Black umbrella in hand, I crossed our expansive grounds to the back-right corner of our property taking in the headstone of my mother. Dahlia Cavetti had been only twenty-four when she’d died, the same age that I was now. I’d been six and Gianni five when something had gone terribly wrong during the delivery of our baby sister Natalia. So of all my siblings, Gianni and I had been the children with the most memories of her, the ones who really knew her. Her warmth. Her kindness. Her tenderness toward us. She’d been the opposite of our father in every way.
The thought of her always brought a pang to my heart. It was why I never came out here to our private family plot. I didn’t need a reminder that the only person who’d ever truly loved me was long gone.
But I quickly shook those memories away. Yes, this was my brother’s funeral, but I was Romeo Cavetti, the next in line to be the patriarch of our clan. Whatever remnants of goodness and decency that had come from my mother had been overrun by my father’s cruel legacy. Shortly after his wife’s death, Angelo had taught me that mercy was for the weak, that sentiment had no place in our lives. As the underdogs within our insular society, we had to be the most callous, the most barbaric, and the most willing to use any means necessary to succeed.
Besides, I thrived on my lack of humanity. The moment I’d shot Lorenzo Bonifacio dead in cold blood, I’d both secured my place as my father’s heir and erased any light that had been holding on within me. I was all darkness now. All bitter coldness. A fact to which Lucia could attest.
I turned my head to gaze at the three-story monstrosity my father referred to as the Cavetti estate. With its castle-like towers, classical Roman fountain out front by the circle drive, and center courtyard decorated with everything from weeping willows to hanging gardens to several separate sets of outdoor furniture, it purposely flaunted its multi-million-dollar price tag. Even now my family ambled past our own personal reflecting pool, ala the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, or the Taj Mahal, albeit a slightly less ostentatious version of either.
Still, to say our residence screamed overdone was an understatement. Having such a tacky residence had been Angelo’s idea. He believed we needed to make all the wealth the past two generations of Cavettis had accumulated as visible as possible. I didn’t agree, but then, I’d had no say in the matter since he’d purchased and appointed the place right before my birth.
Since Lucia’s room had been built inside an interior corridor, I could not hope to catch a glimpse of her through any of the windows. Yet our interaction the prior evening had remained a bright flame in my memory. I had seriously contemplated ending her life and taking one of her younger sisters for my bride instead. Lucia had incurred my wrath when she’d hidden the truth from me, a truth she’d promised—and even made a blood pact—to uphold.
I’d thought her different. Special. My professional dealings forever carried the threat of deception and betrayal, and that’s why I’d had Lucia make the pact with me to begin with. I’d needed my wife to be the one person I could trust. The one person who fully understood that while I had a legacy to maintain, when I came to her, I could relax. But she’d broken that trust almost immediately, and last night I’d gone to her room to make her pay.
And that’s when Lucia Bonifacio showed me her true colors. Not only had she fought like a wildcat and drawn blood from me, demonstrating that she wasn’t quite the docile wallflower she’d purported herself to be up until now. She’d also displayed something I’d only caught the barest glimpses of before—her true sexual nature. Whether my betrothed realized it or not, she had specific appetites that could only be sated by a dominant such as myself.
Her pleasure at my harsh touches had been evident, and this was why Lucia remained amongst the living. I didn’t know if I would keep her around permanently, if I would follow through with Gianni’s original plan to marry her or not. For one thing, Gianni was dead, along with his dream of peacefully uniting our two families. For another, the so-called all-powerful Bonifacio patriarch was dead at my hand, and his wife had gone down in the melee, too.
The Cavettis now held the upper hand here in Chicago and no longer required an alliance with anyone. Regardless, I would have my fun with her. As many women as I’d been with, none of them had excited me to the extent that myfarfallahad. I’d named her that because I’d once considered her as delicate and fragile as a butterfly. But while discovering that I’d underestimated her strength and resilience, and this had infuriated me initially, now it turned me on.
I knew she hated me, resented me, and understanding I could still make her submit to me sexually and observe her as I offered her pleasure on my own terms made me feel like a god.
I felt my cock growing plump and heavy behind my zipper and put a kibosh on my enthusiasm for the moment. I couldn’t very well bury my brother with a fucking hard-on.
My family and I all halted at the newly dug grave surrounded by mud. Still, despite the rain beating down on him, the priest performed the burial rites, acting as if his robes weren’t getting soaked to the bone in spite of his raincoat. The priest collected a cut rose from a basket the florist had provided, placing one into each of our palms so we could offer Gianni Godspeed as we said our final farewells.
