But what had happened back then no longer mattered. I’d been looking for another in. Another moment when my victory could be assured. And now, I’d found it.
I glanced down at my screen and smiled as I watched Luca Varasso make passionate love to a woman on the floor of the family’s gym. Rather daring considering anyone could’ve waltzed right in. Glad to have installed such state-of-the-art equipment, I zoomed in on their intertwined bodies, enjoying myself. The scene between them provided quite the show.
The woman was his new business protégé. I’d researched her a bit. She was a nobody from one of the worst parts of the city, someone named Molly Greene, yet she’d proven herself to be quite an asset. But it wasn’t her skills in the family business that piqued my interest. It was the look on Luca’s face.
Pure adoration.
Yes, exactly what I needed.
This would bring me the opportunity to repeat the past, to put the Crown Prince Made King right back into the state of sorrow and grief that had once almost defeated him. To bring him to his knees.
All I had to do now was take out Molly Greene, and everything I’d ever wanted would at last be mine.
20
Molly
I busied myself on the Varasso’s private jet the next afternoon by flipping through social media like I used to. There were pictures of foxes stacked together like cartons, of a kitten sleeping upside down with its butt in the air, and of a puppy trying to eat a bone that had been painted on the bottom of its food dish.
I knew most people laughed at images and videos like these. Once upon a time, I had, too. But today, I couldn’t seem to find my sense of humor.
I opened my YouTube app, thinking about checking on my account, but I didn’t need a reminder of how I’d ended up here. Here on a jet thirty thousand feet in the air. In an environment tailor-made for the elite, the top one percent. In a place a few months ago I never would’ve thought it possible for me to be. A place I thought would make me happy.
Ecstatic, even.
But I wasn’t happy. When I’d slept in the gutter and lived on the streets, I’d believed wholeheartedly that rich people must be thrilled to be rich. They must always feel good and never experience any of the negativity that came with my life. I mean, we’re all taught that. Buy this and you’ll feel happy. Live here and you’ll be happy. Drive this car and…
Well, so on and so forth. Et cetera, et cetera.
But that message was a lie. A cardinal one. One they should go to hell for.
Bummer, right?
I felt pulled like taffy in about four different directions. One direction pulled me toward the business empire I’d helped make more successful. One direction pulled me back toward Tara and the apartment I’d shared with her. One direction pulled me away from all of it—my old life and my new one. And even after everything that had gone down, the last direction pulled me toward Luca.
The asshole.
I mean, what had I expected? He was a mobster, for God’s sake. He’d become a widower, a father, and the patriarch of a mafia family all before the age of thirty. It was an exceedingly well-known mafia family, too.
As I’d learned how to operate the arm of the drug imports the Varassos were responsible for, I’d seen other families affiliated with the mob act deferentially toward them.
The simplest way of putting it was that the Varassos had clout. They were an old and heavily respected family in mafia circles. Their criminal activities loomed large but had been carefully maintained and subtle enough to evade the authorities. They’d lived this life for generations, and the current generation had been gifted the empire, with all its good parts and all its bad.
And apparently one of the bad parts included a leader with a lack of being able to fall in love again.
The higher-minded more mature part of myself could respect that.
Luca had lost the love of his life. He had a daughter to raise on his own. He’d lost a mother and very recently a father. He’d been made the head of his family and their sprawling organization. He had more important priorities than most men his age, so he didn’t have the time or the inclination to invest in another woman.
I got it.
But it sucked.
He’d hurt me. Not in the way I’d been hurt before but in a whole new way. This had been the first time ever that I’d fallen in love with someone. Like really and truly fallen. I’d cared about a couple of the men I’d been with in a general way before. I’d enjoyed their company for short periods of time. But I’d never experienced anything like this. This need.
Thinking about it now drove me right up the curved wall of this goddamn jet.
I didn’t do needy. It wasn’t who I was as a person. I’d always been the kind of woman who said whatever I wanted, usually with an obnoxious smirk on my face. Men couldn’t break my heart because I never let them into it. I never gave it over to them in a square giftbox with a bright red bow. I’d never been dumb enough to do that.