Loretta grows more fidgety the closer we get to her building. I shouldn’t begrudge her for her reactions, but her flippant, mocking words wedged deep within my chest and wounded my pride.
She has no reason to believe me, but goddamn, her denial rankles.
Which only proves how stupidly head over heels I am for her.
Realizing my emotions may put the Russo family in danger, I tuck them deeper inside me and force myself to view the situation through a lens of logic.
She works at the clinic—as an anesthesiologist, of all things—the Dorian gang, who cleans up after the Russians, shot up eight months after Nico Russo’s bride’s kidnapping.
Whatever she’s hiding in her apartment won’t be hidden for very long. I’ll figure out why she’s so nervous.
My personal feelings are irrelevant. She’s mine, but that won’t stop me from protecting my family from her.
I pull up to the security guard post in front of her parking lot, reach into the backseat, and plop her purse into her lap. She takes it and pulls out whatever identification the pudgy old man needs. He looks between her and the card a few times before giving me a skeptical once-over.
“I never thought I’d see the day you brought a man home, Miss Loretta,” he says. “Isn’t your car already in the lot?”
With red staining her cheeks, mia gattina leans over me and offers the old man a wicked smile, but by the tightness in her eyes, I know the man is about to be squashed under her dainty heel.
“Of course it is, Gary. I wouldn’t take that crappy thing to a bar, and I’m kind of insulted you think I’m that much of a cold-blooded bitch.”
“That isn’t what I meant, miss! I swear! With how often your sister brings men home, I thought… anyway, I’m sorry you feel insulted. It won’t happen again,” he stutters.
I slip my hand up mia gattina’s taut back and cup her nape.
“I’d ask if you want me to take care of the geezer for you, but it seems you’ve got it handled all on your own, amore mio,” I growl.
The old man’s pupils shrink as he deciphers my very thinly veiled threat. Loretta shifts her gaze to mine.
Her ashen pallor and distant expression send alarm through me.
I guide her back into her seat, take her card from the guard, and park the car.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head and rolls her shoulders as though she’s getting ready to spar.
“Nothing. Let’s get this over with,” she grumbles.
Not willing to push her further when the possibility of her hiding crucial information in her apartment could crumble our already rocky foundation, I exit the vehicle and open the trunk. She swings her purse onto her shoulder and waits by the hood while I yank the bags out.
Despite her awareness of her surroundings, she keeps her gaze trained on our path, staunchly ignoring me as she scans her key at the door. She leads me into the building, through the foyer, and to the elevator without so much as a glance.
We ride up to her floor in silence, but the guard’s words replay in my mind.
“I thought you said you don’t live with your sister,” I say as we exit the elevator.
Her shoulders rise and she spares me a glare out of the corner of her eye.
“I don’t.”
“Meaning?” I prod.
She sighs, stops in front of her door, and gestures across the hall.
“That’s her apartment. This is mine,” she says.
I quirk a brow.
Mia gattina is full of tricks. They may not be as vicious and deadly as her stepsister’s games, but she omits the truth well.
She didn’t lie when she said she doesn’t live with her twin, but she wasn’t fully honest, was she? Not once did she mention being neighbors. They share the same hall. The same workplace.
Her sister’s indifferent text messages hit harder with this new revelation.
Loretta scans her keycard and opens her door. A light clicks on, illuminating the foyer.
She swings the door wide and props it open with her back before gesturing inside.
I shake my head, grab her braid, and push her in front of me. She hisses and stumbles across the threshold.
“Act like I’m not here. Show me your normal routine,” I demand.
She sends me a withering glare over her shoulder before tossing her purse onto the shelf and dropping onto the narrow bench. The leashed fury in her every move as she toes off her shoes and shoves them under the bench with her heel relays her thoughts loud and clear. I step inside and close the door behind me. After a few seconds, the lock beeps and the sound of a bolt sliding home echoes from behind me.
