BABIES FOR THE MAFIA BOSS

BELLA KING
AFTER MIDNIGHT
Copyright © 2021 by Bella King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author,
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
 CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1
Wilde
Chapter 2
Pixie
Chapter 3
Wilde
Chapter 4
Pixie
Chapter 5
Wilde
Chapter 6
Pixie
Chapter 7
Wilde
Chapter 8
Pixie
Chapter 9
Wilde
Chapter 10
Pixie
Chapter 11
Wilde
Chapter 12
Pixie
Chapter 13
Wilde
Chapter 14
Pixie
Chapter 15
Wilde
Chapter 16
Pixie
Chapter 17
Wilde
Chapter 18
Pixie
Chapter 19
Wilde
Chapter 20
Pixie
Chapter 21
Pixie
Chapter 22
Wilde
Chapter 23
Pixie
Chapter 24
Wilde
Chapter 25
Pixie
Chapter 26
Wilde
Chapter 27
Pixie
Chapter 28
Wilde
Chapter 29
Wilde
Chapter 30
Pixie
Chapter 31
Wilde
Chapter 32
Pixie
Chapter 33
Wilde
Chapter 34
Wilde
Chapter 35
Pixie
Chapter 36
Wilde
Chapter 37
Pixie
Epilogue

Preview of Triplets for the Russian Boss

Chapter 1
Bonnie
Chapter 2
Kostin

Also by Bella King

 INTRODUCTION

He came into my life like a wildfire, burning down my walls and claiming
me with unfiltered desire.
He knew how to set fire to my soul, and I let him.

I fell for him. Hard. And then I fell pregnant.

But before I could tell him I was having twins, he was locked behind bars.
When I found out the reason, I knew I could never speak to him again.

But I was wrong.

He’s out of prison and on a lethal mission.
…and I’m falling for him again.

Only this time, the stakes are much higher.

Billions of dollars are on the line, along with my life.

I should’ve never trusted him,

But it’s too late to turn back now.
I’m bound to him with a deadly secret.

He still doesn’t know about the twins, but I can’t hide them for long.
He’s starting to piece my half-truths together.
And before I can stop it, my story is tangled up quicker than our bedsheets.
CHAPTER 1
WILDE

B lurred dots of light dance through the pores of the burlap

covering my head, but it’s not enough to see the man they just
killed.
It could’ve been Igor by the earthy thud of the heavy body falling, but it’s
more likely that it was one of the others. They’ll kill anyone who doesn’t
carry the mark of the Bandakov Family. They need us alive if they are to
hold us for ransom.
Once they get the money, however, all bets are off. Torture, castration, and a
slow death await anyone who falls prey to these men. They’re inspired by
the cartel, but they’re always looking to outdo them.
Some are afraid of them, but I’m not. I only fear God, but today I have him
on my side.
Well… God and the blade I have hidden under my tongue.
The doors to the van close and the little dots of light disappear. I prefer the
darkness. For regular people, it levels the playing field, but for me, it gives
me the advantage.
I no longer feel pain in my mouth as I maneuver the blade out from under
my tongue and clench it between my front teeth. Most of my mouth is numb
from when I got hit with the back of a rifle, jammed the blade into my gums
and the underside of my tongue.
Pain has never meant much to me anyway. Death is the only thing that can
stop me, and while I’ve served it up cold to many men, I’ve yet to
experience it personally.
And I won’t today.
Dust and rocks are kicked back by the tires, filling the van with so much
noise that I can barely hear myself think, but I’ve done this kind of shit
enough times to not have to use my brain. It’s all instinct.
The Romano Family’s hired muscle should’ve tied my hands with
something more substantial than ropes, but they didn’t anticipate my next
moves. In fact, they don’t even know who I am, and that I will be their
death sentence.
Unlike my captors, I’m not keen on taking prisoners.
I slip the razor out from my mouth and hold it tightly between my teeth,
repeatedly moving my head from left to right to cut a slit in the bag
covering my face. I move only my head, keeping the rest of my body rigid
as not to jostle myself around and alert the other prisoners.
I recognize some of them by the sound of their breath and the sweat-infused
cologne. They were caught off guard and captured, giving them no time to
hide who they were. Funny enough, that’s the only thing keeping them
alive.
Bandakovs are valuable, making them prime ransom, but they’re also
dangerous, which makes them not worth capturing for most criminal
organizations. The Romano Family has gotten big head as of late, and
they’ve overstepped their power. I’m about to show them why you don’t
mess with a Bandakov.
I let the blade drop through the hole I made in my face covering, feeling the
thin metal dance across my lap. It almost falls to the floor, but I raise my
knee up just in time to keep it from getting lost.
I’m sure someone else here has a plan to escape, but I’m going to beat them
to the punch. I always had to be first at everything. There’s no room for
second in the Mafia.
My hands can’t reach all the way to my lap from behind me, but I can twist
them to the side of my thigh and drop the blade over the edge. The
maneuver is quick, and I catch the blade between the knuckles of my first
and middle fingers as I pretend to scratch my legs and adjust my posture.
The blade is sharp enough to cut the ropes, but it will take a few minutes of
subtle sawing to get all the way through. I popped it out of a dollar-store
razor this morning before heading off to one of the worst parts of Southern
Italy to get myself caught.
It was a pleasant surprise that I was thrown in the same van as others in the
Bandakov Family. I was expecting a beating and a few days of
imprisonment before I was carted off to an undisclosed location to be
processed with the others they captured three days ago, but I seem to have
caught them at the right time.
I smile to myself, dried blood cracking at the sides of my mouth as the
pressure on my wrists is released.
I’m free.
The blade has done its first duty, but I like to get my money’s worth. Razor
blades were made for shaving, and that’s what this one is about to do.
“I need to take a fucking piss,” I announce suddenly, barking the words in
the direction of the driver while trying to make my voice sound as
unfamiliar as possible to the others in the van. I need to keep my cover until
the very last second.
I get no answer from the front, but I figured I wouldn’t. The road is loud
enough to cover most of the noise, and the driver isn’t here to serve me.
He’d rather see me soil myself than take a quick leak outside.
“Hey, bitch motherfucker,” I yell, this time much louder.
I get a nudge from the guy beside me. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”
he hisses.
I chuckle. “Whatever the fuck I want,” I reply. “Just chill. This has nothing
to do with you.”
In fact, it does. The man beside me is Anatoli, a key member of the
Bandakov Family. He, along with Igor and Vlad, are coming with me once I
stop this van. The others can go free, but I doubt they’ll last long out here.
There’s nowhere to run.
I slam my foot into the bed of the van, causing a thundering metallic boom.
I do it twice more before shouting obscenities in Italian at the driver. It’s
only then that the van swerves to the side and decelerates so fast that it
sends me toppling over against Anatoli.
“You fucking idiot,” Anatoli groans. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Just watch and learn,” I reply, sitting up as the door to the back of the van
flies open.
I reach my hands up to my mask, slicing the mouth hole larger and tearing
my head through it so that I can see.
At this point, the driver already knows there’s a problem, but I don’t let him
react. I spring up off the bench in the back, diving out of the van at him
with the blade clenched between my thumb and first finger.
A shank needs to be at least two inches to be lethal in a stabbing, but it’s
amazing what you can do with a shorter piece of metal if you’re creative
enough. My first choice is to go for the eyes since most people aren’t able
to fight blind.
I leap onto the driver of the van like a spider monkey, slashing at his eyes as
he stumbles backward. There will be another coming around the van now
that he realizes there’s trouble, but I’ve already done enough damage to the
first one to take care of further threats.
The hot summer air drenches me with so much sweat that the blade starts to
slip out of my grip as I’m tearing up the driver’s eyes.
I grab his mouth, squeezing his jaw so hard that I hear a pop as it dislocates.
His lips part as he lets out a cry of agony, and I take the opportunity to
shove the razor down into his throat.
I hop off, snatching his rifle in the same movement.
While he’s clawing at his throat and coughing up blood, I turn my attention
to the next threat. I aim my newly acquired rifle at him, but not in time to
prevent him from pulling the trigger to his pistol from around the rear
bumper.
I feel the punch of a .45 against my shoulder, and pain shoots up my neck.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
CHAPTER 2
PIXIE

T here’s nothing special about Italy. It’s hot, I don’t speak the
language, and every major city is a tourist trap.
I wanted to go somewhere authentic, which is how I landed in Sciacca, a
small coastal city in Southern Italy. Whether or not this was a good idea is
yet to be seen.
I should’ve gone with someone, but my sister Megan convinced me that a
solo trip would be good for me.
Get away from the twins, get some sun, dance with strangers…
Yeah, I’ve more or less given up that way of living after it left me with two
boys who will never know their father.
I’m sitting in a frigid hotel room, watching the news anchor speak in Italian
and not understanding a single word of what he’s saying. It feels safer than
going outside, but it’s hardly the fun getaway that I had planned for.
I click the TV remote and the screen goes black. I stare at it for a few
seconds before begrudgingly peeling myself off the narrow bed to get
changed.
It feels good to take my time after always having to run around to tend to
the twins, but if I take too much of it, the week will pass me by before I can
enjoy it. A week sounded like a long time, but it’s already been a day, and I
haven’t done a damn thing.
The shower sputters before it expels a steady stream of water, and I wonder
if it’s safe to drink from the tap, or if I need to keep drinking overpriced
mineral water to stay hydrated. I’m not broke, but I’d rather spend my
money on things that I can’t get for free.
Like drinks with a little more punch to them. It’s already evening, and a
night at the local bar might just spark up the energy I’ve been lacking all
day. I used to do long nights all the time. It’s only been four years.
Four.
I could’ve gotten a college degree in that time. I could’ve fallen in love and
gotten married. Four years sounds like a lot and a little at the same time. It’s
a lot to spend raising twins on your own, but it’s a tiny blip in the grand
scheme of things.
It’s also not long enough to forget about the man who changed my life and
blessed me with my two boys. I hate so many things about him, but I’ll
never hate him. He’s part of my life forever, whether I like it or not.
Well, part of my life but not present in it, thank goodness. When they threw
his ass in jail, I knew that would be the end of it. I would never see him
again, and he would never know that he got me pregnant just days before he
was handcuffed and placed in a police car in front of my eyes.
“Wait for me,” he had said with a wink.
I didn’t.
I squeeze the water from my hair before stepping out of the shower,
wringing the thick blonde strands like a washcloth.
I can’t kill my motherly habits. Having kids makes you more efficient at the
expense of doing things the right way. I used to air dry my hair when I was
younger, but now it just feels like a waste of time.
Except that now I do have time, and I’m still running around after my
shower, trying to get everything done even though there’s nothing to do.
I’m tempted to call my sister, but she said only to call if there was
something wrong or I really missed the twins.
Of course, I miss those two, but I also miss having time to myself. This
week is the only instance in the past three years that I’ve got any time to
myself. Ever since the twins were born, it’s been a nonstop fiasco of work
and childcare.
I toss my clothes onto the bed and stand naked in the room, feeling the cold
air sweeping between my legs as I tilt my head to the side and try to figure
out if I really want to wear a tiny blue jumper out in public.
Megan convinced me to buy it. She’s still just as wild and free as I used to
be, but we’ve since embarked on separate journeys. I don’t wear tiny
jumpers that show half of my ass anymore. I’m a changed woman.
I almost push the clothes aside before I am struck by the realization that this
could be the last time I look good in something like this. Jesus, in four more
years I’ll be well into my thirties. I’ll regret not wearing this while I can
still get away with it.
I’m only here once, and nobody in this city is ever going to see me again.
There’s virtually no chance that I’m going to run into anyone I know, so I
swipe the silly little jumper off the bed and step into it, laughing at myself
as I pull the straps over my shoulders.
I feel naked, but I’ve gone out in less before. This isn’t that big of a deal.
I forgo looking into the mirror as I walk to the door to leave. I don’t want to
know how I look. I just want to get out there and start my little summer
adventure in Italy.
I’m making this evening all about me.
CHAPTER 3
WILDE

“Y ou motherfucker,” I growl, switching the rifle to my left

hand.
Crimson blood soaks through the tattered white fabric of my
shirt, painting it like a fucking candy cane on Christmas. I’ll kill that
asshole for ruining my shirt.
“Get out from there, pussy,” I shout, bending down and shooting at the
brown leather boots dancing on the other side of the van.
I can’t shoot through the side of the van because I might hit someone from
the Bandakov Family, but I’m tempted to. I don’t take kindly to being shot
at, especially when they actually manage to land a hit.
It hurts my ego more than my physical body.
I fire another shot under the van, this time hitting the man’s foot and
causing him to collapse onto the dirt road. There’s enough space under the
vehicle for an entire person to fit through, which allows me to end it all
without having to walk to the other side.
I squeeze the trigger, firing four shots into the man’s torso, and one into his
head. It’s easy work, but work nonetheless, and work isn’t over until the
entire job is done.
The rifle bounces against my left shoulder as I swing it over. My arm
dangles like a limp noodle, pain pulsating through it all the way to my dirt-
filled fingernails.
I walk back around to the opening of the van, looking inside to see the
occupants lying on the floor, huddling together as though that would save
them from bullets.
“Get up and stop acting like a bunch of fucking bitches,” I snarl.
“Wilde?” one of the men asks, raising his masked head.
“You’re goddamn right it’s Wilde. I told you idiots that I wasn’t going to let
the Romanos take over Italy. We have business to finish here.”
I step up to who I know now to be Igor, ripping the loose burlap sack off his
head to reveal his shocked but relieved face. “No, please, save the thanks
for later,” I say sarcastically as I move to Anatoli.
“You’ll get thanks when you get us the fuck out of here,” Igor says,
standing up and jumping out of the back of the van. “I might even buy you
a drink.”
“A drink, a pretty Italian girl, and then another drink,” I reply, yanking off
the next burlap sack to reveal Anatoli’s battered face.
He wasn’t handsome to begin with.
I think they might’ve even improved his appearance.
“Hey, why don’t you undo these damn ropes. They’re cutting off my
circulation,” Igor says from behind me.
“Figure it out yourself,” I call over my shoulder. “They’re just ropes.”
“Easy for you to say, Houdini. How the fuck did you escape anyway?”
I smirk, rolling my tongue over the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. “I
came prepared.”
Once Igor, Vlad, and Anatoli are all lined up outside of the van, I address
the two other people shivering like mad with burlap sacks still over their
heads. One of them reeks of piss, while the other looks like they haven’t
eaten in weeks.
“Get out, and run,” I order. “Don’t look back, and don’t ever tell anyone
about what happened today.”
“C-can you take this thing off my head?” The one who smells like piss
stutters as they climb out.
“No,” I reply bluntly. “Figure that shit out yourself.”
“Damn man, don’t you think we should –”
I hold up my hand, cutting off Igor before he can suggest that we reveal our
identities to a bunch of unknown prisoners who are probably also criminals.
“We ride without delay,” I announce. “I need to get to a damn hospital or
something. I can’t feel my arm.”
“Shit, you’re bleeding bad,” Anatoli says, leaning forward to get a better
look at my wounded shoulder.
“Thanks for stating the obvious,” I reply, shaking my head. “One of you,
get in the front seat. The other two need to take the back. We’re taking this
van out of here.”
“As for you two,” I say, addressing the two masked men. “I don’t see a
single other car for miles. Start running until you can’t hear the van. If you
take those bags off your heads before that, be prepared to catch a few
bullets.”
“Yes, sir,” the foul-smelling one says. He seems the most eager to get away.
The other one is deathly quiet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had his tongue
cut out.
Not my men, not my problem. My loyalties lie with the Bandakov Mafia
Family and nobody else.
Besides, rats like this usually end up turning around and stabbing you in the
back the first chance they get. They’re lucky I’m even setting them free.
Igor is quick to jump in the front seat of the van, leaving the other two to
climb into the back again. It’s not so bad back there when it isn’t so
crowded and your head isn’t covered, but I still don’t envy them.
I jump into the driver’s seat of the van, leaving the prisoners and dead
bodies on a lonely dirt road somewhere on the south side of Italy.
I’m not sure where we are, but we can’t be far from the coast. I can smell
the salt in the air, and I wouldn’t mind having a few drinks at a bar
somewhere a bit further down the coastline.
That’s after I get my arm stitched up, of course. Bullet wounds tend to get
nasty quickly if you don’t care for them, and I’d like to keep my dominant
arm intact. I value my trigger finger almost as much as I value my cock,
although the women in my life say that they enjoy both.
I step on the gas, jerking the van forward as I roll down the window. My
face is flushed from stress and the insufferable heat of this place, and the
spill of sunlight through the windshield is only making it worse.
“You’re bleeding a lot,” Igor says.
“I’m pretty sure that’s been brought to my attention already,” I say through
gritted teeth. The pain is starting to build in my neck, and it’s giving me a
headache.
“Assuming you don’t die before we get to the hospital, I’d like to thank you
for getting us out of that mess. They jumped us and we weren’t prepared.”
“No shit, you weren’t, and I had to drag your sorry asses out of there,” I
grumble. “Next time I’m leaving you with the Romano Family.”
Igor chuckles. “Still as grumpy as always. You should be thankful we even
came to Italy. Remember, this is for you.”
“Don’t talk about it,” I warn. “Do you remember what I said before we
left?”
“My lips are sealed, but honestly, everyone in this van already knows,” he
replies.
“You see, that’s the difference between you and me,” I say, between the
seats and pulling out a two-way radio. “I pay attention to the details.”
“Oh shit. Is that thing on?”
I press the orange button on the side. “Fuck you,” I snarl into the grid of
microphone holes in the mouthpiece.
A string of insults in Italian comes back out at me.
“Yeah, it’s on,” I say, chucking it out the window. “The point is that you
never know who is listening. You already know the plan, and we’re still
sticking to it. There’s no need for further discussion.”
“Fair enough, but I don’t think we’re continuing with our plans until we’ve
run you through a hospital.”
“Any private practice is fine,” I say with a shrug. “I just need to figure out
where the hell we are.”
“Just a few miles north of Sciacca,” Igor says confidently.
“How do you know that?”
“One of the guards mentioned stopping there, and by the direction of the
sun…” He leans forward to look out of the windshield. “A left turn will get
us there.”
“Maybe it’s good that I didn’t let you die after all,” I say with a grin.
“Consider us even,” he replies.
I frown. “How so?”
“I’m out here saving your ass too,” he says, leaning back in his seat and
crossing his arms. “Do you think you would’ve found a city on your own
before you bled out?”
“I’m fine already,” I say, lifting my arm and wincing as a jolt of pain runs
through it. “Well, maybe not that fine, but the bleeding has slowed at least.
I’ll live.”
Igor chuckles. “Only death can stop us.”
“Yes,” I say, lowering my voice as I concentrate on the road ahead. “Only
death will stop me.”
CHAPTER 4
PIXIE

“T hat is my real name,” I insist. “Pixie Sun.”

The bus rattles as it pulls up to the stop after the one that I
was supposed to get off on. I would’ve been fine had I not caught the eye of
the ticket inspector just as I was about to leave the bus.
And I don’t have a ticket.
In all fairness, the machine in the bus isn’t working, so it’s not like I
could’ve bought one anyway.
That doesn’t seem to faze him, however, and he keeps repeating something
about an ID. The trouble is, I’m not carrying my passport with me. I left it
at the hotel because my jumper doesn’t have any pockets.
“I need to see ID,” the inspector says, holding out his hand.
“It’s at the hotel,” I reply. “Really, I didn’t think I would need it. Your ticket
machine just wasn’t working, and –”
“ID,” he repeats.
I’m beginning to get annoyed at him. I don’t have an ID, but I do have cash.
Is this about paying a fine or something?
“I have some cash,” I say, reaching into the top of my jumper and pulling a
sweaty wad of cash from against my tits. It’s honestly the only pocket I
have, but the inspector looks even angrier now that I’ve procured the
money.
“The fine is fifty euros,” he says, staring at the money with a slight look of
disgust.
I’ve never had a man look quite so turned off by something that had
recently been in my tits, but I suppose with how hot it is in the bus, I
wouldn’t want my sweaty cash either.
I thumb through a few bills, handing over the money and immediately
losing the inspector. He only stays for as long as it takes to snatch the
money out of my hands.
The bus halts at the next stop, at least three from the one I had intended to
get off at, and I’m finally able to leave. I don’t think I’d like to take the bus
back. I never thought a free ride would end up costing me so much.
There are some interesting ruins I’m here to see, called the Enchanted
Castle, but I’ll have to walk for a while now to get there. The heat beats
down on me, and I start to wish I’d brought a hat.
I used to have one of those wide-brimmed ones for the beach, but it was too
cumbersome to pack.
I only brought one suitcase for the whole week. I prefer to go light,
especially after having to carry around so much baby stuff all the time. It
feels nice to have my hands free, but it also feels empty.
I resist the urge to find a payphone and call my sister. She’ll think I’ve lost
my mind if I call her on the first day here. I’m supposed to be relaxing, but
that hasn’t happened yet.
I walk uphill toward a small church, coming to a little bar crammed so
tightly between two buildings that I almost miss it.
But I’m too thirsty now to miss someplace to grab a drink. It doesn’t have
to be alcoholic, but I’m also not going to complain if it is. I don’t get to
drink as often as I’d like, and when I do, it’s late at night after the boys are
asleep.
One glass of wine.
How about a great big margarita?
I dip into the building, immediately graced by the warm scent of bread and
the coolness of the shade. I wouldn’t mind hanging out in this little bar for
the rest of the day, if only just to avoid the sun. I didn’t realize how hot it
would be.
There aren’t many other people in the bar, but then again, it could only seat
twenty at most. I’m met with the company of a few locals and a woman
who looks like she might be paid just to sit there and look pretty.
I sit down on a wobbly stool at the bar, placing my manicured hands flat on
the scratched wood. My fingers hardly even look like mine because I got
French tips before I left.
A man comes forward, rubbing a glass with a towel that probably shouldn’t
be used to clean anything. It looks like someone used it to change the oil in
their car.
He says something in Italian, but I don’t know enough to understand him. I
didn’t want to feel like a tourist, but now I realize that everyone will see me
as one once I reveal that I have no idea what they’re saying.
“Do you speak English?” I ask, hoping not to sound entitled. There’s just no
other way for me to communicate.
“A little,” the man replies, his mustache dancing over his lip as he speaks.
“Oh, wonderful,” I say, leaning forward. “Could I please get some water to
start.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Beer.”
“No, um, water,” I reply, holding up a finger, but he’s already turned
around.
Beer it is.
I shift my ass on the stool, painfully aware that every single other person in
the bar is staring at me. Maybe I should’ve worn something more
conservative. I didn’t even take the cultural differences into mind, but
neither did Megan when she helped me pick this out.
I keep my head still, staring forward at the arrangement of liquor behind the
bar so that I don’t attract any more attention. I just want to have a drink and
be on my way.
The barman comes back with a beer, sliding it across the table to me. It’s
cold, and the water beading up on the sides of the glass feels wet in the
palm of my hand.
My fingers tend to swell in the heat, which is one of the reasons why I
never wear a wedding ring.
The other reason would be that I’m not married.
Not many men want to marry a woman with two kids and a workaholic
lifestyle. It’s not my fault that I have double the childcare costs to pay for
every month. I mean, it kind of is, but I never asked for the father of my
twins to get arrested and sent to prison. That’s on him.
I still have to be the one to endure the consequences, however. Sometimes I
feel like it might even be easier just to be in a prison cell all day. You get
free food, bedding, and nobody is waking you up in the middle of the night
and crying until 4 am.
I love my boys but being a single mom can really wear a woman out.
I take a sip of my beer, letting the crisp fizz delete the worries from my
mind. I shouldn’t be thinking about home when I’m on vacation.
Megan is taking care of the house and the twins. She won’t let anything bad
happen, so I have nothing to worry about.
CHAPTER 5
WILDE

“O h, strange. I didn’t know they could bend like that,” Vlad says,
watching as I fold my pinky back until it touched the back of
my wrist.
“They didn’t before I got shot,” I say with a laugh. “But it doesn’t hurt.”
“They have you on so many pills that I doubt anything would hurt,” he
replies, shaking his head. “Maybe you shouldn’t be doing that.”
I let go of my pinky and watch it spring back into my palm. I can’t feel a
goddamn thing, but it’s in a good kind of way. My body is more relaxed
than I’ve been in a long time.
If I knew getting shot would feel this good, I would’ve done it a long time
ago.
I push the blankets away from my legs, sitting up and rotating myself to the
edge of the hospital bed. “I figure I’m well enough to roll out. I’m not
interested in staying in Sciacca and getting shot again.”
“They don’t know we’re here,” Vlad says, his thick eyebrows arching back
in concern as I hop out of bed. “Maybe you should wait a few days.”
“We’re on a time sensitive mission,” I reply. “You already know that.”
Vlad shrugs. “It’s not that time sensitive.”
I turn to him sharply, standing inches away from his face. “And your life
isn’t that valuable to me,” I say in a whisper. “I could have you back in that
fucking van in an instant if I wanted to.”
Vlad stands stiffly, his posture frozen in uncertainty. He knows the things
I’ve done, and he knows that in a place like this, it would be easy to get
someone killed if they bothered you.
Loyalty matters, but so does obedience.
I turn away from Vlad, walking slowly over to the water dispenser.
My legs are stiff from lying in bed for so long, but I’m still able to move. I
know for certain that once the drugs wear off, I’m going to feel like I got hit
by a car. Hopefully, at that point, we’ll be on our way to Rome. I’ll be able
to sleep it off on the drive.
“Where are Anatoli and Igor?” I ask, grabbing a small plastic cup from the
top of the water dispenser and filling it up.
“You expressed interest in having Igor buy you a few drinks,” he replies
calmly. “They went out to find a suitable place for tonight, although I
advised them not to since I doubt you’ll be up for it, considering your
condition”
“What condition?” I ask, taking a sip of the cold water. “I feel fine.”
“Your shoulder,” he replies.
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Vlad, I know about my shoulder. That’s why we’re
here, but modern doctors can perform miracles. I’m not dead, and that’s
good enough for me to justify going out tonight.”
“So, you want to drink, or do you want to leave?”
“I’ll never turn down a night on the town,” I reply with a grin. “Maybe
we’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Very well,” he says, clasping his large hands together and bowing slightly.
“I will tell the doctor that you’re ready to leave.”
“Tip him, and try to get more of those pills,” I say, walking toward the
window. “We’ll meet at the Enchanted Castle ruins at sundown.”
“Wait,” he says as I open the window and put my leg out. “Where are you
going?”
“To find Igor and Anatoli,” I reply with a wink, and then I slip out into the
hospital courtyard.
The sun isn’t taking any days off this week. It’s blaring overhead, shining
brighter than a bonfire doused with a full can of lighter fluid. I can almost
smell the simmering chemical compound in the air as I make a mad dash
across the hospital lawn.
I fancy that I look like a fleeing mental patient, but I lack the straight jacket.
I’m in a white set of trousers and no shirt, streaking through the neatly
trimmed grass toward the wrought-iron gate out front.
It’s not closed, but why should it be? This is a modest hospital, not a
maximum-security prison.
Igor will pay the bill with company funds, so I’m not really doing anything
illegal. I just don’t fancy a visit from the police should they be called about
my gunshot wound.
And so, I’m on the run like I was so many times in my life. This time, I
have no warrants, no detectives trailing after me, and no women in my life
to distract me. I’m focused on my goal, and death is the only thing that
could possibly get in my way.
That or my father, but I’m not going to think about him today. I’m taking a
break to get myself straight so that we can be on our way. I’ll be dealing
with that treacherous man when the time comes.
I slow my pace to a quick walk as I breeze out of the front gates. There’s
nobody else around, but that doesn’t stop me from trying not to look like a
lunatic who just escaped custody.
I’m not wearing a shirt, and the hospital pants don’t make me look any less
suspicious. I need to find a clothing store or something around here to get
dressed. A suit would be preferable.
I round the corner of a street, breaking out into the regular bustle of the city.
It’s not a big place, but there are enough people out so I’m not sticking out
like a sore thumb.
Cops were never my friend when I lived in the United States, and they
won’t be any different in Italy.
I keep my head down, trying not to tower over people like I usually do. I’m
well over six feet tall, which makes me easy to spot. Sometimes it helps to
walk with a hunch to keep from attracting stares.
And… that’s a cop.
I duck into a store to my left, my pierced nipples hardening from the cold
air. I don’t think the police saw me, but it won’t matter in a moment. I look
completely different in a suit. It’s almost like I’m not a career criminal.
“Dress clothes,” I grunt to the startled clerk behind the register.
He motions with his hand toward the back of the store, and I give him a
quick nod before hurrying through the clothing racks to the rear wall.
There are typical suits in more traditional Italian styles, but I grab the only
thing that looks like it will fit – a full tuxedo. I’d normally only wear such a
thing to a wedding, but we’ll mark today as a special occasion.
Who knows, maybe I’ll even find a bride tonight.
I rip off the tags to the suit, ditching the bowtie as I change into it in the
back of the store. There isn’t anyone here who is going to give me shit for
it, and there aren’t any cameras. Small places in Italy haven’t turned into
surveillance states yet.
The clerk behind the register looks even more surprised when I come back
wearing one of the suits from the shop. I’d have thought he would prefer me
to be clothed.
I slap the tags that I tore from the suit onto the counter. “Ring me up,” I say.
He frowns but does what I say, sliding the tags off the counter and scanning
them. He presses a few buttons on the register and looks up at me. “149
euros.”
“Damn, that cheap?” I ask, pulling out a wad of cash from my pocket with a
laugh. “Maybe I should be doing all my shopping in Italy.”
The clerk smiles awkwardly but doesn’t say anything.
He probably just wants to be done with this, and I can’t blame him.
Shirtless Russians with shoulder wounds aren’t usually what you get around
here, and he’s probably pretty freaked out.
I pull an extra 50 from the stack of cash to make 200 and tell the clerk to
keep the change. Nobody reports suspicious characters when they tip well.
They just assume you’re eccentric.
Eccentric or just fucked up, but it doesn’t matter when you have money.
Everything is forgiven over a few thousand bucks, or maybe even a cool
million. It’s how I got out of jail so early and back on the mafia grind.
The sunlight meets me with a new respect as I stroll confidently out of the
shop in a full tuxedo, minus the bow tie.
I’ve never liked those little things. They don’t have the same power as a red
silk tie.
I figure that Vlad and Anatoli are probably already in the center, scrounging
around for somewhere decent to drink. They prefer hard liquor over beer, so
I’m probably not going to find them anywhere on the outskirts of town. The
serious business is always in the center.
I walk past a church, saying a quick prayer to a god I lost faith in years ago.
Maybe he’s out there, so I’m still careful, but I’ve been through too much
shit to make church a big part of my life.
Pain changes you.
For some people, it gives them faith. For others, it turns them away from it.
I’m still walking that line.
I walk past a small bar tucked between two larger buildings. It’s so far back
in there that I nearly miss it, but I turn around when I catch someone
coming out of it in my peripheral.
Nice ass.
I can’t help but stare as a woman walks out in the opposite direction as to
where I’m headed, her hips swaying like she’s begging for a man to
approach her, and her blonde hair tied up loosely on her head like she’s
normally a very busy woman who decided to take the day off.
Well, day drinking suggests she can’t possibly be busy, so what do I have to
lose? I like Italian women almost as much as I like Americans.
“Hey,” I call out, walking toward her briskly.
She doesn’t turn around at first, but as I come closer, I notice something
familiar about her. I can’t quite pinpoint it, but that ass looks awfully
similar to one I used to be completely obsessed with in the past.
But there’s no way she’d be in Italy. It’s too big of a coincidence.
CHAPTER 6
PIXIE

