.
Have you ever held on to something, and not said anything, because you were worried about the fallout? Even though just saying it would 100% lift that weight off your chest?
Buckle up, because I think you know where this one is going.
I want to come clean about something. I know I’ve mentioned that my family is powerful, and dangerous. But I don’t mean dangerous like “don’t let Aunt Mildred get into the wine before noon” and I don’t mean powerful as in “dad is friends with the local police chief”.
I mean legitimately, lethally dangerous, and powerful on a global scale.
(This is me taking a deep breath…)
My family is mafia. Not a small-time one, either. The kind that you don’t even know exist unless it’s on the front page of the New York Times.
I hope that sound I hear isn’t the echo of your footsteps running the fuck away…
But if it is, I get it. Most people don’t really know what to do with that kind of information.
Remember that joke you made about sneaking in through my bedroom window to hang out when you just thought my father was “strict”?
Bet you’re rethinking that one!
Totally fair.
I just didn’t want to keep sidestepping it. You’ve been honest with me, and I didn’t want to build this whole thing on half-truths.
Besides, you’ve always struck me as someone who doesn’t scare easy.
So… still there?
-Me
NERO
The soft in and out of her breathing fills the quiet darkness of the room.
I stand in the shadows, watching her chest rise and fall. The sheets are half-kicked off, her legs tangled in them like she fought sleep before surrendering to it.
This is her pattern. She goes to bed like a little princess: brushes and flosses her teeth, does her nightly skin routine, brushes out her long, platinum blonde hair, gets under the covers and pulls them up to her collarbone, folds them back precisely straight. She falls asleep on her back, lips closed gently, hands clasped over her sternum like fucking Snow White after a bite of that shitty apple.
Three minutes later, once she’s asleep, that whole perfection routine goes to shit.
She twists. She turns. She kicks at the covers. Her limbs flail all over the place, and her mouth drops open.
I’ve come to enjoy the path from perfection to ruin that she takes every night as sleep drags her under.
I’ve certainly watched it enough by now.
Tonight, though, I’m not inclined just to watch. Not after she stood me up. After she defied me.
I step forward, slowly and silently, until I’m standing at the edge of her bed.
She’s on her back with the covers mostly off, one arm tucked under her head, the other resting on her stomach. As always, her tank top’s ridden up enough to show a strip of bare skin, and her shorts are bunched at her hips.
My fingers ghost over her cheek, then drift lower to her collarbone.
She doesn’t stir.
I trace the back of a finger down her side, brushing just enough against the side swell of her breast to make my cock stir. Then I bring my finger down to her ribs.
The air in the room shifts. Pulsing hunger ignites inside of me.
I hook a finger under the hem of her tank top and slowly lift it, dragging it higher up her ribcage. When I get it all the way to her breasts I use a second hand to lift it away from her body and ease it over the soft, creamy swell of her tits.
Her pale, almost ghostly pink nipples tighten as I expose them to the cool air. My cock twitches in response, already thick and swollen.
When I swirl a fingertip over one nipple, it hardens even more, pebbling against my touch, a soft sigh falling from her sleeping lips.
I groan in response, reaching down to cup my bulging erection in my pants.
I tease the other nipple, watching it harden like the first. My palm teases over her taut dancer’s stomach, relishing the way it caves under my touch.
My fingers slip into the waist of her shorts. I pull them a few inches lower, just enough to see her hipbones, the line of her stomach, the smooth expanse of skin.
She still doesn’t wake.
I pull them down further, taking her plain black panties with them. They slip off her hips and down her thighs until they slowly peel away from her pussy.
Pink. Delicate. Shaved bare.
Swollen, with a little bit of a glisten between her lips as her legs shift softly.
I grin hungrily.
Tell me what you’re dreaming about, princess…
The sound of my zipper is loud in the quiet room as I ease it down and reach inside. I take my cock in my hand and pull it out, stroking it thicker and harder, making it pulse and lengthen in my hand.
My eyes sweep over her as I start to stroke with fuller, tighter jerks of my hand. My eyes stay locked on her body: the way her lips part slightly in her sleep. The way her brow twitches like she’s dreaming.
About me? Or not?
I’ll have to make sure it’s the former. Always.
I roll one of her nipples between my thumb and forefinger—not enough to wake her, just enough to bring a soft whimper to her sleeping lips. Her chest rises, back arching against my hand as I bring the soft pink bud to a stiff point.