Loretta gives my shoes a pointed glance before she rises and pulls the tie from her hair. Displeasure roars through me until she stalks deeper into her apartment. The sway of her hips and deft movements of her hands as she destroys my braid and fluffs her hair over her shoulders nearly has me disgracing myself.
She gathers her hair into a bun, yanks her socks off her feet, and snatches a pair of boxing gloves from the wall.
When I realize she took my words literally and is doing what she normally does when she gets home as though I’m not here, I can’t help but smirk.
She’s playing so dirty. I love it. Too much.
I drop the bags beside the table, sit on the bench, pull my shoes off my feet, and fit them beside hers before following the familiar sound of gloves striking a bag.
Sure enough, Loretta throws punch after punch against a full-sized freestanding punching bag in what should be the breakfast nook on the far side of the kitchen. She pauses, shakes out her arms, and meets my gaze across the room.
“Act like I’m not here. Do your normal search and destroy thing,” she quips.
I cross my arms over my chest and watch as she goes back to hitting the bag.
Her form is exquisite. She shifts her weight with agile footwork and follows through with each punch, and as I watch her, I wonder how much she held back over the last twenty-four hours.
She’s not even showing me everything now, either. By her carefully measured speed and her reluctance to veer from a specific set of combinations, I realize she might beat me in the ring if we followed official rules.
Which we won’t. Ever. I’ll never play fair. Not with her.
She’s mine. I’ll win every time, no matter what it takes.
After a few minutes, she pulls one hand out of her glove and retrieves a water bottle from the fridge. With a derisive lift of her brow, she questions my mental capacity before swigging half the bottle down.
I fight back a grimace as I imagine the cold water sliding into my stomach and infecting my chest. Although I’m healed from my surgery eight months ago, sudden temperature changes can be uncomfortable.
I saunter to the counter and settle onto a barstool to watch the show. Mia gattina does not disappoint, even though she doesn’t deviate from the combination she began with. Her sheer stubbornness as she pushes through the burn intrigues me. As sweat gathers on her temples and drips down her nape, lust builds in my veins.
Before my joggers lose the battle with my rising cock, I rise and stride to the fridge.
Bottles of water line the middle shelf. Condiments and sauces sit in neat rows on the top shelf. Cheeses and deli meats wait in their caddies. Eggs fill the plastic container on the door. Fruits and vegetables have their own separate drawers. Two glass containers hold leftovers.
I’ve never seen a fridge so rigidly organized. It’s well stocked but not full of unnecessary ingredients, and every surface gleams with cleanliness. I glance at Loretta over my shoulder. If she notices, she doesn’t give me any signs.
I close the fridge and open the freezer. The same meticulous organization glares back at me. She has the ingredients to make a dozen different dishes with no need to run to the store. None are anywhere near their expiration date. All the labels sit in clear view.
I close the freezer. A knot lodges in my gut, but I ignore it and open all the cabinets.
Is mia gattina a neat freak? Can she not stand superfluous food in her house? Or is she constantly ready to entertain a guest as soon as the doorbell rings?
I realize it extends beyond food when I move into her living room. She seems to have only items with multiple uses. The couch is one of those modular abominations with barely any back support and so low to the ground my knees may as well be in my armpits when I sit. The coffee table lifts to become a dining table. The lamps swivel in all directions. Even the remote is a universal monstrosity for her sound bar, TV, and the gaming console perched on the entertainment system.
The knot in my gut tightens at the set of two identical throw blankets and pillows.
My suspicion grows as I stalk into the hall to the first door on the right.
I hope it’s the guest room. With a boring painting over the headboard and a pastel linen set on the bed—complete with bed skirt and five decorative pillows—and a single vase with faux flowers on the dresser, it looks like something straight out of a magazine. I open the closet and bite back a curse when every surface sparkles. Not a speck of dust infects the shelves. Two hangers hold a set of pajamas and a set of scrubs, but the rest are empty.
With growing aggravation, I stomp back into the hall. Loretta continues pounding on the bag. The bathroom proves just as spotless as the rest of the apartment.
An unexpected wave of anxiety crashes into me as I wrap my digits around the door handle to the last room in the apartment.
