Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
“Now, I’m tired of running in circles with this conversation, so I’ll spell it out for you one last time. Vivienne is mine. I will not ever let her go. If she wants a relationship with you, that’s her decision, but your efforts to separate us won’t end well for you. Trust me, Franklin, you don’t want to get on my bad side.”
“She will never love you, DeLuca,” Franklin taunted in a pathetic last-ditch effort to feel superior over me. “Everyone knows you lack emotion. You're a ruthless killer who feeds on the power trip it gives you to take a life. You're a robot, and Vivienne is desperate to be loved. One day, she’ll realize you aren’t capable of feeling anything for her, and she’ll come running back to us.”
I allowed a rare smile to appear since he couldn’t see it. He wasn’t wrong in one respect. I was ruthless, and a killer, and I often lacked emotion. That reputation gave me power, discouraging anyone who contemplated making a move against the family. And the fact that he didn’t know I had a whole other side filled me with satisfaction.
The parts of me where love, desire, hurt, and pain resided were reserved for family—and I didn’t mean the Family. What I felt for Vivienne, though, was more than I’d ever experienced. It shed light on my darkest corners and made me feel alive. I wasn’t about to share that with anyone but her.
“You might be right,” I lied. “But it’s a chance I’m willing to take. If someday you and your wife decide that Vivienne is worth fighting for, all contact is to go through me. Do not try to circumvent this rule, Franklin, or you’ll see just how merciless I am up close and personal. Capire?”
After a few beats, he gritted out, “Yes.”
“Bene. Arrivederci.”
I ended the call, then glanced up at the door to my office when I heard slow clapping.
“Impressive,” Domenico murmured with a smirk. “Hopefully, you still have an ace up your sleeve, though.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I have a feeling you’re going to need it to convince your woman to stay when she finds out who you really are.”
Before I could formulate a response—one that didn’t give him the smug satisfaction of knowing he was probably right—Dario and Leo entered my office.
“We have a situation,” Leo grunted. “Someone spooked Umberto, and he took off.”
“Cazzo,” I snarled. “His family?”
Dario’s expression was dark as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Currently being rounded up and brought to the warehouse for questioning.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything else as I raised my eyes to the ceiling. My mind was on the angel waiting for me. Handling this shit was my job, but I hadn’t been fucking with Vivienne’s father when I told him she would come first from now on. If I wanted to convince her to stay and make her fall in love with me, I needed to spend time with her now. Not leave her alone with her thoughts so she could question everything.
My gaze shifted to Dario. He would never be strong enough to be a Capo di Provincia—someone who was in charge of a branch of the Family. But he was a steady and reliable lieutenant. Nic had urged me to give him more responsibility, but I could be a bit of a control freak and had never been very good at delegating.
Nic had told me many times that I needed to figure that shit out because I’d have no choice when I had a family of my own. I’d blown his advice off, convinced I’d remain a bachelor and pass my role on to a nephew like my great-uncle Giuseppe had done. Not everyone was destined to find the love of their lives and do the whole picket fence thing. Figuratively speaking since he and his wife, Anna, and their kids lived in a Manhattan brownstone.
My cousin was going to laugh his ass off when he found out I’d proved him right.
“Can you deal with this on your own?” I asked Dario.
His brows shot up, and his eye probed mine, trying to discern if I was serious or fucking with him.
“I need to take a few days off, and it will be up to you to take care of anything I can’t do from my home office.”
Dario’s brown orbs—the same color as mine—glinted with determination as he nodded. “I can handle it,” he assured me.
I shifted my focus to Domenico. “It’s unlikely that Vivienne and I will leave the house. Help Dario with whatever, and I’ll let you know if things change.”
He lifted his chin in acknowledgment, then listened without comment while Dario, Leo, and I went over a few more things.
When we were finished, the men filed out the door, with Domenico taking up the rear.