Standing from the sofa, I make my way over to the front door and wrench it open to see Ermanno standing there. He jerks his chin at me and without a word slips inside of the house.
Closing the door, I look back at him and watch as he stands in the foyer just looking around in silence.
“This place is fucking ridiculous. Are you planning on selling?” he asks.
He spins around and arches a brow at me, waiting for me to answer him. I shrug a shoulder. I want to demolish the whole disgusting place, but then, I think about Nicola and how this is her home. Maybe she wants to stay here, maybe I should make her watch the demolition.
“Probably. Already stripped the office. Got a crew over to take everything out of the master and destroy it today.”
“So, renovating instead?”
“Destroy it if that’s what you want to do,” a voice says, floating down the stairs.
My gaze flicks up to see Nicola slowly making her way down the staircase. Ermanno spins around and I hear him let out a low moan in the back of his throat. I want to slit his neck open for daring to even look at her, let alone react to her.
Nicola looks much like she did yesterday. She’s wearing a skintight dress that scoops low at her chest and hugs every single curve of her body, as if it was painted on her skin.
Her high heels are the same, pencil thin and fucking ridiculously high. Her hair is down, curled and hanging long. Her makeup is fucking perfect.
She looks exactly like a porcelain doll, perfectly created for a man like me.
“Why are you down here?” I snap.
Her eyes widen and something is off. She looks high. Really fucking high. Her lips tip up into a grin and she shrugs a shoulder as she continues down the stairs.
“Hungry,” she explains. “I know the cook isn’t here, so I’m going to grab some leftover fruit that she usually leaves for me in the fridge. Is that okay with you, Master?” she asks, whispering the last word, which goes straight to my aching cock.
Fuck.
“This is Ermanno. He’s my Underboss. He doesn’t exist to you. Nicola doesn’t exist to you either,” I snap to him.
Ermanno clears his throat, chuckling under his breath. “Understood,” he mutters.
“Whatever,” Nicola says, lifting her hand with a wave.
I clench my fist at her dismissive demeanor. Fuck her. The doorbell rings as her ass sways with each step she takes away from me.
I growl, turning around and stomping toward the door. Wrenching it open, I find Costa standing there, his eyes wide as he looks into my obviously angry gaze.
“Everything okay, Boss?” he asks with a gulp.
I grunt, stepping to the side. It only takes me a moment to introduce Ermanno, then I explain that a crew is coming to strip furniture out of some of the rooms, but we need to sit down and discuss operations, men, and get a game plan together for the meeting with the soldiers tonight.
I don’t see Nicola once my meeting with Costa and Ermanno begins, but I can’t get her out of my head. The look in her eyes, it was so different than yesterday.
She was riding a high, I’m just not quite sure what kind, yet. I will find out, though. That is something she’ll never be able to hide from me, not once this truly begins again for us.
“There are going to be at least a hundred men here tonight,” Costa announces.
“I want them put in groups. I want to know who will fall in line, who is on the fence, and who will absolutely never bow to me, to Gavino, or to the Zanetti famiglia. Are there any of your own men that you don’t trust? This takeover is huge, and they have never been at the helm of a true takeover like this before, hell, none of us have,” I explain to Costa.
He nods his head a couple of times, then clears his throat. “I have a few that will probably have issues with the change because they were extremely loyal to Mauro Junior. Other than that, I think that most will take the shift in stride.”
Ermanno shifts to his feet, then runs his hand through his hair. “You need your own Consigliere as well. Are there any trustworthy men with law degrees?” he asks, turning toward Costa.
“I killed four out of five Capos, Ermanno. The original Consigliere is with Gavino, being interrogated. I have a feeling he won’t be making it back. We’re running a complete fucking skeleton crew here, fratello.”
The doorbell rings, and I jump to my feet, knowing exactly what waits for me on the other side of the door. Both men watch me cautiously, but I can’t help but add a little bounce to my step. I can’t wait to tear open the boxes that are waiting for me.
Practically ripping the door off the hinges, I wrench it open and grin at the sight of the dozens of boxes that are all stacked neatly in front of me.
“What the fuck’s all that?” Ermanno asks.
Slowly, I turn my head, looking back at him over my shoulder. “This is my new security system.” I grin. “This place doesn’t have shit. Apparently, old man Mauro didn’t have any sort of system set up, probably figured his name alone would keep him safe,” I snort.
“We all know how that shit turned out,” Ermanno needlessly points out.
Costa’s gaze shifts from the security system, then back to me. He nods once, taking a step back. “I’m going to start making a list of names,” he mutters.
I watch him, wondering how much I can truly trust the man. He’s acting strange, I have a feeling that he knows something that he should probably tell me. I’ll find out eventually. When I do, he’ll suffer the consequences for not telling me before I find out on my own.
Ermanno helps me drag the boxes into the house and I close the front door behind me. “Fuck, you know how to install all this shit?” he asks, looking around at the boxes.
I grin, lifting my gaze to his from my hunched position on the floor. “This is my favorite part of the job.”
“Why the fuck are you here trying to be a Boss then?” he asks, his brows furrowed in the middle.