If what I suspect is true, then my kidnapping of mia gattina is unfathomably tragic, but if her room is just as tidy as the rest of the apartment, then I’ve lost my touch and should tell Nico Russo he needs a new consigliere.
Which is not a thought I form lightly, not even to myself.
I twist the handle and swing open the door.
Bright colors nearly blind me as I flick the lights on. Dozens of pillows and stuffed animals fill the bed. I step forward and lift the edge of the comforter, unsure what to make of the material, and furrow my brow in confusion when heavy beads shift within the layers. The bedside table nearest the bed overflows with books and medical articles. Snack wrappers and empty water bottles fill the trash can. A few teeter on the rim, ready to join the others that didn’t quite make it into the bag.
Papers, pens, unopened snacks, sticky notes, and other office supplies lie scattered over her desk. Three empty purses hang off the back of her desk chair, while another two dangle from the closet door handle.
Mostly scrubs fill the hangers in her closet—each design just as colorful and unique as the set she wore when I captured her—but the far section holds a decent amount of clothes for different occasions. Clean workout clothes overflow the fabric bins lining her shelves. A few mismatched socks lie tucked in the spaces between.
I turn and scan the room.
Some may call it messy, especially compared to the rest of the apartment, but all I see is Loretta’s true character.
She’s not a neat freak. Nor is she compulsively meticulous. If anything, she devotes everything when she’s focused on a subject. The snack wrappers on the floor and the open medical articles prove it—even without seeing her in action, it’s clear she missed the trash because she refused to look away from what she was reading.
I squat and lift the comforter again to look under the bed. When I can see through to the other side, I confirm my suspicion. There are no dust bunnies, but the floor isn’t spotless like the rest of the apartment.
Mia gattina will always put her sister before herself. Whatever Livia wants, Loretta will ensure she gets it.
It’s Livia who prefers a clean house. Loretta’s bedroom is her only sanctuary away from the world. Her only safe place from her sister’s cold shoulder.
Knowing mia gattina, though, she’d scrub the place in a heartbeat if Livia asked for it.
I grind my teeth at the thought until I realize I’m as despicable as her twin.
She didn’t invite me, yet here I am, standing in the middle of her sanctuary. No wonder she was burying her boxing gloves so hard into the punching bag. Her anger needs an outlet.
I want to be her outlet. I want her to give me everything. Her pain. Her secrets. Her body. Her heart.
If it means being her punching bag, so be it. I pull my shirt off over my head and drop it onto her bed, covering several of her stuffed animals, and stalk back into the kitchen.
Her eyes widen when she looks over her shoulder at me, and I realize this is the first time she’s seen me without a shirt. She drops her hands and steps away from the bag.
Despite the questions lurking in her eyes as she studies the scars on my chest, she doesn’t ask.
“Do you have sparring pads?” I ask.
She shakes her head, rips open the hook and loop strap on her left glove, pulls her hand free, and sucks down the rest of her water before responding.
“I don’t have gloves your size either. Other than a few things in the front closet, what you see here is what I have.”
She gestures to the wall. Despite being tucked in the breakfast nook and out of sight of the living room, every item has a designated spot.
Satisfaction sparks in my chest as I study her collection. She lacks gear for couple or group activities. It’s all for solo workouts.
Between this knowledge and the guard’s vapid comment, I decide mia gattina doesn’t invite men over to her apartment.
The thought of being her first sparring partner in the intimacy of her home invigorates me. I grab another water bottle from the fridge, crack it open, and hand it to my woman before running through a quick stretch and warm up.
“Are you ready, mia gattina?”
“Ready for what?”
“Take off the gloves. I deserve it for what I’ve put you through.”
“Excuse me? Why would I hit you when you’ve clearly warned me not to countless times already?”
Her incredulous tone feeds the feral beast lurking in my soul. I didn’t mean to insult her by telling her to take off her gloves, but I did. If it helps her take her frustrations out on me, then so be it.
