“Really?” I say to him. I’m trying to be stern, but I can’t when I’m highly amused. “You should know better than to do that to me, Maverick.”
“You dominating little bitch,” he cusses and leans forward so fast I’m caught unaware when he grabs me and turns himself while forcing me onto his lap. He now sits like a normal passenger, me teetering over his knees. “We’re both running this.”
He drags me forward, hands solidly gripping on my waist, my knees hitting the seat on either side of him. He penetrates me whole, and my head flies back. Fuck. I forgot how good this felt, I forgot what sex with a man I felt something for was like. I forgot that sense of euphoria that sizzles in my veins and short wires my brain. He awakens me with a quick withdrawal and a harder penetration, and my head flies back down. My hands fall, palm down, against his chest and I begin to join the motion of welcoming a heavenly state for the both of us. I grind on him, forcing his length in and out of me, my body weakening with rapid speed.
“Fuck,” I mutter in breathlessness, and end up gripping the back of the seat as I bounce upon his length with an eager hunger. Our speed is rushed, but the looming ecstasy that is steaming up the windows of the car is all worth it. He plunges so deeply into me; my breath is stolen each time. I have no time to ready for the next, even when I’m the one forcing his penetrations.
As ecstasy rushes through my veins, heating me, forcing me to convulse around him pleasantly, yet he still doesn’t slow for a moment. My orgasm forces an unnatural bark of insane bliss to unravel from my throat. My hand hits the windows to our right, dragging down across the condensation misting the glass, leaving my handprint behind as I crash down from cloud nine. As my orgasm begins to dwindle, I feel Zane fill me as he cums, too. We’ve both now crashed and burned.
He reaches up, finally releasing his bruising grip on my hips, and cradles my face. “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Zane murmurs after his own comedown. “You’re made to cum because of me. No other man should know your body but me.”
“You ruined your chance to keep that, remember?” I ask him back. I know what we had was magnificent, but shards of bitterness still remain buried deep and that’s the problem with his actions – not all scars are on the surface. Zane’s are crisscrossed all over my heart. They penetrate deep and remind me to save a little piece of me just in case.
“I know,” he mutters unhappily. “But that was worth it, right?” he asks me as I sit, him still buried deep within me. “That was worth caving to. I dare you to tell me otherwise, Amelia. Tell me this was worth it.”
I falter and fall against his chest, wasted on lust. “It was completely worth it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Enzo was waiting for me when I finally got home.
I messaged him after Zane took me back to my car at the golfing range to let him know I was finally ready to come home. By then it was well past one AM, and I finally felt able to face my home after almost twenty-four hours away from it. It took delaying a late dinner and another midnight romp with Zane, but I finally had courage.
I try to mend my hair as I rush up the drive toward my eldest brother. He’s fixed me with an all-knowing look, and I just blush and look down. He starts to chuckle at me, but it’s drowned out by the thunderous boom of my father’s voice. It stops me dead in my tracks and I gulp. Looking up at Enzo, he gives me a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry,” he comments, putting his arm around me as he guides me into the house. “You can deal with him. Last night was a blip that he now regrets. He’s been going ballistic that he couldn’t find you.”
“How angry is his?” I ask warily and wonder if that’s a question I should allow myself insight for.
“I’ve been watching his face get redder for the past hour or so,” Enzo jokes and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Just stick with me. He knows exactly how I feel on the matter. I won’t be backing down if I think he’s beating you down.”
Knowing that Enzo is a solid ally on my side, I feel myself ease a tiny bit. Nothing could steal my nerves away on the walk to see my father for the first time since his malicious degradation from last night. I hate him for how small and unimportant he made me feel. I hate him for making me feel like he would even dare think to traffic his own kind because of one argument. A pit forms in my stomach and only loathing palpates from within. I loathe this man, but hate myself for not being able to break away.