My hand drifts back down between her thighs. I stroke a finger over her lips, my dick twitching as I feel the dewy wetness there. The heat. The need.
I find her swollen clit and start to roll it gently in soft, slow circles. Milena’s brow caves slightly in pleasure, her mouth falling open a bit more. She moans softly, her body shifting and her hips rising a little.
My hand jerks my cock harder, my blood roaring in my veins as I let my eyes feast on her bare skin. My fingers roll her clit faster and faster. The wet sound of her eager little cunt fills the room. Precum beads on the thick, swollen head of my dick, and it drips down to splatter across her stomach.
Her hips move faster. Her breath catches and quickens. Her thighs clench and her stomach tightens as her greedy little pussy coats my fingers in her slick arousal.
“Yes…”
When she breaks, it’s like a wave cresting as her body arcs slightly off the bed, her breath catching and her swollen clit pulsing against my fingers as she shatters for me.
I’m right behind her.
I come with a slow, controlled exhale, spilling thick ropes of my white, sticky cum across her lower stomach. I groan, painting her flushed, swollen pussy with more of it, and then for good measure I aim higher, spilling it across her tits, watching the pearly white wetness trickle down over her pale pink nipples.
When I’m done, she’s a fucking mess, splattered with thick ropes of cum, from her tits down to her throbbing, pink pussy.
Messy and deliberate.
Perfection.
I let my breath quiet before I reach for her tank and tug it down. I pull her shorts and panties back into place, relishing the way my cum soaks through them.
She’ll know I was here.
Good.
By the time I get home, the sky’s starting to shift from pure black to the slight blue it bleeds into before dawn.
“Home” these days is actually home: as in, the one I grew up in on West 72nd and Central Park West—a towering building that’s a mix of gothic and mid-century modern next to the infamous Dakota Building, where John Lennon was shot.
I loved this house growing up. Loved that I could look out my bedroom window and gaze into Central Park. Loved being able to walk across the street to Strawberry Fields, the Central Park memorial to Lennon, and to the one next to it memorializing Iggy Watts from Velvet Guillotine.
I loved the joy in this house: my mother playing piano beautifully, my father singing terribly, my sister and I grinning from ear to ear as they serenaded us.
It was a happy home. It’s probably the only reason I survived what happened when I was thirteen. But these days, home is less a home and more a mausoleum. I still have warm memories of the place, but they’re mixed with the ache that comes with them. It’s become a crossroads where memories dance with ghosts.
After our parents were killed, and I was thrust from prince to king, I moved Gabriella and I out of this place and into a modern penthouse further downtown. She was about to start Knightsblood University anyway.
But a year ago, I moved back, mostly at the urging of Aldo, who thought it would be good for the empire if my seat of power was the same as my father’s.
He’s probably right. He usually is. Dominic is my consigliere, but Aldo was my father’s for decades, as well as his close friend. He will forever hold a place of immeasurable importance in this family, plus his intuition is flawless.
Just the same, a year in, I still don’t know how I feel about being back here. Gabriella has her own place in Soho—of course—which means it’s just me in this eighteen-thousand-square-foot memorial to a happier time.
Me and the ghosts, that is.
I walk in through the underground garage entrance, peeling off my jacket. Dom is waiting near the stairs like a silent watchdog, an unlit cigarette between his lips.
He doesn’t say anything at first, just lifts a brow when he sees me, a slightly amused expression on his face.
“You’re up early,” I mutter.
“You’re up late,” he fires back. Then his lips curl. “What’s her name?”
“Noneya.”
He frowns as he follows me through the house toward the kitchen.
“What the fuck is that?” He shoves his fingers through his thick dark hair and tucks the cigarette behind his ear. He runs a hand over his stubbled jawline, puzzled. “Greek? What’s her last name?”
“Business.”
I grin at him.
“Noneya Business,” he grunts. “Hilarious.”
“You asked.”
“I’m supposed to ask where you were when you get home at four in the fucking morning. It’s literally my job,” Dom scowls as I snag a glass and fill it with water.
“Pretty sure your job is to advise me,” I shrug, gulping the water down like I’ve spent ten years in the desert.
Apparently, watching Milena while she sleeps, running my hands over her body, and bringing her to orgasm before splashing her skin with my cum is dehydrating work. Who knew.
“Okay, then I’m advising you,” he mutters, “to keep me informed when you’re going to be out late under mysterious and non-communicative circumstances.”