H is deep Russian voice is unmistakable, but it’s also completely

ludicrous for me to imagine that he could be here in Italy,
much less in the quaint city of Sciacca.
My stomach drops as I take a few more steps forward. Either someone
slipped something in my drink, or that voice is real. I’d honestly prefer the
former.
God, it’s not possible, but that doesn’t stop it from being true when I turn
around.
Wilde Bandavok – the only man I’ve ever loved and simultaneously my
worst nightmare. He’s coming straight toward me, wearing a tuxedo of all
things, but his thick brown curls are just as wild and unkempt as they’ve
always been.
I’m dizzy even though I’ve only had one drink. It just doesn’t make any
sense. He’s not supposed to be here.
Fuck, he isn’t even supposed to be free. They put him away for a long time.
A very long time.
Wilde’s serious expression cracks into an uninhabited smile as he comes up
to me. He opens his arms like he’s going to get a hug, but the only thing I
want is for him to get the hell away from me.
This is a literal nightmare.
“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me, Pixie,” he says as I take a cautious
step backward.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, shaking my head. “It’s not
possible.”
“What’s not possible? You’re the one in Italy, and you appear to be all by
yourself,” he says, grinning as he realizes I’m alone.
“I came here on vacation,” I reply, “And you’d better have a damn good
reason to be here, otherwise I’m going to have to assume you’re stalking
me.”
“Oh, don’t get too full of yourself, sugartits,” he says with a wink. “I’m
only here because I got sidetracked. I should be in Rome by now.”
“Where you should be is prison,” I correct. “And don’t ever call me
sugartits again.”
He holds up his hand. “Woah there, Pixie. I recall you liking that
nickname.”
“It’s degrading, and no, I never liked it.”
“I can think of a few occasions when you did,” he says, his eyes sparkling
with the memories of the filthy things we did together.
I rub the goosebumps on my shoulders, trying to bring them down so that
he doesn’t see. He knows how to push my buttons, and he knows even
better how to arouse me.
No man should have that much power over a woman. It’s just not fair.
“Why are you here?” I ask, trying to dig into the truth. I know he likes to
sidestep important things so that he doesn’t have to deal with confrontation.
“I already told you that,” he says, taking a small step closer. “I’m on my
way to Rome for business.”
“I mean, why aren’t you in jail?”
“Why would I be?”
“Wilde, you murdered someone,” I say in disbelief. “I’m surprised that they
didn’t give you the electric chair.”
He shrugs his wide shoulders. “It’s amazing what money can do, isn’t it?
You either have a criminal defense lawyer, or a criminal defense lawyer. I
got two years, but apparently, that was too long for you to wait.”
“I didn’t know how long you’d be in,” I reply. “I didn’t want to know.”
I feel a rush of guilt even though I know that’s what he’s looking for. He
wants to twist this into being my fault, but he’s the one who fired the gun.
He’s the murderer, and I’m the innocent one.
Wilde crosses his arms, coking his head to the side. “I did my time, and you
weren’t there when I got out. You didn’t even bother to visit me.”
“We never talked about waiting,” I reply, shaking my head as my stomach
twists itself into tight knots.
“Were you that eager to move on?” he asks, frowning as he leans in.
I can smell his scent. It’s what drove me crazy so many nights in the
bedroom.
We didn’t even keep it there. We’d fuck anywhere and everywhere that we
could. One time, he even plowed me against the railing on the fifteenth
floor, risking my death if my hands had slipped on those metal bars.
Neither of us cared back then, but I do care now, even if he hasn’t changed
one bit. I have something to live for – two boys that he doesn’t know are
his.
Another wave of guilt washes over me. I need to get out of here. I’ll fly
straight back to the United States and tell Megan that this was all a big
mistake.
I take a deep breath in, trying to ignore the intoxicating scent of his sweat
and cologne. “I wasn’t trying to move on, but I didn’t have a choice. Did
you expect me to stay with a murderer?”
“Yes,” he answers bluntly. “But perhaps I asked too much from you.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t try to manipulate me, Wilde. It’s not going
to work.”
He shrugs. “I won’t. It’s fair that you should want to go on with your life,
even if I have cleaned up my act.”
“I doubt it,” I mutter.
He raises his dark eyebrows, tilting his head down. “You would doubt me,
Pixie?”
“Yes,” I answer, but the words shrink in my mouth as I say them.
I wanted to be more confident. I imagined myself to be strong if I was to
ever see him again, but this was so unexpected. The fact that they let him
out of prison this soon is mind-boggling.
Wilde is a dangerous man, and I don’t care to be his next victim. My heart
has already been broken once, and it never fully healed.
“How about we go for a drink,” Wilde says, shifting back as to not seem so
threatening.
I shake my head, sucking my lips in because I can’t speak anymore. My
throat is so tight that even breathing is a chore.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says, holding out his arm. “Come, and let’s talk
about what brings you to Sciacca.”
Against my better judgment, I do take his arm. I hook my elbow around his,
allowing him to walk me down the street while I try not to pass out from the
sheer horror of having to endure his company again.
Every emotion that I could possibly feel is swirling around inside me like a
cotton candy machine gone crazy. Guilt, excitement, anger, resentment,
arousal – they won’t leave me alone.
“I came here on a business trip,” Wilde explains. “I’ve more or less sorted
things out in my life.”
Lies.
I know he’s lying. There’s no way he could be here on business when he’s a
convicted felon unless he’s up to no good again.
“Southern Italy is nice, but Rome is really where the fun stuff happens,” he
continues. “Maybe you should join me if you’re on vacation.”
I swallow hard, trying to force moisture into my mouth that just isn’t there.
I still can’t talk.
“How long are you going to be in Italy, anyway? Maybe you’d like to tell
me what you’ve been up to all these years without me.”
I finally muster up the courage to yank my arm away. “Stop it, Wilde. This
is weird,” I say, almost stumbling back into the road. “You’re acting like
nothing even happened.”
He frowns. “A couple of years is nothing. Time flies.”
“Then our six-month fling was nothing too,” I say. “And it ended so
horribly that I don’t care to do it again.”
“Who said you had to?”
I scoff. “You’re trying to pull me off to god only knows where to drink with
you. We all know how that story ends,” I say, regaining some of my
confidence as I spit venomous words at him.
He meets my aggression with laughter. “My goodness, Pixie. You’ve
certainly gotten feisty. I like that.”
I roll my eyes. “This isn’t going to go how you want it to. I’m going back to
my hotel. It was nice running into you, but I’m not doing this again.” I turn
away from him. “Have fun in Italy.”
CHAPTER 7
WILDE

I don’t try to stop her as she charges away. Instead, I enjoy the
view of her ass in that ridiculously tiny jumper she decided to
wear today.
Once the view disappears down the street, I feel a pang of jealously. She
wasn’t wearing that outfit for me, which means she was trying to attract
other men’s eyes.
I can’t say I’ve never been with anyone else after she abandoned me, but
the thought of anyone else sticking their filthy prick inside of her sickens
me. She was mine from the day that I first claimed her, and I will have her
again.
I’m about to turn around and head back into the center when I realize that
Pixie could be leaving at any time. I wouldn’t know if she hopped on a
plane right now and flew back to the United States. She might even have a
boyfriend back there or something, and I’d never know.
Plus, she wiped all her socials online so it would be even harder to keep up
with her. I know because I had a phone snuck into my cell and I witnessed
her disappear from the internet.
You can get anything in prison, except for a woman who doesn’t want to
visit you.
But visitation wouldn’t have been enough. In order to have conjugal visits,
marriage is a must, but I doubt Pixie would be willing to tie the knot with
me if she wasn’t even willing to acknowledge my existence after I was
arrested.
Women are hot as hell until they turn on you, and then they’re as cold as
death. I learned the hard way not to get involved with them on an emotional
level.
Sex is fine, but love kills.
Despite knowing better, I go after Pixie. She’s not hard to find when she
stands out like some sort of summer sex goddess. I always found her more
beautiful than any other woman I’ve run into on my adventures, and three
years have only added to her attractiveness.
I hold back as far as I can without losing sight of her, letting her think that
I’ve left her alone. She should know that I wouldn’t, and that’s obvious by
the constant looks over her shoulder, but she won’t see me. She’ll think I’ve
gone my own way.
I manage to trace her right back to her hotel. She doesn’t attempt to
continue whatever she was doing out here in the city. She just slips back in,
perhaps to catch her breath and figure out what just happened.
I’m just as surprised as she is, but I know an opportunity when I see one. I
like Pixie, and I want more of her.
Much more.
I pull back once I have the name of the hotel engrained into my head. The
Buon Giorno… I’ll be back here to inquire as to what her room number is
and how long she’ll be staying, but first I need to find my mates.

B REAK

“A nd what the fuck do you think you’re doing here, getting pissy
drunk while I’m away?” I bellow, charging up to Anatoli and
slapping a shot of vodka out of his hand.
“Oh, good lord,” he says, jumping back in his seat. “I thought you were at
the hospital.”
“I’m out,” I growl. “And you fuckers didn’t wait for me.”
Vlad holds up his hands, trying to defuse the situation while everyone else
in the bar stares at us. “We thought you were going to be in the hospital for
a while. We figured we’d give this place a shot and see how it is before we
took you out.”
“Drinking all the damn vodka yourselves,” I grumble, sitting down at the
table. “Give me that.” I snatch the shot that was in front of Vlad and throw
it back, reveling at the sharp sting of alcohol in my parched throat.
I turn to Vlad as I slam the glass back don’t on the laminated table. “Go get
us a round of vodka sodas.”
“Yes sir,” he blurts, springing up from his seat and rushing toward the bar.
He’s eager to get away after my outburst, but I have a right to be angry.
They’re goofing around out here while they think I’m lying in a hospital
bed, possibly dying.
There’s no goddam loyalty in this Mafia Family, but that’s going to change
once I take power. The streets will turn crimson, and the only people who
will be left are the ones who obey me no matter what I tell them to do.
And I will test them.
The day of reckoning will come sooner than anyone here knows.
“You’re looking sharp,” Anatoli notes, looking over my slightly disheveled
tuxedo.
I brush a hair off my collar. “It’s Italian,” I say with a chuckle. “But
honestly, it was the only thing I could find that would fit me.”
“Still better than what I have,” he says, pulling at the collar of his blue t-
shirt with a picture of a swordfish on the front. “I look like a goddamn
tourist.”
“I was about to ask why the hell you were wearing that thing,” I say.
“I got it at the hospital. They had some spare clothes and mine were a
mess.”
“I jumped out of there before they could ask me any questions. No time for
clothes,” I say.
“But listen,” I say, leaning forward and lowering my voice. “I ran into this
woman today. I know her from a few years ago, and I want you guys to lay
low for a little while as I try to figure out what she’s doing here.”
“A threat or a lover?” he asks.
“Could be both.”
“Those are the best kind,” he replies with a grin.
I shrug, leaning back and crossing my arms. “We’ll see, but she seemed just
as surprised to see me as I was to see her. She wasn’t aware that I wasn’t in
jail anymore.”
“Usually, they put people like you in for life,” Anatoli says.
“Well, they’re not going to get me this time around,” I say, shaking my
head. “They don’t even know my criminal record in Italy. I’ve got a clean
slate to work with.”
“We all do. I served five years back before we even met. It’s nice not to be
considered a felon around here.”
I forget that Anatoli is about ten years older than me and far more
experienced. He’s just not as ambitious, and also not the son of one of the
most influential Russian mafia bosses of all time.
There’s a reason why I call the shots in our sect. I’m the leader, and I’m
also so hungry for power that I could kill for it.
I have killed for it.
“So, what about this girl? I thought you wanted to get a move on pretty
quickly,” Anatoli says, rubbing the top of his bald head. “Rome is still
pretty far.”
“And we’d have enough more time if you didn’t get yourself kidnapped,” I
snap. “Give me two days and we’re out of here, alright?”
“You’re the boss.”
“You’re goddamn right, I am,” I grumble.
Vlad arrives back at the table with an armful of vodka sodas. He bought two
rounds, so there are six in total.
I’m sure I’m not supposed to be drinking after taking so much pain
medication, but I doubt it’ll kill me. If a bullet can’t then I might as well be
immortal.
Over the drinks, I explain to Vlad what I told Anatoli. They’re to stay at a
hotel on the other side of the city while I investigate Pixie.
She’s not going to be getting away from me this time. I hadn’t finished
talking with her before she left so abruptly.
I’m going to go to the Buon Giorno Hotel and I’m going to find her room.
After that, she’ll be receiving a little bit of room service. I hope that she has
the appetite for a cream pie.
CHAPTER 8
PIXIE

I take another shower despite already having taken one right

before I left the hotel. Part of it is because I’m so sweaty, but
mostly it’s because I need to wash the icky feeling I have off
my skin after running into Wilde.
He shouldn’t even be here. This has to be a joke.
But how could it be? They wouldn’t just let him out of prison for no reason.
He must actually have had a good enough lawyer to let him get away with
murder, and then he would have to come all the way to Italy on what he
calls a business trip.
That part, I doubt.
Business…
I’m not buying it. I’ve known Wilde to be a rogue and a bit of an
entrepreneurial type, but if he’s here on business, it’s because he’s doing
something illegal. I always knew he was mixed up in something, but I
didn’t realize how bad it was until he shot a man in broad daylight.
It was all over the news when he came to my apartment, and I had to watch
him get handcuffed and taken away. It was traumatizing.
And then they questioned me. Fuck, they kept asking all these insane
questions as though I would know anything about what kind of twisted shit
he had gotten himself involved with.
I don’t know a goddamn thing because he lied to me and kept it all a secret.
Maybe that was my saving grace. The cops left me alone once they realized
I wouldn’t be of any help.
And that was it. Wilde was gone, and I was left pregnant with two of his
babies. He doesn’t even know about them, and I intend for him never to
find out. That would only make this situation so much worse.
I’ll have to call Megan tonight and explain to her why I’m cutting my
vacation in Italy so drastically short. I only just got here, and Wilde had to
go and ruin it. The funny thing is, I wasn’t really missing my boys until I
saw his face, and now I’m missing them like crazy.
They look just like him, but I hope they grow up to follow the law. I can’t
have a criminal raising them. It wouldn’t be fair to them, and he’d probably
end up back in jail again anyway.
No, Wilde will never know.
I step out of the shower, drying myself off furiously with the damp towel
from earlier. My nipples have been firm peaks since catching sight of
Wilde, and they refuse to go down in the coldness of the room.
As the towel brushes against them, I feel a stir in my belly. Wilde would
never know if I were to touch myself to the thought of him, but how crazy
would I have to be to do something like that?
Nobody would know except for me, but the guilt would be overbearing. I’m
supposed to have gotten over him already and bringing up the deep-rooted
sexual feelings would only make that harder.
I exit the bathroom and fall back onto the bed. My hand rests on my
stomach as I stare up at the empty ceiling. I can almost imagine Wilde
leaning over me, his hair falling across his forehead and the heat of his cock
radiating against my thigh.
My hand moves down an inch.
Wilde used to say dirty things in Russian to me without explaining what
they meant. I remember looking one of them up and being shocked that he
would say something like that to me.
I knew he’d be trouble, but the sex was just so fucking good that I couldn’t
let him go until the police took him from me.
That was my way of finally being free from his charm, but now he’s back,
and the old feelings have been relit by nothing more than a tuxedo and a
smile.
Why the hell is he wearing a tux? I’ve known him to wear suits religiously,
but a tuxedo wouldn’t be his thing, even if he was on a business trip like he
said.
I don’t believe him. Something else is up.
My hand creeps down lower, my fingers brushing against the neat triangle
of hair between my legs. I never shaved it for Wilde because he never liked
it that way. He said it wasn’t natural, but I always kept it neat.
I still do, even though nobody sees it. I’ve tried to be prepared, but I’ve had
nobody to be prepared for.
Until now.
My fingers graze the heat between my thighs, and I’m surprised when they
come away wet. It’s not the clean grippy kind of wetness from washed skin.
It’s slick and sticky like hand soap, only I know it’s not soap.
I’m wet just from thinking about Wilde.
No, this is too much. I sit up on the bed and look at my pussy as though it
were my worst enemy. It’s shameful for me to be acting this way, even in
the privacy of my hotel room.
I hop off the bed and put my clothes on, trying to ignore the wetness in my
panties. It’ll go away. It’s normal to have weird feelings, especially when
you’re not stressed out about day-to-day life.
An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
Or maybe it’s Wilde’s workshop, but idleness can be cured. I was planning
on going down to the Enchanted Castle ruins and checking out the scene,
and I don’t think I’ll let Wilde ruin that for me.
Didn’t he say he was going to Rome? I doubt I’ll run into him again unless
he’s following me. Knowing him, I wouldn’t be surprised, but I won’t
permit him to ruin my vacation. This week is for me, not for him or anyone
else.
This time, I’m not wearing anything too revealing. I have a nice pair of
cutoff shorts I bought last year for the beach and a plain pink cotton t-shirt.
It’s cute without being too much like that jumper was. I won’t be wearing
that again.
I leave the room, poking my head out first to look down the hallway. I can’t
be too careful when there’s a heartthrob felon on the loose who seems to
have retained an interest in me.
The cold shoulder didn’t help the first time, but maybe in this instance I got
my point across – I don’t want to have anything to do with Mr. Wilde
Bandakov, even if he has cleaned up his act.
CHAPTER 9
WILDE

“Y ou’ve just missed her, sir,” the woman at the front desk says,
lacing her fingers together and giving me an apologetic
smile. “She left about five minutes ago.”
I nod my head slowly, breathing out a sigh. “Alright, well I was going to
surprise her when she came out from her room,” I say.
“I can let her know that you were here when she returns,” the woman
suggests.
I glance down at her gold nametag. “Bianca, let’s keep this between you
and me, but the reason I’m coming here is a bit more than a surprise visit.” I
lean over the desk and lower my voice. “It has to do with marriage.”
Her eyes light up. “Marriage?” she asks in a similarly hushed voice.
I nod. “A proposal, in fact, but I can’t do it unless I can get her coming out
of the room. I want it to be intimate.”
“I can call you when she arrives,” Bianca suggests, her eyes still wide with
excitement.
I pretend to consider that idea for a moment before dismissing it. “No, I
think it’d be better if I were in her room already,” I say, trying not to sound
like a creep.
Bianca frowns. “I don’t think I could just let you in,” she says.
“Really?” I ask, twisting my voice into a surprised tone. “I’m her boyfriend.
We’ve been dating for over five years. She just didn’t know that I came to
Italy to propose. She thinks it’s a solo trip that I bought for her.”
Bianca nods, soaking in the new information. “I could give you her room
number, but the key…”
“Not nearly as romantic,” I say, shaking my head. “You know, some say
that romance is dead, but I believe that a real man still knows how to charm
and excite a woman.”
Bianca is eating up every word that I say. The tuxedo certainly helps, but
I’m going to need to lay on the charm big time if I’m going to get a key to
Pixie’s hotel room.
“Do you believe in love, Bianca?” I ask, leaning even further across the
desk. I’m careful not to come too close or she’ll smell the alcohol on my
breath.
“Yes,” she replies simply.
I smile. “And true love, do you believe in that too?”
She shrugs this time, and I know that I have my in. Women like her want to
believe, but they haven’t been convinced that it’s possible for a man to love
a woman that fully.
Do I love Pixie?
No, but I’m going to make Bianca believe that Pixie is the only woman who
has ever mattered to me.
In a way, it’s true, but I’m not about to tell her that I’m obsessed with
fucking Pixie until we’re both too exhausted to move. That wouldn’t be
very romantic, and the key to Pixie’s room is only going to be had with
some out-of-this-world romance.
“I’ve traveled a lot,” I begin, rubbing my chin as I concoct an elaborate love
story on the spot. “When my father died in Russia, I just couldn’t live there
anymore. I wanted to get away.”
Bianca is already sucked into the story, but who doesn’t like to hear about a
good tragedy?
“I met Pixie in the United States. I never took a woman before her, and I
never will until we’re married. I’ve been waiting for five years,” I say,
making my expression as innocent and dreamy as possible.
“Are you Catholic?” she asks, tilting her head to the side and searching my
chest for a cross.
“Oh no, my dear, but I don’t think waiting has much to do with religion. It’s
a vow of celibacy to show that there is no other woman who matters to you.
I respect Pixie.”
Bianca laughs, her cheeks turning a slightly deeper shade of rose. “She’s
lucky to find a man like you. Men just aren’t gentlemen anymore.”
I shake my head sadly. “No, they aren’t, which is a shame because it’s so
much better to be true to the woman you love. I believe in true love, even
when the world would try to convince you it doesn’t exist.”
I’m always surprised how easy it is for me to lie through my teeth, but even
more so, how willing people are to eat it up. I know the taste of shit when
it’s being fed to me, but others don’t have the experience that I do.
They love it.
“That’s really beautiful,” Bianca says, looking up at me as though she might
fall in love. People want what they can’t have.
I shrug, playing it off as just another day in the life of a gentleman. “I’m
sure you’d understand now why I need to surprise her. It’s deeply personal.”
Bianca reaches under the desk, presumably for the spare key to Pixie’s
room, but she still looks doubtful.
“Though I suppose I’d understand if you didn’t believe in love,” I say.
“Most regular people don’t.”
“I do,” she says, springing out of her chair and thrusting the key out to me.
In the same motion. “And I think you’re an absolutely wonderful man to do
this for her. She’s very lucky.”
“I’m the lucky one,” I say with a smile as I take the key. “But I’m sure that
you can also find true love if you focus on it.”
“I hope so,” she says with a dreamy sigh.
I wink at her as I turn around, quickly walking off so that she doesn’t have
any second thoughts about giving me the key to Pixie’s room.
You always have to give something to get something. For Bianca, I told her
what she wanted to hear, regardless of the truthfulness of my story.
In return, I got what I wanted, and that’s just how the Mafia does business.
It doesn’t always have to be through violence. In fact, we usually try to
avoid it.
Pixie is staying on the second floor, with a room overlooking the backyard.
The view is nice, but I’m more interested in the lace panties strewn across
the top of her suitcase. She packed a lot of sexy things for someone who is
here alone.
Jealousy bubbles up in my chest again, even more powerful than it was the
first time. I would rip the head off anyone who dared touch my Pixie. I
would take their eyes and pop them like grapes in the Italian sun.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down as my eyes dart around the
room for more evidence as to what she came here to do. I don’t see any
condoms, but then again, we never used them when we were together. I
always took her raw, just as it should be done.
You can’t even really fuck a woman with a condom on. You’re actually just
fucking the inside of the latex. Your cock never even gets to touch her
wetness and feel the true warmth of her insides.
I could vomit at the thought of caging my dick in a silly piece of latex. I’m
careful and I’m clean, and that’s all that matters. The only time I’ve let my
guard down was around Pixie, and no accidental pregnancies came from
that.
Thank god for it too. Unlike my father, I will raise my children with love
and understanding, and that can’t be done if you’re sitting in a prison cell.
It’s better that Pixie never got knocked up.
I walk around the room more, heading into the bathroom and looking for
anything that can tell me how long she plans to stay here. She only has one
suitcase, and it isn’t very large. I doubt she’d be here for more than a couple
of days, which means I’ll need to speed things up if I’m ever to share her
bed again.
Even if she were here longer, I need to get a move on before my father
closes his major deal in Rome.
I have a bullet with his name written on it.
CHAPTER 10
PIXIE

M ore Russians. This can’t be a coincidence.

