My father had tried very hard to drill that into my head, but he hadn’t seen that look in her eyes that day—the desperate, terrified plea inside them—nor did he see it every time he lay his head down to sleep.

  I wondered if my father lost sleep over anything at all, actually.

  You were twenty-four. What could you have done?

  No, not good enough. Not anymore.

  “You know what it’s like to lose someone close?” Her tone dripped sarcasm. “My father and I weren’t close.”

  I studied her, feeling my face tighten, my eyes narrow infinitesimally.

  I did not speak.

  “But let me ask you something. Do you know what it’s like to watch people you love killed before your very eyes?”

  I did, but still, I remained silent.

  “To have everyone taken away from you? To become the property of your enemy?”

  Oh yes. Yes, I did.

  “To be sent to live on your own among strangers with not a friend in the world? Under constant watch. I don’t think you know those things, Salvatore, because if you did, you would feel. You would have some compassion. Be human.” She gave me another once-over. “But there is one thing you do know, isn’t there? You know how to stand by and do nothing at all.”

  My hands clenched into fists, and a sudden, hot anger burned inside me. I saw the driver’s eyes flash back at us in the rearview mirror, but he kept driving, slowing down as we passed through the cemetery gates.

  “Be careful,” I warned, my tone low and quiet. But it was true, wasn’t it? What she said was true.

  Lucia’s eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head to the side, one corner of her mouth rising into a smirk. “Did Daddy give you his seal of approval that day? Did he pat you on the back later? Call you a ‘good boy?’” she taunted.

  My fingernails dug into my palms, and I made it a point of looking out the window as the driver parked the car.

  “Is that it, Salvatore?”

  She misunderstood my silence, mistaking it for weakness.

  The driver killed the engine. “Give us a minute,” I said. He stepped out of the car and closed the door, stan
ding just outside.

  I turned back to her.

  “Are you Daddy’s little puppet?” she asked.

  Her eyes spewed hate. Did she know she toed a very dangerous line? That she broached a truth that had kept me in a state of constant struggle these past few years?

  I gave a little snort and relaxed my body, smiling, leaning just a little closer. I could see the pulse at her neck working, telling me her heart pounded hard, telling me that on the inside, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Lucia.” I said softly, raising my hand.

  Her gaze shifted to it, then back to my eyes.

  I touched her face with the backs of my fingers, caressing that soft, creamy skin. “So pretty,” I said, my eyes on her lips when I gripped her chin. “But such a big mouth.”

  She swallowed, her eyes widening.

  I leaned in close enough to smell her perfume, something soft and light and somehow, even now, erotic. I inhaled deeply before drawing her to me, my eyes still on those lips. She held her breath. “So, so pretty.” My other hand traveled to her chest, to the soft swell of one breast, coming to rest on her pounding heart. She knew I knew I affected her.

  I turned her face to the side, rubbing the scruff of my jaw against it before bringing my mouth to her ear. “Be careful,” I whispered, feeling her shudder when I ran my tongue over the ridge of her ear before sliding it inside.

  She gasped. Her hands came up to my chest, but she didn’t push.

  “When you try to bite the wolf,” I said, “he just might bite back.”

  To make my point, I took her earlobe into my mouth and gently drew my teeth over it, drawing it out. Beneath the hand that rested against her heart, her nipple hardened.

  A moment later, I released her and sat back, victorious. I tapped my ring against the window, absently glancing at the family crest. The driver opened the door.

  “Let’s go put your father in the ground,” I said, climbing out. She emerged a moment later, the net of her hat back in place. I buttoned my coat jacket. “Fucking stifling here.” I gestured for her to go ahead. She did, refusing to meet my gaze or make a comment. I smiled, putting one tick on my side of the column marking my win for this round.