I arch a brow. “What?”
“Non-communicative. Your fucking phone was off.”
I pull it out of my pocket and shrug. “Look at that. So it was.”
Wouldn’t exactly want my phone to start blowing up while I was rubbing Milena’s clit as she slept.
I glance back at Dom. “Still, I’m out late pretty frequently.”
“More than usual, recently.”
I stare at him. “I’m sorry, are you my consigliere or my babysitter?”
Dom grins. “Nero, I think we both know there’s a wildly blurred line between those. And I’m both, for the record.”
I snicker, rolling my eyes and refilling my glass.
Dom’s been a friend ever since we were kids. He’s only a few years older than me, but I swear it sometimes feels like a decade.
And yes, he frequently does act like my babysitter.
…Honestly, he frequently needs to.
Sharp jaw, slicked-back hair, tattoos, permanently suspicious blue eyes. If I’m the wolf, Dom’s the knife hidden in my sheepskin jacket.
“Well, to play consigliere for a sec,” he grunts, “Leo Debolsky wants a meeting.”
I pause, the glass halfway to my mouth. “With me?”
“And Gabriella.”
That elicits a bored laugh from me. “Of course he does.”
Leo was at Knightsblood at the same time as me. Same time as Carmine and Nico, too, as well as Roman, Mikhail, Bane, and Laz—although the four Russians went out of their way to avoid even being seen with Leo, despite their mutual backgrounds and the fact that their fathers did business together at some point.
Mostly because Leo was, and I would assume still is, a fucking douchebag. I’ve heard through the grapevine that he doesn’t drink anymore, though. That’s gotta be some kind of improvement.
But if he’s requested that my sister be there for the meeting too, it tells me Leo hasn’t found any sense of subtlety in his sobriety.
“This should be amusing,” I smirk, glancing at Dom. “What’s Gabby got tomorrow, schedule-wise?”
He shakes his head, scowling. “I honestly have no idea.”
I peer at him. “It’s part of your job to know.”
He folds his arms. “Yes, it is. And it would be a lot easier to do that job if she didn’t make a habit of ditching her security detail every other night.”
Fair. And accurate.
I set the glass down. “Make sure she’s here. I can guess what the fuck Leo wants.”
“Would that be something we don’t want to give him?” Dom mutters.
“Depends on how annoyed with her I am.”
He looks up sharply. “Wait—Gabriella? That’s what he’s after?”
“I mean, no offense to my sister, but why would he want her at the meeting too unless it was a marriage thing?”
Dom’s face darkens. “Leo Debolsky is—”
“A bag of dicks. I’m aware.”
“And Gabriella is your sister.”
“Also aware,” I sigh. “She’s a massive pain in the ass, too. If nothing else…” I shrug and grin at him. “It’d be leverage to get her to stop acting like a spoiled fucking brat all the time.”
Dom chuckles and shakes his head. “That should go over well,” he says dryly.
Just then, the front door to the house slams shut, and a few seconds later, Hurricane Gabriella makes landfall in the kitchen.
My sister and I are a lot alike. Same dark hair, same green eyes.
Honestly, same temperament.
Tonight, she blows in wearing a black leather jacket over what I guess some people might call a dress—tiny, sparkly, and very Gabriella. Her Louboutins click on the tile as she steps in, her hair half-falling out of its elaborate up-do and a sly, alcohol-fueled smirk on her painted red lips.
She looks like trouble incarnate.
“Oh, did you boys wait up for me?” she drawls.
She peels off her coat and tosses it over the back of a stool like it’s someone else’s problem. Then she opens the fridge, grabs a bottle of water, and downs half of it at once.
“Good morning, Gabby,” I drawl. “Please, come right in. Make yourself at home.”
She turns to shoot me a look. “It is my home, asshat.”
I sigh. “You’re always welcome here, just…a heads up would be nice.”
“Heads up,” she grins. “I need a place to crash for a few days. Maybe a week.”
“And… Why is that?”
Again, Gabby has her own very expensive place in Soho.
She shrugs. “I’m having my place painted.”
I arch a brow. “When?”
“Now?” She shrugs. “I think they just got there.”
I stare at her. “I’m sorry—what?”
My sister sighs dramatically as she puts the half-empty water bottle back in the fridge, closes the door and then leans against it.
