To test my theory, I moved from one side of the opera house to the other—and her eyes seemed to follow me, like I was holding a light in the darkness, even though everything she did flowed with her performance. I couldn’t make a move without her feeling it, just like there was no doubt that I existed because she did.
“Actress” should be added to her resume because there was no way anything we said to one another was getting lost in translation. Not when the connection we shared pulled us together like blood to veins. That was to be expected of her, though. Her paternal great-grandmother had been a famous actress in Italy. Not to mention the other beautiful and famous people on both sides of her family.
Mia Bellarosa, princess of the infamous Faustifamiglia, felt me deep within her bones. She felt the history between us, thenowthat was calling to her, and the future that belonged to the both of us as soon as we answered.
The moment I stepped foot inside this opera house, I said hello for the both of us.
They called her the Princess of the Fausti Family. I was here to claim her as my Queen.
There was just one problem. Or maybe two, depending on her reaction to me showing up.
I was also here to protect her. Become her knight in shining armor. Because someone wanted my queen dead.
Chapter2
Saverio
The excitement of the night hadn’t faded, even though the show was over. If anything, it had only increased. I knew it would. Mia’s family was as big as mine, and most of them had showed up for her performance in Paris. Her dressing room was a good size, but with her father, brothers, and uncles, it filled up. They were all tall men with wide shoulders, but that wasn’t what made the room feel cramped.
It was the sense of protectiveness they carried with them toward the princess of the Fausti family.
I’d have to earn my place in her world through them, to a certain degree. “To a certain degree” because the most dangerous battle was Mia herself. She was stubborn. Willful. And out to prove—to me—that the connection between us didn’t exist. Because she didn’t want it to.
“It’s a war I’m willing to fight,” I said to the picture of her framed in gold out in the grand hallway. “It’s a cause I’m willing to die for.”
An older couple who had been chatting about her mamma’s picture, which had been set up next to Mia’s, gave me a strange look. When I met their eyes, they turned up their noses and headed toward the exit of the opera house.
From an outsider’s perspective, I studied the photographs as the older couple had been doing. There was no doubt Mia Bellarosa had Fausti blood racing through her veins. Her hair was long and wavy, a dark brown with tiny sparks of gold where the light touched it. Her skin was a beautiful shade of warm olive. It brought her slender features to life. Her lips, though, were luscious.
I ran my tongue over mine, remembering how hers had felt. How her mouth had tasted. How I would kill for another hit of her sweetness.
My eyes rose from her lips and stilled on her eyes. They were a shocking green that always came close to making me stumble back. Some people called them wicked, claimed they knew too much with only a look. It was easy to agree, to feel something move through me when I stared into their depths for too long. The feeling was invasive, as if all my secrets were on display for her to know without permission.
The difference between me and the world, though, was that I craved for those eyes to see right through me. To see through the man that some called coldblooded. I wanted her to find my secrets and understand why I had them.
She was the only person in the world who could.
Mia’s eyes were a replica of her mamma’s, as well as her talent to dance, and both of those things had found her father, Brando Fausti, at the center of many wars. Even ones amongst his family.
It was no secret that Mia seemed to carry that same sense of danger with her. Who she was, and not only her last name and what it meant, seemed to be dictating her future. And, therefore, mine.
I’d trained most of my life to protect her. I’d become a high-ranking solider in the Fausti family, knowing one day her safety would be mine and mine alone. I also knew that getting in tight with them meant that they would accept me more easily into the fold once my intentions were made clear. It was a well-known fact that the Faustis had more sons than they did daughters, and when a daughter was born, she was protected like the Italian princess she was.
“Saverio.”
I turned to find Vincenzo, my mentor, striding up to me. His black and silver hair was slicked back into a ponytail. It did nothing to lessen the severe set of his face that he usually wore. Vincenzo was a trained killer, the highest-ranking one in the family. He was also blood related to the woman I’d been staring at in the picture.
As one of the youngest soldiers to rise in ranks as fast as I did, I was directly under him. Which meant that Mia was going to be spending a lot of time with me from now on.
I grinned, and Vincenzo narrowed his eyes at me.
“Why are you smiling?” he said in Italian as he reached into his pocket, probably looking for a smoke. He’d quit, but after the first threat against Mia’s life was delivered, he started up again.
“I didn’t,” I said. “I grinned.”
He waved me off. “Your mouth says one thing, but your eyes say another.” He gave up the search and gave me a pointed look. “Unless you found the motherfucker who is sending these threats, you should have no reason to smile. Or even grin.”
“That’s how you got all of those wrinkles,” I said, motioning to his face. “I can take the job seriously and grin when the mood strikes.”
