I’m not sure why the fuck I’m so nervous, but I feel like I’ve been walking on eggshells all day waiting for this moment. I’ve barely spoke to Izzy all day out of fear that she’d see right through me and realize what I was up to.
I’ve never made a romantic gesture before, considering I’ve never had a fucking girlfriend before, so this is a big step for me.
When I walked into the sitting room to grab Izzy and overheard her on the phone to someone saying something about loving them, I saw fucking red at the thought of her telling another man that she loved them. Then I realized it was my fucking annoying little brother and I calmed the hell down before she decided to ask what was going on with me. I got the fuck out of there and made it out to where I had everything set up rather than reply to her, figured it was easier because I knew she wouldn’t let me get away with saying nothing, I knew she’d follow me. Stubborn pain in the ass that she is.
Izzy storms out of the patio doors and halts as she takes in the scene surrounding her. Her eyes meet mine and they widen before she takes measured steps towards me, never breaking eye contact.
“What’s going on?” she asks as she reaches me, and I swallow as I take her in. She’s dressed in a pale blue summer dress with her feet bare. She’s not wearing any makeup and her hair is piled on top of her head as usual. She’s fucking breathtaking.
I clear my throat and do the one thing I thought I would never do—drop down one knee.
Izzy’s mouth pops open and she stares wide-eyed at me and whispers my name. I pull the small box from my pocket and flip the lid, making her breath catch. She doesn’t even bother looking at the ring, she just stares into my eyes and waits to hear what I have to say.
“Izzy, you deserve the world. You deserve sunshine and roses and rainbows and fucking unicorns. You deserve everything little girls dream of, and everything grown women read in those ridiculous romance novels and wish they had. You deserve to wake up each morning knowing your husband will come home to you and only you. You deserve to be treated like the queen you are.” I take a deep breath and take hold of her hand.
“I don’t deserve you, baby. You should have had a real proposal, a real wedding which you got to plan yourself, you should have been able to choose your own husband instead of being stuck with me.” She shakes her head at me, but I continue. “You deserve fucking everything, and I’ll give you it if you let me, this is me letting you choose, I want you choose me, baby. I want to re-do our wedding, I want to have a real marriage, I want to spend my life with you. I want to stand up in front of a room full of family and friends—not business associates there for appearances—and vow to love you forever. I want you to vow to me that you’ll spend the rest of your life loving me, vow to me that you’ll never leave, no matter what hard times we go through or arguments and fights we have. Vow to be mine, baby. I love you so fucking much. Marry me Iz, properly this time.” I finish my speech and hold my breath as she stares at me with tears pooling in those gorgeous eyes of hers that I get lost in every single day.
Her legs buckle and she drops to the ground in front of me, she wraps her arms around my neck before bringing her mouth to mine in a passionate kiss. I freeze for a second before responding and my tongue tangles with hers, it takes all of my self-control to pull back and not take the kiss further, but somehow, I find the strength to lean back and look into her eyes.
“That’s not an answer, mia regina.”
“I love you, Luca. So fucking much. Did you doubt my answer would be anything other than yes?” She smiles and it’s my favorite type. The type of smile that lights up her whole face, making her eyes shine and making my chest constrict. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life loving every single part of you, I see you, Luca. Thank you so much for seeing me too. You’ve been everything I never thought I could have. I came into this marriage expecting to have to fight tooth and nail every day for my place in this world, but you’ve shown me that not all men are the same, you’ve shown me what love feels like, what safety feels like, what compassion feels like. Of course, I’ll marry you, amore mio.”
My breath catches at the nickname. I never thought I’d be one to engage in fucking pet names. But here I am, sat with the love of my life. She’s my little demon, mia regina, my everything.
“Thank fuck,” I say before slamming my mouth back to hers and pulling her to me so she’s straddling my lap before realizing I’m still holding the ring box in my hand. I break the kiss and rest my forehead against hers for a beat then sit back so I can pull the ring from the box and place it on her finger.
Izzy stares at the ring, it’s a three-carat diamond ring on a white gold band. But the thing that makes it her? There are tiny diamonds nestled around the large one in the middle, made to look like a crown.
She is my queen, after all.
“It’s perfect,” she whispers, and I smile, relieved that she likes it since I had no fucking clue what I was doing that day as I explained my vision to the jeweler, only hoping that he could make my vision come to life.
“You’re perfect, baby.” That word doesn’t even begin to describe her, but it’s the best I can voice. It’s like she was made for me, she fits my jagged edges perfectly and brings light into my previously gray life.
Izzy brings her lips back to mine and shifts so that she can undo the zip on my shorts, I lift us both up as I help her pull them down and my cock springs out. I’ve been hard since the moment I pulled her onto my lap, but I wasn’t going to ruin the moment by trying to fuck her. Seems like she has other ideas. I run my hand up her leg and find her pussy bare and already ready for me.
Fuck, she hasn’t been wearing anything under this dress all fucking day.
She probably removed them while I was avoiding her as an act of rebellion. My little demon.
I shift and slowly sink inside her I start to thrust up into her, but she puts her hands on my shoulders to stop me and takes control. She rides me slowly while we continue kissing under the night sky, shrouded in candlelight. It’s passionate, it’s loving, it’s intimate, it’s everything.