I brush the loose strands of hair from my face as I look up at
a statue, trying not to stare at the group of three Russian men as they talk
amongst themselves. They’re not dressed like Wilde, but their posture and
the way they move their hand when they speak is almost exactly the same.
One of them even looks like Wilde, only less handsome and considerably
shorter. I’d guess that they were related. Maybe Wilde is here for a
wedding, but then why would he lie to me about being here for business?
This doesn’t add up, but I have a pretty damn quick way of finding out the
truth.
I turn to face the men, but then immediately turn back and pretend I’m
looking at the statue when I make eye contact with one of them. Sure, it
would be nice to walk right up and ask them to their faces, but they look
like they might pick me up and run away with me if I were that bold.
I take a step away from them, but I don’t move far enough away not to hear
them speaking. I wish I understood Russian, but Wilde only taught me a
few words while we were together, and they were all related to sex.
We didn’t talk about or do anything else, which is probably why I ended up
being so shocked when he went to prison. I didn’t know very much about
who he was as a person, only as a sexual escape.
The Russian men haven’t moved at all. They appear to be waiting there, and
I can’t stay in front of the statue for so long or they’ll know that I’m on to
them.
I walk away, glancing over my shoulder twice to see if they do anything.
They just keep talking, waving their hands around, and laughing
occasionally in the same way that Wilde does.
It’s so terribly familiar…
My heart skips a beat as I look back toward the men for the third time. I
only did it because they stopped talking, but now I’m regretting ever having
stayed to listen to them in the first place.
Wilde is coming toward them, a grin on his face and his arms outstretched
as though he’s greeting his friends.
That’s what they must be – his friends.
But I’m not his friend, so I need to get the hell out of here before he catches
sight of me and decides to drag me into whatever trouble he’s cooking up in
the city.
Italy isn’t the place for me to get myself arrested. My boys need their
mother.
I walk briskly, trying not to look like I’m fleeing the scene. I’m tempted just
to make a run for it, but I know that Wilde is faster than I am. He’d catch up
to me in an instant, and then I’d have to talk to him again.
Thankfully, I don’t hear his deep voice barking my name from behind me. I
just hear him talking to the others in Russian about things that don’t
concern me.
He can live his life in whatever way he wants to. It’s not part of mine, and
it’ll never be now that I have the twins. They’re always my first priority.
I’ve seen enough of Sciacca for this evening. My best plan of action is to
return to my hotel room and order delivery. Maybe a nice pizza from a local
restaurant would suit the mood. I can still enjoy myself without putting
myself in places where I’ll run into Wilde.
This city is too small for both of us. Either he leaves, or I’m packing my
bags and flying back to the United States.
Megan wouldn’t be happy, but that’s tough. If she wants to continue looking
after the boys, she can stay at the house and do it while I’m getting my nails
done. I don’t need to be in Italy to have a good time.
I walk back to my hotel, trying not to trip over my sandals as I speed down
the sunbaked sidewalk.
Italy is a beautiful country, and it’s shame I’ve had to run from one place to
another instead of slowing down to enjoy the scenery. I just don’t want
Wilde to catch up to me. He’s always so damn persistent. The only thing
that kept him away from me before was prison, and now that he’s out, he’s
wormed his way back into my life.
I arrive at the Buon Giorno in record time, sweeping through the automatic
front doors and flashing a quick smile to the woman behind the front desk
as I walk to the stairs.
She maintains eye contact for far too long, but maybe that’s a cultural thing.
I haven’t noticed anyone else doing it, other than Wilde of course, but he’s
Russian.
Maybe I have something on my face.
I take the stairs to my room by twos, skipping the final three with one long
step and cursing myself for not having exercised more after the twins were
born. You’d think that rushing around for the past two years would be
adequate, but it hasn’t prepared me for how much brisk walking I’d be
doing in Italy.
To be fair, I was supposed to be relaxing, not trying to evade Wilde.
When I arrive at my room, I stop at the door. There’s something odd about
it that I can’t place, like I’ve stepped into another dimension where this
room belongs to someone else.
Is it the smell? I know a stranger when I smell one, but this smell doesn’t
feel strange at all to me.
It’s just different.
I place my hand on the door handle and feel the coldness of the brushed
copper. I was thinking it would be warm for some reason, but there’s no
way anyone has been in my room except for me and possibly room service.
And room service wouldn’t be here because I never called for them. They
only come in the morning to change your sheets if you don’t have anything
else for them to attend to.
But the moment I open the door I know that someone has been in my room.
What’s more, I know exactly who it was.
There’s no mistaking the smell of Wilde Bandakov. He’s like a walking leaf
of dried tobacco with the musky scent of a working man. It’s a beautiful
scent, but not one that I’m excited to discover in my bedroom.
Perhaps three years ago, but today, I’d consider it a crime.
The first thing I do is check my belongings. I don’t take Wilde for a thief,
but he is a killer, which means I can’t cross anything off the list. If he can
kill, then he can steal.
He has stolen from me before. He used to snatch panties after we had sex
and hang them from the rearview mirror of his Porsche. He must’ve had six
or seven pairs of them dangling out in public before I realized what he was
doing and put a stop to it.
I sift through my suitcase, counting and recounting my clothes. He hasn’t
taken anything, and the money is untouched as well. In fact, there’s no
evidence that he was even in my room aside from the thick smell of his
body.
I could be losing my mind, but I don’t think so. I’ve been seeing Wilde
everywhere, and I no longer believe it to be a coincidence. When I see him
again, I’m going to confront him about it, but first, I’m going downstairs to
ask the woman at the front desk if she’s seen a handsome Russian in a
tuxedo this afternoon.
CHAPTER 11
WILDE

“W hich is why you’ll have to meet me in Rome,” I say,

folding my arms over my chest as I finish my
explanation. “I won’t be long.”
“You’re putting all of this on hold for a woman?” Igor asks, raising a
doubtful eyebrow.
“Not just any woman. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Is she mafia?” Vlad asks.
“Irrelevant,” I snap. “I told you to meet me in Rome, and that’s what you’re
going to do.”
“I thought we were getting sloshed at the pub tonight,” Anatoli says, clearly
disappointed.
“You can drive to the next city and get drunk if you want, but I’m staying
here on my own,” I say. “Just watch out for the Romano boys. They’ve
stirred up enough trouble already.”
“There’s an arms dealer near the cost we can pay a visit to,” Vlad suggests.
“If we load up on guns, the Romano Family won’t stand a chance if they
find us.”
“You dealt with their hired muscle, not the Romanos themselves,” I say,
holding up a finger. “Don’t underestimate the Italian Mafia. There’s only
four of us, and they multiply like rabbits.”
“We’ll pop them all and make stew,” Vlad says, crinkling his nose in
delight.
“Stay away from them,” I warn. “They’re not who we came here for.”
Vlad looks disappointed, but the others have enough sense not to stick their
noses where they don’t belong.
The Romanos have never been friendly with the Russian Mafia, and they’re
always after a ransom. They act first and think about the consequences later.
It’s always best to avoid them.
“I’ll catch up to you guys in Rome at the Arch of Constantine. Be there on
Sunday at 11 AM, and we’ll get to business,” I say. “Don’t make me wait
for you, because I won’t.”
All three of them nod seriously, and I leave them at the Ruins to head to
Pixie’s hotel. I’ll need to wait for her there so that I can confront her.
All I need is a night. I’m confident that I can swing it.
The air is heavy with the coolness of the evening now, and it feels much
better to be walking in formal clothes. In Russia, it’s never an issue since
it’s cold a lot of the year, but during an Italian summer, I don’t have the
same convenience.
I control my pace so that I’m not sweating when I get to the hotel. For all I
know, Pixie could already be in her room, stripped out of her clothes and
lying on the bed naked after running around in the city all day.
I can picture the sweat glistening on her breasts, dripping into the nape of
her neck as she reclines on the cool white sheets. I’ve missed her body. At
times I felt like it was made for me, but she clearly doesn’t share that
sentiment.
I try not to be bitter about her abandoning me, but it still stings my ego.
Others in jail had women visiting them all the time, bringing them sweets,
and sending them nude pictures over the phones that we would sneak into
our cells.
But I was alone.
In a way, it helped me. I didn’t have the distractions that everyone else did,
and I had all day for two years to plan what I was going to be doing when I
got out. Every single detail of how I was going to put a bullet through my
father’s head is engrained in my memory, never to be forgotten.
He’s a dead man walking, and all I have to do is get to Rome to pull the
trigger.
I’m so deep in thought that I almost miss the hotel. It’s not an especially
large place, but it is nice. Pixie didn’t cheap out on her stay here. I’m glad
to see that she’s doing well, even without me.
I reach into my pocket, fingering the key to her room like I would finger her
pussy on those long nights we spent together. She would always be
screaming by the end of it, gushing down my arm like a waterfall while I
made her climax more times than either of us could count.
Those were the best months of my life.
But the best months are over. My stomach drops as I enter the hotel and I’m
met with the furious gaze of Pixie and the woman behind the counter. They
speak at the same time, their words ringing loud and true as I freeze in the
doorway.
“You liar!”
I hold up my hands, cracking a nervous smile as I take a careful step toward
them. “Hey, I can explain,” I say.
Pixie shakes her head, her cheeks flushed with anger. “You can’t just break
into someone’s fucking room like that, Wilde. Have you learned nothing
from going to prison?”
She likes to bring that up a lot. I’m thirty-nine, and prison was only two
years, which makes it only about five percent of my life. To me, it’s an
afterthought, but she’s making the biggest fuss about it.
“Perhaps we should go upstairs and talk about this,” I say, unwilling to
admit defeat just yet. Angry people tend not to be the most reasonable,
which also makes them more vulnerable than someone with a clear head.
“I’m not going anywhere but to the police,” she snarls before turning to
Bianca. “Call them,” she demands.
Bianca picks up the phone, shooting me a vicious look. She looks like she
might even be angrier than Pixie is.
I guess true love is a lie after all.
“How about we don’t get the police involved,” I say, pulling the key from
my pocket. “This isn’t that big of a deal, and I’m sorry for lying. I just
wanted to talk.”
“We’ll talk outside,” Pixie grumbles, charging toward me and grabbing my
arm.
I smirk at Bianca as Pixie pulls me from the hotel lobby back out onto the
street. I always get my way, even if it’s not exactly how I planned it.
“What the fuck is this all about?” Pixie demands to know as she pulls me
down the sidewalk.
“How about we walk normally,” I say, slowing down so that she can’t tug
me along so quickly.
She groans, letting go of my arm. “Wilde, I swear to god, you have to be
honest with me this time. Why are you in Italy?”
“To see you,” I say with a shrug.
“Really?”
“No,” I say with a laugh. “I told you that I was here on business, and that’s
true. I need to be in Rome by Sunday.”
“Two days,” she says, sounding relieved.
“Yes, two days that we can spend talking about where things went wrong,” I
reply as I steer our little walk toward the center of the city. I don’t go on
walks without having a destination.
“You know here things went wrong, and there’s nothing to talk about,” she
says.
“Don’t you want to know why I did it?”
“No,” she replies, but there’s doubt in her answer. She’s curious.
“He wasn’t a very good man, you know. He had it coming,” I explain.
“God, would you listen to yourself?” she asks, looking up at me in
disbelief. “You killed someone, and you’re talking about how he had it
coming. That’s fucking insane.”
I shrug. “But it’s true.”
“You’re a psychopath.”
“I thought you already knew that,” I reply with a smirk.
“This isn’t funny,” she says, putting more distance between us as we walk.
She’s almost scraping her shoulder against the side of the building we pass.
I move closer. “I never meant it to be,” I say, and then I lower my voice.
“Listen, I’m not going to hold anything against you. I just want to have an
honest heart-to-heart chat about all of this.”
She shakes her head. “We are having one, and it’s making me sick.”
“It can’t be heart to heart when you’re angry like this,” I say. “Maybe we
should grab a drink.”
“Where?” she asks, already accepting the idea.
I stop walking, looking up at a sign for an expensive cocktail lounge. It’s
just the type of place where you could spend all night… and lose all control.
“Here,” I say, pointing at the sign.
She squints her eyes at me. “You led us here on purpose.”
“There’s a show in half an hour,” I say, ignoring her accusation. “Topless
women and everything, but you’d probably get jealous.”
“I wouldn’t,” she snaps, trying to feign like she doesn’t harbor any residual
feelings for me.
I know that she does, and I’m going to wring them out of her like a wet
sponge tonight.
“Come,” I say, stepping toward the crimson door to the club. “Let’s talk
inside.”
“I’m going to regret this,” she mutters, but she steps inside as I open the
door.
CHAPTER 12
PIXIE

T he cocktail lounge smells like cigar smoke and brandy, but I

get a sense of status here as we’re greeted by a doorkeeper in
a tuxedo similar to Wilde’s.
“She’s part of the show,” Wilde says to the doorkeeper, nodding at my
outfit. “But we’d like a few drinks first.”
“Very well,” the doorkeeper replies, motioning for us to follow him.
“Part of the show?” I mouth to Wilde.
He grins. “Topless,” he mouths back.
I feel a rush of excitement between my legs at the thought of him seeing me
without a shirt on. He was never gentle when I was naked, but contrary to
my nature, I enjoyed it. He used to pinch and slap my breasts like they were
made for him to play with.
“You’re not actually going to have me dance on stage, are you?” I whisper
as we walk to the back of the lounge. My heart skips a beat as the inquiry
leaves my lips. Nobody has seen me naked since I had the twins, and I
hardly think now is the appropriate time to start taking my clothes off in
front of a crowd.
Wilde chuckles. “Not unless you want to, but they weren’t going to let you
in wearing that outfit.”
I look down at my t-shirt and cut-off shorts. I suppose he’s right. In a place
this fancy, I’d stand out less if I were naked than wearing casual street
clothes.
If we’re only here for a drink, then I’ll be fine. I don’t plan on staying any
longer than it takes to get the truth out of Wilde. I don’t care to witness him
ogle other women, especially not topless ones.
Not being jealous about anything is fine in theory, but who wouldn’t be
annoyed if the man they were out for drinks with was looking at another
woman? It’s only natural to feel possessive even if you’re not interested in
them.
The air is thick with smoke as we get closer to the back. I hardly ever dirty
my lungs with tobacco, but there was a time or two in which I partook in a
cigar with Wilde. I wonder if he still smokes those.
“A Cuban feels right,” Wilde says, slipping a cigar out of his breast pocket
as we arrive at a small black table in the back of the room.
It’s as though he can read my mind, but then again, he’s always been good
at figuring me out. He has a talent for getting into people’s heads.
The doorkeeper leaves us at the table, and Wilde pulls out a chair for me.
The seats are decorated with red velvet, and there are enough cushions to
drown in. I feel like I could lose track of time in this place and emerge a
week later.
I sink deeper into the chair than I thought I would, the velvet engulfing my
ass like two large hands. It’s comfortable enough to fall asleep in, but I’m
wide awake and alert as Wilde lights up a cigar.
“Did you bring one for me?” I ask, feeling especially careless since I’m on
vacation.
Megan wanted me to splurge, so why shouldn’t I?
Wilde puffs on his cigar for a moment before handing it to me across the
table. “No,” he says with smoke leaking out from between his white teeth.
“But you can share this one with me.”
I narrow my eyes at him but take the cigar. His saliva has already darkened
the tobacco, but I try not to think about having part of him inside me as I
place my lips down on the thick cigar.
My tongue rolls inadvertently over the wet part of the tobacco, adding my
spit to his. The smoke is rich and warm, and part of me misses doing this
more often. I’d never smoke around the boys, but on vacation, it just feels
right.
“I take it you don’t relax very often,” Wilde says, breaking the lull that the
nicotine has already put me in.
“Oh,” I say, straightening up and taking the cigar out of my mouth. “I guess
I don’t. I’m a busy woman.”
“I only say that because it looks like you’re making love to that cigar,” he
says with a playful smirk.
I scoff. “People see what they want to see.”
“And I see a beautiful woman all alone on vacation in Italy. Isn’t it lonely?”
he asks.
I shrug. “I only just got here. I wanted to get some time to myself.”
“To get away from the boyfriend or something,” he mutters.
“Or something,” I say. “Listen, I’m single, but I’m not ready to mingle, so
let’s not go there.”
He laughs. “I never suggested you were. Can’t too people have a nice
evening together without ending up naked in bed?”
“Not with our history,” I reply.
“So, if we are out having a nice evening together, then you’re saying we’re
going to have sex tonight.”
“No,” I answer dryly, although I feel a jolt of excitement at the mention of
it.
Wilde is even more off limits than he was when I first met him, and that just
makes this all the more tempting. I know that if I fall, I’ll fall hard again,
and heartbreak hurts more than self-control.
He shrugs as I hand the cigar back to him. “Perhaps you will change your
mind.”
“Probably not,” I reply.
“You’re so quick to defy me,” he says. “Did something happen that I’m not
aware of? You used to be so affectionate. We had a lot of fun.”
“Maybe I grew up,” I say. “And don’t forget that you went to jail.”
“I wouldn’t forget. I just don’t think it’s important.”
“For me, it is.”
He leans back in his seat and puffs on his cigar as a waitress comes to our
table. She’s wearing a short black dress and heels that are so high that it’s
miracle she can walk in them. She seems like the kind of woman that would
catch Wilde’s interest, but he doesn’t even look at her as he orders drinks
for both of us.
His eyes are fixed on me.
Once the woman leaves, I lean in, clasping my hands together like I’m a
detective about to interrogate him. “What business are you here on?”
He smirks. “It’s called noneofyour.”
“What?”
“As in, none of your business,” he says, his smirk widening.
I let out a dramatic sigh. “Wilde, that’s really not funny.”
“I wasn’t making a joke. I don’t think two people who aren’t really
involved with each other should be prying into each other’s personal
business,” he explains calmly. “Don’t you think?”
“I think you shouldn’t be breaking into my hotel room.”
“Bianca let me in,” he says. “You should ask her about it.”
“We talked,” I reply, “And she said you had told her that you were going to
propose.”
“Nobody can keep a secret these days,” he says, shaking his head while still
making light of the seriousness of what he’s done.
“You didn’t take anything, did you?” I ask.
“Why would I do that?”
“You’ve done it before,” I remind him.
“Really? What did I take?” he asks, making it sound like he actually doesn’t
remember.
“Oh, come on. I know you remember that. You remember everything,” I
say.
He taps ash off the end of the cigar directly onto the table. “Maybe you
should remind me of what it was.”
“I should remind you to use the ashtray,” I say, pointing to the crystal glass
right beside where he dropped the ash from his cigar.
“Irrelevant,” he replies, waving his hand before popping the cigar back
between his teeth. “Remind me what it was that I took from you before.”
“My…” I sigh. “My undergarments.”
“Panties,” he says with absolute delight.
“Yes, my panties,” I say, closing my legs tightly under the table.
“I loved the blue lace ones,” he says, tilting his head back and blowing
smoke toward the ceiling. “They were like those little trees you hang on the
rearview to make the car smell good.”
Wilde has no shame. Everything that comes from his perverted mouth is
completely unabashed, and it’s just as much arousing as it is offensive.
I clamp my legs together a little harder.
This evening is going to be tough, but I’m strong. I have to think about the
twins. For their sake, I’m never falling back in love with Wilde.
“Maybe you can give me a pair since I was nice enough not to just steal
one,” he says as our drinks arrive.
“I don’t think so,” I say, smiling politely as the woman places a tall martini
glass full of something bright red in front of me. Wilde is taking a whiskey,
as usual.
Wilde’s expression changes from playful amusement to wide-eyed alertness
as the waitress moves from the table. His eyes dart across the dark room,
and his hand reaches down under the table.
I follow his gaze to see a group of large men in suits walking into the
lounge, all of them openly holding rifles like they’re part of some 1950s
mafia group.
CHAPTER 13
WILDE

I pull a pistol from the waistband of my slacks. Anatoli took it

from the van before dropping me off at the hospital, and I
managed to get it from him during our meeting at the ruins. I
didn’t think it would come in handy this early, but life has a way of
throwing curveballs at you.
“You don’t happen to have a car here, do you?” I ask as I get up from the
table.
“Wilde, are those guys here for you?” Pixie asks, her voice turning into a
whisper as they look toward us.
“Perhaps,” I answer, grabbing her arm and yanking her out of her seat.
There’s no time to explain anything to her yet, but I doubt she’ll believe me
when I tell her I didn’t do anything bad. The Romano Family just doesn’t
like me. They’re opportunistic assholes and for some reason, I look like a
good target this evening.
“Quickly,” I urge as one of the men shouts something in Italian.
Pixie half-stumbles half-sprints through the double doors in the back of the
lounge with me, breaking out into the kitchen.
A chef looks up at us in surprise, but he doesn’t have time to object to our
presence before I pull Pixie through the back door of the building into the
alley.
“I didn’t even get to enjoy my drink,” I grumble as I pull her away from the
building.
“You’re seriously thinking about that when there are people with guns?”
“News flash – I’m one of them,” I say holding up my pistol. “But we’re
outnumbered, so we need to get the fuck out of here.”
“I didn’t come to Italy to die,” she says, panic rising in her voice.
“Neither did I, love,” I say, pulling her along as fast as I can. “But since you
didn’t answer my question, I’ll ask it again. Do you have a car?”
“Not here,” she says, shaking her head.
“Then I guess we need to commandeer one,” I say, looking ahead toward
the sliver of pink light at the end of the alley.
There’s a ton of cars parked on the road outside of the cocktail lounge, but
most of them are too nice for me to steal. They’ll attract attention, and that’s
the last thing that we need with the Italian mafia on our tail.
“Just don’t do anything silly and we’ll get out of this,” I say, letting go of
Pixie’s arm as we emerge into the street.
I can hear footsteps through the alley, but we have enough of a head start
that they’re not going to be able to catch us if we can find a car.
I spot one parking on the curb, trying to cram itself between two large
SUVs. It’s small enough to where that might be possible, but I’m not going
to let them get the chance.
That little Italian motor is about to see some serious heat.
Before the person in the car can react, I have their door open and my pistol
in their face. “Get the fuck out of the car,” I shout, hoping to scare them into
complying.
It’s easier than having to blow their head off in public. I’m not looking for
another murder charge.
The terrified Italian man jumps out of his car, cursing and hopping along
the sidewalk like a frog. I’d laugh if I didn’t just hear the pop of gunfire and
feel a bullet breeze past my ear.
“Get in,” I shout to Pixie as I dive into the driver’s seat.
She hops into the passenger’s seat as I slam on the gas, clipping the rear
bumper of the car parked in front of us but evading what would’ve been a
lethal spray of bullets from several rifles across the street.
“Hold on tight,” I grunt as I swerve into oncoming traffic.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Pixie squeaks.
I laugh from the rush of adrenaline. “I know a shortcut.”
I lean on the horn as I tear through traffic in the wrong lane, putting other
drivers on the sidewalk and nearly flattening us against the front of a large
truck. It’s thrilling, but I also have to keep in mind that I have someone else
in the car with me, and I don’t particularly want to kill Pixie.
After a minute and a half of terror, we arrive on the other side of the traffic,
flying through an intersection and pulling off onto the highway. From here,
nobody is going to catch us. We’re too far ahead.
“I didn’t pay the tab first,” I say, shaking my head as I slow the car down.
“You can’t possibly be worried about skipping the tab when you stole a
car,” Pixie says, holding her hand over her heart and looking absolutely
petrified.
“I’m only a thief when I need to be,” I reply. “It’s not really my forte.”
“But killing is, I suppose.”
“Sometimes,” I reply casually.
She lets out a groan. “Wilde, you can’t drag me into whatever mess you’ve
gotten yourself into. I knew you weren’t here on business.”
“But I am,” I say, flashing her a quick smile. “What makes you think
otherwise?”
“Men with guns,” she replies simply.
I hold up my pistol. “Businessmen can have guns too.”
“Maybe mobsters, but not law-abiding citizens.”
“Have you ever heard of the second amendment?”
“We’re in Italy, Wilde,” she says, throwing up her hands in frustration.
“And even if we were in the US, you can’t run around getting into
shootouts with people.”
“I never fired a shot,” I say, flipping the gun over to hold it by the barrel. I
thrust it out to her. “Check it.”
“I’m not touching that. I don’t want my fingerprints on it when the police
arrest us.”
“You’re worried about the cops?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“You should be more worried about the guys who tried to kill us,” I say. “I
rescued you, by the way. I’m sure you’d like to thank me.”
“In your dreams.”
“My dreams involve your lips wrapped around my cock. It’s a long drive to
Rome,” I say.
Pixie slaps my arm, but I barely feel it. If she wanted to make it painful, she
would’ve, but she didn’t. That’s my sign to dig in deeper. I want to see how
far I can take this.
“Remember when you used to ride me while I was driving?” I ask,
wringing the steering wheel as sweet memories flow through my mind.
“You always wanted me to cum inside.”
“Sometimes you did,” she says.
“I could never help myself with you.” I look toward her, my eyes dancing
over her perfect body. “It was worth the risk.”
“I don’t think you’d be a good father,” she says, her tone taking a sudden
turn.
“It’s a good thing I’m not then,” I reply quickly, feeling the cutting edge in
her voice a little too sharply. I don’t think I’d make a bad father. I’m just not
ready for kids.
A long pause punctuates the car, but I know a storm is coming. This is
always how Pixie gets before she blows up on me. It’s happened twice
before, and I know she hasn’t changed.
But neither have I, and I know how to respond to her aggression.
“You can let me out now,” she says, turning her head to me and pursing her
lips so hard that the skin around them turns white.
“On the highway?” I ask. “Not a chance.”
“Take the next exit and drop me off,” she says, her voice just about as dry
as paper.
“I like you so I’m not going to do that.”
“Kidnapping is a crime.”
“I’m fine with going to jail again. Letting you get killed by the Italian mafia
isn’t something I’m fine with,” I explain.
“The mafia? Oh god, Wilde, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into?”
“There’s a lot that you don’t know about me,” I say in a low voice.
“Clearly.”
“Let’s just say that I’m familiar with these guys, and I have been for a long
time. They’re not especially dangerous if you have the right people with
you, but I’m alone, so it’s better just to leave.”
“But you’re not alone,” she says.
“Are you good at shooting?” I ask with a chuckle.
“No, I mean I saw you with other people. They were also Russian.”
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, trying to read her expression.
This has turned into another interrogation quicker than I realized.
“Oh, so you were spying on me,” I say.
“I wasn’t spying. I’m just not blind. I saw you at the Enchanted Ruins with
them this afternoon,” she says.
“Damn,” I mutter. I was trying to keep this business a secret, but Pixie is a
clever woman. She’s not going to fall for my smoke and mirrors twice.
“Yeah, damn is right,” she says, leaning back in her seat and crossing her
arms. “Tell me what you’re really doing here.”
“You’re not ready for the truth.”
“Neither are you,” she says, and a laugh slips through her pursed lips.
I frown, looking toward her in confusion. “What does that mean?”
She shrugs.
I sigh, shaking my head at her. “You’re not going to bluff me into telling
you anything.”
“I don’t need to bluff you. You were about to tell me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then I’m not coming to Rome with you,” she replies. “I’ll yell for the cops
the second I get the chance to, and they’re not going to treat you very well
when they find out you’re a felon.”
“You’re all kinds of trouble,” I say, “but I’m the one with the gun, so I’m
the one who makes the rules.”
“You’re not going to hurt me,” she says confidently.
“You shouldn’t be so sure of that,” I reply.
“You never used to make threats like that before,” she says, sounding hurt
almost immediately.
I shrug. “You never used to abandon me before.”
“That’s no excuse for your behavior. I didn’t do anything wrong,” she
snaps, but I can hear the guilt in her voice.
I let silence overtake the car again for a full ten minutes. The only sound is
the white noise of the road underneath the wheels of our stolen car.
The tension slowly dissipates into boredom, but I’m not going to talk to
Pixie if she going to continue to be combative. Going to Rome isn’t her
choice.
I call the shots here, just like I always have.
CHAPTER 14
PIXIE

“I have to pee,” I say, looking for any excuse to break the

silence that’s drenched the car with awkward energy since
Wilde stop talking.
I hate it when he’s angry. It upsets me too, and I take longer to recover from
negative emotions than he does. He’s the type to bounce back quickly for
everything he does, no matter what it is.
And that includes in the bedroom.
Wilde continues to look forward at the road as he speaks. “We’re taking a
ferry in Messina to Villa San Giovanni. You can take a break in Messina
before we leave.”
“How long is that?” I ask, looking at the small digital clock in the car. It’s
already nine in the evening.
“About three hours,” he replies. “We’ll have to stay overnight and leave in
the morning.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And you expect me to get a room with you after you
kidnapped me?”
“I saved you,” he replies calmly. “And you should be grateful.”
“What if I can’t hold it for three hours?” I ask.
“Too bad.”
“For a man in a tuxedo, you’re not much of a gentleman,” I say, shifting in
my seat so that I have my back against the door. I prefer to face him when
we’re talking.
“Sometimes being a gentleman means being a bit of an asshole,” he says,
drumming his fingers against the top of the steering wheel. He turns his
head to me. “You understand. Doing the right thing can be uncomfortable.”
I shrink in my seat. I know he doesn’t know about the twins, but he speaks
like he can see all the guilt that I hold in my heart. It’s painful every day to
keep this a secret from him, but what other choice do I have?
I breathe deeply to remind myself to stay in the moment, feeling the gentle
rise and fall of my stomach against the stiff nylon seatbelt. He doesn’t
know, and he never has to. There’s no way for him to find out unless I tell
him.
Or if he follows me back to the United States.
Or if he gets me drunk and finesses the information out of me.
“We’ll pull over at a rest stop,” Wilde says, breaking my train of paranoid
thoughts.
“Really?” I ask. “I thought you wanted to keep me as your little captive all
evening.”
“Oh, I am,” he says with a grin. “But I don’t want you having any accidents
in the car. We have to drive this thing for a while.”
“How long are you planning to drive a stolen car?” I ask, wondering just
how reckless Wilde is these days. He was always a bit on the crazy side, but
he seems even more unhinged than ever.
“Until we get to Rome,” he says. “Unless you want to steal another one on
the way.”
“I don’t want to steal anything. This isn’t a we thing. It’s a you thing,” I say,
holding my hands up in innocence.
He chuckles. “We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t like it,” I say.
“Do you want to argue about it?” he asks, a grin forming on his perfect lips.
“Or do you want to fuck it out? That always seemed to work better.”
My stomach twists up again at the mention of sex. He keeps bringing it up,
and it’s bound to happen if I don’t keep shutting him down.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want to have sex with you. That part of our lives is
over.”
My voice isn’t as strong as I would like it to be, but I believe I’ve gotten the
point across because. Wilde’s smile disappears from his face, only to be
replaced by a look of disappointment. Maybe he’ll just dump me on the
street if he thinks he won’t get anything out of me.
“Sex is overrated,” he says, flicking his hand dismissively. “Do you know
what’s really great?”
I frown. This is uncharacteristic of him.
“No,” I reply slowly.
“Power,” he says. “More power than you can possibly imagine.” He waves
his hand through the air in a sweeping motion. “So much fucking money
and power.”
“Does running around with guns make you feel powerful?” I ask.
“This isn’t about guns,” he says, reaching his hand to the center console and
popping open the compartment. He dips his hand inside and pulls out a
half-smoked pack of cigarettes.
“Then what is it about?” I ask.
He taps the back of the cigarette pack, sliding one out and pulling it out
with his lips.
He tosses the pack into my lap. “Enjoy,” he says.
“I don’t smoke,” I reply, even as I pull one out and put it between my lips.
“Neither do I,” he says, procuring a light from his pocket.
I taste the old tobacco and paper on my lips, and somehow it’s more
pleasant than smoking a cigar. The cheapness of it makes it feel more
comfortable, like a guilty pleasure when I desperately need it.
It’s better than giving in to Wilde’s charm and going overboard. It would be
a whole lot of pleasure, but also a whole lot of guilt.
This is a compromise with myself.
Wilde lights my cigarette before his, and we join forces in filling the car
with smoke. This wasn’t the vacation that I was expecting, but I’ll try to
enjoy it the best that I can.
“Power,” he says again, smoke drifting from his lips like water.
“What about it?” I ask, feeling the strong buzz of nicotine overtake me. It
hits so much harder with a simple cigarette than anything else. It’s no
wonder these fucking things are so addictive.
“I’m here on business, sure, but power is the real reason I’ve come to Italy,”
he says. “Maybe I should explain a thing or two to you.”
“That would be nice,” I reply softly, trying not to sound too eager. I’m
dying to know what the hell he’s doing here, and why the Italian mafia
would want him dead.
“Have you ever heard of the Bandakov Family?” he asks.
“That’s your surname, so sure, I’ve heard of you,” I say with a confused
chuckle.
“There’s more than just me,” he says. “Did you ever learn why I killed that
guy three years ago?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I wanted to
forget that I ever met you.”
“Cold,” he says. “But understandable.”
“Is it?”
He shrugs. “Yes and no, but that’s beside the point. The past doesn’t have
power over the future, and power is what I’m after.”
I don’t reply; I’m waiting for him to get to the point.
I have no idea where this is going, but I have a sense of dread building in
the pit of my stomach. It could be the cigarette, but I doubt it.
“The Bandakov Family is a crime syndicate that’s fairly well-known in
Russian crime circles. You could also call it a mafia if you’d like.”
My jaw drops. “You’re part of the mafia?”
“I used to think that I didn’t want anything to do with it. My father is the
one who runs all of it, but I don’t have much of a relationship with him.”
His hands grip the steering wheel slightly harder. “In fact, I kind of hate
him.”
I nod, staying silent because this is the most truth Wilde has ever spilled
about himself and his family. He normally doesn’t talk about this kind of
stuff, which makes me wonder why he’d open up to me about it now.
“My father kills plenty of people, but he doesn’t get put in jail like I did,”
Wilde says, a bitter smile flickering across his lips. “I always thought he
was a crook until I got pulled in. Now I just see it for what it is – business.”
“Dangerous business,” I say.
“Sure.”
“But you’re involved in it now. Why?”
“Mostly revenge,” he replies, taking a long drag of his cigarette.
His eyes suddenly go distant, staring miles ahead of us. I’m almost scared
to have him driving with that look in his eyes. He’s gone somewhere far
away from where we are now, and whatever is there doesn’t seem pleasant.
“Revenge for what?” I ask, but I’m not even sure if I should be asking. It
feels too personal.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he says, his voice thin and distant.
“Sure,” I say quickly, eager to lighten the conversation. I know enough
already. Wilde is part of a mafia family, and he’s getting even deeper into
some kind of trouble.
Whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it.
CHAPTER 15
WILDE

