Prologue
Marchella: Ten Years Earlier
I peer at my reflection in the full-length mirror, doing a half-twirl in my new dress. I swipe the pink lip gloss wand across my lips and pucker them, puffing out my chest. Then I flip my long, dark curls so that they snake down one of my bare shoulders.
The corners of my lips lift.
Perfect.
Tonight is the night that Roman Villani will see me as a woman, not as Frankie Amante’s little sister.
I’ve caught him staring on more than one occasion. I know it. But he’s never made a move.
And I’m about to give him a reason.
My heart thumps in my chest as I pull open the door to the ladies’ lounge and walk back into the wedding reception. The music pulsates and the lights flash in the darkened space. Dinner has been served, and now all of the guests have migrated onto the dance floor to work off the scrumptious meal.
I smile and nod at whomever I pass, not really paying much attention to anyone except my target.
When I spot him standing casually against a wall a few feet away from the deejay, my breath hitches.
Good Lord, he is a delicious specimen of a man. Short, dark hair, olive skin, piercing blue eyes. Just staring at him from across the room has my panties smoking under my dress.
But I’m tired of staring and wondering and hoping.
I want action.
And since he’s not going to make a move, I’m prepared to do it myself.
I don’t care that our fathers are business partners.
I don’t care that he’s my brother’s best friend.
And I definitely don’t care that he’s way too old for me.
For once, I just want to see him look at me the way I always dreamed he would.
I take a deep breath and smooth down the front of my dress, and just as I take a step toward him, he turns in my direction. His bitable lips lift into a knowing smile as his gaze sears my skin, making it tingle from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair.
Chills dance across my skin and I smile back, slowly walking toward him.
My pulse throbs against my neck, my hands cold and clammy against my sides.
What am I even going to say?
We’ve barely exchanged ten words since he and Frankie have been friends.
I’ve spent most of that time admiring and lusting from afar.
But the way he’s staring at me now tells me I haven’t imagined anything.
He wants something.
And my God, I hope it’s me.
I swallow hard as I cross the dance floor, perspiration pebbling on the back of my neck when a tall figure in a black tux steps in front of me, blocking my path. I look up with a scowl.
“Frankie, what do you want?”
His eyes narrow, his jaw twitching as he grabs my arm. “Something’s happened with Papa and the Villanis. It’s bad, Chella. The kind of bad where someone ends up dead.” He tosses a look over his shoulder in Roman’s direction. “And right now, I don’t know who it’s gonna be.”
Chapter One
Roman
Present Day
“I swear I didn’t touch her!”
My fist tightens around the collar of the guy whose head I currently have held over an open flame. His name is Salvatore Giaconne, a guy my brother Matteo fired right before he took off for Vegas with his wife, Heaven, a few months ago. I don’t know how the hell Salvatore even got into our nightclub, Risk, tonight, but it looks like I need to have a chat with the door guys after I dispose of this piece of garbage.
Without warning, I shove his face closer to the burning wick as he yelps like a little bitch. I grit my teeth and pull him away from the lit candle, throwing him against the wall. It shakes from the impact, the framed photos hanging next to him fall to the floor, glass shattering around his feet.
“Don’t lie to me,” I creep toward him, my shoulders squared and my lips twisted into a sneer. “Do you understand the rules, fucko? Or do I need to translate them into another language for you?”
The guy shudders against the wall, all six feet and two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of him.
He could crush me with that mass.
But he doesn’t, because he knows I don’t need mass in order to do the same…or worse…to him.
“N-no,” he whimpers. “Please, Mr. Villani. I didn’t mean to—"
I roll my eyes. Fucking pussy. He got caught with his hands in the cookie jar and now he thinks he can cry and beg and walk out of here with his cock still intact?
With a quirk of my brow, I fold my arms over my chest. “So now you’re admitting that you did something.”
The whimpering stops. Idiot. If you’re gonna be a pussy, at least own it. Don’t play a game that you know is gonna get you maimed. That’s just fucking stupidity right there.
Salvatore blinks fast, obviously realizing a little too late that he is a complete moron for contradicting himself like that. “It was an accident,” he says gruffly.
“Oh, so you didn’t mean to tear off Zoe’s G-string with your teeth while you held her down with your knee? It just got caught in your mouth, and when you pulled away, you took it with you?”
And that’s when I see it.
The flicker of annoyance in his deep-set eyes. He grimaces, reverting to his tough-guy routine. “She had it coming,” he hisses.
I narrow my eyes. “Oh yeah? And what exactly did she do to deserve your face between her thighs?”
“I don’t answer to you anymore,” he says coldly.
“When you’re in my club and you’ve just been caught harassing my employee, then yeah. You fucking answer to me!”
Adrenaline floods my veins as I launch myself at him, grabbing the sides of his jacket and slamming him against the wall as hard as I can. Christ, it’s so forceful, I think I scrambled my own brain for a second.
He makes a loud woof! sound when his body collides with the sheetrock, and a loud crash next to us makes my back stiffen. The glass jar candle I’d almost plunged Salvatore’s face into tumbles onto the floor and cracks against the marble floor tiles. The flame shoots out, dangerously close to igniting the woven area rug in the center of the room. I stomp it out just as it catches the edge of the carpet, gritting my teeth at the damage I’ve almost certainly done to the soles of my Ferragamo loafers.
Salvatore lets out a loud grunt as he lunges for me. I sidestep the still-lit candle as he charges, swinging one of his fists at my temple. I’m just about his height, but since I don’t weigh the same as a baby elephant, I dance around him, narrowly avoiding his next punch.
A loud pounding at the door reminds me that one of my security guys, Ray, is waiting outside, ready to jump in if I need him.
But that’s not how I operate. I put up with security, a necessary evil, but I prefer to handle things on my own.
My way.
That’s what happens when you’re the youngest in a family of gangsters driven by bloodlust. Everyone already has their own calling card, and they’ve established their own reputations. Nobody has anything left to prove to the rest of the underworld.
Except me.
Matteo left me in charge here in Manhattan to run shit while he’s in Vegas. He gave me his trusted security team as backup, but I can’t delegate this kind of thing to just anyone.