By the time I neared her room, I’d built up quite a head of steam. It might not be wise to voice my discontent to my father, but Lucia could do little if anything to stop me. Why not take it out on her?
Yet when I arrived, Philippa was just opening the door to leave. Behind her was Lucia, and what I saw brought me up short. Lucia was fully dressed in a modest blouse and skirt kneeling before the statue of Mary high on her northernmost wall. She was praying to the Holy Mother for protection and thanking her with all her heart.
“May you ease the paths of my parents, Lorenzo and Isabella Bonifacio as they come to you in repentance. As well as Gianni Cavetti, who only hoped to bring peace between our two famiglias. Please continue to watch over and protect us all. Grazie mille, Santa Maria. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
I froze, speechless, standing in Lucia’s doorway, forgetting the fact that Philippa stood beside me. I had seen this image—this precise image—before, yet then it had been my mother. Though my father hadn’t been, Mama had been deeply religious. She was the reason why this statue was in here; Dahlia Cavetti had asked for these alcoves to be built into the walls so she could position a Madonna in every room. While most had been removed by my father, this figurine was one that had remained.
It’d been so many years since I had seen something like this that I could barely breathe. My throat went dry as my nose and eyes prickled uncomfortably—what was happening to me? A great swell of something unnamable rose in my chest, but I didn’t want it, couldn’t bear to feel such a thing after all this time. So I had to distract myself, and the perfect distraction had already knelt inside the room with her back to me.
“Philippa, go,” I ordered the maid out, not certain why she’d stayed. I hadn’t lowered my voice, so Lucia jerked around in alarm, rising to her feet. “What was his plan?”
“Who’s plan?”
“Your father’s. The day that Gianni was killed you glanced over at me looking guilty, so I know that Bonifacio must’ve shared his plan with you.”
She took a step back. “He didn’t.”
“Then, how did you know? It was written all over your face.”
I came forward, seizing her long dark hair and twisting it around my fist again. I felt a million things coursing through my system, and it was unnerving.
“All he said was that I shouldn’t worry. That he would take care of everything, and that he wouldn’t let anybody ever hurt me.”
“And you took that to mean that he’d executed Gianni?” I demanded.
“Yes. But I’ll never be certain. Before you… before you shot him, he gave me this look. A look that told me he knew something about your brother. But I don’t know any more than that.”
I’d seen their shared look. That’s how I’d known he was guilty. But there had to be more to this. More she wasn’t telling me. I spoke directly into her ear, with a voice of pure menace. “Do you remember what you told me that night?” Her blinking blue eyes told me that she didn’t. Either that, or she was a world-class actress at behaving like an innocent. “You took a blood pact with me, remember? You swore to always tell me the truth. But you didn’t tell me about your father. You didn’t warn me, and now I don’t believe you.”
“But I didn’t think he’d ever do something like that. He wasn’t a murderer.”
My laugh was harsh and humorless. “He’s a mafia crime lord. What makes you think he never killed anyone?” I knew that was a condition of any man in the mob. That they must make at least one personal kill, and Lorenzo Bonifacio had been mine.
“I’m not saying he didn’t do other… things. But I can’t imagine him slaughtering another human being.”
“You are remarkably naïve,” I told her, “so maybe it’s time I remedy that. Unbutton that blouse.”
“What?”
I tightened my grip on her hair, giving it another painful tug. “Don’t make me repeat myself,” I snarled at her, and her long delicate fingers went to her collarbone. Shaking, she did as I ordered, unfastening each button until she reached the part tucked into her skirt. She pulled out the bottom of the silky fabric, then finished the job. “Remove it.”
I released her hair, and slowly, she peeled the blouse from her torso, exposing her traditional white lace bra to my view. I reached around and tweaked both her nipples through the bra, making her gasp and moan. The sound of it made me instantly hard. Still compressing each nipple between my index finger and thumb, I spoke again. “Now the skirt.”
She unzipped a zipper on the side I hadn’t spotted, then shimmied out of it until the skirt had pooled at her feet. Her panties matched her bra. They were full briefs and as modest as a pair of panties could be outside of someone’s grandmothers. Still, I hadn’t seen this much of her, and the conservative nature of her underwear made me hotter than I could’ve imagined. She’d been praying and wore clothing not the least bit revealing, yet something about this made my cock so full I wondered if it would burst through my pants.
“Has anyone ever touched you like this besides me?” I asked her.
“No,” she panted out, her bright blue eyes narrowing.
“Has any man seen you this undressed since you’ve become a woman?”
“No.”
“So you’ve never slept with a man?”
“No,” she shook her head. “Never.”
“But you want to lay with me, don’t you, farfalla?” Instead of pinching her nipples, I rubbed over the tops of them with flattened palms.
“Yes,” she admitted, her eyes half-closed and her face flushed with desire. Pausing in my ministrations, I popped the front hinge of her bra.
“Take this off now.” Her face rosier than ever, she wiggled her shoulders and arms until the straps fell off, leaving her bra on the floor next to the rest of her clothing. “And the panties.”
Hooking the sides of her underwear around her thumbs, she did as I’d commanded her, pushing them down past her hips to fall at her feet. And now, my gaze feasted on all her exposed flesh. That flawless olive skin of hers went beyond her face to the rest of her, and I couldn’t look away. Her stomach was flat yet there was a surprising shapeliness to her figure, an alluring roundness to both her breasts and hips. Her nipples were high and brownish pink, all my attention had made them swollen and full, and even though I hadn’t kissed her, so were her lips. I knew what that meant, but I asked her anyway, just because I wanted to say the words out loud.
“Are you wet for me?”
“Wet?” Was she honestly that innocent that she didn’t know to what I referred? I supposed it was possible.
“Never mind. I can check.” I lowered one of my hands between her legs, and she gasped.
“Fuck.” The expletive had come from me. Never in my life had I felt a woman get this wet prior to sex. Lucia was literally dripping with her own desire. I lifted my two fingers up to show her. “Do you know what this is?” I asked her, but I didn’t wait for her answer. “This is your body preparing itself for mine, for my cock. This will allow me to plow into you over and over without much resistance. Do you want me to do that to you?”