Scorned Obsession (Scorned Fate)

We stared at each other as if both of us remembered that time. Two months before my fifteenth birthday, Dad had grounded me because he found out I’d been skipping classes to spend time with Sandro. No matter how innocent the circumstances were, it had been an ugly confrontation. With no phone, and under Dad’s scrutiny of my every movement, Mom intervened. Sandro had reached out to her, knowing my birthday was coming up and he had to leave the country for a while. Dad had relented, but the men in my family had been downright hostile during my birthday party. Sandro didn’t seem to care. A few weeks after he left, I received a package. In it was a Russian nesting doll. And then, months after, he seemed to have fallen off the grid. At first, I thought Dad found a way to get rid of him until I heard Dom telling Dad that Sandro was in a Russian prison. I was distraught. My grades plummeted.

Sandro returned for his father’s funeral after being gone for a year. The way it was told, the Rossis negotiated his release.

Post-Russian-prison Sandro was different from the man I knew. Much darker. More tattoos. Much, much more. He ignored my calls and didn’t even talk to me for another six months.

The timer on the rigatoni interrupted my excursion into my memories.

“I’ll get that,” Sandro said.

The oven was a side by side instead of the stacked configuration. He grabbed a dishtowel, and I moved aside to give him room to maneuver the hot Pyrex out of the oven.

“Smells good, baby.” He set it on the counter.

Like my siblings, Sandro wasn’t helpless in the kitchen. When he was sixteen, he asked Mom if he could work at Eamonn’s for the summer as a prep cook. But his parents shut that down. Distaste saturated my tongue. Carmelo and Wilma Rossi were the biggest asshole parents I’d ever met. They always favored Frankie over Sandro in mafia gatherings, it was a wonder why Sandro accompanied them at all. Mom once told me it was all for show. Carmelo died from a heart attack, and from what I’d last heard about Wilma, she was in a psychiatric hospital. Rumor was that Frankie’s mental issues came from his mother’s side of the family.

After Sandro grabbed the second Pyrex and laid it to cool beside the first one, he grabbed my hand and led me to a barstool. Maybe he wanted to chat some more, but we didn’t have to act like a couple when people weren’t around.

He sat on the barstool and pulled me on top of his lap.

“Sandro!”

“You’re saying no to a shoulder massage?” And as if to show me exactly what I would be missing, his fingers kneaded the tight muscles below my neck.

“Oh, God,” I moaned at the unexpected and sheer relief that overwhelmed me. “Don’t stop.”

He mumbled a soft fuck and then hissed in my ear. “Keep making those sounds, Bianca, and I’ll make you see God for sure.”

The pressure of his fingers made me want to purr, but the threat in his voice sent a pulse of wetness between my thighs. I thought of sliding off his lap, but I wasn’t willing to forsake a massage for propriety. Throwing all caution to the wind, I shimmied my ass up his muscular thighs and landed on his erection.

He groaned, “Bianca.”

I bit my lower lip. Flames licked between my legs and tingled up my entire body. Playing with fire was an understatement, but I was tired of Sandro’s sexual innuendos. It was time to see if he was all bark and this was another game to him. I twisted around on his lap. Now I was straddling him. His hard and big cock nestled against my pussy.

We were face to face.

His eyes glittered with unmasked heat. I shivered with excitement. He isn’t yanking me back into an obsession with him, I told myself, but can’t I be a little curious? I struggled to keep my arousal under control. Mind over body.

“Bianca, what?” I challenged him.

The words barely crossed my lips when I lost his eyes and he was kissing me. His tongue forced my mouth wide open and…

Holy hell!

Unlike earlier, where it felt like a shut-up kiss—which pissed me off—this one was unrestrained need.

My mind barely registered this because I was so busy feeling him everywhere. I was rubbing myself on his erection while he devoured my lips. His hands were under my ass, squeezing the flesh there, and helping me along. Pressure building. Core swollen. Wet. Slippery. I tore my lips from Sandro and concentrated on my pleasure. My fingers dug into his shoulders as I used them for leverage to rub myself to an orgasm.

“That’s it, baby,” he growled hoarsely. “Take what you need.”

“God, Sandro, I’m close!”

I continued rocking against him until a wave of exquisite pleasure fractured me in the middle. My pussy pulsed and pulsed, and the more I clenched my thighs around his, the more intense the throbbing became. So good. So good. I buried my face in the crook of his neck while my release came over me in a rush. Sandro simply hugged me. Murmuring in my ear how glorious I looked when I came.

My clit was still sensitive. The slightest pressure against his erection sent shock waves of sensations that were addictive as hell.

“It won’t stop,” I whispered in his ear.

Sandro gave a choked chuckle. “Mind giving my poor cock some mercy before I blow behind my pants?”

That woke me up from the sexual fog. I was feeling too hot and bothered, and I wanted to wipe that smirk off his face.

“You shouldn’t have done that!” I yelled.

He started laughing, an incredulous look on his face. “Baby, I was just giving you a massage.”

“You knew that would happen,” I panted.

“Does that mean you can’t resist me?”

“What the hell do you want from me, Sandro?” Suddenly I was feeling ashamed. Mad at myself, mad at him. “Do you want me to become obsessed with you again? Because remember what happened the last time? My brother got shot!”

The humor fled from his face. “You need to stop blaming yourself for that.”

“So, should I blame you?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but the timer on the baked chicken cut him off. He started to rise, but I growled, “I’ve got this.”

I couldn’t believe what had just happened. How could I be so weak and pathetic? Didn’t Renz almost dying teach me enough? Self-recrimination ate at me. As I lifted the sizzling chicken from the depths of the hot oven, I mentally reinforced my barriers.