M y chest is tight and the sweat from my hands is soaking my

cigarette in salty memories of the past.
My brother, the person who taught me how to be a man, was murdered by a
family member while I was wrapped up in Pixie. I didn’t even know until a
week afterward because my father didn’t seem to think it was important
enough to tell me.
I found out through my cousin, and it broke something deep within me.
A man can only smile through a certain amount of pain before he breaks
down and cries. My brother taught me to be tough, but nobody told me how
tough it would be to deal with the death of a loved one.
I went a little insane after that. I’m sure Pixie felt it in the way that I fucked
her, but I never told her what happened. I did, however, make it a point to
hunt down and kill the man who shot and killed my brother.
The truth came trickling in while I was in prison, and I soon realized that it
was my father who decided that my brother should die. He was the one who
gave the order, and the man I had killed was just the one carrying it out.
A week into my two-year sentence, I decided to join the mafia, but joining
wasn’t enough. I would have my revenge, and it would come in the form of
a cold, calculated murder.
And then I would take the throne.
Pixie is a beautiful distraction, but she has also reminded me why I’m here.
Power is the only thing that keeps people alive. The weak get crushed by
the decisions of those in power, and the only way to change it is to flip the
tables on the ones who rule.
My father must die, and I must be the one to pull the trigger on him.
I burn my cigarette down to the filter and grab the pack off Pixie’s lap. Her
posture is tense and nervous, but I’d be too if I was driving with a raving
lunatic.
Fortunately for Pixie, my lunacy is only directed at one person, and it isn’t
her.
“There’s a rest stop there,” Pixie says, prodding her finger into the
windshield.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Anything to take the conversation away from the
real reason I’m going to Rome is welcome, even if it means letting Pixie
have her way.
I pull off the highway onto a street so small that it’s almost impossible to
keep the car on the asphalt. Every so often, the tires meet the dirt on either
side, flinging dust back behind us and reminding me why I don’t like
European roads.
Minor annoyances are better than reliving past trauma, so I welcome the
difficulty of driving here. It distracts me from my bitter existence.
Pixie pops another cigarette into her mouth as we rumble down the road. It
winds up and down several hills before finally arriving at a parking lot that
looks like it hasn’t been used in the past twenty years.
There also isn’t a bathroom in sight.
“It just ends here?” Pixie asks, craning her head forward to get a better
look.
“Look like it.”
“There’s nowhere to pee.”
I park the car, keeping it on in case we need to make a quick getaway.
We’re not all that far from Sciacca.
“Find a tree and come back quickly,” I say.
“Whatever,” she mumbles, popping open her door and stepping out.
I watch her walk in front of the car, the gentle swing of her hips acting like
a pendulum to my beating heart. I’d like nothing more than to yank them
down, bend her over the burning hood of the car, and fuck her senseless.
She’d like it too, I assume, but now isn’t the time to test that theory. We’ll
arrive in Messina in a few hours, and I’ll get a hotel room with just one bed.
A small one.
A very small one.
I adjust my chair, pulling it back until I hear the metallic click of it locking
into place. Finally, I can stretch my long legs.
It’s a gift and curse being tall. For everything attractive and powerful about
it, there are double the downsides. It’s easy for me to be picked out of a
crowd and difficult for me to be comfortable in a regular car. This one is
especially small, and my sweaty curls brush against the ceiling.
I roll down the window, tapping the ash onto the pavement as Pixie
disappears behind a tree. I hope she doesn’t make a run for it. She’d be lost
out there in those woods, and I’m not wasting my time trying to hunt her
down.
Why should I care about someone who didn’t care about me?
I take a long drag, purposely over smoking the cigarette so that it burns the
back of my throat. I want to feel the pain as punishment for the thoughts
I’ve had. I know I’m a bad person and that I deserve to be abandoned, but
I’m still selfish about Pixie.
I still want her.
Pixie doesn’t take long to come back out from behind the tree. She snaps
the front button to her shorts, smiling at me as though I were her friend.
I doubt she actually feels that way, but at least she’s not screaming at me for
snatching her up. Maybe she’s scared of me, or maybe my beliefs about
myself aren’t shared by her.
Either way, she’s not putting up too much of a fight, and I’m thankful for it.
Sometimes it’s nice just to have someone go along with you who isn’t
looking to take money or screw you over the minute you show signs of
weakness.
Every once in a while, I want to let my guard down, and I’ve only been able
to do that around Pixie.
A wave of heat enters the car from the passenger’s side as she opens the
door and slides in. A cigarette hangs from her perfect lips, and I have the
urge to tell her not to smoke. It’s not good for a woman so beautiful to
poison her body.
It’s funny because I’m the one who gave her the cigarette.
I’m the poison.
“This place is weird,” Pixie says. “I bet it’d be spooky when it’s completely
dark.”
“We’ll never know,” I reply, turning the car around in the parking lot and
flicking the headlights on. “I’m never coming back to Sciacca. It’s nothing
but trouble here.”
“You’re afraid of the Romano Family, right?” she asks.
“No,” I snap, feeling a swell of anger at the mention of fear. “I’m not afraid
of anyone.”
“I wasn’t accusing you of being weak,” she says, her voice apologetic.
She’s playing the peacemaker now.
I allow my shoulders to drop. “Right, but fear isn’t the right word. I’d call it
being sensible. You can’t get into shootouts with people when you’re
outnumbered, and I didn’t come to Italy with a full crew. I only came with
my cousins.”
“I knew they were related to you,” she blurts, her voice shimmering with
excitement. She enjoys playing detective.
“You’re right,” I reply, accelerating down the narrow road. “I have a lot of
cousins, but Vlad, Anatoli, and Igor are the ones with me in Italy. They’re
the most willing to follow me.”
“I didn’t realize you had such a large family. You never talked about them
before.”
I shrug. “There was never a reason.”
“I guess it’s nice to have family by your side when you’re traveling. I came
here alone.”
“They’re family, but they’re subordinates. It’s more of a worker and boss
type of deal because I’m the one in charge,” I explain. “I don’t necessarily
have to like them.”
“So, you don’t like them?” she asks, cocking her head to the side curiously.
“Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t,” I say. “But it doesn’t matter.
Power is my main concern, and power doesn’t have anything to do with
who likes you.”
“Surely powerful people can be liked,” she says.
“Liked or feared. In the mafia, fear is more effective.”
“It doesn’t sound like a nice way to live if I’m being honest,” she says,
putting her cigarette out in the cupholder between us.
“Sometimes people don’t get to choose,” I reply. “Life takes you places that
you couldn’t possibly imagine.”
“Oh, I can imagine,” she says with an air of mystery. She’s done that a few
times already, like she wants to tell me something but can’t.
I’m about to inquire as to what she’s hinting at when my attention is yanked
back onto the road ahead when a large black sedan comes around a bend,
rolling straight for us.
I know black-tinted windows and silver accents anywhere. The Italian
mafia has caught up with us, and we’re sorely unprepared to face them.
CHAPTER 16
PIXIE

“G et down and stay down,” Wilde shouts, grabbing my head and

pushing it forward so hard that my head hits the dashboard.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelp, slipping out of his grip
and popping my head back up.
I reverse my decision as soon as I make it, ducking back down as bullets
crack the windshield. The car veers off the road, flying over a hill and
barreling through the trees.
The sound of branches knocking against the side windows is accompanied
by the crack of gunfire from inside the car. Wilde is shooting back.
“Not tonight, motherfuckers,” he growls between gritted teeth as he leans
out of the window to fire into the sedan bouncing along behind us.
I can’t see where we’re going, but by the looks of it, Wilde can’t either.
We’re rolling blind through the woods with gunfire ringing through the
empty night like the start of a war.
So much for a relaxing vacation in Italy. This has turned into a total
nightmare.
“Are you afraid?” Wilde says, ducking back into the car and swerving so
that we don’t hit a tree. I’m surprised to see a wide grin on his face.
“I’m fucking terrified,” I shout. “Is this fun for you or something?”
“Kind of,” he admits, swerving the car again. “But I’m out of ammo.”
“Jesus Christ, Wilde. I don’t want to die.”
“Death is only the beginning. Aren’t you a catholic?” he asks, still smiling
like crazy.
“Only by association,” I grumble. “And that’s beside the point. I’m not
trying to die today.”
“Neither am I, which is why I’m ditching this cheap hunk of shit for a
goddamn tank when we get out of this mess,” he replies, throwing down his
gun and placing both hands on the wheel. “Time to get serious.”
“I thought we were already serious,” I say right before he slams his foot
down, pressing the pedal down into the floor.
My body is instantly plastered to my seat as the small Italian car engine
screams for dear life. I should be the one screaming, but nobody would hear
it over the noise the car is making.
The pop of gunfire from behind us fades, but I’m not sure if it’s from the
noise or because we’re putting distance between ourselves and the black
sedan. Either way, it’s comforting not to hear it so loudly anymore.
“Highway coming up,” Wilde announces, leaning forward as he takes his
foot off the gas.
“Are we just going to –”
I don’t have time to complete my sentence before we sail out of the woods,
driving diagonally through traffic until we’ve reached the far side of the
road. The front bumper peels off the car and tumbles over the hood, flying
back into traffic as our pursuers emerge from the trees.
I twist myself around, watching through the rear window as the wheels of
the sedan are unable to keep a grip on the road. It tilts sideways, riding on
two wheels for a moment before falling over on the hood. Sparks fly from
beneath it as it spins out on the highway and we make our getaway.
I pump my fist, turning back around and holding up my hand for a high-
five.
Wilde slaps his hand against mine and laughs. “You’re awfully excited
about this.”
“I prefer surviving,” I reply, wiping the sweat from my forehead. “Jesus,
that was tense.”
“The Romano Family will think twice before they fuck with us,” he says.
“But if we’re going to avoid them for the entirety of our trip, we’re going to
have to find a new car.
“Where?”
He waves his hand at the traffic in front of us. “Pick and choose, darling.
What’s your favorite color?”
“One, you should know what my favorite color is, and two, you can’t just
go around stealing cars,” I reply, shaking my head.
“Why not?”
“Well, first of all, your gun is empty,” I say, knowing that the fact that it’s
highly illegal won’t convince him.
“You don’t need to shoot people to take their cars. In fact, if you have to
shoot, you’re probably not getting the car,” he says with a slight edge of
arrogance. He always thinks he knows everything.
“I’m trying not to go to jail here. This was only supposed to be a vacation,”
I reply.
“You’re not going to jail,” he says in a tone that suggests I’m being
ridiculous.
“You know, I would’ve agreed with you twenty-four hours ago, but now
I’m not too sure.”
“The cops will never find us,” he replies confidently, rubbing the stubble on
his square jaw. “We’ll just buy a new car and ditch this one.”
“I thought you wanted to hijack another one.”
“I’ve changed my mind. We’d probably get another piece of shit like this
one,” he says, patting the steering wheel. “We’ll drop this one in a pond
somewhere and then take a bus to Messina.”
“Thank god,” I say, placing my hand over my heart. “I don’t think I can
deal with your crazy driving anymore.”
“Hey, it takes serious skill to outmaneuver the Italian mafia,” he says,
waving a finger.
“We wouldn’t have to evade them if you didn’t get involved with them in
the first place,” I reply.
“They got involved with me, not the other way around. They snatched up
my cousins with plans to hold them for ransom, so I had to get into their
space and pick some of them off. That made them angry, I assume.”
“You picked them off?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “You mean, like, you
killed them?”
“Just two,” he replies casually.
“More murder charges,” I say in disbelief. “You know, I thought maybe you
had changed for the better, but you’ve clearly learned nothing.”
“And I never will,” he replies smugly, drumming his fingers against the
steering wheel.
“You shouldn’t be proud of that,” I say, grabbing yet another cigarette. I’m
too stressed out to stop once I’ve started.
Wilde doesn’t say anything, instead choosing to smile to himself as he
drives along the highway in our beaten-up stolen vehicle. I hope we ditch
this thing soon, or else we’ll have more than just the mafia pursuing us.
We’re a flashing red beacon of trouble, and there’s no way that this car
hasn’t already been reported to the police.
CHAPTER 17
WILDE

“I never knew you had a sister,” I say loud enough for Pixie to
hear me from the cracked bathroom door. I wrap a towel
around my waist as I step out of the shower.
“You were listening to my conversation?” she asks, her voice shrill with
concern.
I chuckle to myself, glancing into the mirror, but it’s too foggy to see my
reflection. I let Pixie simmer in silence as I run my hands through my hair,
shaking water from my curls before finally stepping out into the cold hotel
room.
“You shouldn’t be listening in on people,” Pixie warns as I walk out of the
bathroom.
“I’ll do what I please,” I reply, breezing past her and opening the drawer
next to the bed.
It’s empty.
I look up at her and grin. “No pajamas. I guess I’ll be sleeping naked.”
“Oh my god, what happened to your shoulder?” she exclaims, derailing my
attempt at sexualizing our evening.
I glance at the stitched wound that decorates my skin. It’s accompanied by
some nasty purple bruising. I hadn’t noticed that before.
“A little welcome present from Italy,” I say, running my finger over the
stitches.
She leans forward, trying to get a better look. Her mouth is open into a
perfect circle, and her tongue looks like it would feel like heaven on my
cock. I’d kiss her even after I painted her face with my cum.
My cock tugs at the towel, rising quickly at the thought of being intimate
with Pixie again. I get bored of women as quickly as I got bored of high
school and dropped out, but Pixie makes me hard every time I see her.
“Did you get stabbed?” she asks, her pretty blue eyes fixated on my
shoulder injury.
“It was a bullet, actually,” I reply. “Not a big deal though.”
“You could’ve died,” she says, finally looking up at my face. Her eyes are
drenched in protective worry. She must care about me, even if she doesn’t
approve of my lifestyle.
“I could die any day. Even tonight could be my last, and I wouldn’t want to
waste it,” I say with a wink.
“Don’t even try it,” she says, shaking her head. “You’ve crossed enough
lines as it is.”
“It’s a hobby of mine,” I say, standing up straight. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Okay, but why were you listening in on me?” she asks, quick to revert the
conversation to something that I had already forgotten about.
Is she hiding something?
“You talk too loud,” I say.
“I was practically whispering,” she replies.
“You were never very quiet. I remember pretty clearly how loud you could
be, so it’s not a surprise that your whispers aren’t quiet either,” I say, a grin
forming on my face as I remember the police getting called on us once.
“It’s still rude to eavesdrop on people,” she says.
“Tough,” I reply.
“You say that a lot.”
“Tough.”
She groans. “Really, but what did you hear?”
“God, Pixie, you’re so transparent,” I say with a laugh. “Are you hiding
something from me? You had better not have called the police on us.”
“I have personal things to talk about with my sister. It’s none of your
business,” she snaps.
“I wasn’t trying to make it my business, but now you have me curious,” I
say, leaning forward and letting the towel slip down an inch from my waist.
“Tell me about these personal things.”
She shrinks back on the bed, looking absolutely terrified. I’ve found a
sensitive topic, just like she found with me about the revenge I seek, but I
don’t intend to leave this alone like she did. I want to stick the knife in and
twist it.
And then I want to do it again.
And again.
The sick part of my brain wants to punish her for abandoning me for what it
sees as a nonsensical reason. She didn’t even wait to find out how long I’d
be in jail, or if I was even guilty. The second those cuffs were slapped onto
my wrists, she was gone.
And I find that very hard to forgive.
“There’s nothing to say that you’d be interested in,” Pixie says, shrinking
back even further on the small twin bed.
I squint my eyes, gazing at the tightness of her shoulders and the wideness
of her pupils. She’s lying to me. Something has happened, and it involves
me. I just know it.
“I’m very interested in your life, Pixie,” I say, letting the towel slip down on
my waist another inch.
Her eyes dart down to my groin and then back up to my eyes before she
looks away, turning her head to the side. “I’m not very interesting, to be
honest.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I reply.
She tilts her chin down, looking at the foot of the dresser. “I was just telling
my sister that I was enjoying my week in Italy. She expects me to check up
with her, and I didn’t want her to worry.”
“Maybe I should call her too,” I suggest.
Her head snaps to me, and her eyes fill with panic. “Why would you want
to do that?”
“To ask her some questions,” I say calmly.
“She doesn’t know about you,” Pixies says, keeping her voice low. “And I
think it’d be better if she never did.”
“Our little secret,” I say, crinkling my nose.
She nods eagerly. “Yes, I’d like that.”
“It’s not much of a secret… yet,” I say. “But we can change that.”
“How?” she asks in a whisper.
“I think you know how.”
She tilts her head to the side, her eyes flickering to the grey plastic phone
on the bedside table. She’s only going along with this so that I won’t call
her sister.
She’s in for a rude awakening if she thinks that the prospect of sex will stop
me from discovering her secrets. I’m not easily distracted from my goals. I
pursue them with the intensity of vicious killer, because that’s what I am.
Pixie leans back, arching her back slightly to lure me in.
Usually, I’m the one who is doing the seducing, but she has turned the
tables on me to hide something. Luckily, I’m in no hurry to claim her. I will
have when I’m ready to have her, and not a second sooner.
I reach for the phone, and her eyes go wide in panic. She lurches forward,
grabbing my towel and yanking it down as she tumbles off the bed.
I pick up the phone and step back in the same motion, watching her tumble
to the carpeted floor at my feet.
I like her there – helpless and submissive. It makes her that much sexier to
know that she’s in my complete control. I have the primal need to dominate.
“Please, can we just go to bed?” Pixie says from the floor, looking up at me
with that same look of panic as before.
I smirk. “This is more fun.”
“Don’t,” she says softly as I turn the phone toward my face.
I smile to myself. There must be something major that she’s trying to hide
from me, but for my safety, it’s better that I get to the bottom of it now. I
don’t want any trouble with the police, and even though she didn’t call
them, she could’ve told her sister to do so.
I press the key to recall the last person she dialed, and I hold the phone to
my ear as she looks up at me from below, still horrified of whatever truth
I’m about to discover.
The line connects, and I hear a voice so similar to Pixies that for a moment,
I think she’s the one who’s talking to me.
CHAPTER 18
PIXIE

M egan doesn’t know anything about Wilde. She never even

learned his name. I was too ashamed to bring him up when I
became pregnant with the twins, so I just swept it under the
rug as a mysterious one night stand.
Megan accepted that. She’s an absolute saint, and even if there were
questions left unanswered, she always did her best to help me out. Now,
she’s about to talk to the twins’ father, and she doesn’t even realize it.
“Hello, Megan,” Wilde says, smiling down at me like he revels in ruining
my fucking life.
I scramble to my feet, wanting to say something, but knowing that nothing I
tell Megan could make this better. Wilde doesn’t know what he’s calling
about, so maybe there’s still a chance.
“Oh yes, this is her new boyfriend in Italy,” Wilde says, winking at me with
that same stupid arrogant grin plastered to his face.
I hear a laugh from the phone. Megan has no idea what Wilde is trying to
do.
“I’m sure she’s already talked about me, though,” Wilde says, glancing at
me as I sit back down on the bed.
“No? That’s surprising. I guess she wants to keep us a bit of a secret,” he
says after a moment.
Another laugh from Megan.
God, I wish they’d just stop talking. This isn’t funny.
“Only because she was acting like she was hiding something,” Wilde says,
looking at me again and winking.
“Stop winking at me,” I whisper.
He chuckles, addressing Megan again. “Okay, well I figured I’d call to
make sure. She was a little worried, and I’m trying to make sure she has a
good time in Italy. It’s such a beautiful country.”
Jesus, Wilde must think that Megan is a blithering idiot. She hasn’t told him
a goddamn thing, and that’s because she doesn’t trust him. She’s a lot more
cautious about strange men than I ever was.
“Oh no, she’s right here,” Wilde says, looking toward me again. “Do you
want to talk to her?”
I squint my eyes at him, holding my hand out for the phone.
He gives it to me, and I hold it to my ear, turning away from him so that I
can pretend to have some privacy.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” Megan asks, her tone switching from
playful to deathly serious.
I smile, trying not to show my emotions to Wilde. “I picked up some guy in
Italy, but he thinks I must be cheating on my nonexistent husband or
something,” I reply.
That would be preferable to being caught hiding his twins from him. I’d
rather be mixed up in just about anything than this.
“You need to stop fucking around with weirdos,” Megan warns. “Don’t
forget about the twins.”
I pray that Wilde can’t hear what she just said, but after glancing at him, it
doesn’t seem that he can.
I press the phone to my ear harder to block out her voice. “I’m fine, Megan.
Don’t worry. One week and I’m back home. I’m just having some fun like
you said I should.”
“Sure,” she says slowly. “Just tell me if you get into trouble. I don’t want to
worry about you.”
“Nothing to worry about,” I say, hoping that she can’t hear the obvious lie
in my voice. “And this guy isn’t my boyfriend. We’re just having fun.”
I look up at Wilde to find him glaring at me. I bet he wishes I was his
girlfriend, but after this, the prospect of dating him again is so far gone that
it’s not even a possibility.
“If he’s really that jealous I’d get away from him,” Megan warns. “He
sounds like a psycho.”
Maybe he is just jealous and I don’t have to worry about him discovering
the twins, but she’s right about him being a psycho.
“I’m tired and it’s late here,” I say to Megan. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Alright, just be safe, Pixie. Don’t get yourself knocked up again.”
I laugh loudly before she even finishes the sentence, trying to hide her
words from Wilde. “Alright, see you,” I say, hanging up the phone.
I let out a sigh of relief before turning to Wilde. “My sister doesn’t like
you,” I say flatly. “And to be quite honest, neither do I.”
He shrugs. “That’s fine, but I’m going to find out what you’re hiding from
me.”
“I’m single, like I told you, and I’m not in the mafia like you are. I have
nothing to hide,” I reply.
“Sure you don’t,” he says, pushing his thumb into the towel at his waist.
“But let’s go to bed, like you said. We have a long day ahead of us.”
“Sure,” I say, my eyes immediately drifting to the obvious bulge beneath
his towel. I’m surprised he can maintain an erection through all of this, but I
mustn’t forget that he never had any issues getting it up before.
He could go for hours.
“Maybe you’d also like to take a shower and get cleaned up for tomorrow,”
he says, pushing his thumb deeper into the towel.
A drop of water that was clinging desperately to his chiseled abs rolls down
into the V of his crotch, slipping down into the space he’s made with his
thumb. I’d give the world to be that secret little drop of water – unnoticed
with complete access to his groin.
I look up at Wilde suddenly, realizing that I didn’t even hear what he said.
“Excuse me, what?”
He shakes his head, letting out a laugh. “You’re such a whore, Pixie. I love
that.”
“I’m not,” I blurt, trying to hide the obvious.
“You are, but I’ll forgive you for being so easy. Go take a shower and join
me in the bed.”
“You’re an arrogant prick,” I say, jumping off the bed and placing the phone
down on the nightstand. “You don’t make the rules around here.”
“Then who does?” he asks in an amused tone.
“I do,” I reply, walking toward the bathroom without looking back at him.
“And I’ve decided I’m going to take a shower.”
The second I’m in the bathroom with the door shut and locked, I crumble to
the floor, running my fingers through my hair and cursing myself for letting
him suck me into his sick world. This is a disaster waiting to happen, and I
can’t deal with the stress of what he’s putting me through.
I groan softly, trying to hide my distress from him. He can’t hear me having
a fucking breakdown. He can’t know how weak I am in front of him, and
how much I want to ride his thick cock and forget about the truth.
I should run far away from him, but with every step I take, I’m pulled
closer. He’s like a black hole, and it’s impossible for me to escape.
Megan knows something is up. The first phone call that I made to her was
to try to pretend like nothing was the matter.
I should’ve told her to call the police, but I don’t want to get Wilde in
trouble. He’s a terrible person, but I still care about him. He’s the father to
my children, and that will never change.
Now, Megan is going to be worried about me, as she should be, and she’s
going to start digging for information. She’s going to ask questions, and
Wilde is going to be there trying to listen in. Eventually, the truth about the
twins is going to slip out, and he’ll know that they belong to him.
There’s no way for him to know, but he will. He’s just like that. He can
practically read minds.
I stand up and lean over the sink, running cold water into the drain until I’m
brave enough to splash it onto my face. My clothes stink of sweat and
cigarette smoke, but I don’t have anything else to change into. All my
luggage was abandoned at the Buon Giorno Hotel in Sciacca.
If I could, I would take all of this back. I would take my sorry ass back to
the United States and forget about Wilde. I would pretend he’s back in
prison and that he’s not running around with the mafia, doing god knows
what in Rome.
I turn toward the shower and then it hits me. I can take this all back, and the
only thing it’ll take is a quick trip through the ceiling tiles while the shower
is running. I could end this all right now and Wilde would never catch me.
I look up at the low ceiling,, planting my hands on my hips as I consider
what to do. My twins need me, and I can’t go around getting myself killed
or arrested.
This could actually work, but I’m going to need to make damn certain that
it does before I attempt a getaway. If I fuck up, Wilde will never let me out
of his sight again.
I look around for something to stand on, and realize the toilet is my only
option. I know it’s designed to hold the weight of a person, but it still makes
me uneasy to stand on it.
Part of me wants to wait, but the other part of me knows that this is
probably my best chance.
So, with a deep breath, I place one foot on the toilet bowl and step up.
CHAPTER 19
WILDE