I bark out a humorless laugh. “Mainly because Gavino demanded it. He thinks because I have some kind of past with Nicola that this is a good fit for me.”
“But it’s not?”
“What I feel for Nicola isn’t what I would consider a past and if he realized the extent of the hate that I carry around for her, he wouldn’t have me here. Principessa or not, if I get the opportunity and probable cause to kill the cunt, I’m taking it.”
Ermanno blinks, his eyes widening at my lie. I couldn’t kill Nicola, not even in my most enraged state could I physically hurt a hair on her head. I fucking love her too goddamn much and I hate that. I hate that I can’t hate her, no matter how hard I try.
“You shouldn’t talk like that, she is a principessa, Boss.”
NICOLA
“She’s no longer a principessa, Ermanno. She’s my possession until I grow tired of her and send her elsewhere.”
His words send a shiver of dread down my spine. My earlier high from visiting with Q last night is now completely gone.
The stress and anxiety from yesterday has returned, one-hundred fold. Maybe I should call Q and ask him for help.
I’m sure that he would get me out of here, hide me, do whatever I needed to be free. He’s the only person to ever care for me.
Squaring my shoulders, I clear my throat. “No, he can talk about me any way that he likes. He’s not wrong. I am no longer a principessa. My father is dead, so is my brother. In fact, all of my blood family is gone. So, my future belongs to the man who takes over in my father’s place, which is Benicio.”
I watch as Benny shakes his head once, before he turns and stands to his feet. Maybe the head shake is because he feels shitty for being caught, but when his gaze meets mine, there is not a single ounce of guilt in his expression.
He doesn’t give a fuck.
I am nothing but a possession to him, just like he keeps reminding me. I don’t think it matters how much love and kindness that I show him. He’s never going to see me as anything but a traitor, a b
itch who betrayed him, and a thing.
“Why are you down here?” he demands.
Lifting the empty fruit bowl in my hand, I gesture toward the kitchen. “Putting my bowl in the sink,” I offer.
Benicio grunts, crossing his arms over his chest. I watch as he tilts his head to the side. “Whatever shit you were snorting this morning. Don’t do it anymore. I don’t fuck addicts, so you better stay clean.”
I blink in surprise from his words. “I don’t snort anything, Benicio. I’m still the same person that I was two years ago. I don’t do drugs and I don’t drink hard liquor. I can’t believe that you think I’ve changed so much.”
He narrows his gaze on me, his eyes never leaving mine as his jaw clenches. “I didn’t know you two years ago, zoccola. I’ve never known you. All I know are the lies that you told me so that you could betray me and my famiglia.”
Pain slices through my heart at his words. My entire body aches that he thinks he didn’t have the real me when we were alone. He had all of me, more than anyone else has ever seen. More than Q sees. Benicio has always had my entire heart—my everything.
“I’ll just… I’ll go, but I’ve never done drugs, Benny.”
Without another word, I turn away from him and his man. Making my way into the kitchen, I gently place the bowl in the sink and grab ahold of the edge. Dropping my head, I inhale a deep breath, then let it out through my nose.
“You need help?” Costa’s voice calls out in a hushed tone.
Turning around quickly, I lean my ass against the counter, I watch him for a brief moment. “No,” I lie.
He arches a brow, aware of my lie. I don’t know him, not really. I know that he’s married and has a couple of children. I know that my father arranged the marriage to strengthen a bond with the city planning department, specifically the head of the zoning committee.
My father may have been a mean bastard, he was old school, but he wasn’t completely stupid. He paid attention to who he needed in his back pocket, and city planning and zoning is one of the most important key elements when you’re trying to get a new business started to launder money for the famiglia.
I may be a naïve principessa, but I’m not stupid and I always, always, listen when men talk.
“I’ll help you, Nicola. Whatever you need, I’ll give you.”
If Costa thinks that I don’t know what he’s offering, then he’s lost his damn mind. Maybe he has anyway, since he’s offering it to me just one room from where Benicio is working. I blink, unsure of exactly how to answer him.
“Where’s your wife?” I ask.
He smirks. “You don’t need to worry about her. She keeps to herself, or rather, I keep her in the dark.”
“So what, I’d be your comaré?” I ask.
He shrugs a shoulder, taking another step toward me. He’s careful not to be too close, he can’t touch me from where he stands, but he doesn’t need to physically do anything, his heated gaze is enough to make me feel supremely uncomfortable. And a little sick to my stomach.
“That’s what you’ll be to him, no?”
“It doesn’t matter what she is to me, Costa,” Benicio roars.
Costa spins around, but I don’t miss the immediate look of panic in his eyes before he does. He’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and I know without a doubt that he won’t make it out of here alive.
Not that I think he should die for asking me to be his whore, it’s not really that bad of an offer. I mean, what difference does it make who I spread my legs for at this point?
I wanted to be different, to break out of that mold that my father spent my entire life shoving me into. But I can’t. I should just accept that I’ll always be someone’s whore, that is, until I’m of no use to anyone and am killed, just like my mother was.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Costa shouts.
