His Mafioso Princess

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Just drive,” I bit out at the big Russian behind the wheel.

  With a shrug, he drove forward and a guard outside the gate of the estate came forward. Oleg powered down his window as the guard bent to look into the black car.

  “Mr. Volkov,” the guard greeted, his eyes going past Oleg to me. “Please drive through and around to the back. Mr. De Stefano will be waiting for you.”

  I gave a single nod as the gates opened.

  Oleg drove through and up the small inclined driveway, following it around to the back of the house where a large garage was separated from the house. Four men in suits were already standing outside the back door. One stepped forward as Oleg came to a stop. My door was opened and, without a word, I stepped out.

  I glanced from one man to the other, but none were De Stefano. “Where is your boss?”

  “He was called upstairs,” the guard who was still standing beside my open door informed me. He was older than me, with an angry scar that went from his left temple to the corner of his mouth. “He won’t be a minute.”

  My gaze lifted to the house, my eyes going to the top floor and to a window where the curtains were fluttering. Somehow, I knew that Victoria was in that room, that she was watching me. I could feel her eyes on me, watching every move I made.

  It took everything inside me to keep from storming into the house and finding her.

  Oleg stepped out of his side of the car. He was the only man I had brought with me, because I hadn’t come here to start a fight. All I wanted was to see Victoria, to talk to her for five minutes. I needed her to know …

  What? What the fuck could I say to her that would make any of the secrets I had kept from her right?

  She deserved the truth, though, and right then, that was all I could give her. I had to make her see that Klara was nothing to me, just a name on a piece of paper … and the mother of my nephew.

  “This way,” the man who had opened my door spoke, turning his back to me as he walked toward the back door. The other three men had their eyes trained on both me and Oleg.

  At the door, the guard opened it then waited patiently for me to enter the house first.

  Inside, I found we were in a foyer with a sitting room off to my right and a hall to my left that went on for at least fifty yards. There were no signs of any stairs that could take me up to the other levels of the house so I could find Victoria.

  Irritation ate at me as the guard followed me inside. Oleg and two of the three other guards entered next, leaving one outside. I saw him before the door shut, his eyes trained on the black sedan that I had rented at the airport, as if he expected more of my men to suddenly jump from the trunk and ambush him.

  I didn’t need more than myself and Oleg to take on this small group of men. Then again, there were more than just these three men in the house. I knew it, could sense they were everywhere. There were probably more men patrolling the grounds, as well, keeping De Stefano and his houseguests safe.

  “Please hand over your weapons,” the man with the scar said, his tone as emotionless as it had been from the first words out of his mouth.

  Oleg grunted something under his breath, but I shot him a hard look that had him shutting his mouth. With a sigh, he pulled both his guns from the holsters under his jacket.

  Once he had handed his over, I removed my own guns, but I didn’t even move to remove the smaller pistol I had strapped to my lower leg, or the knives I had tucked into my boots.

  The man with the scar stood there, watching us both, waiting.

  “Volkov,” a voice I vaguely remembered called my name, and I turned my head to find Dante De Stefano walking down the hall.

  I watched the way he walked. He had a kind of cocky swagger that amused more than annoyed me. There was something hard, cold to the soul about him, but he was easier to deal with than either Ciro or Cristiano had ever been the few times I had worked with him in the past.

  As he neared, I stepped forward and offered him my hand. “De Stefano.”

  His handshake was firm, but not so hard that he was trying to make a point or show me that he was my superior. He had no beef with me, and as long as he didn’t keep me from Victoria, I had none with him.

  Dropping my hand, he turned toward the guard with the scar. “Give them back their guns. Volkov isn’t going to shot me in my own house. Not when we have what he’s so desperate to get.”

  After a brief hesitation, the other man handed back my guns, then did the same with Oleg’s.

  De Stefano turned back toward the hall. “Come on, man; we can talk in my office.” He glanced at his men when they started to follow. “Pretty sure I can deal with this on my own. You fuckers keep Volkov’s man company. Offer him a drink.”

  Turning to me again, he slapped me on the back. “How the hell have you been, Volkov?” he asked as we walked into his office.

  I waited until the door was shut behind us before speaking. “You know why I’m here?”

  He shrugged his suit jacket off then loosened his tie. Tossing the jacket on a random chair across the room, he nodded. “Of course I know. But as long as Victoria wants to stay here, she has my protection. I can’t let you see her unless she agrees. Cristiano is in the air right now, heading here. Once he gets here, it’s even further out of my hands.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “I’ve spoken; she’s remained oddly mute. Which is unlike little miss sunshine, actually. Victoria is normally all bubbly and can’t find a single thing wrong with the world.” He grimaced. “Of course, that all changes when you piss her off. Girl has some serious darkness lurking around in there.” He crossed to a small bar and opened a bottle of well-aged scotch. He poured one glass and handed it over to me before pouring one for himself. After taking a swallow, his face twisted into anger and what to me looked like possessiveness. “But she’s not pissed off right now. It’s beyond that.” His voice was like steel. “She’s hurting, and that’s on you.”

