It was our first meeting, and even though I usually moved fast when I wanted a woman, slowly in the bedroom, I wanted to take my time with this one outside of it. She was worth it. Her eyes were warm pools and her mind fascinating, but she mostly wanted to know about me. She asked about my life, how it felt togrow up in Luca Fausti’s shadow. A question no woman had ever cared to ask me (no man either), and I found it freeing to talk about.
I found her freeing.
Before either of us knew it, midnight struck, and I offered to cook something for her the next time we were together. Not pasta. That would come in time.
She hesitated, and I had to catch her before she fully pulled away from me. I set my hand over her delicate one, but somehow, I knew her hands were as powerful as her spirit. “It will be edible,” I vowed.
“How about you come back tomorrow?” She slipped her hand from mine, rushing to fix her hair. “During the day?”
I took her hand before it came down and placed a chaste kiss on her knuckles. “Prometto,” I said, standing to leave. Before I did, I went to the car and gifted her a bottle of perfume.
“It is sensual,” I said, bringing it to her nose, watching in fascination as she closed her eyes and inhaled. “It matches your hair, ah?”
She thanked me, and I walked her to her door and waited as she shut and locked it. I could see her outline in the window, silhouetted by the buttery light from the farmhouse. She was watching me leave. My heart tugged in my chest as I grew closer to the Ferarri. It felt as if a part of me had been missing, and this woman had filled the cold emptiness with soft radiance.
This—she—was the first moment in my life that had ever filled a void inside of me.
It was instant.
Powerful.
And a barb did not even have to pierce me on the inside for me to follow it forever.
The feeling came as subtle as a move of her foot, but as powerful as the reaction to her entire dance. As the wind whipped through my hair and romantic music played on my radio, Ithought back to the ballet, how she had moved me then. How she had moved me to stand, and tears had fallen from my eyes.
She was less than half my size and could move me with just a blink of her eye. My memories of her were no haunting ghost, forcing me to follow every time I remembered.
She was life.
Moving in and out of my beating heart, my bloodstream, my lungs. She brought about deep feelings—what it meant to live, and how it must feel to know love and to be loved.
However, that deep, rumbling voice on the other line was going to be a problem.
I sighed.
Life always came at the price of death.
If the man attempted to stop me from getting closer to mybella, I would kill him.
Chapter 13
Time Reveals All at Its Own Pace
Family business took me away most of the next day. A marriage arrangement between a Fausti man and a woman in Sicily. We had branches all over Italy, and each branch was broken down into clusters. Each cluster had a leader, and from there, each “family” had a boss, but each of those bosses answered to the leader of the cluster. The leader of the cluster collected dues from each separate family.
The Fausti family operated as a royal family would as its highest point. Hierarchy was king and ruled above all. Our branch of it had ruled the family for years.
My grandfather was king over the entirefamiglia. His word was law. And he had earned the right to enforce our rules as he saw fit—the more creative a king got with the punishment he doled out, the more respected he was. He chose time. Place. And how the sentencing would go. There were times he would sentence on the spot. Times when he would take days or months to ponder the situation. Then there were times when a jury would be called in.
Our ownfamiglia.
We challenged each other at times for offenses we felt were acts of misconduct. Sometimes we drew swords, as we did in theolden days, or even took our quarrels to the racetrack, as we did then. My grandfather had declared a no-swords rule after my grandmother asked it of him. Perhaps she had thought it barbaric. Sometimes money was on the line. Sometimes life and death.
It was not a system all crime families could honor for as long as we have.
TheFausti famigliaguarded their ways as fiercely as they guarded their honor, loyalty, and blood. This was where our motto was born.La mia parola è buona come il mio sangue. My word is as good as my blood.The blood in our veins was so rich with all the things money could not buy, it would be dishonorable to have to spill a droplet of it for something we considered disrespectful. The older men in our family, who got this from an even older generation, and so on, were known to say proudly,What do have to be afraid of? Liars are cowards. These are the only men who lie. I vigliacchi!Faustis have the hearts of lions!
We were ruthless in the face of challenges and passionate toward our women.