Years of scare tactics has me overanalyzing a safe escape. My differing scenarios of running free are clouded by the murderous moments created by my father. His actions have all rendered me this twisted monster that has an intermittent conscience. While at times I feel for the men I kill, mostly. I feel most for myself and what will happen to me – and, consequently, them – if I don’t comply. I will kill, and I will follow my own motto to the extent that every dead body I leave behind, I leave a part of my humanity latched onto it. A piece of my soul blackens far more with just knowing I can breathe and live in peace for another day because I have done my part in the Dio Lavoro.
“Ahh, the prodigal Abbiati princess finally comes back,” Giovanni announces. His sarcasm laces my welcome home, and I roll my eyes. “You’re actually more pathetic after last night’s fun and games than I ever thought you would be.”
I ignore my brother, reining in my sharp tongue and repressing the witty comeback wanting to burst back at him. Instead, I focus on my father who stands with his back to me. From his stance, I can see that he is far from being a happy man. The anger radiates from him while he shakes with pure fury. I dread to think what I will be met with once he turns, seeing as I’m reduced to such a fearful state by just his back.
The silence now, ironically, resounding from him is deafening.
“So, we are good enough for you to come home to now?” My father’s voice carries small and low as he turns around. “Now you decide to come back home because you’re over your temper tantrum.”
His comments force me to laugh involuntarily. He has to be fucking kidding me right about now. I am moments away from full hysterics when Enzo nudges me to remind me to keep my cool. Shaking my head, I allow my laughter to die and fuel me.
“That’s a grand response,” I observe and resist every urge to clap my hands at him for added derision. “You really are in the running for father of the year, Papà.” I watch his jaw begin to pulsate as he clenches his jaw together in manifesting disdain to my sudden rush of confidence. “Don’t get angry again, we know what sleazy tactics you now lower yourself to!” I watch as my words only fuel the hate firing in his eyes. The flickers of aggression lick at his pupils, dilating them further. “Going to try and sell me again?” I ask, daring to look the devil straight in the eyes.
“That was for your own good,” he states, unable to take the malice setting into his tone. It’s so fierce, it’s ripping through his throat, declaring domicile in every piece of his being.
I laugh again. “For my own good?” I’m not on the brink of no return. My own anger won’t subside with his idiotic fucking reasoning. He can’t defuse the bomb he detonated within me. He has to hear everything I feel before I’ll even begin to do his work again. He needs to let me explode or God help him. “Do you know how fucking unloved you make me feel? How alone you proved I was when Enzo or Carlo aren’t here? Between you and Gio, you sold me out when you even presented me to those men against my own will. A real father doesn’t do that to his own child who he professes to love.”
“I do love you, but I will not tolerate your behavior over this hit!” my father argues back, and it’s all so futile – I am not prepared to let him win.
“And I won’t tolerate being called expendable!” I blow, and it feels good to raise my voice and allow myself to be heard. Even though I feel my eyes blur, my vision swimming with my unshed tears, I don’t regret allowing my anger to truly show. These aren’t tears of fear or remorse. These are tears of unleashed fury that he has forced me to feel. “I’m a twenty-three-year-old
killer who does everything you ask. The one time I trip because there is far more on the line, I’m called a delinquent. You have stolen my entire life from me, and you don’t even seem to care that I am lost beneath trying to be something you won’t ultimately end up killing off.” I harden myself, bracing my heart to admit its finest truths. “And you should know one important thing here before you even think of trying to pawn me off or dispose of me. I love him with all my heart – that I know for sure now – but for you, I will kill him. I will do that because I fear you, Papà. I don’t worship you or admire you. I fucking fear you and that’s all on you.” I exhale and feel it vibrate with my fury before filling my lungs again. “So, be happy knowing I will never love you. And don’t think that I remain loyally by your side because I want to be.”
With my piece said, I turn to leave, but feel something left unsaid. Something that will really drive more silence into the room than there already is.
