Page 108 of Revenge on the Mafia

He cocked a thick eyebrow.

“You’re far too useful.”

“I bet,” he replied dryly, but I could tell that had pleased him.

“So, what about the third man? Can I kill him?”

He groaned.

I stared at him. “You killed him, didn’t you?”

He looked at me and smiled. There was so much evil behind it the devil would run and hide. “Can I wrap it as a wedding gift?”

“Who was he?”

He sighed. “My uncle.”

He’d killed his own father. His uncle. For Papá? For me?

I sat up. “How many men have you killed in my name?”

He tucked a loose curl behind my ear. “Oh, stella mia, there’s not enough wrapping paper in the world to wrap that shit up.”

I gasped. He pulled me down and swallowed it in a kiss.

I lost myself in him. For once I wasn’t scared because he’d always have my back. No matter what. Somewhere between, I mumbled, “Thank you.”

Thank you for loving my papá.

For avenging his death.

For loving me.

For being there. Even when I didn’t know he was there.

Everything he’d done he’d done for me. “Thank you.”

“Show me,” he growled.

I did. I rocked my hips against him. We brought ourselves to the edge slowly. It was pain. It was pleasure. It was torturous. It was a reward for a lifetime of agony. I drowned in him. He did in me. His touch slid on me like heated silk. I matched it. He told me to hold on. He told me to fall with him. When we did, we consumed each other. Fell deeper and deeper before we soared together. Somewhere in between that, something clicked in me.

One hundred and thirty-two times.

The number of months after Papá died, and I’d come to work for him.

The number of months he’d not seen me.

He may have won the game, but I was right.

This wasn’t love. This was obsession. Oddly, I didn’t want it any other way.

EPILOGUE

SIX MONTHS LATER.

NICO

It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky, the sun vying for attention and the ocean spread out in all its glory. There could be a thunderstorm, and I’d still think the view was spectacular. Because below me, sixty-five feet from me, lying directly in my sight was a woman wearing a fuchsia bikini with pom-poms. My woman.