  That possessive look had jealousy churning in my stomach. The urge to slam my fist into his face was nearly too much to resist. Instead, I tightened my fingers around my glass and tossed the contents back in one swallow.

  Setting the glass down on his desk, I faced him fully. “Yes, that is on me. I wish I could change things, but for the moment, I can’t. I only want to speak to her, Dante. Let me see her.”

  He finished off the rest of his own drink before pouring himself another. “You would probably have better luck speaking to your sister. She and Victoria seem to have become close, which is all kinds of disturbing, actually. If your sister were to train her in all the things she can do, the world would tremble in fear at just the sight of Victoria Vitucci.”

  It wasn’t lost on me that De Stefano was suggesting he knew about Anya’s extracurricular activities. Few people knew what she did in her spare time, but those who did, knew she was the best of the best. She never left a job undone, and she was worth every penny she made her clients pay.

  Assassins were few and far between these days, after all.

  I didn’t want to think about Anya teaching Victoria any of the things she knew how to do. My kotyonok didn’t need to know them, not when I would always be around to protect her.

  Chapter 18

  Victoria

  I stood at the window long after Adrian had gone inside. My heart was in my throat, even after he had disappeared from sight. Part of me hadn’t expected him to come after me, had hoped I never saw his face again. While another part of me had been aching for him to come because, if he did, that meant he wanted me more than he wanted his wife. That he cared about me more.

  Right?

  I pressed my forehead against the coolness of the glass, closing my eyes. I felt half insane with the way I was constantly being torn in half. I ached with everything inside me, unable to fight what I felt for a man who didn’t deserve my love, while knowing how wrong it was to feel the way I did.

 
I had told Dante that I didn’t want to see Adrian. Yet, the more I stood there, self-pity making me feel as if I had something to be ashamed of, when it had been Adrian who had deceived me, I couldn’t stand it. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t some little princess who expected the world to cater to every whim I had. I wasn’t some damn cry baby who hid from the things that hurt me and let others deal with them for me.

  I was Victoria Vitucci, goddammit. I could deal with the Russian on my own.

  Fuck it.

  I pushed away from the window and headed for the door. My heart started pounding with each step I took. As I took the back stairs to the rear of the house, my anger began to reach boiling point. I wasn’t even sure who I was more pissed at: him or myself.

  “Him,” I muttered under my breath as I bounced off the last step and marched toward Dante’s office. “Definitely him.”

  Reaching the closed office door, I paused, squaring my shoulders, taking two deep breathes, and then twisting the knob.

  Stepping inside the spacious office that I had only seen a handful of times in my lifetime, my eyes went straight to where Dante sat with a glass of his favorite scotch in hand. His face was an emotionless mask, but I knew him almost as well as Scarlett did. I could see the anger simmering underneath, and my heart softened toward him for a moment.

  Dante had risen quickly within the ranks of the Cosa Nostra, despite the tension that had occurred between his family and my uncle Gio. He had been a good soldier, and he was an even better underboss. But he was first and always mine and Scarlett’s friend—more Scarlett’s than mine. Still, he loved me like a sister, and it was that affection that was making me consider the marriage my father wanted between us.

  With Dante, I knew my heart would be safe. We weren’t in love with each other, so I knew he would never have the power to hurt me or break me. Not like Adrian had done.

  And that alone was enough for me to marry him.

  “Kotyonok,” Adrian’s voice was gruff.

  I slowly turned my head to look at him. I had known where he was the second I had stepped through the door, and it had taken a willpower I didn’t know I possessed to not instantly look at him. I hadn’t trusted myself. I had needed a few extra seconds to compose myself before I could safely look at him.

  Now, I just stood there, my hands clenched at my sides as I looked up at him dispassionately. At least, I hoped I was looking at him dispassionately. Inside, my heart was weeping for the pain he had put me through, and for how much I wanted to be back in his arms.

  He looked good in his black on gray suit, but I could see the dark shadows under his eyes. As my eyes skimmed over him, I noticed he had lost a little weight, and my heart ached with the thought that he hadn’t been getting enough sleep or eating.

  Stop it, Victoria. He’s not yours.

  “Hello, Adrian,” I murmured, proud that my voice didn’t shake with all the pent-up emotions whirling inside me.

  “Victoria, amore, I told you that I would deal with our guest.” Dante’s voice was low and full of a deceptively sweet amount of tenderness that, if I hadn’t known him so well, I would have suspected was full of actual romantic love for me.

  It had its desired effect when I saw Adrian’s dark eyes flame with possessiveness and jealousy. I could practically feel the tension vibrating off him as he took a threatening step in Dante’s direction.

  I quickly turned my eyes from him, hating myself for how much I liked seeing those emotions coming from him. My gaze landed on Dante, who gave me that sweet, almost seductive smile of his, not in the least intimidated by the scary Russian only a few feet away who was no doubt planning ways to kill him.

  Any other woman would have fallen at his feet at the sight of that smile being graced upon them. He was a very sexy man, lethal, and powerful in his own right. But I knew him too well to just fall at his feet, or any other part of him. There had never been anything more between us than friendship. He was simply playing a game with Adrian, and I found I was liking it. Liking that my Russian wolf was so easily bated.

