But news of Dante’s capture meant I would have to return to reality today, confront my brother and then end him myself.
He deserved that much.
But right now, I did not want to think about him. Or what he was forcing me to do.
I threaded my fingers through her hair, loving the feel of the silky softness, and pressed a kiss to the pulse point in her neck. She shuddered, but as I clasped her to me, to grind my already lengthening cock against her soft curves, planning to get lost in her again, she flattened her palms on my chest and pushed me gently back.
‘I know Dante’s not nobody, Vito,’ she said softly, her chin firm.
I stiffened, the sound of his name on her lips making the emotions I did not want to confront—not just about my brother, but also about her—surge.
‘Howdo you know this?’ I demanded, regretting the sharp tone when she flinched. I realised I had said too much because her mossy-green eyes became shadowed with concern.
‘The women talk about him sometimes when they think I don’t understand,’ she added, making me curse the fact I had allowed her to befriend the other women on the island while I worked during the day. But I had enjoyed watching her make friends on Isla Donna as she taught them English and they taught her Italian. I regretted that, too, when she continued. ‘And you looked so troubled when you were talking about him on the phone just now with Lorenzo. Who is he? Why is he being brought to Isla Donna? Is he the man who tried to kill you that night? I want to know who…’
‘No, you don’t, Mia,’ I interrupted her, pressing my finger to her lips to silence her, my stomach starting to churn. ‘He is not your concern.’
She grasped my finger and dragged it away, still staring at me with that crippling concern in her eyes. ‘Of course he is, if he wants to kill you,’ she said. But the fierceness in her gaze only troubled me more.
I had told her once she could not save me when I did not want to be saved. But why did I still find her refusal to obey me as enchanting as it was frustrating?
‘He doesn’twantto kill me any more than Iwantto kill him.’ I ground out the words, forced to admit the truth. ‘But he will keep trying until he gets what he believes is rightfully his.’
As a boy, my younger half brother, Dante, had been reckless, impulsive and dangerously charismatic—but he had also hero-worshipped me. Even though, when I had first arrived on Isla Donna scared and alone and traumatised, I had taken his place, declared as the heir because I was my father’s first-born child and his only legitimate son.
My father had always been a hard man, but why, when he had valued family so much, had he treated his own flesh and blood so cruelly? Discarding Dante and his mother less than a year later, when he tired of Angelica Malvini’s charms.
After my father’s death two years ago, the prospect of joining forces with Dante and the Malvini family had seemed to make more sense than prolonging a feud which could bleed into generations.
But all thoughts of a compromise had been lost six months ago in Naples, when I had seen the bullets fly across the bed so close to Mia’s head. Had I instinctively known my son was already growing inside her, that I must protect her at all costs? As I stared at her now, her gaze glowing with compassion, I finally admitted to myself my attachment to her wasn’t just about the baby anymore. If it had ever been… Something had happened between us that night which had changed me even then. And it had got progressively worse since I had brought her to Isla Donna.
I trusted her now more than I had ever trusted anyone. She hadn’t lied about accepting her place was here with me. She had even begun to build a life in the compound. I had enjoyed seeing her blossom, seeing her start to belong, but I could not allow her to make me weak.
‘Why does he think he should have a share of the syndicate?’ she asked, clearly believing my silence was an opportunity to push for information.
‘Because he is my father’s son too,’ I said, the truth bitter on my tongue.
‘He’s… Dante’s yourbrother?’ she whispered, recoiling in horror at the implication.
I nodded. ‘We will return to Isla Donna today, and then tonight, this will be over,’ I said flatly, determined not to let her shocked reaction matter.
She needed to know how this worked. She needed to understand that there could be no compromise. Not in my world. Or Dante’s. He understood there was a price to be paid for threatening my men, my businesses, for threatening me and my woman and my child, even if Mia did not.
She shuddered as the impact of my words hit her.
‘But you can’t kill him, Vito. You said yourself you don’t want to. And he’s your brother… There must be another way.’ She swallowed, her gaze rivetted to my face now. ‘I… I’m falling in love with you Vito,’ she said. The quiet words sliced through me.
But I steeled myself against the sudden rush of longing for it to be true.
What the hell was happening to me? I couldn’t need her love. I didn’t want it. That was not what this was about. She was mine now, and I had realised in the past weeks I might never be able to let her go.
In just a few weeks, she had become an integral part of my existence. The time we had spent together was the lightest of my life. I had come to crave the way she challenged me, the way she could be both practical and playful, the way she could turn me on to the point of madness at one moment and yet bring me peace the next. Most nights now, I slept soundly as I held her, her steady breathing keeping the old nightmares at bay and making the danger that had always haunted my life seem distant.
But that did not mean I was going to start believing in fairy tales.
‘If you kill Dante,’ she said, her distress written all over her expressive face, ‘and you don’t have to, how will you ever live with yourself…’
I grasped her arms, yanked her onto her toes, the searing jealousy helping me to bury all those needs I didn’t want to feel. ‘Why do you care so much about him?’