A vibrating thud of a person falling to the floor causes me to spring

up from the bed. I rush to the bathroom, my towel falling from my
hips onto the floor behind me. I slam my knuckles into the door
calling out Pixie’s name.
“Motherfucker,” I hear her curse from inside.
“What the hell is going on in there?” I ask, worried that she’s hurt herself. It
would be my fault, of course, since I brought her here. I can’t imagine her
dying in the bathroom when we’ve just survived a shootout with the
Romano Family.
“I slipped,” she says, and I hear the lock on the door turn.
I yank the door open, standing in the doorway and glaring at her as she sits
down to rub her shin.
She stops rubbing it when she sees that I’m naked, and her mouth falls
open. “Wilde, you’re naked,” she says.
“Obviously,” I reply, glancing down at my rising erection.
Fuck, even after witnessing Pixie hurt herself, I’m getting horny again.
There’s something wrong with me.
“Are you just going to stand there?” she asks, looking down at her shin and
rubbing it again. “I fucking hurt my leg.”
“Is it that bad?” I ask, squatting down to get a better look. I try to ignore my
cock as it hardens to a painful size. For god’s sake, Pixie isn’t even naked.
“It hurts like a motherfucker,” she says, pulling her hand away to reveal
immediate bruising around her shin.
“You really hit it hard,” I say, looking over the swelling bruise with
concern. I’m worried she won’t even be able to walk for a while after this.
It’s serious.
“I hit it on the toilet,” she says, pointing to it like I’m supposed to go over
there and beat it up.
“What were you doing?”
“Just…” she looks around, as though the room might tell her the answer.
“Trying to get in the shower.”
I raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Through the toilet?”
She laughs through tears in her eyes. “I just swung around too hard and the
toilet was in the way.”
“Fair enough,” I say, more concerned with her leg than finding holes in her
story. She’s had plenty of chances to leave already and hasn’t taken them.
“Jesus, it hurts,” she says, rubbing her leg like she’s trying to light it on fire.
“Slow down,” I say, moving her hand away so that I can get a better look at
her shin.
It’s definitely not going to be feeling better any time soon, but there’s no
external bleeding and it doesn’t look broken. She’ll be fine so long as she
doesn’t decide to fling it around and hit it on any hard surfaces again.
I touch her leg and she pulls it back, sucking in a sharp breath through her
teeth.
“I take it that hurts,” I say.
“Obviously,” she grumbles.
“Well,” I say, standing up and placing my hands on my hips. “You’re not
going to be running off anywhere now, but it doesn’t look broken and I
doubt there’s going to be any long-term damage.”
“Says the guy who walked off a bullet wound,” she replies in a snarky tone.
I shrug. “A toilet isn’t the same as a gun, Pixie. You’ll live.”
“Maybe,” she replies.
“What do you want me to do then, kiss it?” I ask, shaking my head at her.
“That would be better than telling me it’s not an issue.”
I pause. “Wait, are you serious?”
She nods, her eyes wide and earnest.
I kneel down again, praying that this isn’t a ploy so that she can kick me in
the balls for charging in here naked. She’s the one who made a scene and
unlocked the door for me.
But she doesn’t throw her knee up as I bend down, nor does she knock my
eyes out of my skull as I press my lips lightly against her shin.
I look up at her as I move away slowly, taking in a small breath through my
nose so that I can smell her skin. She’s looking back down at me with
captivated longing, her puffy lips parted and her cheeks glowing pink with
life.
This might be the worst time for it, but I know what I need to do.
I stand back up, towering over her as she stares up at me in awe. I feel like a
god, but I’m about to feel even more like one when I’m so deep inside of
her that my balls are bathing in the juices from her pussy.
“Get up,” I say, my voice coming out much deeper and more urgent than I
thought it would.
Her eyes find my cock and stay there as she stands and leans on her
uninjured leg.
I’m rock solid, and the skin of my cock is stretched so tight that it hurts. I
need to bury it somewhere and release my load, and I can’t think of a better
place to do it than between Pixie’s perfect legs.
“Can you walk?” I ask in a hoarse voice as my throat goes dry.
“I’m not sure,” she replies softly.
I lean down, holding my arm beneath her knees and scooping her up like a
doll. Her body leans against mine, her soft figure pressing into my chest as I
carry her out of the bathroom.
I set her down gently on the bed, taking a step back to look her over before
I do anything else. She’s so pure, like an untouched woman, and yet I’ve
had her so many times in the past.
But I want her again.
I need her again.
Pixie is completely silent as I look over her. It seems that her eyes have
never left my cock, so I push my hips out, allowing her to have a better
view. I always wondered what the big fuss about penises was, but I don’t
think now is the time to ask for a woman’s opinion.
Now is the time for taking, claiming, and pumping a woman full of my
seed. The questions can come later.
Or not at all.
“Take off your shorts,” I say, my voice harsher than I would like it to be. It’s
like I’m being driven by a demon, but I know the demon has been me all
along. That’s just who I am, and not even a perfect woman like Pixie could
change that.
Her hands move to her shorts, and she traces the little button that holds
them shut with her finger. “What will you give me if I take them off?” she
asks, cocking her head to the side.
I chuckle. “Only my cock.”
“That’s a big prize,” she says, a hint of mischief in her eyes. “What about
your cum?”
“Are you on the pill?” I ask, not wanting to take any wild risks.
I’ve done enough of that in the past, and thankfully I haven’t gotten burned
by it. Although, all things considered, if I did knock anyone up, I’d want it
to be Pixie.
“I’m not on the pill,” she says, crinkling her nose. “But maybe that’s why
I’m so fucking horny.”
A shiver runs through me. The devil is in my ear, telling me to just go for it.
The risk is there, but god, how good is it to spill your seed inside of a
woman, the way that nature intended?
My cock jerks taller at the thought of finishing deep within Pixie. With any
other woman, I’d be taking every precaution that I could, but I’m obsessed
with Pixie, and this could be the last chance I have to fuck her raw to
completion.
“This is risky,” I say, even as I make the decision to forgo reason and dive
in. Besides, I know that anything I say now isn’t going to matter once I’m
balls deep inside of her. I’m going to cum inside either way since she’ll be
begging me to the entire time.
She flicks the button open on her shorts and smiles. “I live for the thrill.”
I never thought the sound of a zipper could sound so heavenly, but as she
pulls down the zipper of her shorts and reveals a complete lack of panties
underneath, I nearly shoot ropes over her pussy.
I grab my cock, gripping it at the base and taking my mind away from the
incredible sight in front of me. If I don’t watch myself, I’m going to cum
too early and ruin the experience for both of us.
I want it to be slow and meaningful. I long to enjoy her to the fullest while I
still can. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but tonight I’m certain
that I’ll reach heaven while I’m still alive.
Pixie slides her shorts off her wide hips, her smile widening as she spreads
her legs. Her pussy is pink and shimmers with excitement as I bring my
cock forward.
I ought to get her out of her shirt first, but my impatient nature has me
sticking my cock in before she’s all the way undressed. It’s just so delicious
that I can’t help but drift closer. It’s as though her pussy has gravity.
I press the head of my cock into her pink flesh, tilting my head back and
closing my eyes as it slowly pulls me in.
CHAPTER 20
PIXIE

C old, hard consequences will never keep me from doing the things
that I desire. I’ve learned that before, and I’m learning it again as I
spread my legs for a man that I should hate.
He left me with twins, got his ass sent straight to prison, and came back
when I was just trying to enjoy myself, but I’m letting him inside again. I’m
allowing him to reach the depths that I’ve kept locked up for too long, the
parts of me that were always meant for him.
And it just so goddamn amazing.
I peel my shirt off, trying to ignore the fact that I’m encrusted with sweat
and dirt from what we’ve been through today. Wilde certainly doesn’t seem
to mind, but I’ve always been a bit self-conscious.
All of that gets shoved to the back of my head as Wilde stretches me out on
the bed, sinking his thick veiny cock into my pussy like a submarine set out
to reach the very bottom of the ocean.
I can see the bulge under my belly as his cock moves inside of me. I’ve
seen my belly grown big for multiple reasons because of Wilde, and yet I’m
letting it happen all over again.
My fingers find the edges of the blanket, gripping it tightly as Wilde thrusts
deeper. It’s been too long since I’ve been stretched out like this, too long
since I’ve felt the incredible satisfaction of having a man fuck me like he
means it.
I’m not interested in men who don’t know what they’re doing. I want a man
who is willing to claim me like he owns me and fuck me like his sexual
object, like a toy for his amusement. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,
but nothing else gives me the same thrill and pleasure.
After years of not having it, I’m addicted to Wilde’s cock once again. I lose
all control over myself as he goes harder, making sure that I feel his thrusts
in the deepest parts of me.
“That’s the whore I know,” Wilde growls right after I let out a moan.
I’m in too much bliss to care about what he’s saying to me or to be self-
conscious about the sounds that are escaping my lips. I know that he loves
it, and he’s told me that before. My moans turn him on just as his moans
turn me on.
I slip deeper and deeper into a state of unknown bliss as Wilde rocks back
and forth on top of me. Each one of his thrusts feels thicker and more
powerful. He fills me in a way that wouldn’t be possible with any other
man.
He completes me.
I arch my back to the tingle of pleasure in my spine. It leaks from between
my bones, slipping through my joints and soaking my soul in agonizing
pleasure. I can’t feel anything else, not even the once throbbing pain in my
leg.
Wilde’s lips come down on mine unexpectantly, further dousing my fire in
explosive gasoline. I can taste his passion and the raw and unfiltered need
to claim my body as his own.
I love that taste. It’s the flavor of a real man who is unabashed and
unashamed to take what rightfully belongs to him.
I belong to Wilde, and that becomes increasingly obvious with the ever
feverish thrust of his veiny cock inside of my pussy. I’m soaking him in my
juices right before he lets his out and soaks my insides with his.
Wilde’s lips depart from mine, and he looks me in the eyes. His are filled
with such intensity that I can barely make eye contact with him, but I also
can’t look away. He has my soul in his gaze, and he’s pulling it from my
body as I tingle with ferocious pleasure.
Wilde’s hand finds my mouth, thrusting his fingers inside as though they
were his cock. I taste his skin, swirling my tongue around his thick fingers,
wanting to consume him entirely.
He pushes his fingers deeper, causing me to gag, but I swallow it back,
accepting his aggressive movements as he wiggles his fingers around
inside. I bite down on his knuckles lightly, locking his hand in place as my
brain goes blank.
He tugs his fingers, but I clamp down harder as pleasure swells in my groin.
I need all of him inside of me. I need his body and his soul.
“Oh fuck,” he moans, and I know he’s about to cum.
I release his fingers from the sharp grasp of my teeth, and he takes the
opportunity to put his hand on my throat. I feel a rush of blood to my face
as he squeezes and cums at the same time.
I gasp for air, but at the same time, I love being deprived of it. I raise my
hips and lower them, writhing and moving as he fills me with his cum.
I climax immediately after him, letting out a moan so loud that it might as
well be a scream. I’m sure it would be louder if not for his hand still
clenched tightly around my throat.
Lights flash as I close my eyes, dousing my vision in an explosion of
colors. They bloom across my view like flowers in fast forward, pulsating
quickly, then slowly as the pleasure subsides.
Wilde releases his grip, rolling off of me with a deep and satisfied sigh.
I don’t want to escape from him anymore. I just want him close to me,
breathing heavily with his hot lips against my ear. I get goosebumps up and
down my arms and legs from the tickle of his breath on my skin.
I’m covered in sweat, but the cold hotel room air makes me snuggle closer
to Wilde. His body is large and muscular, giving off heat like a gas furnace
turned up to the maximum. Blue flames might as well be licking my skin,
but I love the sensation.
It feels like being in a log cabin in the dead of winter. The only light would
be from the candles lit to combat the darkness due to power outage, but the
dry heat of the crackling fireplace would warm my bones and give me
comfort.
I’d like to be away from everything with Wilde. I wish the storm would
pass quicker and bring us both to safety, but with the life he lives, I wonder
if that could ever happen.
Plus, staying with him would mean admitting that I’ve been hiding twins
from him this entire time. I’m not sure how he’d take it, but it would be
embarrassing for me at the very least.
For now, I have to release myself from the worry and the tension. I can’t
even fight with myself to stay away at this point. Nature is having its way
with me, and it feels like I could fall asleep at any moment.
CHAPTER 21
PIXIE

M y eyes snap open and are met with the uneven ceiling of our
hotel room. Beside me, Wilde snores softly. It’d be cute if I
didn’t have my senses fucked back into me a few hours ago.
Now, it just causes a swell of panic.
What the fuck am I doing?
I get up slowly, making sure that I don’t shake the bed or nudge Wilde on
my way out. I should never have let this happen, but Wilde has a way of
snaking his way into my heart, and my pants, when I least expect it.
He’s proven that he can still have me, but not that he can keep me. I’m
getting out of here tonight, and I’m going to take a taxi back to my hotel to
get my stuff. Tomorrow morning, by the time he wakes up, I’ll be on a
plane back home.
My feet hit the thin carpet with a soft thud, and I nearly scream as pain
shoots through my leg. I must’ve hurt it worse than I thought because it
feels like it’s about to explode just from putting weight on it.
I lean over to the other leg, limping to the bathroom while trying to stay as
quiet as possible.
A tear rolls down my face, and I’m not even sure if it’s from the physical or
emotional pain of what I have to do tonight. My existence has been twisted
into a cruel joke, and I just want to go back home.
My heart thumps a rhythm of increasing speed as I get close to the
bathroom. Wilde was already suspicious when I fell from the toilet, so if he
wakes up to a light in the bathroom, it’s going to be difficult for me to make
an escape.
I shouldn’t have fallen the first time. That goes for the toilet and Wilde
Bandakov. With every misstep, I tumble and crash into a worse fate. It’s
time that I start learning how to balance.
That’s easy to say, but difficult to do as I drag my throbbing leg into the
bathroom. The doorknob creeks as I close the door, but it’s not loud enough
to worry me.
Turning the light on is, however.
I stand in the darkness, feeling safe in the sea of pure black. There aren’t
any windows or light sources in here, and the seal around the door is tight
enough not to let light inside. I feel like I’m floating in space.
That feeling doesn’t last when my hand finds the light switch. It clicks on,
and after a short delay, light floods the bathroom.
The silence feels so loud.
Each second inches by like the pooling of cold blood, but Wilde doesn’t stir
from the other side of the door. I’m safe for now, but I don’t know how I’m
going to pull myself up into the ceiling when my leg is so fucked up.
I’m frustrated already, but I won’t let it get the best of me. I have time, and I
can be as careful as I need to be.
Patience – that’s all it takes.
I eye the toilet suspiciously, wondering if there isn’t a better way to hoist
myself up. The sink would be even worse, and I doubt I’d even be able to
get myself onto it without killing myself in the process.
I bend over slowly, trying not to fall on my face as I stand on my one
uninjured leg as I pick my dirty clothes off the cold bathroom floor. I’ll
have to wear them again since I have nothing else.
The stale smell of smoke soaks into my nose as I hold them up, but I don’t
feel sickened by it. In fact, it’s oddly comforting. I cling to them for a
moment before putting them on, savoring the last taste of Wilde’s
degeneracy.
I will never experience it again.
Once dressed, I lift my uninjured leg and put my foot firmly on the lid of
the toilet. The plastic lid bows slightly from the pressure, but it isn’t enough
to cause concern. I believe it will support my weight.
As slowly as I can, I hoist my full body onto the toilet and stand there,
rocking onto my left leg softly to distribute the pressure on the lid.
I stand like that for a while, but I have no idea how long. In the small hours
of the morning, it’s impossible to tell how fast time is passing. It’s like the
entire universe takes a break from existing outside of your own five senses.
The tips of my fingers find the smooth ceiling tile just above the toilet, and
I’m able to push it up into the ceiling without much effort. It makes a small
grating sound as it separates from the other tiles, but nothing more than the
sound of my feet against the carpet would make.
I push the tile back and let it settle on top of one of the others inside of the
ceiling.
Looking up, I can see that there’s enough room to fit myself through, but I
have no clue where the darkness will take me once I’m in. I have no
flashlight, nor do I have a lighter to see where I am. I’ll be cloaked in
darkness the minute I get up into the ceiling, but that’s not the worst part
about it.
The worst part is the possibility of falling through the ceiling and breaking
my neck. It would be such a pathetic way to end it all, and I’m sure Megan
would never forgive me for leaving her with my twins.
I’d say that I wouldn’t forgive myself either, but I’d be, well… dead.
I say a little prayer under my breath and heave myself through the ceiling,
hoping that I don’t impale my head on a hidden nail as I go up.
Thankfully, my upper body strength lends itself useful to my ascent,
because my useless leg isn’t giving me much assistance. I’m able to bring
my entire body into the ceiling with enough room to squirm around above
the tiles.
I move quickly now, my heart drenched in panic as I realize how much
noise I’m making. There’s no way to turn around or go back once I’ve made
my escape obvious. I have to follow through with it.
I wiggle my body like a worm, struggling to move much due to the high
amount of friction between my body and the tiles. With every movement, I
feel as though I’m going to knock them out of place and go tumbling down,
but when I look back over my shoulder, I realize that I’ve gone much
further than I thought.
My panic has served me well.
With just a little more movement, I’m far enough away from the bathroom
that I don’t risk falling out into our room, but I could also fall through into
someone else’s.
I’d have a hard time explaining how I found myself in a stranger’s bed after
just having slept with Wilde.
I wiggle further, hoping that I’ll come out in the hallway and not in
someone’s bedroom. My leg is throbbing, begging me to come down from
this frightful place, but I keep going. The further I get away, the less likely
Wilde is to wake up from the sound of me coming back down.
Finally, I see something that confirms I’m in the right place. It’s the glow of
the exit sign peeking through the cracks of the ceiling tiles. I must be in the
hallway.
I grab the tile below my chest, lifting it up and shifting it away until I can
see what’s below me. All of the carpets are the same throughout the hotel,
but when I look out, I can see doors with numbers on them.
I’m in the hallway.
My heart pounds so hard that I can hear it as I use my knee to nudge away
another section of the ceiling. I’m going back home to my twins, and I’m
forgetting about Wilde once and for all.
I lower my body through the square hole as much as I can before I lose my
grip, and then I allow myself to fall the rest of the way to the floor.
A sharp pain sears my entire left leg as I crumble to the ground with a loud
thud.
Tears stream from my eyes as I curl up in the hallway, holding my leg to my
chest and rocking side to side for as long as it takes for the pain to fade. It
feels like minutes, but it’s probably less than thirty seconds before I’m on
my feet again.
I don’t look back as I limp to the elevator.
I’m going home.
CHAPTER 22
WILDE

I know something is wrong before I even open my eyes. There’s

an emptiness inside of me that deepens as I open my eyes and
see that there’s also an emptiness beside me in bed.
Pixie is gone.
A pale blue dawn lights the hotel room, but it can’t be earlier than five. I
have phone calls to make, and people to murder in cold blood, but the only
thing that I can think of is how Pixie has fucked me over yet again.
I needed her.
I didn’t realize it before, but there’s something there between us that can’t
be swept under the rug. There’s a bond that I hadn’t felt the first time, like
something in the universe is binding us together for a special reason.
Maybe she knows.
She’s hiding something from me, and I’m still going to find out what it is,
even in her absence. Her sister is clearly a woman she trusts, but I have
enough experience with people to twist their minds into believing just about
anything I tell them.
I can convince her that she needs to tell me what Pixie is hiding from me.
Her secrets will be spilled like the blood of all those who go against me.
They will splatter across the floor like crimson paint.
I need to make a phone call.
I roll over in bed, my hand slapping down on the phone and pulling it off
the table before I sit up. I realize then that the bathroom light is on, and the
door is closed.
Perhaps I jumped to conclusions too soon.
The carpet is rough and unwelcoming against my feet as I walk to the
bathroom door. I knock, but there isn’t an answer. I try the handle, and it
opens without resistance.
I knew she might have had a change of heart after we had sex, so I made
sure to bolt the door so I would hear if she left, but I didn’t expect her to do
something like this.
She’s a clever one.
I shake my head at the hole in the ceiling. That’s going to be an extra charge
to the room. I’m sure of it, but that’s not what bothers me, obviously. I’m
bitter that she left, and there isn’t even so much as a note to explain why
she’s gone.
I look at the phone in my hand. I guess this means that I do have to call her
sister, but it’s probably too early in the day for her to pick up. There’s a few
hours difference because of the time zones.
Which means I have other tasks ahead of me today. I’ll be meeting up with
Igor, Vlad, and Anatoli tomorrow, but today I’ll just be traveling to Rome.
It’s a long journey from here, but one that I can make enjoyable
nonetheless.
I have to cultivate the proper mindset for what I’m about to do. My father
has no idea that I’m in Italy, and he won’t know until it’s too late.
The deal that he wants to make here will be made in his name, but not by
him. That’s because I share the same name as he does. I am Wilde
Bandakov, rightful heir to the Bandakov Crime Family, and I’m going to
claim my throne.
I carry the phone out of the bathroom and get dressed in the same dirty
clothes that I’ve been wearing since I got myself shot in the shoulder. It
throbs like crazy today, but I’ve learned to ignore pain.
The beatings I endured in my youth taught me that pain is only as bad as
you let it become. It’s more of a mental thing than any real threat. As long
as you’re alive, there’s nothing to fear.
And when you’re dead, well… you won’t be around to worry about it.
After straightening up the room and fixing the hole Pixie made in the
ceiling, I leave to the lobby with the phone still in my hand. They charge for
phone calls, and I’m about to make up a story to get the one that Pixie was
using from their logs.
It’s too early for a receptionist when I arrive at the lobby, but I sit down in
the only chair in the room, crossing one leg over my lap and waiting
patiently by the small glass table of magazines until they arrive to start their
work.
I have plenty to think about, but nothing that I would enjoy, so I tune my
brain out into the abyss, thinking of nothing like I used to do to pass the
time in prison. Some might call it meditation, but I just call it zoning the
fuck out.
Prison is a lot more boring than people who haven’t been realize. Most of
the time, there’s simply nothing to do and nothing to talk about for hours.
It’s the reason why people come out different.
Not better. Just different.
After an hour and a half of staring at a speck of dust on the wall, someone
finally enters the hotel, but just the smell of cologne makes my blood run
cold.
It’s not the receptionist.
“Put your hands where I can see them, nice and high,” an Italian with
thinning oily hair slicked back across his spotted scalp says, pointing a
small pistol at me.
Honestly, that thing probably couldn’t put a hole in me big enough to kill,
but at this range, I’m not taking risks. I’m not armed, and with an injured
shoulder, I’m not going to be swinging quite as hard. It’s better to comply.
I raise my hands, keeping a calm demeanor and neutral expression as one of
who I assume to be the Romano boys steps in front of me. His finger isn’t
on the trigger of his gun, but that doesn’t mean he’s not here to kill. I need
to play my cards very carefully.
“That was a nice stunt you pulled yesterday. You really had my boys
chasing after their tails.”
“It’s what I do best,” I reply with half a smile.
“You slippery bastard,” he mutters with a hint of admiration. “This time, it
won’t be so easy for you.”
“Fair enough, but you caught me off guard. It’s hardly a fair fight.”
“You had your chances to get the fuck out of my country, and yet, here you
are. I’d call this as fair as it gets,” he replies.
“I never got a warning,” I say in jest, but his grim expression tells me that
he’s not about to laugh.
“You’ve had plenty of warning, Wilde Bandakov.”
“Oh, that’s cute. You know my name,” I say, tilting my head to the side.
“Do I get to know yours?”
“Romano,” he replies dryly.
“Romano is more of a family name, isn’t it?” I ask.
“And that’s all you need to know. I’m sure you’re familiar with us,” he
says, taking a small step closer.
His finger is still off the trigger. I have time to stall him into letting his
guard down. People relax around others when they’re talking to them for
long enough, even if it’s a confrontation. It’s human nature.
But nature can be a real bitch sometimes, and this Romano punk is about to
find out the hard way.
“Are you aware that I killed a few of your guys?” I ask. “I’m pretty sure at
least one of them had to be someone important,” I say, leaning back in the
chair to show that I’m proud of the fact.
Romano frowns. “You’re testing my patience.”
“You should ask double for my ransom,” I say. “One for the killing, but also
because I’m the son of Wilde Bandakov. He’s the big boss around here.”
Romano rolls his eyes. “You’re not getting a ransom.”
“No? I’m pretty expensive,” I say, trying to sell him on the idea. Anything
else might be much worse.
“No. You will be tortured in front of a camera for your friends to see back
in Russia. Then, you will be executed.”
“Unlikely,” I reply, “As my friends aren’t in Russia. Most of them are in the
United States.”
“Don’t nitpick with me,” he says, raising his voice until he’s almost
screaming. “I’m not feeling patient this morning.”
“No coffee yet?” I ask lightly. “To be honest, I haven’t had any either. I get
grumpy.”
Romano grits his teeth but doesn’t say anything. He must be waiting for
others to arrive, or he wouldn’t be holding me for so long at gunpoint
without doing anything. I should get the fuck out of here before they come,
or I may never escape this mess.
After a moment of silence, Romano is unable to tolerate the lack of
conversation anymore. “We know about your girlfriend, as well,” he says, a
smile flickering across his face.
My stomach sinks. I don’t have a strong sense of self-preservation, but
when it comes to Pixie, I would protect her with my life. Could they have
already taken her? It wouldn’t be possible, but she is in danger.
“Yes,” Romano gloats, seeing the look of distress on my face. “We will take
good care of her for you. I’m sure she’s hiding up in the room waiting for
you. Maybe we should go up there together and get her.”
“I’d rather stay here,” I say, trying to sound more afraid than I am. I see my
opportunity, and I’m going to take it.
Romano grins, rubbing his chin and nodding. “I think we’ll go up there. I
can think of a few ways to pass the time with her before the rest of my guys
get here.”
“You’d better not hurt her,” I say, standing up slowly.
“That depends on how willing she is to comply,” he replies with a shrug.
“Let’s go find out.”
CHAPTER 23
PIXIE

I f it’s six in the morning here, then it’s midnight in the United
States where Megan is.
I know that she’ll still be up. We’re both night owls, but historically, I’ve
been the one staying up until three in the morning. That changed with the
birth of my twins, and now it’s the other way around.
I pop a new SIM card into my phone that I fetched from the hotel. I’m
going to have to tell Megan everything. We didn’t really talk about anything
during the conversation before Wilde made me call her again. I just checked
up on the twins.
Standing outside the airport, I’m still concerned that Wilde might roll up
and try to convince me to stay, but I’ve already made up my mind. My boys
need a good father, not one who will put them in danger.
I dial the number to the house, hoping that Megan will still be awake. I need
her voice of reason to keep me from turning around and limping back to a
taxi cab to return to Wilde. I can’t do this on my own.
“Hello?”
I let out a sigh of relief. “God, Megan, you have no idea how happy I am
that you’re still awake.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” she asks, concern bleeding through the phone into
my ear. At least she cares about my plight. She’s probably the only person
in the universe who does.
“There’s nothing wrong. I’m fine,” I say, trying to rub the corner off the
sharp object I’m about to toss her way. It’s going to be difficult for her to
swallow either way, but at least I can take some of the worry out of her
before she hears it.
I clear my throat. “I’m coming back home today.”
Silence.
“Why?”
I straighten up. “I’ve had a change of heart, and there are some things that I
haven’t told you.”
“Well, you’d better start with who that weird Russian guy was who I talked
to this morning.”
“I was fucking him,” I admit.
“Jesus, that early in the day?” she asks.
I laugh. “No, there’s a six-hour difference. It was last night for me.
Regardless, I was sleeping with him, and it was a mistake.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I say, looking down at my swollen leg. “Not really.”
“Not really?”
“He didn’t,” I say. “But that’s not the point. This is just difficult for me to
say.”
“I don’t understand.”
Of course, you don’t understand because I haven’t told you anything yet.
I smile, trying to make my voice sound friendlier through the phone. “You
remember that guy I was involved with years ago?”
“No.”
“The guy who gave me the twins,” I clarify.
“I didn’t know him. You literally refused to tell me anything about what
happened.”
“I got knocked up,” I say with a laugh. “But then he went to jail.”
“Christ, Pixie. You were really fucked up back then.”
“I kind of still am.”
“Well, since you managed to turn your vacation in Italy into another chance
to get pregnant, I’m going to have to agree with you on that one.”
I like how she assumes I didn’t use a condom. She’s right, but it’s annoying
nonetheless.
“I’m not calling to be judged. I’m just trying to explain myself,” I say.
“That guy, the one who gave me the twins. Well, he’s the one I met in
Italy.”
“The same guy?” she asks, clearly astonished.
I sigh. “Yes, but it was an accident. I didn’t mean to run into him.”
“What do you mean? Of course you meant to. People don’t just fly out to
Italy together and have sex by accident.”
“It wasn’t planned,” I say, knowing how ridiculous it sounds. “You’re going
to have to believe me.”
“So, you got pregnant with a criminal, and now that he’s out, you went and
fucked him again,” Megan says, and now I can hear the anger in her voice.
“You don’t get it,” I say, but maybe she does. Maybe I’m the one who is in
the wrong here. I could’ve said no to him, but I let him take me on this wild
ride and I have to deal with whatever comes out of it.
“Explain yourself, Pixie,” Megan says sharply.
“I just did,” I reply. “I met this man, Wilde Bandakov, a couple of years
ago. We got frisky, out pop the twins, and then I find out that he killed a
man.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right. He only did two years, and I ran into him in Italy. Mistakes
were made, and now I’m coming home. I don’t want anything to do with
him.”
The words that roll off my tongue taste fake and bitter. I don’t want to say
anything bad about Wilde. He’s a troubled soul, but it’s not my place to
paint him like a criminal.
Except that he is.
“So, you’re coming home now?” Megan asks.
“Yes, I am,” I say, feeling even less confident than I was before I called her.
“Good. The twins have been crying all day. They miss you.”
I feel a rush of guilt at having left for even a few days. Megan is the one
who convinced me to do it, but the boys need their mother. I can’t believe
that I was so selfish as to leave them for even a day.
I look up at the sign above the airport entrance that reads departures in six
different languages. “I’m at the airport,” I say to Megan. “And I’ll be back
before you know it.”
“Well, a short vacation is still a vacation,” she says. “Maybe you can take a
few more days off when you get home.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say, but the only thing I want to do is hold my boys
again.
I miss them.
I end the call with Megan and bid farewell to the beautiful Italian summer. I
doubt I’ll ever return here. These streets are already drenched in too many
memories. I’ll need to make new ones, better ones, elsewhere.
I turn my back to Italy and walk into the airport lobby, keeping my head
high and my shoulders back as I pull my little pink suitcase along behind
me.
I’ve gotten my closure.
CHAPTER 24
WILDE

