Not a mafioso who was astoundingly creative with his torture techniques.
I tried to remind myself how awful it had been for me when Seamus returned home broken and pulled apart by the Camorra for his unpaid gambling debts. How scared and upset I’d been.
But it didn’t have the same bearing anymore.
Now, I couldn’t forget that Seamus had somewhat deserved such treatment. He’d continually borrowed money from the outfit when he had little luck and no back-up plan. The only thing that got him to pause his activities for any length of time were the particularly brutal beatings they doled out every once in a while, to remind him that they weren’t afraid to take payment in the form of his life.
If Seamus deserved it then, didn’t this Umberto Arno deserve it now?
He’d blindly decided to assassinate Dante because he hadn’t like Rocco’s plans for his cousin. It was sheer instinctual idiocy. If he’d used his brain for a moment, he could have questioned Dante’s motive in the scheme, wondered if the visiting Don would be happy about the idea of marrying some local Italian girl with a tarnished reputation.
But no.
Men.
Always acting as swiftly as they reacted.
So, I didn’t respond the way I would have even a month ago.
Instead, a felt the heat of desire and righteous fury flow through me thick and hot as magma. I enjoyed watching Dante scare him the way most people might have enjoyed watching a well-acted play. I was engrossed and more than a little proud that that man, the one with all the power, the diamond bright and hard-cut mind, and massive, threatening physique was all mine.
But then, watching wasn’t enough.
If he was mine than I was his.
And didn’t that mean being at his side?
Fighting along with him.
When Umberto made the comment about Mirabella, I saw my opening. I knew what Dante didn’t, that he was protecting her not because of some transient passion, but a deep, abiding love and respect that spoke of family.
I knew this because I knew Sebastian, if put in the same position, would have risked his life to get any one of his sisters out of the same position Mirabella found herself in.
It was risky to involve myself.
Dante said he wanted me by his side, but thought and action were two very different things. Most mafia wives and women were kept in the dark, meant to stay willfully blind and happy that way. I wasn’t most women and Dante wasn’t most men, but we still lived and operated in that society.
So, I was nervous as I stepped out of the shadows, but no one stopped me. Not Nico, a familiar face from my childhood, or Frankie whose keen eyes told me he’d known I was outside the door all along. Not even Tore, who watched me with a steady, implacable expression as I crossed the floor, my bare feet sticking in cooling pools of blood as I went to Dante’s side.
And Dante?
He surprised me the most.
He wasn’t happy for me to be in that position. It was obvious by the twist in his wide mouth, like he’d swallowed a lemon. But he didn’t stop me, not even when I took a position of power and started to interrogate the stronzo myself.
Every day, even every hour, he proved to me that he was better than any man I ever could have dreamed up. He was real, raw and powerful as lithium.
When we finished planning with Umberto, Tore, and Frankie, Dante took me by the hand, his own crusty with dried blood, and led me from the room.
I followed blindly.
Not because I was traumatized by the violence.
But because beneath my skin, I was sizzling.
When we reached our bedroom, Dante had barely shut the door before I was on him. I pushed him hard into the wood, his breath expelling in a grunt as I tore off his black t-shirt.
“Elena,” he said, almost just to say my name, not because he wanted to stop me.
Which was good because I couldn’t stop.
I was possessed with need, my entire body shaking with it as I dropped into a crouch to drag his sweats down his thick thighs. I left them bunched at his feet, liking the idea that he had to stay exactly there or risk tripping.
“Elena,” he said again, this time on a moan as I rubbed my face at the furred junction of his leg and groin.
He smelled rich and masculine, like a man brined by a dip in the Tyrrhenian Sea. I loved the rough texture of his trimmed pubic hair against my cheek almost as much as I loved that heady smell. I breathed deeply, canting my face so I could look up at Dante as I inhaled, his cock swelling rapidly to full erection beside my forehead.
His eyes were twin blackholes, sucking up every thought in my head that didn’t center around him.