“Were you two collected as well?” I ask, curious as to how they found themselves with Lorenzo and Matteo.
Piper leans forward, her elegant posture a striking contrast to the mischievous smile playing on her lips. “Well, Lorenzo spotted me once in a coffee shop and became obsessed,” she says, twirling her wineglass slowly. “I was a student at Georgetown, finishing my degree, and he engineered job rejections and interviews until I had no choice but to interview with him.”
My mouth falls open. “That’s… that’s stalking,” I stammer.
“Oh, absolutely,” she agrees with a serene smile that doesn’t match her words. “He manipulated my entire career path and kept tabs on me for a while before we even met officially.”
“And you’re… okay with that?” I ask, stunned.
“Now I am,” she admits. “Back then, I was terrified. And furious. But somehow, along the way…” She trails off, her eyes softening. “He saw parts of me no one else ever had. Theambition, the ruthlessness I kept hidden. He didn’t want to change me—he wanted to unleash me.”
There’s something in her expression that makes my stomach flip—a possessiveness that mirrors what I’ve seen in Lorenzo’s eyes when he looks at her. She doesn’t just tolerate his obsession; she revels in it.
“My story’s not that dramatic,” Raven interjects, patting her rounded belly. “Just a one-night stand that went sideways when I stole his lighter.”
I nearly choke. “You stole Matteo’s lighter? Matteo Russo?”
She grins, utterly unrepentant. “It was my trophy. Or the price for giving him the best sex he’ll ever have. It’s all about perspective.”
“What did he do?” I can’t even imagine Matteo’s reaction to being stolen from. The thought alone makes my skin crawl with fear.
“Oh, he tracked me down, obviously,” she says casually, as if discussing the weather. “First, he showed up at my job, and when I ran out on him, he decided to almost kick my door down in the middle of the night.”
“Really?” I prompt, unable to look away from her animated face.
“Yep,” she grins, popping the p.
She leans back in her chair like the memory amuses her.
“He said I owed him a favor,” she explains. “He’s the Favor Collector, after all. And my favor was to be his fake girlfriend to help find out who wanted to kill him. Huh, guess it was a smidge dramatic.”
“Everything with you is dramatic, Lee,” Piper laughs.
Raven nods eagerly as if it was a compliment. “Dang straight.” She shoots her friend a finger gun. Then her smile turns private, secretive. “It didn’t stay fake for long.”
“And now you’re having his babies,” I observe, nodding toward her stomach.
“Beautiful twins,” she confirms, her expression softening as she rubs her belly. “Due in two months. Anyway, my point is Matteo might be an unpredictable firestarter. But he’s everything I never knew I needed.”
I look between them, these two beautiful, confident women who seem so at ease with the darkness in their men. Women who didn’t grow up in this world either. Yet somehow they look completely at home in it.
“They’re not good men,” Piper says, as if reading my thoughts. “Not by most standards. They’re possessive, controlling, dangerous. But with us…” She looks at Raven, who nods in understanding.
“With us, they’re something else entirely,” Raven finishes for her. “Something both better and worse.”
I think of Raffaele’s hands on me—sometimes gentle, sometimes rough, but always making me feel more seen than I’ve ever been. The way he insists on my beauty when all my life I’ve been told the opposite. The chess games where he’s given me choices but also forced me to think, to assert myself.
“They’re obsessed with us,” Piper says, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. “But the secret no one talks about? We’re just as obsessed with them.”
The admission sends a shiver down my spine because I recognize the truth in it. Despite everything—how we met, the circumstances of our engagement—I can feel myself falling deeper into whatever this is between Raffaele and me.
“So,” Piper says, breaking the momentary silence with a grin. “Now that we’ve shared our sordid beginnings—tell us more about you and Rafe. Does he do that thing where he watches you while you sleep? Enzo does that. It’s creepy but also kind of hot.”
I laugh despite myself, the knot of tension in my chest loosening for the first time since we arrived. These women understand something I’m only beginning to grasp—that there’s a strange freedom in belonging to someone who wants you beyond reason, beyond sanity.
“I don’t know,” I admit, my fingers still playing with the diamonds at my throat. “But he always has to sleep with his arm around my waist, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear in the night.”
Sitting here and sharing these details feels surreal. Amazing, but surreal all the same. But when I look at Piper and Raven, I just know they understand. None of them grew up in the life the Russo men did. We’re all outsiders who somehow caught their attention.