“I was tired of the all-white look. And I was talking to this cute bartender tonight, and his cousin owns an interior painting company. So…” She spreads her hands. “I think I’m going to go with Atmospheric Encore. It’s this great jewel-tone blue—”
“Back up,” I growl, frowning. “You hired painters tonight to go to your fucking apartment and start painting?”
She gives me a “duh” look.
“It is my place, Nero.”
“And we have protocols for a reason, Gabriella,” Dom grunts, sighing.
I turn to him. “Get some people over there asap. Make sure those fuckers aren’t robbing her blind or installing cameras in the goddamn bathroom.”
Dom nods curtly, pulls out his phone and turns away to make a call. Gabby rolls her eyes at me.
“Is there a reason you think so little of me?”
“Well, hiring painters you met through your fucking bartender to paint your penthouse at four in the morning comes to mind.”
She flips me off. “I’m not stupid, Nero. I sent over some of that crew of bodyguards you insist on. They were there when the painters showed up. And if the job sucks?” She arches her brows. “Then I paint it back. It’s just money, Nero. I don’t think that’s exactly a rare resource with us?”
She sighs when my jaw tightens.
“Jesus, I was feeling spontaneous. So sue me.”
Dom walks back over, slipping his phone into his jacket pocket.
“In future, Ms. De Luca—”
“Yes, Mr. Caruso?” she fires back.
Dom inhales deeply. “In the future, if you’re feeling ‘spontaneous’, I’d ask that you kindly run it by me first. Especially if you’re sending members of your security detail off on unexpected errands.”
“Relax, Dom,” she says, walking over to the fruit bowl on the kitchen island. She plucks up an apple and takes a big, crunching bite out of it. “No security guards were harmed in the making of tonight’s bad decisions.”
“Glad to hear it,” he mutters, jaw ticking.
“Don’t be mad,” she coos, turning back to him. “I didn’t do anything dangerous.”
“Then why’d you ditch your detail?” he growls.
She shrugs. “Because they were boring?”
Dom’s mouth tightens and he doesn’t say anything as she steps close to him, just near enough to invade his space.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you missed me,” she teases.
“Go to bed, Gabriella,” he says flatly.
I clear my throat. “Woah—don’t you be giving my sister orders,” I growl.
He frowns, turning to me and shaking his head. “Sorry, boss.”
“No sweat,” I grin. “Just, that’s my job.” I turn to my sister. “Go to bed, Gabriella.”
Dom snickers next to me. Gabby flips us off with both hands, the apple between her teeth. She turns to saunter out of the room, then I stop her.
“Tomorrow,” I grunt. “Don’t make plans.”
“What if I have them already?” she asks, removing the apple.
“Cancel them. Leo Debolsky wants a meeting.”
She makes a face. “Gross. Leo’s a drunk asshole. Besides, I’m pretty sure business meetings with unsavory dickwads is your department, not mine.”
“Well, it’s yours tomorrow. Leo wants you there.”
She groans. “If this is some kind of arranged marriage thing, I swear to God—”
“Let’s just see what he has to say, okay? Be there.”
She rolls her eyes dramatically.
“Gabby—”
“I’ll be there, okay?” she sighs. “Goodnight, Nero.”
“’Night, Gabby.”
“Goodnight, Mr. Caruso,” she teases a still-scowling Dom in a sing-song voice.
When she’s gone, he turns to me.
“You think there’s any leverage in the world that would rein that in?”
“Nope,” I shrug. “But it’s going to be fun as fuck to watch her sit there while Leo tells her he wants her as his blushing bride.”
“I’d like to propose a marriage alliance between our families.”
That’s how Leo opens.
No hi-how-are-ya. No warmup. Just come out swinging, right out the gate.
I sit back in my chair, barely containing my sigh.
Called it.
Dom is next to me at the table, arms folded, face blank. Gabriella sits on my other side, legs crossed, twirling her hair like she’s the bored star of a reality show.
“You’re serious?” she asks, raising a perfectly manicured brow. “Like…marriage-marriage? Us?”
Leo smiles eagerly. “Yes! Look, Gabby—”
“It’s Gabriella,” she says flatly, even though almost everyone but Dom—who insists on calling her Gabriella, for some reason—calls her Gabby.
Leo nods. “Indeed. Well…Gabriella…I imagine you’ve got some preconceived notions of me. Things you’ve heard—”
“You asked me to blow you about seven seconds after you met me when you were visiting Knightsblood for a reunion,” she says flatly.