“I ’m not the one sticking guns in people’s backs,” I say as we

arrive at the door to my hotel room.
“I do what I have to when dealing with savages,” Romano replies. “Now,
open the door, and let’s see what treat you’ve brought with you to Italy.”
I’d be disgusted if Pixie were actually in the room, but thankfully she hates
me enough to get the hell out of my life before something bad happens. For
once, I’m happy at her for abandoning me.
Again.
I place my hand on the door handle, pretending to hesitate before opening
it. I want him to see the fear in my posture, and to know that I’m terrified of
him getting his hands on Pixie.
If Pixie were in this room, however, I wouldn’t have let him make it this far.
The only reason I’m leading him here is so that I can have a more private
location to break his neck.
“Open the fucking door,” Romano hisses, jabbing his pistol into my spine
so hard that I almost spin around and finish him on the spot.
Patience.
I grab the handle to the door, bringing the key up to it and sticking it into
the lock. I intentionally take a long time to open the door, slowly turning the
knob as Romano breathes heavily behind me.
“Just don’t do anything bad,” I say, making my voice as small and weak as I
can. It’s difficult when I’m used to barking orders and threatening lives.
“Open the door,” he replies, beginning to lose his patience.
I open the door, stepping into the cold room and looking toward the
bathroom. I want him to believe that Pixie is in there. I need him to let his
guard down for just a moment so that I can take him down.
“She must be getting in the shower,” I say, nodding toward the bathroom
door as Romano steps into the room behind me. I hope that he doesn’t
notice that the light is off inside.
“Open the door,” he whispers with a grin on his face.
The Romano Family were more like reckless nuisances before today, but
after the shit that this one has pulled, I see them as my mortal enemy.
Anyone who wants to get their hands on my Pixie is going to die.
I swear on my life that I will murder them.
I step forward, reaching out my arm to grab the handle to the bathroom, but
in the same movement, I swing my other arm back and twist around,
slapping the gun right out of Romano’s hand.
He leaps back in surprise, but there isn’t enough space between us to
prepare for my next moves.
I use the moment from the first swing to follow up with my other fist,
turning all the way around and slamming it into Romano’s face. His neck
snaps back from the hit, and I hear the crunch of his spine from the sudden
jerk.
His neck is exposed, which becomes my new target. I pull back my fist
again, slamming it down into his throat so hard that I feel the cartilage
break beneath my knuckles. His throat collapses, and so does he. With a
thundering boom, his thick body falls to the floor.
On the streets, you don’t fight fair. You go for the face and don’t stop hitting
until they’re dead. I’ve seen people curb stomped until their brains floated
down into the drain on the side of the road, but that’s nothing compared to
the rage I’m about to unleash on Romano.
All the frustration, the sorrow, the loss, and the fury come out of me
through my fists. I bend over Romano, letting my knuckles split and bleed
as they pound his body to a lifeless pulp.
“You will never touch Pixie,” I growl, slamming punch after punch into his
torso and head.
Even after the gurgle of his dying voice resides into silence, I don’t stop. I
keep going until sweat is rolling down my face like rain, and I can taste the
sluggish metallic lactic acid in my mouth from the strain on my body.
I don’t even feel the pain of my shoulder wound. The only thing that I can
feel is my rage. The rest of the world might as well not exist anymore. It’s
just me and Romano on the floor of a little hotel room in Italy.
Finally, after Romano’s body has turned into nothing more than a gelatinous
pile of flesh, I stand up.
My heart pounds in my chest, and my entire body is shaking. I feel like I
could walk right into the Romano headquarters and kill every single one of
them with my bare hands.
I would if I didn’t have other business to attend to. My father is in Rome,
and I will be going there today to set myself up for the kill. Tomorrow, I
strike with Vlad, Anatoli, and Igor.
Then, I’m coming for Pixie. She needs my protection, whether she likes it
or not. I will get her phone number and track down her house in the United
States.
I rinse my hands off in the bathroom, leaving Romano’s body in the hotel
room for someone else to find and deal with. I don’t have the time to clean
up this mess.
I take his gun, tucking it into the waistband of my trousers before hurrying
back down to the lobby. There, the receptionist is waiting at the desk with a
smile on her face. She isn’t aware of what just happened here.
I smile at her, smoothing the front of my shirt and trying not to look like I
just murdered someone. “I have a favor to ask you of the utmost
importance,” I say.
Her eyebrows turn inward in concern, but she maintains her professional
smile.
“I am supposed to call my parents, who are staying at a vacation home in
the United States, but I’ve forgotten their number,” I say, grabbing the
phone off the glass table where I left it earlier. “I’ve called them before on
this phone. Is there any way for you to retrieve that number?”
“It’s against company policy to – ”
I pull my gun out from my waistband and point it at her. “Try this policy,
then,” I snarl.
She raises her hands, her eyes open wide in terror.
Normally, I don’t like harassing innocent people, but I’m in a hurry. I have
no idea when the rest of the Romano Family will arrive, and I’ve drawn too
much attention to myself already. The police are sure to be looking for me
too, and I still need to travel to Rome before fleeing Italy.
“Get me the fucking phone number,” I order, tossing the phone onto the
front desk. “Now.”
Her hand trembles as she takes the phone off the desk and glances at the
identifying number below the earpiece. She types something on the
computer in front of her and looks back up at me. “Would you like me to
write the number down for you?”
I nod. “That would be best. Don’t fuck around though, or you’ll make me
do something that I don’t want to do,” I warn.
“No, sir. I will write down the number as I see it.”
“Good,” I reply, tapping the barrel of my gun with my trigger finger. I don’t
see a reason to keep my finger on the trigger for a receptionist. She’s not a
threat.
“Here you are, sir,” she says, sliding a small piece of paper toward me.
I grab it off the desk and glance at the number before shoving it into my
front pocket. “Thanks,” I say, lowering the gun. “Now you have a story to
tell your friends.”
She doesn’t look thrilled about it, but I can tell that she’s relieved when I
turn away and walk out the door. Nobody wants to be involved with a crook
like me, even if they have feelings for them. I’m trouble, and every woman
who crosses my path realizes that.
I tuck the gun back into my trousers so as not to draw attention to myself as
I walk across the road. I have about thirty seconds before the receptionist
can get my information out to the police.
I need to act fast.
CHAPTER 25
PIXIE

T he phone rings in the kitchen.

“Megan, can you get that?” I ask, picking Noah up for the
hundredth time today as he waddles toward my feet.
Oliver is on the couch, attempting to eat his blue plastic blocks, but they’re
too big for me to be worried about it. I’m more concerned with the fact that
the phone has already rung twice, and Megan hasn’t picked it up.
“Megan,” I call louder, only for me to realize that she went outside to refill
the bird feeder.
“Crap,” I mutter, carrying Noah to the kitchen with me.
I grab the phone off the wall on the fourth ring, holding it up to my ear
while Noah tries to pull the buttons off the front of my dress.
“Hello, Sun residence. May I know who’s calling?”
“You already know, darling,” a deep Russian voice says.
I nearly drop both the phone and Noah at the sound of Wilde’s voice. I
couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t show up one day, but I didn’t realize he’d
be trying to get to me so soon.
“I don’t want you calling my house,” I say, trying to muster up a sternness
that just isn’t there.
“I’m not concerned with what you want, only with what you need,” he
purrs.
“I need you to leave me alone. We’re done. What happened in Italy stays
there,” I say, pulling Noah tighter against my waist.
Wilde lets out a throaty chuckle. “Good one, Pixie, but I’m still in Italy. I
just called to warn you that you’re not safe anymore. The Romano Mafia
have you on their radar.”
My stomach somersaults for the second time this minute and my mouth
goes dry. “What?”
“I just killed one of those fuckers in the hotel room. They’re looking for
you, Pixie. I want you to pack your bags and leave for somewhere safer,” he
says.
“Fuck, Wilde, you have to be kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what do I do? Where do I go?” I ask.
“Somewhere you haven’t been before. Pick a random place on the map and
I’ll meet you there,” he says.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I say, looking down at Noah. He has the
same eyes as Wilde – bright and filled with rebellion.
“You have to, Pixie. This isn’t a game. The Romano Family will find you,
torture you, and kill you. They’re not fucking around,” Wilde growls
through the phone. I can hear the tension in his voice, and the seriousness of
his tone shakes me to the core. He’s never spoken to me like this before.
“I just want to make sure that –”
Noah’s soft voice breaks my train of thought. “Daddy.”
I look at him again, squinting my eyes. “What did you say?”
“Daddy,” he says louder, a smile spreading across his chubby face.
I place him down on the floor and pat his butt. “Go play with Oliver,” I
whisper.
“What was that?” Wilde asks.
“Nothing,” I blurt, taking a step back from Noah as he begins to tear up.
He’s going to start crying if I don’t pick him up again, and then Wilde is
going to know I have small children in the house.
He’ll know they’re his, or he’ll think I got knocked up by someone else. I
don’t know which is worse. He’d probably snap the neck of any man who
laid a finger on me, but nobody ever has.
Noah starts crying, and I have no choice but to scoop him up into my arms.
Unfortunately, the damage is already done by the time I get him to quiet
down.
“You have a baby with you?” Wilde asks.
“Not mine,” I say with a nervous laugh. “He’s my sister’s.”
There’s a long pause.
“Megan Sun?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply, trying to figure out if that somehow puts a hole in my story.
“So you live with your sister,” he says.
“Yes,” I reply, perhaps too quickly.
“Because it’s your name on the house,” he says.
“Jesus, are you stalking me?”
“It’s not that hard, which is why you should leave the house immediately. If
I can do it, then so can the Romano Family.”
I sigh. “Where do I even go?”
“Take your sister and go to Florida. I should be able to take a private jet
there from Italy, or at the very least, a boat. I have business to attend to first,
though.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“I’ve never been more serious. Would you rather me abandon my plan and
come now?”
“I’d rather you not come at all,” I say, shaking my head. “This is insane.”
“Take the baby and go with your sister. There’s no time for talking. I’ll find
you,” he says, and then the line goes dead.
How the fuck will he find me if he doesn’t even know where I’m going?
My heart thumps a nervous rhythm as Megan walks back inside the house.
The smile melts off her face like hot butter. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
I put the phone back on the wall and turn to face her, lifting Noah higher in
my arms. “That was Wilde on the phone telling me that we have to leave
the house.”
“Holy shit, what a fucking creep,” she says, wrinkling her nose and pulling
her head back.
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t change that we have to go. I didn’t tell you
everything that happened in Italy,” I say, my voice almost as dire as Wilde’s
was over the phone.
Megan groans, but my flight response to danger has already kicked in, and I
zoom past her into the other room where Oliver is still trying desperately to
consume his blocks.
“I need you to pack the boys’ stuff and some clothes,” I call to Megan over
my shoulder.
She appears in the doorway. “Pixie, what the hell is going on?”
“The mafia,” I reply, keeping it short.
She raises an eyebrow in doubt.
“I’ll tell you the story on the way out of here, but we’re going to Florida
now,” I say, carrying the twins past her back into the kitchen. “I need you to
trust me on this one.”
“I’ve learned not to,” she grumbles, but she leaves for the stairs,
presumably to do what I told her to do.
I rush Oliver and Noah out to the car, tossing them into their car seats and
strapping them in. They’re much calmer than I am, looking up at me
without a clue as to how much danger we’re all in.
I wish I could feel the same, but I have to deal with the consequences of my
actions again, and this time they’re much bigger than before. This is life or
death, and I have to be here to take care of the boys.
I leave them in the car to back inside the house, running around like a
madwoman as I round up the rest of my stuff.
If I’m being chased from Italy, they’ll take some time to get here. I have
time, but I feel like I don’t have a single second to spare. I must get
everything packed and ready to go in a matter of minutes.
“Do you want this skirt?” Megan asks, appearing at the top of the staircase
with a pink skirt in her hand.
“I don’t care. Let’s go,” I snap. “Grab your suitcase and let’s go.”
“Alright,” she says, sounding slightly annoyed.
I couldn’t care less. We need to leave, and we’ve already wasted enough
time talking.
Megan appears at the top of the stairs again a few moments later, dragging
two suitcases behind her. I run up the stairs, grabbing one of them without a
word and yanking it down. She’s being too slow.
“You’re really freaking me out, Pixie,” she says as she follows me out the
door.
“Sorry, but this is serious,” I say, hauling my suitcase into the trunk and
holding out my hand for Megan’s. “Do you have diapers in here?”
“Yes. That one is all stuff for the twins,” she says as she hands it to me.
I throw it on top of the other, slamming the trunk shut and racing toward the
front of the car. I double check that I have both the twins strapped in tightly
before I hop into the driver’s seat and start the car.
Megan slides in next to me as I shift into gear.
I turn to her and give her a pained smile. “I guess I have some more
explaining to do.”
“Yes, you do,” she says sharply.
CHAPTER 26
WILDE

“N ever mind that,” I say, snatching the binoculars from

Anatoli. “Focus on the hotel. Did you see him?”
Anatoli shrugs. “I can’t even figure out which room is his.”
I shake my head. I’m finished talking about Pixie to these guys. They’ll
never understand what compels a man to go mad over a woman. Even I
don’t understand it. I just know that I’m crazy about her, and that this isn’t
over.
I’ll have Pixie even if I have to beg for her, and I’m not a begging man.
I hold the binoculars up to my eyes, scanning the identical windows until I
arrive at the edge of the building. From there I move backward, counting
the rooms until I arrive on the eighth one. It’s the one that my father is
staying at.
There isn’t any movement from within, nor is there light, but I know he’s in
there. The man is more paranoid than I am, and after that many years in the
mafia, I can’t blame him. Everyone wants his head, but I’m going to be the
one to get it.
I’ll have to be careful going in there. I know he’ll have men guarding him,
and there’s no way they’ll just let me slip past into his room. My father
doesn’t trust anyone, not even his own flesh and blood.
While the room appears unoccupied, I know that my father is just doing it
so that nobody splatters his brains across the opposite wall from the
window. Any sniper could pick him off if he were pacing around up there.
Even I could, but I know it won’t be that easy.
I lower the binoculars, looking over to Vlad. “Did you manage to get any
heavy weapons?”
“Heavy? I got a few rifles and plenty of handguns, but I didn’t get any drum
magazines.”
I shrug, handing the binoculars back to Anatoli. “That should be enough.”
I take my shoulder off the concrete support next to the Arch of Constantine.
This place is bustling with so many tourists that it would be impossible for
my father to pick us out of the crowd. Even with how tall I am, we’re lost in
a sea of bobbing heads.
“How far is the hotel room from here?” I ask Vlad as Anatoli scans the
building again.
“It’s the same one. We’re on the ground floor,” he replies.
“The same?” I ask, surprised they would want to get that close. “And you’re
not concerned that someone will see us?”
“He doesn’t have anyone guarding the lobby. It’s crowded with tourists,”
Vlad replies.
“Interesting,” I mutter. I’m beginning to wonder if I even have the right
place, but that could also be part of my father’s paranoid tactics. If nobody
ever sees him or his guards, they won’t know that he’s there.
Clever, but not clever enough to throw me off the hunt.
I place a cigar between my teeth, drawing in the hot smoke and thinking
about Pixie again. If she’s smart, she’ll heed my warning and get the fuck
out of her house.
As for the baby crying in the background, I have plenty of reason not to
believe her comments about it belonging to Megan. She’s been hiding
something from me, and I’m pretty sure that was it.
Whether the baby is mine, however, isn’t something I’ll know until I get
there.
I choose not to stress myself out about it. If everything goes according to
plan, I’ll be one of the most powerful men in the world tomorrow, and then
the only people who will be worried are my enemies.
And I’m already making a list.
“It’s time to move,” I say, noticing a police officer meandering through the
crowd to my left.
They’re not coming toward us, but their presence here isn’t welcomed. I’m
a wanted man after the shit I pulled at the other hotel.
Vlad pulls up a white handkerchief and wipes his forehead. “It’s fucking hot
as all hell out here. The hotel has a pool inside.”
My cousins are always thinking of ways to relax, even when we’re on a
mission. I understand that nobody will take this as seriously as I do, but I’m
not going to let them slip up again. We need to focus.
“No pools, and no talking to anyone. We’re staying in the room and
ordering room service for dinner,” I say, keeping my voice stern without
being harsh. “You can run around and play in the pool like children after
this is finished.”
Anatoli laughs, presumably at Vlad’s expense, but Igor doesn’t say
anything. He’s been quiet this whole time. I’m starting to think he’s the only
one who takes any of this mafia business seriously.
But things will change when I’m in power. My father has been running a
loose ship, keeping people happy instead of scared. These men might be
family to me, but if one of them steps out of line or questions me when I’m
fully in control, I’ll have their heads rolling down fifth avenue.
Right now, I need them whether or not they take their roles in this Family
seriously. They’re the only ones who are willing to defy my father and help
me overthrow his reign of power.
Like it or not, I can’t do this on my own.
My phone buzzes in my pocket as we make a line toward the exit. There are
so many people in the crowd that it’s going to take us ten minutes just to get
back to the street from the Arch of Constantine.
I pull the phone from my suit pocket and hold it up to my ear. “Hello?”
“Wilde, it’s Pixie.”
I feel a simultaneous flood of relief and adrenaline at the sound of her
voice. The fact that she’s making an effort to call me means that she’s either
in trouble or she just misses me.
“What’s going on? Are you in Florida yet?” I ask.
“Just arrived,” she replies.
Anatoli looks at me, but I wave at him to keep going. I don’t want them to
get involved in my private conversations. We’re going back to the hotel and
going over the plans for tomorrow morning.
“Are you staying at a hotel or what?” I ask Pixie.
“I have a cousin in –”
“No, no, Pixie. No family,” I warn. “They’ll track you down. You need to
stay at a hotel under a fake name.”
“They ask for ID, though,” she replies.
“Tell them you just got married. Use a different surname. They don’t give a
shit,” I reply, pulling out one of the many tricks I used to use before I
discovered fake IDs that were good enough to pass anywhere.
She sighs. “What do you want me to put? Yours?”
I laugh. “No, darling. They would find you even faster. Put something
random.”
“Alright. So now I have to tell my cousin that I’m leaving,” she says.
“Sure,” I reply with a shrug. “And then tell me the hotel you’re staying at so
that I can come and get you when I’m finished here.”
“I don’t want you to come.”
Her words sting, but I’m sure she’s just trying to keep herself out of further
trouble. The thing is, it’s not up to her. If that baby is mine, then I’m not
risking anything happening to Pixie or the child.
I’ll give my life to protect those two.
If, on the other hand, the baby isn’t mine, then we’ll have a brief
conversation about staying safe, and I’ll be on my way. She can use my
bodyguards if she wants, but if she has a life that she didn’t tell me about, I
don’t want to interrupt it. I won’t be welcome.
Just the thought of that being a possibility makes me want to strangle any
man who lays his hands on her, loving or not. She’s not satisfied without
me, or she wouldn’t have shared a bed with me and ridden my cock like it
was her last night on earth.
I smirk at the thought of her pussy gripping my cock like she wanted to
steal it. I can still feel the ache in my balls from how hard I pumped her full
of cum.
“I’m going to show up to your hotel whether you want me to or not,” I
finally say, brushing the sweaty strands of hair from my forehead as we
break out of the crowd. “Text me the address. I’m going to be busy until
tomorrow.”
“This is crazy,” she mutters.
“That’s just how I like it,” I reply, and then I hang up the phone.
CHAPTER 27
PIXIE

I miss him already.

I know that I shouldn’t have dialed his number ever again, but I
wanted reassurance from him. If he says I’m in danger, then I am, and if he
says that I’m safe, then I am.
I hate that I trust him like that, but maybe sex makes you crazy. It always
did for me. That’s how I ended up being knocked up by a criminal. That’s
why I’m still thinking about how good it felt to do it all over again.
Megan shoots me a suspicious look, but I turn away, placing the phone
down on the table and turning instead to my cousin Scott.
“There’s been a change of plans,” I say with a forced smile. “We’re going to
go.”
He frowns. “What? Why?” he asks, seeming more disappointed than I am
that I have to continue traveling. I know he’s been wanting to see the twins
for a while, and this is the first time I’ve brought them down to Florida.
“Important business stuff,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m bullshitting
him, but with Megan’s scoff, he knows immediately that something else is
going on.
“Well, do you need help?” he asks, his pupils growing large at the thought
of there being anything wrong.
“No,” I reply flatly. “But thank you for letting us stay here.”
“You’ve been here for all of five minutes,” he says.
I turn away from him, looking at Megan apologetically. “It’s a good thing
we haven’t unpacked,” I say. “Let’s go.”
I don’t want to be short with Scott, but my involvement in the mafia will
only get him into trouble. It’s better to confuse or offend him than to get
him killed.
Wilde is right. I can’t stay here.
It’s six in the morning and I’m tired as all hell, but we must get back on the
road. I’m doing this for the twins, if not for myself and what little family I
have. I need to keep them safe. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if
anything bad were to happen to Oliver and Noah.
“This is fucking stupid,” Megan grumbles, grabbing a suitcase as we walk
out into the hallway.
“Stupid, but necessary, unless you want to die.”
“Pixie, we should just call the fucking police,” she says with hushed
urgency.
“Wilde doesn’t want us to –”
“He’s the one who did this to you. Are you insane?” she asks, throwing her
free hand up. “He’s a fucking menace.”
“He’s also the father of the twins, and I have to trust him on this. He knows
more about the mafia than I do.”
“If you won’t call the police, then I will,” she says, reaching into her back
pocket for her phone.
“No,” I shout, probably louder than I need to. I jump toward Megan,
knocking the phone out of her hands and witnessing the glass screen shatter
as it hits the tile floor.
“What the fuck?” she exclaims, squatting down and picking up the ruined
device.
“Don’t call the police,” I warn, holding up a finger.
“Pixie, what’s gotten into you?” she asks, fear now glimmering in her blue
eyes. “You’re acting like you’ve lost your mind. You fucking broke my
phone.” She holds it out to me. “It won’t even turn on.”
“Good,” I mutter. “We’re leaving.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she says, taking a step back and
shaking her head. “This has gone too far.”
“Fine,” I snap. “I’ll take Noah and Oliver and get a room without you. Just
know that you’re risking your life by being here.”
“I won’t be risking anything because I’ll be calling the police,” she replies,
crossing her arms and leaning her shoulder against the wall.
“You’d put me in jail over this?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
My mouth goes dry and my hand twitches. I feel the sudden urge to slap the
shit out of her, but I won’t since she’s my family. I take the high road.
“Since I’m sure you don’t mean that, I’m going to let it slide,” I say,
relaxing my trembling hand. “But I’m still leaving, with or without you.”
“It’ll be without,” she snaps, but I can see the guilt on her face. She’s afraid
and confused, and I understand that. I just can’t let it distract me from what
I need to do.
“Can you at least help me get the boys in the car?”
She hesitates but eventually turns to fetch them from the kitchen. I have to
take the suitcases back and throw them into the trunk. It sucks that we have
to part ways like this, but I’m not staying at Scott’s place if Wilde warned
me not to.
He got me into this, and he’ll be getting me out.
CHAPTER 28
WILDE

“I only killed one of them at the hotel,” I say, leaning back in

my chair while a cigar burns between my knuckles. “I’d
have taken more down if I had the bullets for it, but I knew
there would be a swarm of them.”
Vlad nods, rubbing his chin. “Those bastards are vicious. They don’t give
up.”
“And now they’ll want revenge. It got a lot more personal after I took you
guys away. That was potentially millions in ransom money snatched right
out from under their noses.”
“I doubt it would be paid,” Vlad says, shaking his head in disgust.
He hates my father and he doesn’t trust him. I think it was Vlad’s girlfriend
who came under fire from my father and was killed for accidentally leaking
private information. I don’t blame Vlad for taking my side. It seems like so
many of us has been hurt by my father’s actions.
Killing innocent women is never honorable. I plan on doing things
differently. You can be tough and strong without being cruel. My father will
never measure up to the man I’ve become. He’ll be dead before he ever gets
the chance.
But then again, I’d say he’s had his chance. Having my brother murdered
crossed enough lines. It wasn’t a slip up or a mistake. It was intentional, and
I never learned why.
There aren’t any excuses for it, no matter what my brother might have said
or done, and that’s why I’m taking the throne tomorrow morning. I deserve
it, even though I never wanted it.
Trauma changes a person, and usually not for the better.
I take a long drag of my cigar like it was a cigarette, puffing out rings
through the air. They float across the room like clouds in the summer sky
before losing form and disappearing before they reach the opposite wall.
“What do you think the Romano Family is doing right now?” Vlad asks,
breaking the silence again.
“I don’t think anything about them. They’re not of my concern,” I say,
waving my hand lazily through the air.
“Don’t you think they’ll be coming to Rome?”
“No,” I answer, knowing that they will probably send most of their efforts
toward the United States to find Pixie. They usually don’t leave Italy, but
since I’ve kicked the hornet’s nest they’ll want revenge. The best way to get
it is to hunt down the easiest targets and use them against me.
I need to get back to the United States and utilize the full force of the
Bandakov mafia. It’s the only way to keep her safe and to do that I need to
kill my father. It’s funny how that all ties together in the end.
Vlad opens his mouth, but I hold up my hand. “I won’t be entertaining any
more questions about the Romano family.”
He closes his mouth.
I get up from my chair, making my way towards Igor who is cleaning and
examining a few of the rifles that they procured from arms dealers in the
South. He seemed satisfied with them, which means we will be working
with proper equipment this time. I’ve been ripped off before, and it ended
with the killing of three men.
I never saw myself as a killer. Growing up, I swore that would I never
become one, but the things we avoid often have a way of becoming the
things that we feel obligated to do.
I’d be spending the rest of my life in prison if anyone were ever to tie me to
the many murders that I have committed on my way to my father in Italy.
Getting away with one was lucky. You don’t just keep getting caught
without serious jail time. Lawyers can’t talk a judge out of throwing the
book at someone who is a serial murder.
But I don’t plan on getting caught this time, and it’s not common for police
to investigate the deaths of known Mafia members. In fact, they’re happy
when they get killed. It’s one less criminal for them to worry about.
“This one needs the spring replaced,” Igor says, holding up a partially
disassembled rifle. “But they’re all usable.”
“Good. We don’t have time to replace the spring. Just toss that one in the
river,” I say, taking another puff of my cigar.
“Right,” he replies, setting it aside.
“Oh, and take the extras to the getaway vehicle. I don’t anticipate a chase,
but I wouldn’t rule it out. We might need to shoot our way out of Italy,” I
explain.
“Yes sir.”
I nod, turning away from him and walking back to my chair. Igor is going to
be waiting for us. He won’t be participating in the hit because he’s the best
driver among us.
We’re going to need the quickest getaway we can have if we’re going to
keep our skulls intact. While I might be the rightful heir, my father’s guards
won’t know that or they won’t care in the heat of the moment. They’ll still
be trying to kill me until they realize that I’m the one in power.
Then, I’ll have them all executed. Their best bet is to stay in Italy and
pretend they were never involved in the first place.
A knock on the door puts me on high alert again until I realize that it’s
probably just Anatoli coming back with the food.
He was down longer than he should’ve been, but hotel service said they
were bringing food up to the rooms because of a staffing shortage. He had
to go out and get all of us something to eat from one of the local restaurants
instead.
Compared to the United States, restaurants in Italy move at a snail’s pace.
Thinking back to my days in Russia, I’d say that’s true for the entirety of
Europe.
Vlad shoots me a cautious look, and Igor holds up one of the assembled
rifles. As careless as they can be, my loyal men are always willing to jump
into battle. You have to be if you’re serious about mafia work.
I slink to the door, making my footsteps silent as I walk. My leather shoes
slide on the carpet with almost no noise, and I press my eye into the
peephole to get a better look at who is outside.
CHAPTER 29
WILDE

