Page 20 of The Mafia King's Reign
When Matteo slid the photograph across the desk, I expected another leverage asset.
Another weakness to exploit.
Instead, I saw her.
And everything inside me went very still. It was perfect. She… was perfect.
The same bloodline that once humiliated my father.
Forty years of unfinished business.
Wrapped in the body of a woman who had no idea she already belonged to me.
Her dark hair was pulled back. No makeup but damn, one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. She was wearing jeans that showed every curve and a sweater that tried and failed to hide them.
Her eyes, even in a grainy surveillance photo, I can see the fire and intelligence there. The focus. The way she carries herself with unconscious grace.
I’ve been staring at this photo for weeks.
And every time I look at it, that same primal certainty floods through me.
“Tell me about her,” I’d said to Matteo when he first showed me this photo three weeks ago.
He’d rattled off facts. “Twenty-six. Master’s Degree from Columbia. No boyfriend. No debts. Completely clean.”
I’d studied that photo for a long time, memorizing every detail.
“I want her.”
“For what? Leverage against Marco?”
“I’m going to marry her.”
Matteo had laughed. “You’re joking.”
“Marco Marino stole something from this family forty years ago. Now I’m taking his daughter. The debt gets paid, I get a wife with enough at stake to ensure loyalty, and Marco dies knowing exactly what his betrayal cost.”
“So you’re going to take the girl, and kill her father?”
“This is insane.”
“This is perfect.”
Now, three weeks later, Matteo is still trying to talk me out of it.
But I can’t explain to him what I don’t fully understand myself.
There was something about that photograph. Something that called to me. Not only her beauty, though she is beautiful. Something deeper. Something primal and possessive and completely irrational.
I saw her picture and every instinct I have screamed: Take her. Own her. Keep her. So I did.
“So you said her background check came back clean right?” I ask, changing the subject.
Matteo sighs, recognizing I’m done discussing my motivations. “Completely. She’s exactly what she appears to be, an innocent bystander caught in her family’s mess. No criminal record. Few close friends. Spends most of her time working.”
“Good.”
“Is it?” Matteo gathers his reports. “Sal, an innocent in this world is a liability. She doesn’t know the rules. Doesn’t understand what we do or why we do it. You’re going to have to either break her or corrupt her, and neither of those options ends well.”
