SWNOVELS Sold to the Italian Mafia Boss: Chapter 4
Ariana raps at the door to the office, and I look up. A man who didn’t know her might think her beautiful: tall, curvy, with rich olive skin and dark curls swinging wildly to the small of her back. She dresses well, in baggy, chic trousers today and a long blazer, her silk shirt revealing every bit as much of her as she’d like it to.
But a man like me, who knows Ariana well, might also notice the cold deadness in her green eyes. He might clock the pistol tucked discreetly beneath her arm, which flashes just a little when she moves. And he might know her history: as an art and arms dealer unrivaled in both Europe and the states.
“You look tired,” she says, without heat. She meets me beside my desk, abandoning the customary kiss on the cheek for a hard handshake. As usual. “Sit. We have much to discuss.”
“Ari,” I say with a sigh. “This is my office. My house. My country, really—depending on who you ask.”
“Such a thing shouldn’t be dependent on who’s asked,” she says, tossing her expensive, treated black leather briefcase carelessly onto the edge of my desk. “That seems like the kind of knowledge that ought to remain consistent across all polled.”
I sigh again, waiting until she sits to go to the corner and pour both of us a drink. Ariana has always been like this. The only child of a Russian arms dealer and an Italian mobster, she’s rarely—if ever—had to question her own worth in a room. Any room. She was an enemy of my father’s, even though she and I were the same age. I wasn’t foolish enough to make her my enemy, too. Instead, I brought her on, one of the first changes I made when I took over.
Dome and a few of my father’s old allies expressed their disgust at the idea immediately, and some kept it up. A few have come around. But I was living by an old creed and still am. Similar to the one I’m living by with Kate upstairs, locked in her little ivory tower.
Keep your enemies close.
“So,” Ari says, taking the negroni I give her with a look of annoyance. She doesn’t like that I know what she likes. Good. I’ll need to keep her on her toes. “Tell me about Liam’s kid.”
“As if you don’t know about her.” Ari is also known for doing her research. In this way, we’ve managed to align pretty well thus far. “She practically offered herself. I couldn’t say no.”
“You could have put a bullet in the back of her head and left her in a Dublin gutter.” Ari sighs, sipping her negroni and kicking back, one boot over her knee. “That would have sent the message better, and we wouldn’t have Liam and his dogs sniffing around our side of the continent.”
“Liam is ill. Bedridden. Hemorrhaging money, losing men. There’s talk of a mutiny.” I drum my fingers on the edge of my desk and drink my Scotch deeply. I watch Ari over the rim of my glass. I’ve been in power for half a decade; she’s been at my side for nearly all of it. Yet as much as I like to believe I know her in and out, sometimes I wonder. “This is strategic. You know that.”
“Strategic is the marriage.”
I look at her sharply. She cocks a brow and reaches into her briefcase. Then she slides an iPad across the desk toward me. I stare at the screen, not touching it. “What is this?”
“What do you think it is, Luca? The girl is worth most bartered and sold to the highest bidder. These are the highest bidders.”
I stare hard at the iPad. The man is Russian, old enough to be Kate’s father. “I’m not certain that’s the play.”
“She’s mafia royalty. What other play is there? Sitting here, locked up in your little compound, she’s worthless. No, worse than worthless—she’s a liability. Do you really want to play capture the flag with Liam McNamara? Old and sick or not, he’s been at this longer than you. Much longer. He has the forces. He has hands in this country. You’re inviting him to war.”
Does she think I haven’t considered all of this? “I have contacts from the girl.” I’m careful not to be overly familiar. To call her, as I’m strangely tempted to, Kate. “I want you to go over them. Vet them. Determine the worth and return on each.” I flip the cover on her iPad closed and shove it back across the desk, showing I’m not even entertaining the thought. “That’s why you’re here. I’m not requesting your counsel.”
She smiles. Pure ice, pure steel. “You should be. Clearly, your judgment has been clouded.”
“She may be of more worth this way.”
She leans back, studying me. “There is one other way she’s worth more to you than being married off to a Russian arms dealer. I’ll give you that.”
I cock a brow. “Oh? And what’s that?”
“Think long and hard, Luca.” There’s something in her face: a blunt, malicious amusement. This is who Ariana is to me. Dangerous. But more dangerous across the board than beside me on it. So far, that is. “Come on. Don’t be stupid. You have to know what everyone woke up thinking this morning. Why did Luca Romano kidnap Liam McNamara’s daughter and drag her across Europe?”
I bristle. “I’m not taking her for myself.”
“It would be so easy, you know. Whether you did it for loyalty or to send a message. You could marry her and lock down all of those contacts, whether she wants you to or not. You could fuck her and get her pregnant. You could bind your organization to Liam’s like kings and queens used to bind their countries. By blood.”
I clench my jaw. I’m not sure what it is about the suggestion that has my hackles up. Maybe it’s the glitter in her eye—the fact that she’s clearly enjoying this. A lot. Too much. Why? I get the sense that Ari knows more than she’s letting on. It’s not the first time. I have checks and balances set up on her, some she knows about, and some that I’ve kept under wraps. I’ll have to tap into them. See what she’s been up to when she’s off-campus lately. Whom she’s talking to. Whose lap she’s been sitting on.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, hoping she buys the bluff. Finishing my drink, I stand. “For now, check into the leads I gave you. I want to know exactly what kind of assets we’re working with, no matter how we deal with her.”
“As you wish.” Ari sighs, polishing her negroni and standing. She grabs her briefcase. “But think about what I said. She has more worth as a wife. Or,” she inclines her head, giving me a sharp smile, “as a corpse.”
And with that, she turns and leaves me.