I let out a breath when I see that it’s Anatoli standing on the other
side of the door with three large white pizza boxes stacked in
one hand. He could’ve knocked more distinctly, but I’ll give
him a pass for forgetting.
We’re all stressed out of our minds at this point in the journey. Being so
close to victory feels worse than being far away. Failure looms just as close
as success does.
I open the door, still using caution as I let him in. I’ve seen people held with
guns to their backs, looking just about as innocent as they can be when they
knock on your door. Just because Anatoli looks alright, doesn’t mean he is.
“I had to go to three different spots before I could even place an order. This
fucking city is packed like a can of sardines,” Anatoli says as he steps into
the room.
Igor lowers his rifle, and that’s the exact moment when two other men step
into the room from behind Anatoli.
“Sorry guys, but cash is king,” Anatoli says as the barrel of a shotgun gets
jabbed into my stomach.
I don’t have time to react before members of the Romano family pile into
the room, all armed with guns and looking just about as pissed off as they
can possibly be.
I’m a dead man walking, and I’m surprised my guts haven’t already been
blown out across the room. The only thing that makes me think I have a
chance of survival is the fact that the last man to walk into the room is the
leader of the entire Romano Family – Ricci Romano.
“Oh, you poor, stupid motherfuckers,” Ricci says, shaking his head as Igor
is pushed away from the table of guns.
Vlad stands in the very back of the room, looking like he’d rather risk being
sliced to pieces by the thick glass window behind him in an attempt to flee
than face the Romano Family. I doubt he’ll get the chance to turn around
before they riddle him with bullets, however. If I were him, I’d stay put.
“I hope the pizza is good, at least,” I say, trying to find humor in my dire
predicament. Life is overrated anyway, I suppose.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Ricci barks, glaring at me as the door closes
behind him.
“You know, my father is in this hotel too,” I say, tilting my head to the side.
“You think we don’t already know that?” Ricci asks, stepping forward and
twirling his mustache. “We came here for him, and imagine our surprise
when we ran into our old friend Anatoli. Double agent? Try triple.”
Anatoli chuckles, but he shouldn’t be laughing. If I know the Romano
family well enough, I’d say that Anatoli isn’t going to see a dime of the
cash he’s looking for. He’ll be in the grave before I will.
I take a few puffs of my cigar, talking with it still clenched between my
teeth. “What’s the deal, then? I assumed you were pissed about me taking
out a few of your boys back on the south side of town.”
Ricci shrugs his large shoulders. “They were useless, anyway. We have our
sights on a bigger prize. You might think you’re a powerful foe to us, but
you’re nothing more than a pawn.”
Pawns are powerful when used right, but I’m hardly in the position to be
used at all. I’m at the whims of a brutal mafia leader, and I haven’t reached
my full potential yet. Either I rise up to the challenge and become the man I
was always meant to be, or I perish.
The choice belongs to me alone.
I stiffen my posture as Ricci steps toward me. “You’re taller than I
imagined. Your father is quite short.”
I smirk, unable to help myself. Everyone always says that. Some don’t even
believe that we’re related, but if you look closely, you can see the
resemblance in our cold, harsh eyes.
“I assure you that I’m his son,” I say.
“There’s no doubt in my mind, with how much trouble you’ve caused us.
Thankfully, your father probably values your life enough to stick his neck
out for you. That will be of great benefit to us.”
Probably.
He probably values my life enough.
Actually, I doubt he does at all. The only reason he’s kept me alive is that he
didn’t consider me a threat to his rule. His small fists clench his throne of
power so hard that he can’t ever relax. He’s paranoid about being kicked off
by his own family.
I was never involved in the mafia, so I was never a concern for him. I am
now, but he doesn’t know it yet. I’ve worked my way up the ranks faster
than he could process, and I’m coming for him, whether Ricci stands before
me with a gun in his hand or not.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, trying to worm more information out of Ricci
before he decides to tie me up. I’m assuming that’s where this is going. I
can’t imagine he’ll be letting me run free when he intends to use me to get
to my father.
Ricci makes a silent motion with his thumb across his neck, and for a brief
moment, I think that means it’s over for me.
Fortunately, it’s not my body that falls to the floor. It’s Vlad’s as the butt of
a rifle hits him squarely in the face.
One of Ricci’s men straddles the body, bringing out a long knife and slicing
Vlad’s throat, soaking the carpet in hot crimson blood. His journey here has
come to an end.
“The plan is to get rid of the extras,” Ricci says as Igor meets the same fate
beside me. “And then we’re going to pay your cousin Anatoli for being a
filthy rat.”
Ricci snaps his fingers, and the pizza poxes clatter to the floor. Anatoli, the
filthy rat, as Ricci so adequately put it, meets his maker just the same as
Vlad and Igor.
You can’t snitch your way out of fate. Usually, it only takes you to the grave
quicker.
“And you should consider yourself lucky,” Ricci says, turning his attention
back to me. “You’ll be alive for as long as it takes to lure your father in.
After that, we might even let you go.”
“Unlikely,” I mumble.
Ricci gives me a nod of genuine understanding. “You’re right. We’re going
to kill you too. I was just trying to give you some hope in your last few
hours of life.”
I don’t need hope. I need action, and I need to put a bullet between two
men’s eyes now. It’s not just my father who will die. It’s Ricci as well.
“Oh, and we’re going to get your girlfriend too,” Ricci says with a chuckle
as he steps away. “Don’t think we don’t know about that ugly cunt.”
Ugly would apply to Ricci, not to my precious Pixie, but I know he’s just
saying that to gloat. He doesn’t just want to destroy my family, he also
wants to humiliate me and anyone who stands in his way.
But I won’t be humiliated. I will die with honor if that’s what I have to do,
but before that, I will fight for Pixie’s safety. I won’t let anyone get their
dirty hands on her innocent soul.
There are at least a dozen people in the room, but when Ricci comes toward
me with the ropes to bind me with, I stop thinking. There’s nothing for me
to do but to get the fuck out of the room because if I let them tie me up, I
won’t ever get the chance to escape.
There’s no secret blade under my tongue this time, no clever plan that will
have me catching Ricci off guard once he has me in captivity. The only
thing I have is raw, unfiltered, adrenaline-fueled recklessness.
That’s it.
That’s what I’m going to use to get out of here.
Either that, or I die, and I could think of worse things to become of me.
As Ricci grins, revealing his small cigar-yellowed teeth, I jump backward,
heading straight for the window that even Vlad didn’t have time to risk
jumping out of.
CHAPTER 30
PIXIE

H e’s not answering his phone.

I curse, hanging up the hotel phone with a loud clang for the
third time this evening. Wilde has been unreachable since I arrived here
even though he told me to keep in touch if I needed anything.
But I don’t need anything. I just want to hear the comforting sound of his
voice telling me that I’ll be alright. I just want the twins to be safe, and for
him to be on his way to protect us from the ill forces of the world.
Oliver and Noah are already asleep on top of the sheets, snoozing without a
care in the world. They don’t know a damn thing about what’s going on,
and I never want them to. They don’t deserve to see such evil in their lives.
Megan has tried to call me, but I’ve ignored her. I don’t know whether she
wants to apologize or turn me in to the police, but we can handle whatever
friction there is between us after I’m safe. Until then, I don’t wish to speak
to anyone but Wilde.
I should hate him for this, but all I can do is drift closer to him. Even now,
after the danger and the trauma, I wish that I could be curled up in his
powerful arms, guarded against the rest of the world.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left Italy. I brought the danger here with me when I
could’ve resolved it there with him, but I can’t change the past. I must focus
on the future.
But the future is giving me major anxiety. It’s like I’m walking toward the
edge of a cliff and I can see the fall ahead, but I can’t stop myself from
moving toward it. I just keep walking like a zombie, fated to fall and die.
I cross my arms as I pace the room. I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. I’ll
be waiting for the call back from Wilde before I do anything. I need him to
tell me that he’s on his way to me so that I can give him my address.
Lightning cracks outside the window.
I purposely picked a place that was far removed from any major city, but
I’m also starting to regret that decision. I feel even more unsafe being
isolated. I wonder if it’s any better to be hidden in a crowd.
Even on the second floor of the hotel, I feel like someone might come
crashing through the window and steal the twins off the bed. The fear is
pure paranoia, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like I need to huddle
over them and stop it.
The lack of sleep is making me delirious, and if I don’t manage to get some
soon, I might lose all connection with reality. My vision is so blurred that
I’m seeing double, and even though the floor is flat, it feels like it’s rocking
side to side like the deck of a ship.
My imagination has always been wild, but it’s quadrupled with the sleep
deprivation. It’s some ungodly hour in the morning, but I’m still unable to
close my eyes and sleep. I’ve been pacing around for ages, trying to calm
my mind with the steady sound of my own footsteps.
I’ve gone to pee three times, drank four cups of tea, and tried laying down
on the bed next to the twins, but nothing is telling my body that it’s time to
shut off. I just can’t fall asleep until I hear back from Wilde.
Where the fuck is that man and why is he taking so goddamn long to return
my call?
CHAPTER 31
WILDE

I use as much force as I can jumping out of that window. In a city

like Rome, the panes of glass will be old and thick, and not
using my full power when ramming my shoulder through can
result in me simply bouncing off and falling right back into the hands of the
Romano Family.
The hot sear of glass cutting my cheek, coupled with the sound of it
shattering tells me that I’ve made it through, but I have to wonder at what
cost as I tumble down onto the rough cement behind the hotel.
Ricci didn’t have time to pull his trigger on me, nor did anyone else in the
room. Nobody expected me to leap through the window like this, taking the
risk of shredding my body to pieces with broken glass.
All it takes is a sliced artery to end your life. Bullet wounds can be less fatal
than broken windows. People go through in one piece and come out on the
other side looking like the tomato-soaked layers of a steaming lasagna.
The air never felt quite so fresh and lively as it does today. Even jumping
out of the back of the Romano’s goons’ van didn’t give me this kind of rush.
Before, I was in control.
Now, the world has taken the reigns, and it has a hell of an attitude.
That, or a grudge against me. I roll across the cement, continuing my fall
through the window, trying to put as much distance as I can between myself
and the Romanos.
I can hear their deep voices shouting things out the window, and I wonder
how I haven’t been riddled with bullet holes when I realize the sound of the
shouting isn’t from Ricci’s men.
It’s the police.
I scramble to my feet, blood spilling down the side of my face and slipping
between my lips. I spit it out onto the hot concrete, forcing my feet to move
even though I want to collapse and give up.
Death is the only thing that can stop me, and I still have a mission to
complete.
I’m only being followed by the cops. Ricci and his men are likely fleeing
the hotel after killing three men inside of that room. The police are terrified
of the mafia, but when thrust into a confrontation with them, they’ll engage
and call reinforcements.
I can outrun the police. They’re fitter in Italy than they are in the United
States, but they’re hardly capable of outrunning a man who has been
training nonstop in prison for the past two years to be in peak condition to
face any challenge that comes his way.
No, the police will be easy to subvert, but my father still has business to
attend to today, and once again, I’m unarmed save for a small pistol tucked
against my waist. Getting to him now will be a shot in the dark, but I’m not
willing to let him slip away. I came to Italy to kill him, and I will follow
through with it, even if it kills me.
Revenge.
I never got to bury my brother. He was cut into pieces and found weeks
later when the trash started to reek enough to be investigated. His cause of
death was ruled a bullet to the brain, and he most likely died instantly.
I killed his killer, but not the man who decided his fate. He still walks free,
and I will defeat him no matter what it takes.
And then I’m returning to Pixie and claiming what rightfully belongs to me.
She’s my woman, and her little secret isn’t so secret anymore. I will
confront her about that, and I will know the truth.
The traffic in Rome is so heavy that it stands still, allowing me to weave
across the road without issue. I’m putting distance between myself and the
cops, but the amount of blood pouring from the side of my face is starting
to concern me. I won’t get away if I don’t get a bandage over this quickly.
I stop in a park, glancing over my shoulder to see blinking lights parting
traffic. I hear the pop of gunfire, but it isn’t directed at me. I seem to have
started a war at the hotel, and the police are shooting it out with the
Romano Family.
I chuckle to myself through the searing pain in my neck, amused at how
quickly the situation flipped to my advantage. Who knew that crashing
through a hotel window could cause so much chaos?
I look around me, noticing a couple gawking at me from a cement park
bench just two meters away. They look away immediately as my eyes meet
theirs, but it’s too late. I’ve spotted my targets.
I lunge toward them and they leap off the bench, leaving behind the picnic
that was resting on a dainty handkerchief between them. I don’t feel sorry
for taking it. The story of a bleeding lunatic snatching their lunch in the
park will be more interesting than a boring old date.
I whip the handkerchief out from under the food, sending strawberries and
bread flying across the neatly cut grass. Dusting off the crumbs from the
cloth, I quickly sop up the blood that’s running down the side of my face,
finding the wound to be right above my ear instead of my neck.
Thank god. Neck wounds are dangerous. Head wounds, unless they’re
concussive or putting holes in your skull, aren’t that bad. I’m just a heavy
bleeder.
Holding the cloth against the side of my head, I continue my sprint through
the park. The smell of flowers and the taste of pollen on my tongue gives
me new reasons to survive this ordeal. I’ve always loved life, and since
setting out to seek revenge, I’ve not been able to slow down and enjoy it.
I promise myself as I leap over a small bush that I’ll enjoy the outdoors
when all is said and done. Life is too short to waste all of it on amassing
wealth and killing family members.
As I break out on the other side of the park, I no longer hear the sirens or
the gunfire. I’m free for now, but I’m down three men and my father is still
a living man. That will change, but first, I need to check on Pixie.
CHAPTER 32
PIXIE

I breathe a long sigh of relief when I see an Italian phone number

pop up on my cell phone screen. Wilde has finally decided to
call me back.
It’s about fucking time.
I slam the phone against the side of my head much harder than I intend to.
My nerves are all out of whack and my skin is covered in a semi-permanent
layer of sweat. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and Wilde is the only person who
can make it better.
I hope that he can, anyway. If not, I’m all out of ideas.
“This had better be Wilde,” I grumble into the phone.
“As wild and untamed as ever,” he replies, sounding like he’s trying to be
more cheerful than he actually is. I’m compelled to wonder what kind of
trouble he’s gotten himself mixed up in this time.
“I hope you’re calling because you’re on your way,” I say.
“Not quite.”
“Then when?” I ask, my heart jumping into my throat. Heat prickles my
cheeks. I’m not sure whether I should be angry at him for making me wait
this long, but anger is better than fear.
“I’ll be there tomorrow, hopefully,” he says in an airy tone. “After that, we
have some talking to do.”
“A lot of it,” I say, looking at Noah and Oliver as they snore on the hotel
bed.
Wilde is going to see those two boys when he visits, and there will be no
more hiding them from him. I get the feeling that he might already know
somehow anyway. I’ve accepted it.
“Listen, I’m in a bit of a pinch here, but it’s nothing to worry about. I just
need your address for when I arrive. You are at a hotel now, right?”
“Yes,” I assure him. “Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.”
He chuckles. “Probably for the best.”
“I hope so. It’s super creepy out here and it’s storming like a motherfucker.”
“That’s better, actually. The Romanos won’t want to get their suits wet, but
I doubt they have anyone out in the United States. They’re a little busy right
now,” he says with a laugh.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I had a little run-in with them a moment ago, but the police are causing a
scene now with them. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about their sorry
asses for a while. Plus, once I finish what I’m here to do, I’ll have all the
power in the world to keep you safe.”
“And what exactly are you doing?” I ask, my stomach stirring with anxious
energy.
He never did tell me what it was he came to Italy for. Just revenge. That’s
not much of an explanation.
Wilde waits almost a full minute before speaking, but I have the time. It’s
not like I’m going anywhere.
“So, my father is in Italy.”
“And?”
“And I’m going to kill him.”
I want to throw the phone, but I keep a firm grip on it. “Wilde, you went to
prison for murder. What makes you think it’s going to be different this
time?”
“It will be.”
“Oh, gee, thanks for the sound explanation. I almost thought you had lost
your goddamn mind.”
“Don’t be sarcastic with me, Pixie. It is different this time.”
“How?” I ask, careful not to raise my voice too loud. I want to scream at
Wilde, but I don’t want to wake the twins.
“Just give me the address of your hotel. I’ll explain later.”
“No,” I say, standing my ground. “You’ll explain it now. I’m not getting
sucked into any more of your crime sprees.”
“It’s mafia business, darling. That’s all.”
“You say that like it isn’t going to put you in prison for the rest of our life.”
“Because it won’t.”
“How do I know that?” I ask, beginning to grow tired of the loop he’s
sending me on. “I need answers, not more questions.”
There’s another long pause, and I’m tempted to hang up.
“Okay, here’s the deal, but I want you to understand that this isn’t really a
choice for me anymore. I know too much to let this go.”
As I brace myself for the truth, my heart rate doubles. Wilde has been
keeping so much for me for so long that this is likely to be a tidal wave of
information. There’s a lot that I know that I didn’t when we first started
seeing each other, but now I’m going to get the full story.
And then I’m going to owe him mine.
“Alright, so my brother was murdered a few years ago,” he begins.
“Wilde, I’m sorry,” I say, already feeling guilty about prying.
Maybe I shouldn’t, but I’ve always been an empathetic person. It’s not
something that I can help. I’ve learned not to be ashamed of it, but it still
causes problems at times when I should be firm and unforgiving.
“The man I killed, the one who got me locked up in prison, was the one
who murdered my brother, but he wasn’t the one who sealed his fate. That
man was my father,” Wilde explains.
“Your father?” I ask, my mouth turning dry. My own father abandoned me
when I was young, but I can’t imagine him doing anything outright
malicious, especially not having his own son killed.
“Yes, the man who was supposed to care for us both only cared about
power. Now, I’m the final heir to the mafia throne, and you know what?
I’ve decided to take it.”
“And what do you hope to achieve my digging yourself deeper into this life
of crime?” I ask.
“Power,” he replies. “And you.”
“I’m not compatible with the mafia,” I reply sharply.
“But the mafia is compatible with you, and you need it,” he replies
smoothly. “You’ll see. Your safety is dependent on my protection.”
I grit my teeth. It’s true, but I don’t want to admit it. I have such strong
feelings for Wilde, but they’re constantly being twisted up into confusion
and bitterness by the danger that he’s always surrounded by.
The thrill was nice when I was younger, but now I have twins. Maybe if I
told him that, he would understand why I don’t want to be a part of this.
“It’s my turn, Wilde,” I say, glancing over at Noah and Oliver again. “And
I’m not sure how you’re going to take this.”
“The secret.”
“Yes, the two secrets, actually,” I say with a sigh. “Are you ready?”
“I’m always ready.”
CHAPTER 33
WILDE

I t would’ve been nice to know that I was the father of two boys
before I decided to seek revenge and kill anyone who stood in
my path. I’ve boxed myself into the mafia by seeking to avenge
my brother’s death, and that’s just something I’ll have to live with, twins or
not.
“I’m not mad about it,” I say, noticing how softly Pixie spoke the truth. She
must have thought I was going to blow up on her about it, but I understand.
Why would she tell me that the twins were mine when she was certain I’d
be spending my life in prison?
“Are you sure you’re not mad about it?” She asks, not sounding convinced.
“I kind of knew already when I heard the baby crying. I knew that you were
hiding something and it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together,”
I reply.
“Well, I wanted to tell you before but the police had already taken you from
me. I didn’t know what to do so I just kept it a secret. I was looking out for
the twins.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself, Pixie. I understand your reasoning and
I’m not going to hold it against you. I’m aware that I need to be a better
man and I intend to do that, starting today.”
I remove the handkerchief from the side of my head, examining how much
blood has soaked into the cloth. I’m going to be okay, but that was a close
call. I have two boys that depend on me, I can’t be running around almost
getting myself killed. There’s a better way to do this.
“I’m going to have to let you go, Pixie. Thanks for giving me the address.
I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“So, you’re really going to go through with this anyway, aren’t you?” She
asks, sounding slightly defeated, but not pissed off about it.
“Yes,” I say, and that’s all that I need to communicate to her. My job is done
when my father is dead and I am the one in control of the Bandakov Family.
Only then will I be able to provide for her and the twins.
“Just be safe. For the love of God, be safe,” she says.
“I will,” I promise, although I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to follow
through on that oath. The road ahead is dangerous, and now that I’ve lost
my cousins, things aren’t going to be easy.
But then again, they never were. I fought tooth and nail to get to where I am
today, and I’m not going to give up at the last second.
I hang up the phone and shove it back into my pocket.
I’ve circled back around to the hotel to observe the commotion, but most of
the police have already left. A few lingering around the building making
sure that there aren’t any more members of the Romano family skulking
around, but it otherwise is safe for me to move in again.
I ditch the bloody handkerchief in a garbage bin and wiped the crusted
blood from my eyebrow. I probably look like I just crawled out of a car
wreck, but my appearance deceives the strength that I feel within.
I should be weaker, but I’m filled with a new life upon learning about my
sons. It’s my responsibility to lead them into a brighter future, no matter
what it takes.
My only weapon still sits tightly against my waist. I know that it only takes
one shot to kill a man if you aim for the skull, and I’ve been training for
ages to get this right, but I’m still nervous. I don’t even know how I’m
going to get to my father, much less put a bullet in his head before he can
react.
I consider sitting down in a café to ponder my options, but out of the corner
of my eye, I see something that makes my heart leap.
A group of men leave the hotel building and head towards a glossy black
sedan parked outside. They’re huddled around someone in the center, like
hired muscle around the celebrity who doesn’t want to be captured by the
paparazzi. Either it is a celebrity, or my father is leaving early for his
meeting today.
I know what I have to do.
I crouch down, hurrying towards the vehicle like an assassin in the night.
Only it’s broad daylight, and each step that I take is a risk of blowing my
cover. I have no other choice. This is the last chance I’m going to get before
my father flies back to the United States.
I arrive on the driver’s side of the vehicle just as the door closes on the
passenger side. Tearing open the door I don’t hesitate to yank my pistol
from my waistband and shoot the driver. In an instant, I’ve shoved him
aside, commandeered the steering wheel, and slammed my foot into the gas.
I don’t even know if my father’s the one who’s in the car yet, but I’m
getting the fuck away from this hotel in yet another stolen vehicle.
“Wilde,” my father’s voice says from the backseat as I swerve onto the
road.
So, it is him after all. I should’ve known that slimy bastard would be trying
to make an escape right about now. He probably got spooked because of the
shootout on the ground floor.
I look over my shoulder, pointing my gun squarely at his chest as I drive
with one hand. “Are you surprised to see me?” I ask, struggling to keep my
eyes on the road as I stare in contempt at my father.
“What are you doing here?” He asks, his eyes wide with fright. “Are you
out of your mind?”
“Perhaps,” I replied with a smirk. “But no more out of my mind than you
were we you had Mica killed.”
My father has the nerve to scoff at the mention of my brother. “Mica was a
no- good weasel. If I hadn’t killed him, he would’ve surely done what
you’re doing and tried to kill me.”
“So, you know what I’m here for,” I reply, tempted to blow his brains out of
the back window before he has the chance to convince me otherwise.
“Why else would you kill my driver and steal my car?” he asks. “Look at
you, pointing a gun at your own father. I thought you wanted nothing to do
with all this mafia business.”
“I didn’t,” I grumble. “But you forced my hand.”
“Nobody is forcing you to do anything, son,” he says, smoothing back his
sparse gray hair. “You can still park this car and walk away without
consequences.”
I laugh louder than I should. “You really expect me to believe you won’t
just have me killed like you did Mica? I’m not turning back now. You
deserve this,” I say, shaking the gun at him as I narrowly avoid an accident.
“You should probably look where you’re driving,” my father says in the
same condescending tone in which he’s always spoken to me. Even with
death looming centimeters away from him, he still finds the gall to speak to
me like I’m an idiot.
I will show him. I will take everything he’s built and make it mine. I will
destroy him, but first, I have a few more questions that I need answering.
CHAPTER 34
WILDE

“T ell me about Mica. What happened that drove you to kill

him?” I ask, tightening my grip around the pistol as I slow
the car down. We’re far away enough from the hotel to
where we won’t be bothered by the police.
“He was an ugly bastard,” my father replies, drenching his words in
mockery.
I stop myself from squeezing the trigger. I want answers, not jokes.
“Tell me or you’re dead,” I say through clenched teeth.
“What difference does it makes if you’re going to kill me anyway? How
about you answer me this – what kind of a son wants to kill his own
father?”
“What kind of father kills his own son?”
He leans forward, his expression and tone suddenly turning serious. “You
really think I was the one to have that fucker killed?”
“Yes,” I say, but my voice loses the edge of confidence it once had.
“You must’ve sustained a concussion or something son because that head of
yours isn’t working right. I did what I had to do, but I wasn’t the one calling
the shots at that point. Mica did some stupid shit that was out of my
control.”
“Explain yourself,” I demand, my throat tightening.
“I don’t have to explain shit to you. Pull the fucking car over and get the
fuck out of here before I have to call a hit on you too,” he snarls.
I was hesitant for a moment, but now my trigger finger is itching to go to
work. My father thinks he can bully his way into safety, but his days of rule
are over. I’m the heir to the Bandakov Mafia, and today marks the
beginning of my reign.
“You didn’t have a good reason to kill Mica,” I growl. “You were just
scared like a bitch.”
“The only bitch in this car is the one who stole it. I suggest you rethink your
actions,” he replies.
“There’s nothing to rethink,” I reply. “What’s done is done.”
“Then shoot me,” he challenges, leaning back with a smug look on his face.
“Tell me why you had my brother killed,” I counter.
My father shrugs. “He wanted power. He was assembling a team against
me.”
“I wonder why,” I say sarcastically.
“You can wonder all you want, but I run a fair organization. I spared you
because I didn’t think you had an interest in this shit, but now I can see that
was a mistake. I should’ve killed the both of you.”
That’s all this is to him – business. Family doesn’t matter, and I know Mica
well enough to know that he wouldn’t turn against my father without
reason. Whatever truly happened, I may never know, but I do know that my
father doesn’t care about me and would sooner see me dead than in a
position of power.
Sadly for him, that also works the other way around.
I squeeze the trigger, firing a single bullet into my father’s chest. He looks
surprised, but he shouldn’t be. He’s getting what’s been coming to him for
over two long years.
He looks down at the bullet wound in his chest, and then back up to me,
still in utter shock. He can’t believe that he isn’t invincible.
I squeeze the trigger again, and then again, fading to what was already most
likely a fatal shot. I finish by putting a bullet in his head, making sure that
even if he was wearing a bulletproof vest that he won’t live to serve another
day as leader of the Bandakov Family.
That’s my job now.
Blood leaks into the backseat, filling the cabin with the unique scent of
death. I have to roll down all four windows to be able to breathe again, but
when I do, I feel like a new man. The weight that sat heavily on my
shoulders has vanished, and I feel like the future is wide open.
I revel in the sensation for a moment, grabbing a cigar from the tray
between the front seats and lighting it up. Smoke billows through the car,
and I take long, sweet drags of the expensive tobacco.
Today is the day that I’ve been waiting years for, and I’m going to enjoy it
to the fullest.
I glance back into the rearview at my father’s body. It’s slumped over as
though he were only taking a nap. I hope he’s burning in hell right now, but
more likely, it’s only just as it appears to be – a nap for an eternity.
A phone rings from inside of his jacket as I tap the ash from the end of my
cigar out the window. I reach into the back seat, flicking open the sticky
lapel that’s glued to his chest with coagulating blood, and I retrieve the
phone.
I wipe the blood smeared on the screen onto my pants and take the call.
“You’re late,” a deep Italian voice grumbles on the line.
“I ran into a bit of trouble,” I reply with a smirk. “Also, I need the address
again.”
“This isn’t Wilde Bandakov,” the man replies. “Put him on the line.”
“I assure you that it is,” I reply calmly. “My father couldn’t make it to the
meeting, but I will be there.”
There’s a pause, but I don’t explain myself. To be in control means that I
don’t need to. I’m the boss.
“Very well,” the man says after a moment, and then proceeds to give me the
address.
In a few short minutes, I will arrive at the meeting that my father was
supposed to attend. I’m caked in blood, with a dead body in the back seat,
but I’m alive and willing to start attending to business.
I’m sure my father has a spare suit in the trunk. He always comes prepared.
CHAPTER 35
PIXIE

