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My cousin Asher tossed me the engagement ring like it didn’t cost more than a brownstone on the Upper East Side.
“Jackass.” I tucked it into the velvet case, slid it inside the inner pocket of my suit jacket, then threw him a clean shirt.
Blood clung to the fabric of his white tee, but it fazed neither of us. The Romano syndicate possessed no shortage of enemies, and Asher’s job as our fixer was to dispose of them when told.
He swapped the soaked shirt for the clean button down, discarding the ruined material on my floor without a care for the stains on my hardwood.
“Ballsy,” Asher remarked. Like a true fixer, his footsteps made no noise as he followed me down the stairs of my penthouse to the open-plan living room, sidestepping Elsa’s lace panties by the piano with an arched brow. “Your dad won’t like it.”
Dad didn’t like anything to do with Elsa, so expecting him to like this proposal would be like expecting a virgin to fake a convincing orgasm.
I picked the panties up and pocketed them for later, already imagining them stuffed in her mouth as I slide inside her after she accepts my proposal.
“My dad won’t know until it’s too late.”
“But Elsa’s not royal.” He shook his head. “Hell, she’s not even mafia.”
That was the point.
Elsa was far from mafia with her Southern drawl, football obsession, and inability to eat any meal without a side of store-bought ketchup.
She was also the smartest woman I’d ever met, fuck-hot, capable of script-worthy banter, and the first woman to make me fall in love.
I had plans for tonight which included an engagement ring on her finger and my cock on her tongue.
Plucking my phone from my kitchen island, I shot a text to my assistant Lewis to confirm my plans.
“Again. Dad won’t know until it’s too late.”
As far as I was concerned, my dad had no say in this.
I’d done everything right. The top boarding schools. The Ivy League education. Learning the Romano businesses—legal and less legal—inside and out.
Any fucker—my dad included—who got in between me and Elsa could acquaint himself with my fist and, perhaps, the jagged blade of the knife Uncle Vince had gifted me when I’d turned nine.
I hadn’t used it—that was what the enforcers were for—but I had the training and wouldn’t hesitate to.
People saw me as the privileged, over-educated spawn of Giovanni Romano. I did little to alter their perception, mostly because I gave no fucks, but also because I enjoyed being underestimated.
Asher tucked his socked feet into his Jordans, still staring at me with those eery too-blue eyes of his.
“Okay, Golden Child.”
He still didn’t believe I’d defy the syndicate.
Dad expected me to marry another mafia royal. Not quite as drastic as his arranged marriage with Ma, but the daughter of an upper-level mafia figure of my own choosing at the very least.
Never once had I gone against my family’s wishes before Elsa.
My Uncles Frankie and Eli didn’t have children. So, I’d been groomed to run the Romano empire from the business side, leaving enforcement to Dad’s twin Uncle Vince—and eventually Asher Black, Uncle Vince’s son by pseudo-adoption.
Asher got his hands dirty; I filled mine with business textbooks from Wharton.
I graduated with my masters at twenty-two and came back with Elsa in tow, her Southern-belle eyes starstruck by the size of my penthouse and a lifestyle she never knew existed.
I loved that about her—how untouched she was by all this wealth, which never seemed to stop growing.
Dad, on the other hand, hated every second he spent in her presence, nearly painted the town red when she moved in with me, and will probably stab someone when he finds out about my proposal.
