My feet practically run from the office into the café. I take over from Sophie, the young girl at the counter, and start serving customers. Talking to the regulars is my comfort. And right now, it’s also the distraction I need, especially when I can feel the heat ofhisstare on the back of my neck.
Chapter Two
MARCO
Idon’t touch nice things. When I do, they tend to break. And right now, I’m looking at the nicest thing I’ve ever fucking seen. And not touching? Well, that’s fucking hard.
Beautiful doesn’t cut it. This woman is drop-dead gorgeous. Flawless, tanned skin and tall legs that seem to go for miles. Legs I want wrapped around my waist while I ram my cock inside her.
Fuck. This is bad.Helena Valentino is the last thing I should be wanting. If you looked up the definition of “off-limits” in the dictionary, you’d see her face. She couldn’t be anymore off-limits to me. My boss’s little sister.
Oh, and let’s not forget that my job ain’t the corporate kind. No, the man I work for is the underboss of the Valentino Crime Family. A family I’ve been steadily proving myself to, moving up the ladder of, and taking more responsibility for.
This isn’t a life I chose for myself. It chose me. My father was a capo for the Valentinos. I followed in his footsteps. He passed away a few years back, and I’m working to gain the position he left behind. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make my old man proud, and climbing the ranks is what he wanted for me.
I get it. Most fathers wouldn’t want this life for their kid. Mine knew I needed it. Some people are destined for a desk job. Others aren’t, and I fall into the latter category.
Helena smiles and laughs with customers. Why she insists on being here, in the public eye, when there’s been a threat to her life, I will never understand. If it were up to me, I’d lock her away until that threat was handled.
I have no doubt the boss will find the fucker, though, and I’d hate to be in that dipshit’s shoes when he does. There are a few people I wouldn’t willingly go up against in this world, and my boss is one of them. His fiancée, Angelica, is another. The storiesI’ve heard about that woman… Well, they make Lucifer look like an okay guy.
Helena turns and scowls at me. I try not to smile, but it’s hard. She’s really fucking cute when she’s mad. I don’t know what I did to piss her off, outside existing, but I want to push her buttons and see just how angry this little firecracker can get.
“You’re scaring away my customers,” she hisses when she walks past me.
“Good. I’m supposed to,” I tell her.
“No, you’re supposed to not get in my way. And right now, you’re in my way.” She folds her arms over her chest. I’m not sure if she’s trying to be intimidating, but I think Helena is the least intimating Valentino I’ve ever met.
“What would you like me to do?” I ask her. The last thing I need is for her to go back to her brother and say some shit that’ll have me hanging from a rusted hook in his warehouse.
Helena smiles up at me. “Disappear and never let me see your face again.” Her words are delivered in a sweet voice, very contradictory to the message she’s trying to send.
“Yeah, I can’t do that. Boss’s orders. And what’s wrong with my face?” I ask her.
“Nothing. That’s the problem. A face isn’t supposed to be that…” Helena’s hand waves around in a circle motion. “Argh, just… stop scaring away my customers.”
I peer over her shoulder where four women are waiting at the counter, all staring and smiling at me. I’m used to gaining attention from members of the opposite sex. I was blessed with good genes.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m scaring them.” I look back down at Helena.
When she turns around, I hear her groan before she makes her way over to the counter. This is going to be a long fucking night.
Three hours later, Helena locks the door of the café and I follow her down the dark footpath. “Do you always walk home alone this late at night?”
“Why? Planning on becoming my stalker?” she asks me.
“I might.” I lift a shoulder. It’s not like it’s a hardship to watch her.
“Good. Then I’ll have a reason to get my brother to gut you like a fish,” she hisses.
“Ouch. You’re mean, you know that? You look like the girl next door. But fuck, are you mean.” My hand clutches over my heart, and Helena rolls her eyes.
“I’m a Valentino. We’re not supposed to be nice.”
“To outsiders maybe. But newsflash, sweetheart, I’m part of the family,” I remind her.
“Barely,” she says. The fact that the boss is trusting me to protect his sister makes me higher up on the food chain than that, and we both know it.