I refused to be a part of this crime family.

I was too disgusted with myself to have an appetite. I dropped the tray on the counter. Sandro’s gaze scorched my face, and when I turned to look at him, there was a question reflected in his eyes.

“I’m going to do what is required of me to meet Raffa’s demands. My goal is to get back to my family. Do what you must and make Tommy the boss.” I buried every part of me that had loved this man since I was five and pushed words out of my mouth I thought I could never say to Sandro. “If you have to fake your death so I can be free of you, of this marriage, then do it.”

I stared at the food I had prepared all day. “I’m not hungry. Feed your men.”

Sandro

“If you have to fake your death so I can be free of you, of this marriage, then do it.”

I had taken shrapnel to the chest, but it didn’t compare to the stinging pain of Bianca’s words. My mixed signals had pushed her too far. I wanted to keep her, but I didn’t know how without forcing her into a life she never wanted.

Marriage to a made man.

Still, we were running out of time, and I needed us to be on the same page. Bianca was adaptable. My fear of losing her had me playing with her heart. It was unfair to her.

I couldn’t leave our conversation where we left it, so I brought her a tray of food. Food she prepared for me and my men. I also included a blueberry soda.

I stopped in front of her door and knocked. “Baby?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m coming in,” I said in a firm voice.

“Fine. It’s unlocked anyway.”

When I opened the door, she was already sitting up in bed with arms crossed over her chest. Defiance was evident in every line of her body, even her eyes. “I’m not apologizing for what I said.”

I laid the tray beside her. She went for the soda and sipped with a straw.

“I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“This situation is fucked up.”

“I know.”

“I’m just…for a moment, being so close to you, I was curious about what we could have been,” she rushed out.

“Me too. For a moment, I wished I could shut off my brain and convince myself that I am worthy of you.” There were things about my past I hadn’t told her. My gaze intensified on her face as if I wanted to memorize every line, every curve, and every feature. From the arch of her brows that could communicate so much sass to the sparkle in her eyes that could bring a hardened assassin like me to his knees. I didn’t want to think about her mouth, her lips, which were right now sucking on…fuck. I swallowed. “That I’m not the bastard son of the Rossis. That I don’t kill people for a living, and I didn’t force you to marry me. That I don’t have to leave this fucking life and you after I set up Tommy to be the next boss.”

“Despite what I said, there has to be another way. Fake your death? You think I’ll find happiness knowing that?”

I reached out and, with the back of my hand, caressed her cheek. “You have to, Sunlight.” I swallowed through the tacks in my throat. “After all this, just focus on all the shit I brought down on you and your family.”

“That’s crazy talk and you know it,” she snapped. She pushed me away, but not before I saw the glistening of tears. “Well, what else should we make for dinner? Maybe we could start a countdown to your last supper.”

Her voice cracked with those last two words. I couldn’t stand it anymore. This distance between us wasn’t…us. I walked around the bed to her side and sat beside her, drawing her into my arms.

She turned into me and buried her nose at the center of my chest.

“I still hate you,” she breathed against me. “But I don’t want you to die, Sandro.”

“I’m not dying.” I chuckled.

She gazed up at me, cheeks stained with her anguish. “At the beginning of all this, I didn’t care if you burned in hell with all the Rossis.”

“I know. I saw that hatred.” I never wanted to see it directed at me again. I couldn’t get the image out of my head, and it gutted me each time I remembered it.

“But now, that’s not what I want.”

“Are you sure?” I teased.

“It’s not funny.” She tried to shove away, but I wouldn’t let her. “I would have married Gian…”

“Over my dead body,” I snarled. “And I mean it. I don’t know what I would have done and how it would have ended, but it would have never ended with you married to him. I might have risked Renz and you might’ve hated me for the rest of your life, but if it came down to you or your brother, I would always choose you.”

“Don’t ever make that choice.”

“What? You’ll sacrifice yourself.”

“We’ll all be alive. And if my brother died because of me, then you’d be consigning me to a life where I wished I was dead.”

And that was the only reason I didn’t risk Renz’s life. “I get that. But this is for you, Bianca. I had no business being your friend.” But she was the sun in my darkness. She was addictive. “I need your cooperation so I can get you out.”

It looked like she was going to argue, but it was as if a resolve crossed her face and I wasn’t sure I trusted it. “I could act like a dutiful mafia wife.”

My mouth twitched.

“Support my husband. Not complain about the time he spends away from me. And help settle problems with the WAGs.”

“I’m all for the first, but I’m not sure whether the second is in your nature, and I know the third comes naturally to you.”

Her brows furrowed. “How do you know?”

“It’s just in you to be empathetic, Bianca.”

“Not to everyone.”

I sighed. “Hold your temper with Raffa and Gian. And also Griselda.”

“Griselda? You think I’m going to fight with her over my husband?”

“It’s not that,” I stressed. “She’s used to handling the Rossi women since Frankie became a widower. Joe’s wife left the family and disappeared. Technically, it should have fallen to Divina, but between you and me…she’s too nice. Griselda is more assertive.”

“Why do you need me if Griselda is handling things? Especially if our marriage is temporary?”

I was starting to hate the word temporary, but until I could figure out a way out of this mess, then I couldn’t give Bianca any hope that I was going to come out of this unscathed and alive. I’d made too many enemies as an assassin. Even if they couldn’t connect me to any of the kills, the fact remained I had a reputation.

My phone went off, and I sighed.

“Duty calls?”

“Yeah.” I unwrapped my arms from around her and stood, but I had to stress the importance of our goal. “Tommy is going to be boss. I need you to help Divina come to terms with our endgame.”