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“How? I hope you come up with a fucking plan Max and quick because we are on a fucking time limit here,” I growled, standing up from my chair again. I couldn’t sit still. All I kept hearing was my papi’s voice in my head on repeat. ‘Never let her come to any harm. Always protect her, Giovanni.’ I had failed him. I had failed her.
“I think we should do what they say. We can gain back power in Venice once we have her back. It is not worth the risk right now,” Olivia looked between us all but held my gaze and I nodded in agreement.
I walked over to my wife and put my hands on her shoulders. “She’s right. We give them what they want and do as they say. We get Elle back. And then I take back power over the North starting by killing Leone. Then I will kill Barbieri. I don’t care how long it takes me. I want to make a show of their deaths. Make sure everyone knows what happens when they cross the Buccinis.”
A Challenging Morning
Beads of sweat trickled off my body and onto the treadmill as I increased the speed, forcing my muscles to scream with agony. I bared my teeth and pushed through the pain. Pain was welcomed. Pain was needed. Because it was a reprieve from the thought of Elenora Buccini sleeping soundly two doors away from me.
After my call with Buccini, I couldn’t relax. It was ridiculous. The call went well. Better than I expected and I knew my father would be pleased once I explained all this mess. I am convinced he will do anything to keep her safe and everything was working out perfectly to set us up to take over the North. But all that elation was tarnished with that little leccaculo, Enzo’s voice. The anger he radiated was genuine. He cared about her. There was something between them. Finn had told me there wasn’t. That it was just rumours and nothing would come of it, but now I was doubting his knowledge.
I spent the night tossing and turning in bed, reading back through all my messages with ‘Flora’ seeing it all in a whole new light. I had always had a strange interest in Elenora since that night I stole her first kiss and no other woman had ever intrigued me like that again until Flora. And now I knew they were the same person; it puts me in very dangerous territory. One that I can’t afford to entertain.
Even if she’s attracted to me, she ‘used’ me. She played me to aid her brother. She was just another woman in my life who didn’t see me for me. Just for what I could give them. I had to shake this obsession with her. These foreign feelings she provoked in me because they were useless. She was right when she said we were enemies. She looked me in the eye and told me she ‘hated’ me. But that wasn’t what had me unable to rest all night. It was that I knew she didn’t. She felt something for me. There was something between us that neither of us could ignore. And it was causing a niggling feeling that would not subside. Was any of it real?
Switching off the machine, I grabbed the towel draped over the side and wiped my forehead before hanging it around my neck. It wasn’t even 6.30 a.m. yet so I knew she wouldn’t be up. Making my way out of the gym house and back into the main building of my estate, I strolled into the kitchen to make myself a coffee.
The soothing, nostalgic sound of cheerful humming came from behind the open pantry door and I smiled, leaning my back against the kitchen unit to scare the most important woman in my life. She shut it with a nudge of her dainty elbow—her hands full of ingredients to start preparing breakfast—but nearly dropped it all when I gave her the fright of her life.
“Alessio! Ragazzaccio! Lo sai che odio quando arrivi così di soppiatto!” She launched into her Italian scolding, giving me narrowed eyes as she dropped all the ingredients down on the kitchen surface with a clatter.
“Sorry, Zia. You just make it too easy,” I teased, leaning forward to greet her with a kiss on her cheek. She flapped her hand in fake disgust.
“Ewww! You are all sticky and smelly! Go take a shower before breakfast is ready,” she ordered, the only person I ever let boss me around in such a manner. I smirked and turned around to finish making my coffee.
“You are up early,” she stated, her dark eyebrow raising on her wrinkling forehead.
“Couldn’t sleep so there was no point in staying in bed,” I explained with a shrug of my shoulders.
“Nightmares are back?” she asked gently and I turned, shaking my head.
Florence Fetelli had been hired as my nanny, home-school teacher and all-round mother figure when I was taken in by Diego. She had no idea that I am not really Diego’s son but she heard the story that was told to all the Barbieri clan. That my mother was Diego’s past mistress and Diego took me in when he realised I existed. But she knew something wasn’t right. Flo had seen it all; the good, the bad and the downright terrifying. The sleepless nights. The childhood trauma. The nightmares. And then watching how Diego raised me with a firm and unforgiving fist. Even through it all, she had stuck around. When I no longer needed her as my nanny, she became my housekeeper. She never had children of her own and this role became her life. As much as I denied it for many years, I was old enough now to know how much I had needed this woman and she had helped to shape the man I am today.
“You best make enough for three. We have a guest,” I winked, walking around the kitchen and heading for a shower.
“A guest?” Flo questioned, her ageing, sweet face morphing with laughable shock. “We never have guests!”
“Well… there is a first for everything,” I chuckled, striding away from her and up the stairs. I stopped at the top of my floor and nodded to the guards on duty outside her door. There clearly hadn’t been any problems throughout the night otherwise I would have been informed, but that didn’t mean I believed she wouldn’t run. She was a feisty, stubborn creature who was biding her time.
Taking a long, cold shower to shake off my rough night and then dressing more casually than I normally would in a pair of jeans and a fitted T-shirt, I felt more myself again even with the lack of sleep. I had no plans to leave the house today and would work from my office after making a little visit to our friend in the cellars. Elenora still didn’t know I had Rico here and I was interested to learn how that would go down, but first I had to get his side of the story either through sheer force or manipulation.
I dismissed her guards, telling them to go and get some rest and inhaled a breath before I unlocked her door with my key. I hesitated on whether to barge right in seeing as this was my house or do the gentlemanly thing and knock first. As much as the thought of a feisty Princess turned me on, I was going to try and avoid being in a position where I wanted to rip her clothes off.
I knocked loudly. There was shuffling and movement but then she called out in that fiery tone, “What do you want?”
“Opening the door would be a good start,” I replied, tapping my foot impatiently when I heard no attempt to move towards it.
“Didn’t you just unlock it? You can open it yourself,” she shouted. Fuck, that smart ass mouth. I pushed down on the handle and shoved the door open to find her standing at the end of the bed. Her arms were folded across an oversized white button up shirt that flirted with the top of her thighs. Just a pair of long socks were the only other thing on her body. Her black hair was tousled and slightly untamed around her shoulders to show she had literally just got out of bed and her face was flawless without a lick of make-up. Oh, fucking hell. She was insanely beautiful.
Realising I was staring at her as though I was about to devour her in one bite, she squirmed under my gaze, pulling on the hem of the shirt. My shirt.
“What?” she glared. “This was all that was in the wardrobe. I don’t know who they belong to but they are not women’s clot—”
“Mine,” I groaned so deeply, because my voice choked on the back of my throat from arousal. Her alluring dark eyes widened in surprise.
“What?”
“They are mine. The clothes,” I tried to regain my sanity as I forced my feet to stay outside the threshold of her room. I didn’t trust myself to walk in there and not touch her, especially with the way she looked in my shirt and now she was biting her fucking lip, that cute blush on her cheeks. I cleared my throat and continued, “Your arrival was a little unexpected so it was all I had. I will get you some clothes today. Breakfast is ready. Put some shorts on before you come down like that.”
