As with every time I’d seen her… except that night when my warning had well and truly riled her,as intended… Maddelena Mancinelli looked fucking flawless.
The quintessential Sicilian beauty.
Her skin glowed with the kind of health and vitality that didn’t come from creams or endless pampering but from Mother Nature’s grace and favour.
Old Man Mancinelli may be nicknamed El Topo, on account of his rat-like features, but by some stroke of genetic genius, all his offspring had escaped being saddled by his fugly DNA.
Every last one of his daughters, and even the idiot Narciso, had inherited their grandmother and mother’s striking good looks.
It killed me that I could never take my eyes off her when she was in the same room. That something about that one and only close encounter an eternity ago had imprinted her on me in a way I couldn’t scrub off, no matter how I tried.
And I had tried.
Women in all shapes and sizes had graced my bed since I hit puberty, eager for Salvatore cock, if only for the chance to boast about it to their friends and family. It didn’t hurt that mine was impressively miles above average, too.
Dozens of women. And yet that itch behind my breastbone remained.
Maddelena Mancinelli had helped herself to something vital of mine in those stolen moments out on the field in the Middle of Nowhere, Connecticut.
Like the kind fucking Romeo should’ve known better than to risk with Juliet?
Fuck no. There was no forbidden love, or even hate – that was reserved for the fuckers messing with my dream – here. But there was… something.
Something I intended to get back, or die trying.
I let all of that show on my face, and I saw the moment she clocked me from across the dancefloor. The moment she saw it, too.
Her stunning blue eyes widened a fraction and the hand clutching her glass trembled before she got control of it. The dumbass she was dancing with took one look at me and left her high and dry on the dancefloor, a move she acknowledged with pursed lips and a fierce glare my way.
I ignored the glare, for now, my attention on the glass’s bubbly contents.
When the hell did she start drinking?
I knew for a fact El Topo had a list a mile long of all things forbidden where his granddaughters were concerned. Just as I knew at the top of that list, etched in blood, was the warning to stay away from us Salvatores, on pain of severe punishment.
And yeah, drinking was in the top ten.
As if she read that thought too, a corner of her mouth lifted, a challenge issued.
‘How long are you two going to keep eye-fucking each other? I’m getting fucking pregnant over here.’
The twins burst into laughter, the thick tension easing a fraction before ratcheting right back up.
‘Rafa…’
He didn’t heed the warning in my voice. ‘I’m just saying, there’s only so much of the sex fumes I can take before shit gets weird, you being blood and all. Either do something about it or shut that shit down.’
I managed, barely, to drag my eyes from her to scowl at my brother. ‘Whatever the fuck you think you see, you’re wrong.’
He opened his mouth. I held up my hand. Mutiny flashed across his face before he clamped his mouth shut. I didn’t fool myself into thinking this would be the end of it, though. My brother was dogged if nothing else.
Another skill he’d honed in that super-secret part of the government he refused to divulge, no matter how much liquor I poured down his throat.
‘You have a job to do. Whatever it takes to find the mole, do it. I want them dealt with before the next race. Understood?’
He didn’t answer immediately. But he got the gravity of my order. And honoured it with a two-finger salute a second later.
My phone buzzed again. And again. And again.
