I was going to stop it.
She was too goddamn young and innocent for Giancarlo’s scheming, let alone his proclivities. Hell, she was too innocent for any of us Mantovani brothers, Caio included. Our world would chew her up and spit her out.
Lines formed between her eyes like I’d asked the last thing she was expecting. “You want to know my age?”
Sarcasm and bad fucking manners my norm, I didn’t catch myself. “That’s the general idea when I ask how old you are.”
She flinched.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was the last person to give a damn about anyone or anything, let alone play guardian angel, especially if it meant going up against the famiglia. Unfortunately for her, her response to my sarcasm only sealed her fate. Outside whatever small reality this girl had grown up in, she wouldn’t last a day in the real world.
Perversely, I didn’t want her to.
I’d never met a woman so innocent, and I sure as hell had never laid eyes on one so beautiful. The thought of another man even looking at her, especially my brother, was already pissing me off, which was a bad fucking sign.
I didn’t get pissed.
I pulled the trigger.
It was a hell of a lot more uncomplicated than emotions, which was how I lived my life. No complications.
Or I had, until two fucking minutes ago. Now a brunette with doe eyes was doing my head in, and I was checking my shit attitude, bringing it down a notch so I didn’t scare her.
“Age?” I needed to know exactly how old she was.
She glanced around the entry and down the hall like she was looking for someone. “Why do you want to know?”
Holding a book to her chest like a schoolgirl, throwing off so damn much purity and virtue it was making my dick hard, avoiding my question like she was begging for a lesson in submission—this was not good. “Who are you looking for?” I demanded.
“Papà.”
The bad fucking feeling in my gut grew. “Who’s your father?”
A frown spread across her pretty face as she answered me with the intonation of a question. “Gallo Santoro?”
I fucking froze.
She didn’t notice. “You are here, but you do not know my father?”
Barely hiding my shock, the pieces falling together, I scanned the damn hallway and the courtyard. “Haven’t seen Santoro in a while.” Not since I was a kid and he’d gone into hiding after the murder of his wife and son. The unsanctioned hit that had been disguised as a car accident to throw off the authorities had caused a fucking war. Not to mention, I never knew Santoro had a daughter, and I knew all the players in this world. I had to.
Which meant Santoro had been purposely hiding her, and that could only mean one thing.
I asked the damn question. “Was your mother Sofia Santoro?”
Color drained from her face, and she dipped her head. “Yes. She was my mamma.”
Figlio di puttana.
Sofia Vincenzo Santoro.
Married off to old man Santoro, the Vincenzos’ banker and money launderer, to both keep him in check and tie him irrevocably to the Vincenzo famiglia, Sofia Vincenzo had been the daughter of the Vincenzos’ Don. Then someone had killed her and her son, arguably to get at the Vincenzo fortune, and all hell had broken loose.
The Vincenzos accused both the Arcuris and my famiglia. We all denied it. Santoro went into hiding. The Vincenzos went on a killing spree, and retaliation ensued. It was a fucking bloodbath and the last war between the three Cosa Nostra famiglias before a volatile truce had been called. One that wasn’t any more stable today.
And here I was, standing in front of Don Vincenzo’s blood as my fucking brother took a meeting with her father.
Giancarlo was out of his goddamn mind.
Even stepping foot in this house was an act of war.
“Sorry for your loss,” I clipped, sounding no fucking better than my asshole brother as I holstered my Glock and pulled out my cell.
“I was a child.” Her voice went quiet as her gaze dropped to my hands. “I do not remember her.”
She was lucky. I remembered my mother. “You’re better off.” I fired off a text to Giancarlo.
Me: We need to leave. NOW.
Her head whipped up, and she looked at me with those big, dark, innocent eyes. “You are the very first man to say that to me.”
That got my fucking attention. “You talk to a lot of men, Principessa?”
She sucked in a sharp breath, then went stock-still. “Wh-what did you call me?”
Exactly what she was. “Principessa.” Cosa Nostra royalty with Vincenzo blood. Probably about to turn legal marrying age.
“That is what my papà calls me.”
“Because that’s what you are.” I glanced down at my cell. No reply text. I focused back on her. “Do you know who I am?” Cristo, the confusion on her face made me question if she knew who the hell she was.
She hesitated. “I am sorry. Should I know you?”
I tried a different question, but I already saw the picture this entire conversation was painting. “Do you know who’s meeting with your father?” If Giancarlo was up to what I thought he was, I was going to fucking kill him.
Her slender shoulder lifted once. “Colleagues?”
Colleagues. My rage grew. “Do you meet many colleagues of your father’s?”
Her face flushed bright red. Then her voice came out in the form of an embarrassed whisper. “No.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
“Are you not a colleague of my father’s?”
I looked her right in the eye. “No.”
“A bodyguard?”
The irony growing right along with a possessive rage I needed to fucking check, I snorted. “No.”
“But you carry a gun.”
“And you knowingly approached me anyway.” Did she have any idea how dangerous that was? “You do that often?”
“I am not afraid.”
“You should be.”
“My father has guns. He says they are for protection.”
“Right.” Fucking protection.
She stared at me.
I stared back.
Heat flushed across her cheeks. “So, you are a driver?”
“Do I look like a driver, Principessa?” Part of me no fucking better than Giancarlo, I wanted to consume every sheltered inch of her.
“You look like a very tall, very strong man who carries a gun and drove two other men here.”
Not an ounce of attitude or sarcasm in her tone, her statement and what it implied still pissed me off. “If driving my own vehicle makes me a driver, then sure, go with that, Principessa.”
Her frown came back, making her look even younger. But then the shit that came out of her mouth next proved she saw right through my sarcasm. “I have angered you.”
“I don’t get mad.” At least I hadn’t until a barefoot Principessa snuck up on me.
“I think I disagree, but I apologize, nonetheless. I did not mean to insult you.”
“Do I look insulted?”
Her eyes searching my face, she studied me a moment as if she were cataloging details. Then she wisely ignored my question. “You are neither a colleague, driver, nor bodyguard for the men you came with, but you are here?”
“So are you.”