My thoughts turned to Lucia and as I contemplated her inside her room, I considered withholding myself from her. I knew that she wanted my strokes and caresses, so why not deny her? Why not keep her in a state of wanting with no chance of ever gaining fulfillment? It might be enjoyable for me to discipline her in such a manner. To tease her over and over again but then provide her with no relief.
I vacillated back and forth on this decision as the priest wrapped up the graveside service with a brief prayer. At no point during the funeral did we openly view my brother’s body. The damage to Gianni’s face from the many gunshot wounds at point-blank range made having a closed casket the only option.
In line behind my father, I dropped my rose, a flare of crimson lying atop his mahogany casket as my sister Natalia sobbed from the back of our procession. She was closest to Savio, my youngest brother, but she and Gianni had had their bond, too. Perhaps because she was the baby and the lone girl, the rest of us tended to ignore her, especially our father. Since we’d invited no one else, there were only the five of us in attendance. Once Natalia released her rose—a white one—we offered my deceased brother a moment of silence before traipsing back inside.
“Romeo,” Angelo barked at me without turning around. It rankled to know that he expected such absolute loyalty and devotion, but I still stepped up to walk with him side by side. “Now that we have honored our dead, it is time to take over the Bonifacio family. They must pay for their treachery.”
I did not look over at my father, but it was difficult not to. We had essentially already taken over the Bonifacios since the patriarch and matriarch were dead and each of their children had been taken into our custody. Our underlings had cleared out the valuables inside their house and either sold them or secured them over the past week. I’d even looked on as Angelo tortured both of the surviving Bonifacio sons. Not that I had any sort of problem with doling out suffering, but short of wiping the family from existence, I wasn’t certain what else my father hoped to accomplish.
“The next generation of heirs must be initiated. I will organize your wedding to the Bonifacio girl, so you can begin that process as soon as possible.”
My steps faltered a little, and my father pinioned me with his signature glare. “What’s that?” he demanded, pointing to my cheek, and I lifted my fingers to the three distinct furrows Lucia’s fingernails had left in the short scruff of my beard. I’d cleaned the scratches after parting from her, but while that had stanched the bleeding, the wounds remained open and inflamed.
“Nothing important. You still wish for me to go through with the wedding?”
“Of course,” he snapped. “How else can we mix our blood with theirs? Your children will have the Cavetti name with the traditional Bonifacio genes. The combination will help to make us unstoppable within the organization. It makes no sense to alter that part of Gianni’s plan. It will cement our legacy for all time.”
While I didn’t follow his logic, I wasn’t foolish enough to mention it. “Yes, Father.”
Once we went our separate ways, I found myself irritated by Angelo’s decree. What if I didn’t want to marry Lucia anymore? While killing her no longer appealed to me, she had known something of her father’s plans to kill Gianni and hadn’t informed me, I could tell by her expression. I didn’t mind using her for my own gratification, but marrying her? Now? After everything that had happened? What good would it do?
By the time I neared her room, I’d built up quite a head of steam. It might not be wise to voice my discontent to my father, but Lucia could do little if anything to stop me. Why not take it out on her?
Yet when I arrived, Philippa was just opening the door to leave. Behind her was Lucia, and what I saw brought me up short. Lucia was fully dressed in a modest blouse and skirt kneeling before the statue of Mary high on her northernmost wall. She was praying to the Holy Mother for protection and thanking her with all her heart.
“May you ease the paths of my parents, Lorenzo and Isabella Bonifacio as they come to you in repentance. As well as Gianni Cavetti, who only hoped to bring peace between our twofamiglias. Please continue to watch over and protect us all.Grazie mille, Santa Maria. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
I froze, speechless, standing in Lucia’s doorway, forgetting the fact that Philippa stood beside me. I had seen this image—thispreciseimage—before, yet then it had been my mother. Though my father hadn’t been, Mama had been deeply religious. She was the reason why this statue was in here; Dahlia Cavetti had asked for these alcoves to be built into the walls so she could position a Madonna in every room. While most had been removed by my father, this figurine was one that had remained.
It’d been so many years since I had seen something like this that I could barely breathe. My throat went dry as my nose and eyes prickled uncomfortably—what was happening to me? A great swell of something unnamable rose in my chest, but I didn’t want it, couldn’t bear to feel such a thing after all this time. So I had to distract myself, and the perfect distraction had already knelt inside the room with her back to me.