I snort at the same time Benicio does. I watch as he tugs his gun out of his shoulder holster and points it directly at Costa’s forehead. Shifting to the side, I decide that I don’t want blood and brain all over my pretty light pink dress.
“Not too far now, Nicola,” Benny grinds out.
“Just trying to save my clothes from bloodstains,” I drawl.
He smirks and shakes his head once before he jerks his chin to the side. I use it as my opportunity to hurry away from Costa.
“What about your wife? I thought you never partook in the offerings of Mauro, because you loved her? I thought you wanted to live, because you loved her?” Benicio asks.
He looks cocky, like he knows something that he shouldn’t. This is the Benicio that I remember, the one who is so damn smart, knows so much about this business and everyone else’s around him, that he’s simply mesmerizing.
This is one of the versions of him that I fell in love with. The one that owns my heart is still the man that he was when he was buried inside of me, his dark blue eyes stormy and full of intensity when he came.
That’s the man that will forever own every part of me. Too bad I’ll probably never be able to tell him that, not that he would believe me, even if I tried.
“His wife was an arrangement. She’s the daughter of the head of the city planning zoning committee. I’ve only met her once, she seemed nice enough. A little round, but she smiled a lot and was in awe of Costa here,” I state.
Costa growls, but doesn’t look at me. His focus is on Benicio and nobody else.
“What happens if he dies?” Benny asks.
He’s looking directly at Costa, but he’s really asking me. I’m sure that he already knew all of this and right now he’s testing me.
Not only does he want to know what I know, but he’s also trying to find out if I’m going to tell him the truth or try to betray him again.
“Right now?” I ask, but don’t wait long enough for him to give me an answer. “There are three pieces of property that the famiglia is trying to buy. Luckily, they’re in my name because my father always puts everything in my name, that way he won’t be responsible for them if he gets caught and I’ll be the one with my neck out,” I explain.
Benicio’s gaze slices to me, but I don’t stop my speech, nor do I take the time to try and figure out what that look in his eyes means.
“My father was planning on making one a cement plant, the other a gravel crushing plant, and the third was going to be storage units. I thought it was a little cliché and old school, but that’s who my dad was.” I shrug. “Escrow has closed on all three properties, we’re waiting for zoning and permits.”
“You know a fuck of a lot more than you should,” Benicio growls.
“Yeah, well, everyone thinks I’m a stupid zoccola.”
Without another word, I begin to walk toward the door that leads outside. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to witness another man dying in front of me.
My calm, my emotional release from last night is all but gone. I’m a ball of pent up anxiety and I don’t like how that makes me feel—how Benicio makes me feel.
Closing my eyes, I inhale a deep breath, enjoying a moment of silence. I have a feeling that Benicio leaving me alone, is a concept of the past.
He’s not going to allow me to live in solitude upstairs, not now that he knows I’m competent in my father’s dealings.
Chapter Six
BENICIO
I silently curse to myself, hating that Nicola thinks that about herself. That she thinks that is how I see her, as a dumb whore.
I know I’ve called her one to her face, I know that I’ve thought it on multiple occasions, but I hate that she thinks that about herself. Because the reality is that she is anything but that.
I’m such a goddamn hypocrite.
“What were your plans?” I bark, keeping my gun trained on the asshole as Nicola slips out into the back yard.
He narrows his gaze on me, his face full of nothing but fury. “You aren’t treating her right,” he snaps. “She’s a principessa. She just escaped her fucking fath
er, and now you’re here to treat her the same way. Whore her and use her? I don’t like it and I won’t stand for it.”
I blink at his words. Unsure that he’s really said what he did, and he’s said it with conviction. “By using her for yourself, you were going to treat her right, somehow?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, you fucking asshole. I was offering her protection. I love my wife. Yes, it was arranged, but my offer for helping her last night was turned down by you, I was just trying to help her.”
“Nicola is not your concern any longer. Right or wrong, she’s mine and only mine. She doesn’t exist to you in any capacity from this moment on.”
Costa narrows his eyes as I lower my gun and shove it back in its holster. I don’t know why I’m not going to kill him.
Maybe I’m getting softer, but the fact that he was so adamant that he loved his wife, that meant something to me.
I’m going to keep a really fucking close eye on him from now on, but he’s not going to die, yet.
“Go and finish your list,” I grunt.
Turning from him, I don’t go back into the formal living area and foyer to finish unpacking all of my equipment. Instead, I follow behind Nicola and make my way outside.
She’s standing not too far away from the door, her feet at the edge of the concrete patio as she looks out at the lush grass, pool, and gardens.
“I didn’t hear a gunshot go off,” she says without turning around.
Clearing my throat, I step up behind her, but don’t touch her. “That’s because I didn’t kill him,” I say as I look out at the serene grounds.
“Why?”
I hum, thinking about how I want to proceed with this conversation. “He didn’t want to keep you as his side-piece,” I explain. “He wanted to save you from me. Although stupid, I found it admirable. So, for now, he lives.”
“Until he pisses you off about something else?”
Chuckling, I lift my hand and tug on a piece of her soft hair. “Maybe.”
Becoming his Possession: A Zanetti Famiglia Novel Page 5