“And if you want to know something, I will remind you of our mamma, because she was the only one who loved us enough to keep us from all this shit!” I watch as he resists the wince that erupts at my words. He grimaces a little but keeps a hard face on. “So I know from watching you how unessential we all are for you. I don’t need a reminder, thanks.” I await a response, but it never comes. My father doesn’t even show any signs of forming a strategic comeback or game plan. “Oh, don’t tell me I’ve rendered the great Salvatore Abbiati silent?!”
I’m not met with the response I expected. As my father’s face falls, defeated before me, I’m not feeling accomplished. “You had better be on your best behavior tomorrow evening,” my father warns. “Now get out of my face.”
With eyes twisted in familiar anger, I narrow my gaze upon him and hiss my words at him, “Gladly.”
***
I toy with the vial of poison in my hand as I lean against the bar. My house has been transformed for the grand dinner party. This that marks the forty-fifth year since my father became the new Don in the untimely aftermath of his father’s death. My father, himself, was only eighteen. At sixty-three, some say he should look at retiring and throwing the reins of power to Enzo. My father is fiercely against any such thing. While he is still of sound mind and his mere presence delivers the fear of a thousand armies, he won’t budge.
I hate the thought, because in his retirement, my life becomes free.
Enzo has already vowed to see that I live a normal life – Manuel too. Our freedom is promised in the world Enzo will create. However, the menacing look in Giovanni’s eyes tells me he will do anything to rid the competition so he can resume the world of hell my father has conjured on earth.
I know that Giovanni would sharpen any blade of whatever knife he first laid a hand on if it was to stab into Enzo’s back. If the day ever arises, I will leave and face whatever the consequences after.
“What’s that?” I hear an unknown voice speak.
“Trust me, this is far too potent for a man of your stamina to handle,” I joke and hide the glass bottle away in my closed fist, not letting him take it.
“I can handle a little extra in my drink,” he continues. How can he be this fucking stupid? They all know about what I’m capable of, yet he is incessant to find out.
I’m getting tempted to go against my father’s wishes and kill a new target. Resisting, I turn to him, seduction beginning to exude from me. I lift my hand up and run my finger underneath his chin, deliberately allowing my nail to trail along. “Believe me, Handsome, this is not made for you.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one to decide that?”
“No,” I respond softly, dropping away from his personal space.
I excuse myself and head up the stairs. I don’t go far; just distance myself enough so I’m not in the thick of this dinner party all evening. I stand up on the balcony that circles the second floor of the house, allowing an overview of one of the main rooms. Every male in the room looks so pleased to be here, but little do they know, one of them is a target in tonight’s grand plan.
I sigh. It’s on evenings like tonight when I feel like a mob princess. Everyone expects me to be regal and elegant with a smoking gun in my clutch purse. Except, I am very much unarmed – both mentally and physically. I may dress for the part, talk the talk, and walk the walk, but I am not anything like my father thinks I am.
To Salvatore Abbiati, I am weak, delinquent, and expendable. That’s not how I view myself. Selfishly, I think of myself as strong, a fighter, a dreamer. I have to possess some strength to be here fighting for dreams I know one day will be mine. I may carry the burden of weakness on my shoulders, but that’s only because of my fear of faltering and falling too far out of line. I am weak for allowing my father to get so far into my head that I became a killer, but I will not mistake my strength that has begun to spark in me. I never used to talk back to my father like I have been. Zane Maverick has a lot to answer for and a lot to be praised for. Ever since our first meeting, he has both built me up and destroyed me, and apparently, the past is set to repeat itself.
“Amelia.” My father’s voice vibrates through the air behind me. I’m almost hesitant to look, but I don’t allow myself to be a petulant child. When I turn, I see him gaze at me, rendered silent once again by me. I must be getting better.
“What?” I ask, my attitude getting the better of me. “You have guests waiting for your company downstairs.” I see him remain unresponsive, but he just stares at me. “What is it?” I ask, looking down at my dress, scared to see I’ve ruined it.