I smirk and crack my neck before taking an ominous step toward her.
“If I’m going to make you pay for it anyway, don’t you want to make it hurt as much as possible?” I challenge.
Her expression blanks, and for a moment, I worry I went too far again, but she meets my stare with a challenge of her own and drops her gloves to the floor.
“Good girl. You gonna come get me, or do I need to chase you a bit first?”
“Don’t blame me later if you can’t handle it,” she snarls.
“Oh, don’t worry, gattina. I will,” I promise.
She darts toward me with surprising speed and pulls her right arm back.
I lift my forearm to block her, but she shifts her balance and jams her knee into my thigh.
Fuck. Maybe I underestimated her. I assumed mia gattina would play by the rules, but I should’ve realized she’s smarter than that.
Even as the minutes morph into an hour and beyond, she keeps her secrets close to her chest. One moment, she hits with the force of a full-grown man and shuffles backward as though in a boxing ring. The next moment, she pulls out some fancy footwork and dodges my every attempt to snatch her up, and when that doesn’t work and I rush toward her, she jabs me with knees and elbows in the most painful parts of the body. I avoid several debilitating blows to the groin by sheer desperation. When I finally pin her to the ground, she becomes a contortionist and somehow slips out from under me and almost locks me in an arm bar before I flip us over and squish her under my full weight. All the air whooshes from her lungs and she wheezes as she inhales.
“Feel better, mia gattina?” I ask.
Unapologetically winded, I heave and scramble to keep her under me as she wriggles and tests my balance. Her craftiness, unlike Julieta’s selfish conniving, is a breath of fresh air to my soul, and with the scent of her sweat and musk mingling within mine, my cock—which softened out of instinctual fear—throbs thicker with every heartbeat.
“Yeah, I do, but I’ll feel a lot better if you get off me,” she wheezes.
At least in this way, I fully understand her. The fortitude to never back down and the need to extol violence to shed stress resonate within every cell of my body.
Lighter than I’ve felt in months—fuck it, years—I rise and jump out of the way when she sweeps her foot toward me. She would’ve sprawled a lesser man on the floor again. I chuckle and hook my thumbs into my waistband as I saunter toward the bathroom.
“I’m done. Unless you’d like to continue this in the shower?” I suggest.
She rolls onto her back and lolls her head from side to side on the floor in answer, but a small smile pulls at her lips right before the wall blocks my view.
“Maybe next time,” she mumbles under her breath.
I back track and meet her eyes. The unfettered glint shining from her brilliant green orbs fills me with pride and yearning. To my surprise, she lifts three fingers—like what the fucking Boy Scouts do when they’re making a pledge—and smirks at me.
I nearly fall to my knees and crawl to her. She’s too perfect—too sassy—even as she throws my own words back at me.
I said nothing I didn’t mean.
Holy fuck, I might jizz in my pants. I hurry down the hall and shut the bathroom door between us before I embarrass myself worse than her stepsister ever could.
I shuck out of my pants and step into the shower as I turn the dial. Ice-cold water pelts me.
My cock doesn’t care. I brace my forearm on the wall and do something I haven’t done since puberty hit. To visions of mia gattina writhing and flushed underneath me, I stroke myself to completion and watch in breathless frustration as my cum drips down the tiles and swirls into the drain.
The next time I orgasm will be with my cock buried balls deep inside mia gattina.
Maybe I should drag her to the courthouse tonight. She’s mine, whether or not she wants to be, and I can’t wait to give her my last name.
Because fuck if I’m ever letting her go. The Giordanos don’t deserve her. She may love her twin, but Livia can’t have her anymore, not when she’s treated her with such disdain for so long. No one worth loving would put their family through that much emotional and mental torture.
I’ll give her everything. My name. My protection. My comfort.
Fuck, I’ll even give her my family. Not just the one I hope to build in the future, but the one I already have.
As soon as I marry her, the Russo family will earn another member.
When my heart leaps at the prospect, I know there’s no turning back.
Loretta Giordano is mine.
All mine.
