Scuderi nodded. I brought my knife down on Raffaele’s pinky, cutting through bone and flesh and relishing in his pussy screams.
A female cry echoed through the walls.
I let go of Raffaele and stood. He cradled his hand like a baby, a blubbering mess. Disgusting. Romero and Cesare had drawn their weapons.
Scuderi went to open a secret door, revealing the redheaded sister and Aria.
“Of course,” Scuderi hissed. “I should have known it was you causing trouble again.” He wrenched the redhead away from Aria and into the lounge, raised his hand, and slapped her hard across the face. My fingers on the knife tightened.
And then the fucker stepped toward Aria, raising his arm again. Fury burned through me. Mine.
I caught his wrist, stopping him. It took all my willpower not to ram the bloody knife into his stomach and let him bleed out like a pig.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Umberto drawing his knife and Scuderi reaching for his gun. Matteo, Romero, and Cesare had drawn their own guns.
I hated the words I had to speak next. “I didn’t mean disrespect, but Aria is no longer your responsibility. You lost your right to punish her when you made her my fiancée. She’s mine to deal with now.”
Scuderi glanced at the ring on Aria’s finger, marking her as mine. He gave a nod and I released him.
“That’s true.” He stepped back from me and gestured at Aria. “Then would you like the honor of beating some sense into her?”
I turned my eyes on Aria. She was pale. Her fearful eyes darted to the knife in my blood-covered hand, then back up to my face. She froze. The idea of raising my hand against her was ludicrous. What kind of man hit a woman? And Aria? No, the mere idea set my teeth on edge. She weighed less than half of me. She was innocent and vulnerable. “She didn’t disobey me.”
Scuderi looked fucking unhappy. As if I gave a fuck. “You’re right, but as I see it, Aria will be living under my roof until the wedding, and since honor forbids me to raise my hand against her, I’ll have to find another way to make her obey me.” He hit Aria’s sister a second time, and I had half a mind to intervene again, but that was beyond my control.
“For every one of your wrongdoings, Aria, your sister will accept the punishment in your stead,” Scuderi said. Aria looked as if she’d rather have him hit her than her sister. She was way too innocent and gentle for someone like me.
Scuderi turned to the bodyguard. “Umberto, take Gianna and Aria to their rooms and make sure they stay there.” Umberto sheathed his knife and led them out. Aria avoided looking at me as she helped her sister.
Raffaele’s whimper drew my attention back to him. He was still clutching his hand, crying like the fucking wimp he was. Matteo held out a tissue. I took it and cleaned my hand and knife roughly. I’d need water and soap to get rid of it completely.
“I trust you’ll keep Aria safe from male attention,” I said coldly, fixing Scuderi with a hard look. “I don’t want him anywhere near her. If I hear that someone as much as looks at her the wrong way, nothing will stop me from dragging Chicago into the bloodiest war you can imagine. I don’t share what’s mine, and Aria is mine. Only mine. She’s under my protection from this day on.”
Scuderi’s mouth thinned, but Fiore would lose his shit if peace broke because Scuderi couldn’t protect his own daughter. “Don’t worry. She will be protected. Like I said, she attends a Catholic school for girls and is never alone with men.”
I knelt beside Raffaele and he shied back, terror flashing in his eyes. I leaned even closer. “This was nothing,” I growled. “This pain is a fucking joke compared to the kind of agony you’ll be in if you go near Aria ever again. If you ever touch as much as a hair on her body,” my voice turned even deadlier, shaking with the force of my rage, “a single fucking hair, I’ll shove my knife up your ass and fuck you with it slowly until you bleed out through your asshole. Got it?”
He gave a jerky nod.
“I want to hear it.”
“I won’t touch her,” he pressed out, looking like he was going to puke onto my shoes at any moment.
I stood and stepped back, my lip curling in disgust at the coward in front of me. “We’re done here,” I said.
“I’ll see you out,” Scuderi said in a clipped voice.
Romero, Cesare, Matteo and I followed him. We didn’t shake hands as we parted. Those kinds of fake pleasantries could wait until my wedding.
After returning to our hotel, we gathered in the bar for another drink. Romero was the only one who barely touched his, always dutiful. I regarded him. I knew him since we were kids. He was close to Matteo’s age, and they’d gone to school together. He was a good soldier and a trustworthy man.
Noticing my attention, he frowned. “Is something the matter?”
“What do you think of Aria?”
Cesare and Matteo both fell silent.
Romero set down his glass, his body tightening. “She’s going to be your wife.”
“I don’t want you to state the obvious. I want to hear your impression of her.”
“She’s shy and obedient. Well behaved. I don’t think she’ll cause trouble in the next three years.” His words had been chosen carefully.
“She’s beautiful now. She’ll be out-of-this-world stunning in three years. I need someone to be her bodyguard, someone I can trust not to touch what’s not his or anyone else’s.”
Romero’s eyes widened, finally catching up. Matteo and Cesare looked surprised as well. “Luca,” he said quietly, “if you choose me to guard Aria, I swear she’ll be safe. And I won’t ever even think about her in an inappropriate way.”
Matteo snorted. “Don’t swear on it. I have a feeling it’ll be difficult not to have inappropriate thoughts about Aria.”
I fixed Romero with a hard look. “You know I trust you, and you’re one of my best soldiers, but what I just said to Raffaele holds true for anyone who touches her.” My eyes slid over all three men before I smirked and raised my arm, asking the barkeeper for another round. They’d got the message.
CHAPTER 4
ALMOST 3 YEARS LATER
Matteo waved a newspaper in the air when he entered my penthouse. Setting my cup of coffee down, I raised my eyebrows. “Since when do you read the newspaper?” I asked. Of course we needed to stay up to date on political events, especially legislation, but that’s what the internet was for. Did Matteo think it would make him look better? Like some fucking Brooklyn hipster?
I wouldn’t put it past him to carry a newspaper with him for fashion purposes.
His answering grin raised my suspicions. “I saw an interesting article online when I checked the news in bed this morning and decided to get physical proof of it.”
“Of what?”
Matteo stepped up to the kitchen bar and put the newspaper down in front of me. My eyebrows rose in surprise when I saw the headline and the photo.
This is the woman who snatched New York’s most sought-after bachelor from the market!
Below the headline was a photo of me and beside it a photo of Aria. For a second, I froze. I hadn’t seen Aria in the last three years since our engagement. There hadn’t been any reason to do so. I’d sent her presents for Christmas, the anniversary of our engagement, Valentine’s Day, and her birthday—the last one yesterday for her eighteenth birthday.