It’s the complete opposite of how we usually have sex, we both like our sex rough and hard but this just feels so fucking right in this moment.
Her walls clamp down and I can tell she’s on the edge, I bring my thumb to her clit and rub small circles around the bundle of nerves. She lets out a long, throaty moan as she finds her release and it’s the most fucking beautiful sound that I’ve ever heard. Her movements stutter because she’s so lost in her pleasure and I grab onto her hips so I can help her keep her balance while I thrust up into her, it only takes a couple of seconds until I’m groaning into her mouth as I fill her with my cum.
“Ti amo,” I whisper into her hair as I hold her to my chest. I don’t want to ever let her go, I want to freeze us in this moment forever, sat under the stars with my girl in my arms seems pretty much like peace to me. Only I can’t freeze this moment, we have reality waiting for us once we land back in New York tomorrow.
“Ti amo tanto.”
We’ve been home for four days, and all I want to do is kidnap Izzy and drag her back to the island, away from other people and away from our responsibilities. I’ve hardly seen her these past few days; I’ve been too busy catching up on everything I missed while we were away. The only time I’ve had with her is on a night where I’ve fucked her into a slumber then held her in my arms as we both slept.
Luckily, I didn’t miss much while we were on the island, just the usual shipments and day-to-day business. Marco met with the Irish without me since we rushed out the last time we met with him. The only interesting thing that happened was Muñoz finally came out of the woodwork and contacted my dad for a meeting. We’re on our way there now to meet him at a restaurant in neutral territory.
We’re taking five SUV’s full of men with us because while it’s likely the bastard won’t try anything; we’d rather be on the safe side in case he does. We pull up in front of the restaurant and me, Dad and Marco file out of the car. We opted to not bring Enzo on the off chance he flipped and shot the place up at the sight of Muñoz.
“Bet you wished you’d stayed in bed with your wife, huh?” Marco says with a raised brow, and it takes me by surprise seeing the emotion in his eyes, there’s something that looks a lot like regret flash across his face before he masks it and I give him a nod but don’t verbally respond, too confused by the exchange to voice it.
We walk into the building, and I scan the inside for threats. The asshole we’ve been at war with for the better part of the last year is sat at a table in the corner casually sipping from a glass of whiskey, he has two men stood behind him and I spot another four dotted around the room that are trying—and failing—to blend in.
The three of us walk over and take a seat at the table, our men know to surround the perimeter in case something goes down.
He swallows a gulp of his drink and clears his throat.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” he says in his thick Spanish accent and looks between the three of us before settling his gaze on our father.
“Why are we here Alejandro?” Dad says, and his brow raises at the insult of him calling him by his first name, but he doesn’t offer a retort. Smart man.
“This war has gone on long enough don’t you think? I think it’s about time we called a truce and called it a day with all the attacks on each other.”
I hold in a snort and refrain from pointing out that he and Novikov were the ones who started this war to begin with. He only has himself to blame for the lives and business his organization has lost.
“And what do we get out of this truce?” I ask instead.
His gaze flies to me and I notice the subtle way his eyes dart around. He’s nervous. He fucking should be.
“I want to reinstate our old deal, so we keep our territories and form an alliance on other factions threatening our shipments coming in at the docks.” he says with a nod as if we give a fuck about what he’s saying.
“What’s stopping us from doing with you what we did with Novikov? You did see the message Luca here left, didn’t you?” our father asks, and Muñoz audibly gulps, this time I can’t hold in my snicker and Dad jabs me with his elbow, subtly telling me to behave.
“Nothing is, but this has gone on long enough, if I lose any more men the balance of organizations will tip, and we all known that that’s bad for business not only for me, but for everyone else. Just take the deal, shake on a truce and let’s finish this.”
Dad looks to me and I give him a sharp nod, I might fuck around with him, but we all know we’re better off just taking the truce, we don’t want to lose any more of our men either.
Our father holds out his hand and Muñoz shakes it before standing and taking a few steps towards the exit but before he leaves, he turns back to face us.
“In light of our truce, there’s something you should know. Someone close to a member of your family is the one behind your recent attack, they won’t stop until they get what they want.” He says before strolling out of the restaurant and leaving us all to wonder the same thing.
What the fuck was that?
And who the fuck was he referring to?
Someone close to a member of your family.
None of us are really that fucking close to anyone. I’m close with Alec, but he’s out of the question. Dad keeps to himself and the higher capos, Marco barely tolerates our presence, never mind anyone else’s. Izzy doesn’t know anyone in the city. The only one left is Enzo, but he’s as reclusive as you come unless you count the girl he’s stalking, but she doesn’t even know he exists so she’s out of the question.
So, who the fuck could it be?
We leave the restaurant in silence and pile back into the car, I’m in the passenger seat while Dad drives and Marco is in the back.
“Any ideas?” Dad asks once all of the doors are closed, and I shake my head.
“What about someone close to Izzy?” Marco asks from the backseat, and I shake my head again.
“She doesn’t know anyone in the city, the only people she has regular contact with is me and fucking Enzo. Besides, she could rival you for her inability to tolerate other people.”
“Well, we need to fucking figure out who tried to kill my son and daughter-in-law. And when we do? I’ll display their fucking head in Times Square as a warning of what happens if some idiota tries to harm my children.”
