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It brightened, like a star against the deepening night, when I watched her alone on the Cavallaro compound, chatting away with the chef’s dog in the backyard, lying in the warm grass instead of on top of one of the lush chaise longues by the pool, staring up at the sky as if the clouds were art.

It was more than her spectacular beauty, though that moved me just fine. It was the sense I gathered as I watched her for nearly every minute of the four days we were in Sicily, that she was a caterpillar on the brink of metamorphosis. One little push against that sweet skin would split her in half, and from the shell, a perfect woman might emerge.

It was fanciful thinking for a serial-killing madman.

The first thought of its kind to ever cross my heavily programmed mind.

I missed checking in with Lando that second day on assignment, showing up at the meeting place two hours late because I had lost track of time watching Fiammetta poring over art history in the open window of her bedroom, dragging one of the maids into her perusal until they were both laughing over the images.

Strike one after a lifetime of obedience.

They didn’t know how she would change me, then.

The idea of marrying Dario off to the Sicilian princess to lure the Cavallaros into a false sense of security was too prime an opportunity to pass up.

Besides, Lando hadn’t looked into my eyes or asked me a personal question since I nearly died at nine years old. I had ceased to exist to him as a human and had become a tool.

Tools didn’t have feelings.

It took me by surprise too.

Even though the initial interest hit me like a hammer between the eyes, it took years for me to acknowledge my obsession. I watched Edgemont House—her—even when I wasn’t supposed to. When I had to go out of town for the first time after she moved in, I installed my own cameras at the manor and paid an associate I trusted to stalk her for me, texting in updates every hour no matter how boring.

I knew everything about Fiammetta Ferretti except for where she disappeared sometimes instead of going into her graphic design office. With everything turning up shit for the Outfit and as the primary fixer, assassin, and secret weapon of the Family, I didn’t have the time to trail her the way I wanted to.

So she had her secrets, but then, they were nothing compared to mine.

It was only a lifetime of dodging bullets that had me sliding to the smooth concrete on my knees under the shot she fired at my head. I was grateful for the sweatpants I’d dragged on to chase after her as the fabric enabled me to slip the few feet over the floor directly in front of her. Before she could fire another shot, I lunged at her, powering her onto her back and straddling her torso so my knees pinned her hands before she could properly struggle.

Now that she was secured, I casually leaned back to pry the gun from her hand and lifted it between us, emptying the bullets onto her chest before they pinged musically to the floor on either side of us.

She stared up at me like an ancient fury, a mythological creature built and powered by rage and revenge. Her mahogany hair was twisted into ropes and curls around her pale face, eyes enormous and black with fear as she snarled up at me and struggled.

“Get the fuck off me!” she demanded, writhing.

Over my shoulder, I heard Ciro gently close the door and the muffled sound of him directing the other guards to give us space.

Cesare might have been Dario’s man, but Ciro had always been mine.

“Settle the fuck down,” I ordered Fiammetta calmly after she thwacked her head dangerously against the hard floor.

“Vaffanculo,” she cursed me to fuck myself in the ass in Italian and then spat up at me.

Unfortunately for Fia, my reflexes had me rearing back so the globule fell back down onto her own cheek.

Her furious flush deepened to vermillion and spilled down her neck to her chest, mostly exposed in the black robe that had fallen open in her writhing. For a moment, I was reminded of the way she’d moved under me just an hour ago, and my cock twitched. It seemed no matter the circumstances or how many times I took her, I would never tire of sinking inside this woman.

Giving into impulse, I bent to lick her spit off her cheek and then nipped at the satiny skin in sharp rebuke. “If you calm down, I will explain things to you. Otherwise, I will lock you in here until you come to your senses.”

“My friends will find me,” she promised. “You’re not the only one with power under this roof.”

I laughed, and the sound was so rusty it hurt my throat. She was always making me do that.

Laugh.

Before Fia, I hadn’t had anything to laugh about since boyhood.

“No one will come for you, Fiammetta, because no one will be searching. After I’ve explained the situation, you are going to get up off this cold floor of your own accord and follow me back to bed. In the morning, you will get up and resume your life as you’ve always done. Nothing will change.”