“Nothing,” he utters, his eyes softening. “You look so much like your mother. I always believed you were made in her beauty.”
I look down at myself again and run my hands nervously over my waist and hip. The dress is beaded all over and a light in cream color. It’s an absolute beauty of a dress. It sits just on my shoulders and has a dramatic scoop drop to the back of it. The dress itself drapes around me until it feathers out considerably. My father likes me to be a princess at these events, and he mastered it by having this dress shipped in from Milan.
“I know when you’re trying to sweeten me up,” I remark coldly and don’t take the bait he’s offered.
“I’m past that now,” he comments back to me. “It’s the truth that you are a replica of her.”
“Let’s hope that doesn’t place a deathly mark on me,” I mockingly lash out and realize I need to go downstairs and do my job. “I have a hit to do before dinner. I’ll see you back down there, Papà.”
He doesn’t hinder my leaving or speak up, just lets me go and I appreciate it. I cannot stand to be around him for much longer than I deem necessary and this had gone over what I’m comfortable with right now.
He’s trying, I know he is, to make me feel like he had before – the apple of his eye. However, he broke all sorts of unspoken and unwritten rules when he presented me to men who just wanted a piece of female meat to get greedy over. I, no longer, feel like I am something he prides himself with when I have let myself foolishly be led by a beating heart.
I take the stairs slowly, scanning the room step by careful step. I’m looking for my next hit. Even though my father is wining and dining, he is also using this to mark the fact he is still the powerful leader. I see my target standing on the sidelines, nervously looking around at what’s to come. It’s his first dinner at the Abbiati mansion, and sadly, it’ll be his last.
“Here,” I tell him on approach and pull the small bottle from my bag. I shake it and smile. “It’s liquid ecstasy. It’ll help loosen you up. You look like you could use it.”
“I’m not sure,” he rebukes the offer.
“It’s an Abbiati mix.” I watch as he remains unmoved and sigh, roll my eyes, and prepare to win him over. “Look,” I say popping the lid. “If it was that bad for your health, would I do this?” I ask him and pour a few drops into my own champagne. Briefly, I close the lid up and use my strawberry to swirl the champagne together. “I like to let it set in. The alcoh
ol and the ecstasy are a slow release. If you’re looking for a quick release, just mix it and down the glass. It’s an instant soother.”
“Dinner’s about to be served. Do not keep me waiting!” My father’s death tone resonates, and I put my finger up to ask for one more minute. He grants it graciously and goes back to where we will be eating.
Turning my attention back to Max, I watch him look even more nervous than before my father had spoken up. “Well?” I ask after taking note of Max’s jumpy behavior. “It’ll calm you. Trust me. I’m the nice one of the family.”
“No, you’re a killer,” he counters.
“Touché,” I joke and smile before continuing, “But only to those who have done wrong to my father. Have you disrespected him?”
I know he has – it was in the brief – but he shakes his head at me and looks so young and misguided by trying to make it to the league of bad guys.
“Then,” I start, popping the lid and pouring the rest of the tiny bottle’s contents into his drink, “Drink up and lets go eat.”
He does so, and I watch as he gulps down an entire flute of champagne. We head toward the dining room, and I place my hand on his back to guide him. Once done, I take his champagne glass from him and place them both on the tray held by the waiter waiting at the entryway.
I push Max in the direction of his seat and go to take my own next to Manuel and our family friend, Nicolas Carlisle. We all sit, champagne already served and I pick mine up as I wait for our father to start speaking.
Standing, my father grabs his glass and holds it up to start his speech. “I’d like to thank you all for coming together to celebrate my forty-fifth anniversary since being left in charge of the Abbiati family business.” He wears a massive smile on his face, acting charismatic and friendly. “It’s amazing how we’ve evolved over the years, and I’m pleased to welcome new faces to the ranking.”
Everyone looks amongst themselves, pleased at how they’re still able to sit here and be a part of it all.
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