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I regarded him, trying to gauge his mood, but even now it was still difficult. “I’ll give her a choice.”
Nino shook his head once, almost disapproving. “This woman is innocent. She’s not a debtor. Not a whore who steals money. She hasn’t done anything.”
“Kiara changed you.”
“Not in this regard. We’ve never preyed on the innocent, Remo. We’ve never laid a hand on someone who didn’t deserve it, and this woman, this girl … she did nothing to deserve that choice.”
I held his gaze. “You know me better than anyone else,” I murmured. “And yet here we stand.”
Nino tilted his head, gray eyes narrowing. “You’re playing a dangerous game. You don’t know your opponent well enough to be sure of her choice.”
“She will choose what they all do, Nino. She’s a woman. She’s been coddled all her life. She will take the easy way. I want to hear her say it in front of that fucking camera, want Dante hear his niece offer her fucking body to me, want them all to hear it, and she will.”
Downstairs, I grabbed one of the pizza boxes before I returned to the guest bedroom in my wing. This time, Serafina sat on the bed and didn’t look up when I entered. She held the silver nightgown in her hands. “What if I refuse to wear it?”
“You can wear your nightgown for the show or be naked. Your blood will look just as enticing against your white skin as it would against the nightgown.”
A small shiver rippled through her body, and she let the piece of clothing flutter to the ground at her bare feet.
I walked closer. “Here. You haven’t eaten in more than a day.” I set the pizza box down on the nightstand.
She eyed it suspiciously. I waited for her to shove it away, to try punishing me by starving herself, like my mother had always tried with our father. It hadn’t worked with him, and it wouldn’t work with me.
“I hope it’s poisoned,” she muttered then reached for a slice and took a big bite. She chewed then raised her eyes to mine. She swallowed almost defiantly. “Are you going to watch me eat?”
Maybe breaking her wings wouldn’t be as easy as I’d thought.
Early the next morning Fabiano came over. I was doing kicks against the punching bag in our game room, needing to release my pent up energy.
He leaned against the doorframe, assessing me for a couple of heartbeats.
“Say what you’ve got to say,” I growled and landed a hard kick.
“Jerry called me into the Sugar Trap a couple of hours ago so I could deal with the mess you created. I found Simeone with his cock stuffed into his mouth. I’m not sure I want to know what happened.”
I narrowed my eyes. “If you didn’t want to know, you wouldn’t be here.”
He pushed away from the doorframe and moved toward me. “Did he touch her?”
I stopped my kicks. “He didn’t. He thought he could watch Serafina showering.”
Fabiano evaluated my face. “Where is she?”
“In bed.”
His eyebrows rose. “In your bed?”
I didn’t say anything, but I met his eyes straight on.
He sighed. “So, you …” He searched for the right word then gave up. “I thought you wanted to use her virginity as leverage against Cavallaro and her fiancé?”
I tried to gauge Fabiano’s feelings, but he was too good at masking them. If he put that kind of effort into hiding his feelings, he would only disapprove of me taking Serafina with force.
I stalked toward him. “Do you harbor feelings for her?”
He grimaced. “Really? I have Leona. I’m not interested in Fina.”
“But you don’t like the idea of me hurting her?”
“You are Capo. You do with her whatever you want, but no, I don’t like the idea of you punishing her for something the Outfit did.”
I respected Fabiano for his honesty. Most men were too cowardly to tell me the truth to my face. “Then you should leave now because I have a call set up with Dante and her family in two hours, and Serafina will play the leading role.”
He looked away, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “I should return to Leona.”
“You do that. Go to your girl. And I will go to mine.”
“She isn’t yours, Remo. She didn’t choose you. That’s a big difference,” Fabiano said before he turned and left. I returned to the punching bag and kicked it harder than before.
Serafina
Even the next morning, the pizza lay heavily in my stomach, but at least now my stomach was churning for another reason than terror. I considered eating another piece for breakfast. I needed all the energy I could get if I wanted to figure out a way to beat Remo at his own game because no matter how sheltered I was, I knew Remo wouldn’t have set up a video call with my family if he didn’t know he had something to show them that would hurt them.