I only managed to get a few hours of sleep last night, but it’s
better than nothing. Megan tried to call me again, but I didn’t
answer. I still don’t have the emotional energy to speak with
her.
Thankfully, Noah and Oliver are so exhausted from the traveling that
they’re still asleep. I take the opportunity to pour two instant coffee packets
into a cup and finish it off with hot water. I need something extra strong to
get me through today.
Ditching the cream and sugar provided by the hotel, I sit down at the small
desk beside the bed and admire the twins as they sleep peacefully through
the late morning.
The more I look at their little faces, the more I see Wilde. He’s going to be
with me for the rest of my life whether or not he makes it back from Italy
alive. His soul lives on through the twins.
I want to call him again, but I don’t have anything to say. I survived the
night, and all I have to do now is to wait for him to arrive. I don’t know
when that will be, or what will happen when he does, but I’m not leaving
this hotel until then.
My phone buzzes, and it’s Megan again. This time, I decide to answer her. I
just don’t want to get into an argument and ruins the twins’ sleeping, so I
take the phone to the bathroom and close the door.
“Hey, Megan, what’s up?”
“What’s up?” she asks in disbelief.
I already know she’s coming into this with an attitude, but she doesn’t
understand. She’ll probably never get what drives me, but that doesn’t
matter. I know, and it’s my life I have to live, not hers.
“I’m at the hotel. Are you still with Scott?” I ask, refusing to acknowledge
her confrontational tone.
“Scott and I are at his house, but the police didn’t seem to think there was a
problem, so they never even came,” she replies.
“I didn’t want them around anyway,” I reply, shaking my head. “I didn’t
think you’d actually call them.”
“I think you’re crazy not to. You said the Italian Mafia was after you.”
“I believe they are,” I reply, much calmer than I would have yesterday.
“Then you should be hanging out at the police station, not cruising through
Florida with the twins.”
“I’ll do what I think is best, thank you,” I say sharply. “I have a handle on
the situation, and Wilde will be here any time now.”
“You’re still waiting on that psycho? He knocked you up and got his ass
thrown in jail. That’s not the hero you deserve, Pixie.”
I fight a surge of anger. Megan just wants to protect me. She doesn’t
understand the relationship that I have with this man.
I count to three and let out a breath. “I can manage just fine, Megan. Did
you call for a reason, or are you just going to berate me for my personal
decisions?”
“Well, aside from berating you – which is something I had planned to do
anyway – I wanted to make sure you were still alive. You didn’t answer my
first call.”
“I was sleeping.”
“I figured, but still.”
“I’d be dead if I didn’t get any sleep. I’m so sleep deprived that I feel like
passing out right now,” I say, sitting down on the toilet.
“I hope you’re at least somewhere safe,” she says, her tone softening as she
realizes it’s no use to argue with me.
She knows I’m stubborn. Even getting me to go to Italy was a huge task,
but she thought it was for the better. I don’t regret it, but it also wasn’t the
relaxing vacation that I imagined it to be.
“I picked a hotel away from the city. I think it’s better here. Wilde seemed
to think so.”
“Wilde is trying to avoid prison again,” she replies dryly.
“Well, I don’t exactly blame him. He’s had a tough life.”
“And you really want to be part of that?” she asks.
Damn, she can be so blunt and brutal. She always had her shit together
better than I did, but I feel that she’ll never accept my need to live life just a
little bit different than a normal person would.
“Yes, for Wilde, I think I will be part of that,” I say, straightening my
posture as I speak. A surge of confidence rolls through me at the
announcement of my support for Wilde. It may get me in trouble, but I want
him now more than ever.
“I’m going to support you, Pixie,” Megan says, “But only because you’re
my sister.”
I laugh. “Only because I’ll send the mafia after you if you don’t.”
“God, you’d better not. You scared the shit out of me with all that mafia talk
earlier.”
My laughter quickly subsides. “Hey, we’re not out of trouble just yet. I’m
waiting for Wilde to give me the scoop.”
“He’d better be quick. Scott is getting on my nerves already.”
“Really? I thought you liked him.”
“Before his divorce, sure, but after that mess, all he talks about is how much
he hates his ex-wife and loves beer,” she says.
“Classic,” I say, cracking a smile again. “Well listen, I’ll talk to you when I
have more information about everything. Until then, keep an eye out for
trouble and stay safe.”
“You too, Pixie, and I mean it. I don’t want anything bad happening to
you.”
“I won’t let it,” I say, but I know that it isn’t up to me anymore. My life is in
Wilde’s capable hands now, and I just have to trust him this time around.
CHAPTER 36
WILDE

I lean back in the large leather chair, ignoring the odd looks from
the head of the biggest black market oil company in Europe.
I’m the boss in this room, even if he’s the one writing checks
for billions of dollars.
One could say I’m high on life, but in reality, I’m just satisfied. The only
thing that I wanted has been granted to me – the death of my father – and
the woman I love is waiting for me with my twins in a hotel in Florida.
I’m coming home, but first I want to try my hand at a little mafia business. I
don’t care much about the deal my father was about to make, but Mr. Waltz
still seems eager to shake hands on it.
“The oil market is only going up,” he says, “And your organization is the
only one that we trust with this volume of product.”
I nod, rubbing my chin like I have any idea what the fuck he’s talking
about. I’ll need to be debriefed by my subordinates as soon as I get out of
this meeting. I’m sure they’re only just getting word that power in the
Bandakov Family has shifted hands.
“How much oil are we talking?” I ask.
“Approximately three billion barrels,” he replies, smiling as though that
should be impressive to me.
Maybe it should be, but I’m not interested in so much oil unless it’s at a
price that would make it worth distributing. The sheer amount of money
and manpower it takes to transport, store, and sell that many barrels is
staggering.
“At what price?” I ask.
His smile fades quickly, and he replaces it with a cigar. “Twenty U.S.
dollars,” he says.
That’s less than half of the current going rate, but some of the difference
will be made up by the costs that I’ll have to endure in dealing with such a
large sum of crude oil.
Still, it doesn’t sound like a deal I’d want to pass down. Even if profit only
amounted to fifty cents a barrel, I’d still be walking away with over a
billion dollars. Something tells me it will be a lot more than that, though.
“Alright,” I say after a moment of drumming my fingers across my chin,
pretending to have seriously considered turning it down. “I’ll accept your
terms.”
“Sign here,” he says, whipping a sheet of paper from the inside of his jacket
and sliding it across the table toward me.
He’s not much of a talker, but that’s alright. I won’t be seeing much of him
from now on. Once this deal is finalized, I’ll be hopping on the next jet out
of here. I can assign a few of my men to take care of business for me.
I put black ink on the page, signing my name, which is the same as my
father’s already printed above it. After all this, I didn’t imagine it would end
in a simple signature.
I push the paper back to Mr. Waltz, getting up from the large leather chair at
the table and nodding to him solemnly. “We’ll keep in touch,” I say.
He nods back, turning away in silence as a door is opened for me to leave.
I’m escorted back down a long hallway, down an elevator that drops down a
hundred floors, and through a lobby with armed guards.
Once I step back out into the sunlight, I realize that it’s already late in the
afternoon. Today has flown past with all the action and drama. I barely have
time to get ready for my flight back to the United States.
The black sedan that I stole still holds my father’s corpse. It smells much
worse than it did when I first arrived at Mr. Waltz’s office, but once I roll
down the windows, I can tolerate it.
Smoking helps. It kills your tastebuds and your sense of smell, rendering
that world a bland and flavorless place. Maybe that’s why I take my coffee
black and my whiskey straight.
My father’s phone rings again. It’s lying on the seat next to mine from the
last time that I received a call on it. I wonder if it’s Mr. Waltz again, or if
someone else is wondering what happened to my father.
I accept the call, greeting the stranger with a formal, “Hello.”
“Mr. Bandakov,” a breathless man says, sounding relieved.
“That’s me,” I say with a smile.
“There was word about an attack on the car. I’m just glad to hear you’re
alright.”
“Oh, you must be talking about my father, Wilde Bandakov. Well, he’s
dead,” I say, glancing into the rearview mirror at his slumped body and
pale, bloated face.
“What?”
“This is Wilde Bandakov, perhaps you’ve heard of me,” I say.
“I-I don’t understand.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m your boss now. I’m Wilde Bandakov the Second,
rightful heir to the Bandakov Mafia Family. My father is dead, and he will
no longer be serving you.”
There’s a long pause, followed by a brisk, “Alright, sir.”
“Good, now prepare a jet for me and a few dozen armed guards. I’m taking
a trip down to Florida.”
“Very well, sir.”
“And a whiskey on the rocks,” I say, rolling my cigar between my fingers in
delight at the thought. I need a stiff drink after all of this.
I lean back in the seat, driving back to the hotel where my father was
staying. I’ll have his own men drag his body out of the car and dispose of
him. This will be their first example of what happens when somebody
crosses me.
I kill without remorse. I’m a mafia king, and my throne awaits me, and so
does Pixie Sun, my one and only love. It’s time for me to claim them both.
CHAPTER 37
PIXIE

M y stomach sinks as three black SUVs pull up outside of the

small hotel. There’s no mistaking mafia vehicles. It’s either
them, or it’s the FBI come to personally escort me to
solitary confinement for my international crimes.
Noah is already crying, probably from the sudden dread that’s filled the
room. I won’t be able to get them both out of the room before the mafia
infiltrates the hotel, but even if I could, there’s nowhere to run. I’m in the
middle of nowhere.
I curse under my breath, turning away from the window and looking around
the room for something to use as a weapon. I don’t think that I’ll be able to
fight my way out, but if I can get a solid hit on one of those freaks, maybe
the others will think twice about coming for me.
God, who am I kidding? I’m totally screwed. There’s not a damn thing that
would save me and the twins except for Wilde, and he’s all the way in Italy.
I wish that asshole would’ve gotten here sooner.
I miss him and I need him, and I feel sick to my stomach about this whole
thing. The only thing that I can do is try to call him and warn him that I’m
about to be captured. It won’t stop them from doing it, but at least he’ll
know what’s become of me.
I snatch my cell phone off the bed as Oliver joins Noah in a symphony of
crying. I dial his number and slam the phone into my ear, praying that he’ll
pick it up.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
I curse under my breath again.
Four.
He’s not picking it up, and I already hear baritone voices in the hallway.
The rumble of so many men heading toward the room makes my stomach
drop even further. I might as well throw my hands up and surrender now
before they draw their guns and put the twins in danger.
I just want them to be okay. They can do anything to me, but I want Noah
and Oliver to survive this awful mess.
“I’m sorry,” I say to them as the phone goes dead.
Wilde isn’t there to pick it up. There’s no hope that I can wiggle my way
out of this one. This is the way that it ends.
There’s a heavy knock on my door, but I don’t have the words to speak.
They’re caught in my throat, and even breathing is a chore. Maybe if I say
nothing, they’ll think they have the wrong room and leave me alone.
I doubt it.
Another knock rattles the door, this time almost hard enough to break it
down. I step back toward the bed, shaking like a leaf.
The window is right next to the bed. Maybe I could jump, but then what
would come of the boys?
“Pixie,” a muffled voice says from the other side of the door.
I freeze.
That’s Wilde’s voice. I’d know it anywhere.
“Wilde?” I call back.
“Pixie, open the door,” he says.
I rush toward it, throwing the bolt to the side and flinging it open. It could
be a trap, but I’m so relieved by the sweet sound of Wilde’s voice that I
don’t stop to consider it. I just want to see his handsome face, kiss it, and
then slap him for taking so goddamn long to get here.
Wilde grins at me, a whole sea of muscled mafia men standing behind him
with their arms crossed. I’ve never seen so many dangerous-looking men in
one place before, but I don’t feel threatened. Wilde is the boss, and he wears
that title with confidence.
Oliver and Noah stop crying as I jump into Wilde’s arms, wrapping my
hands around his neck as he laughs and holds me close to him. Part of me
thought that I would never hear his voice again, nor smell the deep smokey
aroma that’s settled deep in his clothes.
I press my head against his chest, letting myself soak in the glory of his
being for as long as I can before he pulls me away. I don’t want to let go of
him. If I could, I’d find a way to melt into his body and transform our souls
into one that we could share.
He holds me up, taking the weight of my body off my tired feet. I’ve paced
around like a crazy person, driving both myself and Megan insane. Only
once I was completely exhausted could I convince my weary body to let me
sleep.
I feel like I weigh only a few pounds as he holds me up, rocking side to side
with my body as though he were trying to coax me back to sleep.
Finally, he sets me down on my feet, and I allow him to break away from
my tight embrace. I had plans to slap that cocky smile right off his face
when he arrived, but looking at it brings so much joy that I can’t ruin the
moment.
He doesn’t need to apologize. He could blame it all on me, and I’d accept it
in an instant, but I know he won’t. He’s sweet under all that aggression and
raw masculinity.
He smiles down at me, making me feel like the sun has parted the clouds. I
bask in his approval, smiling back up at him like he’s the ruler of the
universe. He’s my ruler, my king, and that’s all that matters to me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, surprising me with his words.
I shake my head. “You don’t have to be.”
He shrugs. “I still am. I didn’t have any right to pull you into my business
like that. It was stupid and dangerous, and I could’ve gotten you killed. I
was only thinking about myself and what I wanted.”
“It’s what I wanted too,” I admit. “I’ve been crazy about you since the
moment I laid eyes on you, and even if they carted you off to jail, I never
lost those feelings.”
He glances over my shoulder and nods at the men behind him before
closing the door. “You’re safe now,” he says, turning back to me. “My
mission is finished, and my father is dead.”
The words are cold but confident, and I feel a new energy from Wilde. It’s
not the reckless abandon that he once had. That’s been replaced with the
energy of a man in charge. He’s calm, but I know that he would kill anyone
who threatened either of us.
“What about the Romano Mafia?” I ask.
He waves a dismissive hand. “The police put enough bullets in them to rain
on their parade for good. I heard their leader Ricci got killed in the
crossfire.”
“Shit,” I say, thinking how easily that could’ve been Wilde.
“Shit for them, but good for us, although I’m not worried about it now. I
just closed a multi-billion dollar deal in Italy. Our life is going to look a lot
different from now on,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.
I don’t even know what to say. I’ve never been one to chase after wealth,
but billions of dollars? Even for a humble woman like me, I get a jolt of
excitement.
The twins will be well taken care of with that kind of money, and Wilde and
I won’t ever have to worry about being in danger. We could live on a
private island with our own army if we wanted to.
Wilde looks over my shoulder, and I realize that the boys have been silent
this entire time. I look back at them to see both of them waddling toward
Wilde, bright smiles on their little faces and their arms held out.
“Daddy,” Noah says, and his brother laughs gleefully.
“They already know,” I say breathlessly.
“Of course, they do,” Wilde says, kneeling down and beaming as the two
boys quicken their pace toward his open arms. “Any Bandakov would know
their rightful place in my family.”
Tears rush to my eyes quicker than I can fight back, and I begin sobbing in
front of Wilde as he embraces the twins.
“Has mommy been good to you?” he asks them, standing up with one in
either of his strong arms and bouncing them up and down.
I can’t handle the cuteness. If this were the last thing I saw before I died I
would die with a heart full of love and a head full of bliss. Wilde is the
perfect father. I already know that he will care for the twins like no other
man ever could.
“They’re adorable,” he says, still smiling like crazy and bouncing them in
his arms. “I can’t believe you never told me about them.”
I feel a rush of guilt, but I know it’s misplaced. Things were different then. I
didn’t know how precious he would be to me, or how much I would fall in
love with him. I didn’t know that he would be the perfect father to my
twins, but now I can see it so clearly.
He’s the one.
He’s always been the one.
“I won’t keep any more secrets from you, Wilde,” I say, stepping up and
patting Noah on his head. “I promise.”
“And I won’t keep secrets from you. You’re part of the Bandakov Family
now, and that’s something that cannot change.”
“Sounds like a proposal,” I say with a laugh, only half-joking.
He smirks. “Be prepared for one, Pixie. That’s how we do things in the
mafia.”
EPILOGUE
PIXIE

W ilde spins around and around over a sea of sand like he’s
been attached with a piece of yarn to a ceiling fan at full
speed. His cocky smile is blurred from the speed at which
he’s moving.
“Slow down before you fall off,” I shout, shaking my head as he kicks off
the ground to move even faster. He must want to hurt himself.
Noah squeals in delight at his father becoming a blur on the playground. If
there were other kids around, I’d be worried about Wilde setting a bad
example, but it’s just us this summer afternoon.
Finally, the spinning metal circle on the playground begins to slow, and
Wilde stumbles off of it like he’s just finished running laps. He’s panting
and laughing as he scoops Noah up in his arms and comes toward me.
Oliver is sitting between my legs on the edge of the sandbox, struggling to
fit an entire ice cream into his mouth. He’s making a frightful mess, but that
never stopped Wilde from giving him kisses and smudging food all over the
front of his crisp suit.
Dry cleaning does wonders for mafia bosses who just so happen to be
fathers as well.
“Any more spinning on that and my brain will be like scrambled eggs,” he
says, smoothing down Noah’s hair. “Did you know those things could go so
fast?”
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t witness you trying to break the sound
barrier.”
“The speed of light would’ve been more impressive, but I’m concerned
about time travel,” he replies with the seriousness of a person who might
not actually be joking.
But I know Wilde. He can be so much more serious than he is right now.
Reforming and leading a powerful Russian mafia family is no small task,
and he’s been busy night and day making sure that I never have to work
another day in my life.
His deal with the oil tycoon in Italy has been coming together nicely, and
pretty soon we’ll be taking a long vacation.
For now, we steal away hours in the afternoon together with the twins, and
at night, we enjoy each other in the sheets, rolling around and fucking to
our hearts’ content. It’s a beautiful existence and one that I wouldn’t trade
for the world.
But there are consequences to such frivolous fun, and I’m just as nervous as
I am excited to tell him about them. I didn’t want to say anything until I was
certain, so I waited much longer than I probably should’ve.
I can’t wait any longer knowing the information that I do. I paid a visit to
the doctor today while he was at work, and what she told me blew me away.
“Wilde,” I say softly, my heart already picking up tempo as he looks toward
me.
“Yes?”
I swallow hard, trying to force my heart to slow down by breathing slower.
It doesn’t work. If anything, it nearly sends my body into a full-blown panic
attack.
“I want to tell you something,” I say, looking everywhere but at him.
“What is it?” he asks, concern growing in his voice.
“Nothing bad,” I say quickly, finally looking at him. I look away again. “It’s
just something that I found out today. I didn’t want to keep it from you like
last time.”
“Like last time?” he asks, the cogs turning in his head for a moment before
he figures it out. “Pixie, are you…?”
“Pregnant?” I ask, smiling up at him. “Yes, but that’s not everything.”
“What is it, then?” he asks, placing a hand on my belly.
The warmth of his touch finally allows me to calm down. I shouldn’t fear
telling him anything. He’s my partner in crime. He’s my everything.
“Wilde, it’s twins again,” I say.
He frowns for a moment, and then a wide smile spreads across his face.
Winkles crease the sides of his eyes, and they sparkle with joy. “That’s
incredible!”
I laugh, tears coming to my eyes just like they did the first time I told him
about his twins. “Yes, it is incredible. The doctor could hardly believe it.
Twins two times in a row.”
“That’s amazing,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. His eyes are bright
with excitement, and I can tell by the way he’s rubbing his hands together
that he can hardly contain his emotions.
At a time like this, it seems like crying would be the last thing a person
could do, but I’m so overwhelmed that I let the tears fall.
Wilde pulls me close, allowing me to dry them on his shirt, just like the
twins do when they fall and scrape their little knees. He provides for all of
us, protects us, and makes sure that we’re all happy.
And now there won’t be just four of us to live happily ever after together.
There will be six.

T he End.
PREVIEW OF TRIPLETS FOR THE
RUSSIAN BOSS
CHAPTER 1
BONNIE

I ’ve gotten too good at this, but it’s the only way to provide for
my three boys at home. I hope that one day, they’ll grow to
respect women, but until they’re old enough to know right from
wrong, I’ll take the wrong path.
“Where are you going? I paid for extra.”
I can smell the thick scent of beer and cigarettes on his breath, the only
thing I ever seem to smell in this godforsaken place. No amount of jasmine
and sugar body spray can mask that smell. It clings to my hair and seeps
into the deepest layers of my skin.
“Honey, you paid for a dance, and that’s what you got,” I say, trying to keep
my tone firm while remaining sexy.
“I tipped you,” the nameless man says lamely, smacking my bare ass and
almost falling off the red faux-leather couch.
“And I gave you an extra five minutes,” I say, pulling my panties back up
and adjusting the blue bow on the front. “Maybe you can buy me a drink. I
feel like getting fucked up tonight.”
It’s the same old tired script, but it works. Everyone comes in thinking
they’re going to take one of us home, but the only thing they take home is a
hangover and an empty wallet. I come home with dirty piles of cash and
what little dignity I can scrape off the bottom of my six-inch, LED heels.
Oh yeah, and also a hangover. I’d like to say the party days are behind me,
but sometimes a bit of booze takes the edge off. It’s better than what some
of the women here do. Snorting mystery powders off mirrors used to be a
weekend hobby for me, but now I avoid it like the plague. I’m trying to put
that behind me.
My client, a man with dwindling cash, stumbles out of the room, eager to
get back to the bar and get me drunk, so that he can have a chance at taking
me home. What he doesn’t know is that I have triplets, and a babysitter who
expects me back by morning. I’m not going anywhere with anyone tonight.
Or any night, for that matter. I’ve sworn off men, after seeing the kind of
creeps that hang out at the club. People you’d never expect; supposed saints
and community leaders show up here all the time. Most of the time, though,
it’s just married men - looking to relive the days in which they were single,
now that they have money and status.
People like that, the normal people, will never know how much I envy
them. I’d love so much to be a normal woman, with a normal job and a
loving spouse to help support my boys, but I fucked up and landed here.
“Hey, back on the pole in five minutes,” Jerry, the club owner, yells at me
over the booming music, as I come out of the private room.
“I have a client,” I say, pointing a long red fingernail at the bar, but my
client seems to have already found another woman.
Crystal - the blonde with an affinity for drunks. For some reason, she likes
to pull the last wad of cash from their pockets and give them shit for being
broke at the end of the night. I’ll never know why she gets off on belittling
customers, but she does it, without fail, every night she works.
Jerry gives me a tired look, and I know he’s taking a larger cut of my wages
than usual if I don’t listen. So, I turn around and head to the dressing room
to chalk my hands, and fix my hair, for the next song.
Slipping into the dressing room, I find Amy with a baby wipe, trying
desperately to get a stain off the front of her skirt. I don’t even want to
know what it is, but I already do. I just try not to think about what she’s
been doing, while I check my makeup in the mirror and grab the chalk.
“Another night in paradise,” Amy says with a sigh, working the wipe so
deep into her skirt that it begins to crumble and leave even more evidence
of her evening wrongdoings.
“Paradise is a nine-to-five, and a bowl of popcorn in front of the TV,” I
reply.
She looks up at me with a confused expression. “Now, what the fuck are
you on about?”
I shrug. “A girl can dream.”
“Damn, I’m dreaming about a new car and a fat line of coke for breakfast.
You have to go the extra mile for that.”
She’s certainly been going the extra mile, but I don’t comment. Everyone
here has the right to their own path. Some of us are just here to pay the bills
or save for college. Others are looking for an early retirement, while those
like Amy are living life on the edge, addicted to the thrill.
I was like that, until I got impregnated by a man I didn’t know. That kind of
life takes a turn, sooner or later, and usually it’s a turn right off the highway
and straight into a fucking tree.
I wouldn’t trade my three boys for anything, but I would trade this lifestyle
in the blink of an eye, if I could.
The song changes, and that’s my cue that I should’ve had my hand wrapped
around the pole ten seconds ago.
“Shit,” I hiss, dusting my hands together to shake the excess chalk and
trying not to trip over my own heels as I clack loudly out of the dressing
room. It’s time to spin on the pole, make some eye contact, and find a new
client to help me pay the rent.
There’s a playlist that they have at the Diamond Score, just like every strip
club in the county. It plays the same songs every night, in the same order.
Every girl has her song, but we don’t get to choose. Mine is something
about pills and champagne, almost like its purpose is to taunt me about
what brought me here in the first place.
But every night I work, I dance to this song like I’m the sexiest girl in the
world, and sometimes I forget about the problems I have. Sometimes, when
the music comes on through the stereo right beside the pole, blaring into my
eardrums like an angry boss, it’s enough to drown out the rest of me and
make me feel like I’ve gone back in time - to plastic bottles of vodka and
little square papers with smiley faces on them.
Tonight, however, the music isn’t what brings me back to my reckless past.
As my hand grips the silver pole and heads turn to me, pink evening
sunlight spills through the front door of the club, and a man walks in who
steals the breath from my mouth like a punch to the gut.
Kostin.
CHAPTER 2
KOSTIN

I have three more nights in Florida and a hundred thousand

dollars in cash burning a hole in my pocket, from a weapon deal
I closed with a Russian arms dealer. Tonight, I’m going to enjoy
myself.
A shot of Grey Goose splashes the back of my throat as I take it, but the
shot glasses in the United States are comically small compared to those in
Russia. I barely feel a burn, and I take the second shot without so much as a
breath in between.
“You look like a man who knows how to have a good time,” the woman
next to me says, twirling the straw on her rose-colored drink and lowering
her gaze at me.
“I like to drink,” I reply flatly.
She laughs and raises her glass. “Fuck, I’ll drink to that.”
I grab another shot from the four laid out in front of me and tap it against
her glass, tossing it back and following it with the fourth, and final, like a
chaser. It would be wise of me to slow down, but I never was one to care
about steroidal bouncers and the consequences of my actions. As long as
I’m spending, they’re not kicking me out.
“My name is Peach, by the way,” the woman says, stretching out her hand
and pursing her glossy lips at me with a thin smile.
“Peach,” I repeat, refusing her hand. “Like the fruit.”
She nods, placing her hand on the bar smoothly, unwilling to let me throw
her off her game. She’s good; but I’ve played this one so many times, I
know it like the grip on my pistol.
Unlike some, who frequent strip clubs, I enjoy the game. It’s difficult to
win, but I’m not always trying to. Sometimes the pleasure just comes from
playing. Tonight, I’m just here to spend money and unwind.
“Maybe you’d like to see me dance?” Peach says, blinking her eyes at me
like she’s trying to get something out of them.
She’s quick to the cut. That’s no fun. I like to have a little more time, a few
more chances to throw them off, before I give in. I think a person should
work for their money, especially when it comes in big wads of tax-free
cash.
“Is it your song?” I ask, looking toward the pole toward the back of the
club.
“Not yet, but I know how you can get to see me dance in private. No
clothes,” she says, leaning in as though it were a big secret.
I nod, rubbing my chin. “I’d like to see you on the pole first. I like to know
what I’m paying for.”
She feigns offense, pulling her chin back and frowning. She runs the backs
of her fingers along the front of her tight-fitting outfit.
It’s something that would make a whore blush, but I’m into that. The more
ridiculous, the better.
“Is this view not good enough for you already?” Peach asks, pouting her
lips.
“It’ll be good after a couple of cold beers. Tell the bartender that I need two
of their best.”
“I don’t drink beer,” she replies.
“They’re both for me.”
She gives me a strange look, but the money leaking from my pocket tells
her I’m good enough to continue the game with. I’m sure she hates my guts,
but at least I have them. Some men walk in here and spend everything on
the first woman that feeds them a drop of attention.
I’m used to the attention. I want more than that.
Peach leans over the bar, waving her hand at the bartender. They have a
deal. If she gets me drunk, and takes my money, then he gets a cut. This
place is sophisticated enough for deals like that. It’s too nice for them not to
work together.
When I’m finished eyeballing Peach’s ass, I look over to the pole. Another
woman is there - someone familiar, that I can’t quite place. Even through
the thick smoke and gleaming red lights, I never forget a face. This is one I
know, but I don’t know where from.
I study her, watching her body as it moves on the pole. Her movements,
although somewhat forced, are graceful and pleasing to watch. It’s like
she’s swimming through the air, naturally talented but simultaneously
uninterested in her work. The same goes for a lot of women in these places,
but they never come off quite so elegantly.
I have to tear my eyes away when Peach slams a beer down in front of me.
The head fizzes over, rolling over the sides of the bottle like a premature
ejaculation. She wanted my attention, and she got it.
“I’m up next,” she says. “I hope you’ll wait for me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reply, lifting the wet bottle to my lips. “I’ll be
watching.”
She smiles, but I can barely pay attention to her now. I have to know where
that other woman came from. Who is she, and why does she look so
familiar?
I’ve had too many drinks to retain what little tact God graced me with. I
look back at the woman on the pole, catching her gaze for the briefest of
seconds but long enough to see fear.
A former enemy? I don’t usually rub shoulders with women in the Mafia
business.
“Do you want a double dance or something?” Peach asks, trying to bargain
now that she’s lost my attention again. She knows she’s not getting money
if I make a switch, but I think it’s a lost cause for her now. I have to know
who that woman is.
“Who’s the one on the pole?” I ask, finally looking back at Peach.
Her exacerbated expression switches back to a smile in an instant.
“Bubbles.”
I laugh. “Jesus, you girls choose some stupid names.”
“Well, I’m not telling you her real name. That’s not how we do things here,”
Peach says, getting snippy.
I roll my eyes, as the music hints at an ending. Peach glares at me before
slipping away to the dressing room, and I’m left alone to figure out who the
hell Bubbles really is. I should go talk to her… but first, I’m going to finish
my beer.
Both of them.

R ead Triplets for the Russian Boss Now!

ALSO BY BELLA KING

Baby for the Russian Boss

Wife for the Russian Boss
Bride for the Russian Boss