  I liked it so much that I found myself smiling a true, heartfelt smile for the first time in forever.

  “Thank you, but I think I can actually deal with this on my own.” I hoped, at least.

  Dante stood and took my hand, pulling me into him then brushing a tender kiss over my brow. “As you wish,” he murmured, his eyes promising he wouldn’t be far.

  I was secretly glad, because despite all the bullshit I had spun to myself upstairs about being Victoria Vitucci and not a crybaby, I didn’t necessarily trust myself alone with the man who had so easily stolen my heart.

  He turned his head, his face turning to stone as he looked at Adrian. “I’ll leave you two to sort yourselves out.”

  He squeezed my hand before releasing me, then crossed to the door. As he opened it, he glanced back at us. “Make sure you invite him to the wedding, amore. We can’t leave my old friend here off the guest list.”

  I kept my eyes on him until the door closed. Behind me, I could feel Adrian’s tension nearing the exploding point. I stilled myself before facing him once again.

  “Wedding?” His voice was hoarse, his eyes wild.

  I shrugged, pretending I wasn’t getting a small kick out of how Dante had pushed his buttons. “He’s jumping the gun, actually. I haven’t decided yet if I want to marry him. Regardless, it’s something my father has been wanting since I was born.”

  That last part had his head snapping back as if I had physically slapped him. As if what I had just said had hurt him. I didn’t get the thrill I thought I would at the sight of his pain. If anything, it only made me hurt even more.

  Talking about marrying someone else was doing exactly what I had ached to do—make him hurt just as much as I was hurting. Yet, I took no pleasure from it.

  Only more heartache.

  Maybe I wasn’t like my mother after all.

  He crossed the space that divided us in the blink of an eye, before catching me around the waist and lifting me against him. “I will kill him before I let you marry him,” he growled before pressing his lips roughly, punishingly into mine.

  He tasted of good whiskey and desperation. His lips bit into mine, trying to force my mouth open so he could conquer me yet again.

  I tried to resist, to hold myself back, but it was useless. My body knew this man, loved and adored him just as much as my heart did, and it melted against him. Then my mouth opened under the assault of his kiss, and when I felt the brush of his tongue against mine, I was lost.

  I lifted my hands, brushing my fingers over his short dark hair and down over his back. He moved his hands from my waist to my ass, and then I wrapped my legs around him. I felt the throbbing thickness of his erection on the inside of my thigh and couldn’t hold back the moan of hungry need that was torn from me.

  I barely felt him moving, but I didn’t protest when he fell back onto the sofa where Dante had been sitting only a few minutes ago. I straddled his waist, exploring every part of him I could reach through his layers of clothing.

  He lifted one of his hands from my ass and tangled it in my hair, wrapping my hair around his wrist while he slid the other between my legs, pushing my skirt up and my panties to the side so he could touch my drenched pussy.

  My body quivered at his first touch, a few drops of need trickling onto his hand as he stroked my clit with his thumb and teased my hole with his middle finger. Then he broke the kiss, licking his way down my neck until he reached the throbbing pulse beating erratically at the base of my throat.

  I bit my nails into the material of his suit jacket as I struggled to hold on while my lower body moved of its own volition to the rhythm he was setting as he pushed his finger in and out of me.

  He went a little deeper with each tender thrust, stopping just short of pushing through my virginity. My head fell forward as I swallowed one moan after another, but I couldn’t completely hold the noise back and a s
mall whimper escaped.

  Adrian’s hold on my hair tightened, and he pulled my head back, his dark eyes aflame with a mixture of hunger and raging anger. That much anger might have scared me if it had come from anyone but him. I knew deep in my heart that he would never physically hurt me no matter how pissed he got at me.

  “You are mine, kotyonok. You will always be mine. Don’t think for a single minute that I will sit by idly while you marry someone else. I will fucking kill him and anyone else who dares to think you are anyone’s but mine.”

  His words broke the spell he had weaved over me, and I pushed against his shoulders.

  “I’m not yours, though, Adrian. You’re married, remember? You have a family.” I shakily got to my feet and hastily fixed my panties and skirt, hating myself more than him in that moment for how easily I succumbed to him. “You have a wife and kid back in New York.”

  “No,” he gritted out, following me as I backed my way toward the door. Then understanding lit his eyes, as if he was just then figuring out why I was so upset. I guessed he hadn’t talked to his wife yet, and if he had, she hadn’t mentioned seeing me in Anya’s apartment. “It’s not what you think. Nothing is what it looks like. Just let me explain.”

  “No!” I cried, knowing I had made a mistake in coming down here to confront him. Not five seconds alone with him and I had given in to my need for him, had almost done something stupid on that freaking couch. For fuck’s sake, I had been mere seconds away from begging him to fuck me, to take everything he wanted from my body as long as he continued to make me feel so good. He could so easily twist and turn my body against me. “I don’t want to know. I can’t bear to know. You have everything I wish I could give you. That I wish I could have. But that can never happen—we can never happen.”

  “We can, and we will,” he said with a dangerous growl. He caught one of my hands with both of his before I could reach the door, jerking me around to face him. “I love you, kotyonok. I can’t give you up. I won’t.”