My eyes instantly rip from my sister to Leo. Next to me, Dom suddenly looks pissed as fuck too, his jaw tightening and his hand clenching to a fist.
“Excuse me?” I snarl coldly.
Leo sighs sadly. “You have my most sincere apologies, Gabriella. I haven’t had the best relationship with alcohol, and I’m ashamed of my past behavior.” He looks right at me. “I humbly beg forgiveness from both of you. It’s no excuse, but drinking brought out a bad side of me, and I no longer do. Drink, that is.”
Gabby’s lips purse as she fixes Leo with a beady look. “Apology…considered.”
He smiles, dipping his chin.
“Look,” Leo says. “I know it’s an increasingly outdated idea, but a marriage between your family and mine would make us unstoppable. I bring connections, Nero. Total access to Bratva circles. Let’s be honest—it’s still hard for Italian families to fully integrate with the Russians.”
I study him, my fingers tapping against the armrest of my chair.
“I bring so much to the table, Nero,” he presses. “Doors you can’t open alone. Opportunities it would be foolish to squander.”
He’s selling this, hard. But gradually I realize I’m not even listening, and not just because I knew before he walked in here that there was no way in hell I was going to trade my sister for any sort of alliance.
No, suddenly, I’m back in that bedroom, pulling back the covers, dragging my fingers along soft, flushed skin. Watching Milena move in her sleep when I touch her. Breathing in the smell of her. Listening to the sound she made when I brought her to the edge and then tipped her over it with just one finger.
“So, what do you say, Nero?” Leo asks, obnoxiously cutting into my daydreams of Milena’s pretty, pink pussy.
“I’ll think about it,” I say flatly.
Gabby chokes on a laugh. “Wait. What!?”
Dom glares daggers at me. I hold up a hand and turn back to Leo.
“I will think about it,” I growl. “Zero promises.”
He smiles widely. “Of course. I appreciate you taking the time to consider it. Look, Nero, I really do bring connections and alliances that your family could hugely benefit from. And I truly am a changed man, I promise.”
He clears his throat delicately.
“However, I should add—and I don’t mean this to sound confrontational—that there are other offers out there.”
I tilt my head. “What?”
“For me,” he says smoothly. “Other potential alliances. Other mafia princesses.”
Gabby scoffs. “Go waste one of their afternoons, then.”
Leo stands, as do I. I shake his hand, then I glance at Dom.
“Would you take Gabriella with you?”
Gabby shoots me a look and then subtly flips me off for good measure.
“Come along, princess,” Dom mutters, taking her elbow.
“Don’t princess me,” she snaps. But she grudgingly allows him to escort her out.
When they’re gone, I turn back to Nero.
“I’m curious: this proposed marriage. Which other families are you talking to?”
Leo laughs lightly. “Nero, you know I can’t—”
He gasps as I grab him sharply by the collar, turning him so that I’ve got him pinned, slightly bent back over the table we were all just sitting at.
“What the fuck!” he blurts.
“You told my sister to blow you when she was, what, eighteen?”
He swallows against my hand.
“Nero, I wasn’t in a good place then. I was using alcohol to—”
“I don’t give a fuck about that,” I growl. “But if I were you, I would give a huge number of fucks that I have put assholes in the ground for far less than insulting my sister like that.”
I glare at him and then release his collar, letting him stand and straighten his shirt and jacket.
“Who else are you talking to.”
He takes a deep breath. “The Kalishnik Bratva.”
I go utterly still.
“I’ve been talking with Marko about possibly marrying his daughter, Milena.”
There’s a war inside my head. I don’t even fully understand why I’m suddenly fighting it. But it’s there, screaming and roaring and exploding in my psyche. It clashes with the daydreams I’ve been having this whole meeting of Milena—of putting my hands on her, of feeling her come undone last night.
Of how I feel when I watch her sleep.
My eyes drag venomously to Leo’s. Somehow, I summon the mental strength to pull myself back from the brink of tearing him limb from limb.
“Interesting,” I say expressionlessly.
He spreads his arms. “Truth be told, I’d much rather align with your family than Marko’s. We might both be Russian, but you’re the better match, between your influence and reach.”
I get it: he’s metaphorically sucking my dick to pump me up to his idea. I’m sure he pulled the same shit with Marko. But I’m no longer listening.
All I’m thinking about is her, and how she’s mine.
No one else’s.
No one.