***
I’m not sure what I’m expecting when I push, without knocking, into Kate’s room. Well, the guest room she’s been allotted. It is, thanks to me—the grandest in the villa. As much as I’ve considered Ari’s suggestion, and as effective as torture and mistreatment might have proven to be, it didn’t feel right. Kate may be the daughter of my greatest enemy, but she’s also a woman. Intelligent, self-assured, and deserving of this most basic respect.
Unless, that is, she does anything to lose it.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting, but it’s not this: Kate curled up on a plush, embroidered reading chair, pulled up under the window. Snow falls softly outside, over the stark wild grounds and near-enough-to-touch mountains. The winter afternoon is peaking, as bright as it will be. The window is white and radiant, falling on her honey-colored hair, on her full lips. She has a hardback classic open on her lap, already two-thirds read. And she doesn’t look up when I enter or when I close the door behind me.
I approach, startled to find myself…unsure. I slide my hands into the pockets of my pants, hesitating as I reach her. Still, she doesn’t look up.
I finally clear my throat. “Have you been treated well?”
“You disarmed me and took my phone. Other than that, I’m thriving.” Her voice is even. Not even a hint of anger. Interesting. “And the heat needs to be turned up.” Without looking, she points to the heating vent. “How old is this house?”
“A couple of centuries.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“A beautiful prison?” I move closer. She seems to have dragged the chair to the window herself, the heavy mahogany feet having left soft scars on the plush Persian rug. On the antique table before her, a fresh cup of tea steams. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she lived here and always had. She has the aspect of a woman of the house. And yet she just commented on my taking her gun from her… “I’m having the information you gave me assessed.”
“By Ariana Starkova?”
I stare at her. I shouldn’t be surprised she knows Ari by name or that she’s the handler of many of my European accounts. Still. It catches me off-guard. “Yes.”
“Her father shot my father once. Did you know that?” Finally, she looks at me. Her eyes lance, piercing me straight through. I exhale softly, feeling a strange tension release—like I was waiting for her to look at me and didn’t even know it. “In the chest. He nearly died. It took him three months to recover.”
“I didn’t know that.” I should have, though. All of our fathers have a rich, blood-stained history. Two of them are now dead, with Liam ostensibly on his way to joining them. “Have you met her before?”
“Once. In Rome. My father and I were there making a trade. But the cover was a gala, some charity event in the heart of the city.” Kate touches the corner of the page she’s on with extreme delicacy. “I was barely legal. All dressed up, you know. Like that’s why we were there. And meanwhile, my father had men loading Renaissance paintings into wooden crates like souvenirs.”
I study her. She has no guard up now, strangely. She’s speaking softly, fingers dancing reverently over the old book page. As though she’s telling something to an old friend, not an enemy who kidnapped her just yesterday.
“Ariana came up to me on a balcony,” she says, and her face hardens slightly. “I didn’t like her. I’m surprised that you do. She’s dangerous. She’s not anyone’s friend but her father’s, and he’s dead.” Her eyes snap to mine. “I heard you brought her on a few years ago. I thought you were an idiot then.”
I can’t help myself asking: “What do you think of me now?”
“I don’t know yet. I guess that depends on what happens next.” She sighs, closing the book. The Crucible. I press my lips together. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with me?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’d like you to have dinner with me this evening. Here, in the house. To discuss things.”
She narrows her eyes. And to my surprise, she stands. She’s in sock-feet, soft pants, and a long sweater. Her hair long and loose. As domestic as I’ve seen her, given that the first time we interacted was on a dark street, both of us armed. “I reached out to Gio,” she says. “Recall? I’m the one who got this game started. I may be locked up in your house, but I’m not your pawn. You’re not in control here, Luca.”
I narrow my eyes right back. “You’d be wise to watch your tone with me. I’ve been a perfect gentleman so far—”
“A perfect gentleman?” She steps closer, so close we’re nearly touching. Toe to toe. I refuse to so much as budge an inch. She jerks down the collar of her sweater, revealing a ring of purpling bruises wrapped around her neck. In the shape of Dome’s hands. “What kind of perfect gentleman orders this, hm? I don’t care who you are. You’re a gangster. You can’t impress me. But don’t act like you’re giving me some kind of mercy. You’re not.”
“I could have killed you.”
“Assess the accounts,” she says sharply. “Then we’ll talk. Until then, I’m staying right here. And until you’ve given me the respect—and the fucking agency—that I’m deserving of, I’m keeping my mouth shut.”
She turns away, and my anger and my instincts get the better of me. I catch her by the elbow, more roughly than I mean to, and push her back, directing her ass back into the reading chair. She sits hard, looking up at me with blank astonishment. Fucking good, I think savagely. You should be scared of me. I kneel before her, my grip on her arm tightening. I force her to look me in the eye.
“You strike me as the kind of girl who’s used to getting what she wants,” I say sharply. She squirms, trying to pull away from me. But I need to quash this now, and I’m too pissed off to stop myself anyway. I tighten my grip hard enough to bruise and yank her closer. She narrows her eyes, her soft mouth tightening. “That ends now. You want a shot at surviving this? You do as I fucking say, and you do it with a fucking smile on your face.”
Her eyes widen. Her mouth is a hard line. She’s gone pale, daubs of red creeping across her cheeks. I can tell she’s in pain, but she’s strong, and she’s holding up well. Putting on a good show. I hold her gaze, not letting mine yield.
“Good and obedient,” she finally says, her voice like broken glass. “Dinner.”
“Dinner.” I release her roughly, shoving her back in the chair hard. She falls back, her expression flat and cold and pissed off. “Don’t be late.”