Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
My loyalty could not be bought by Donato or anyone else. If there was one thing I was good at, though, it was the politics of it all. So, I would go through with his marriage. He’d sell his niece into the lion’s den, and with her virginity, he’d assume he was buying a seat at the table. All he would buy was a place bowing at my fucking feet. And the girl? She would serve a purpose, but I wouldn’t touch her. She’d be taken care of until I no longer needed her, a pretty pawn locked in a tower. And she’d accept it because she had been bred to submit, trained to serve. The thought both annoyed and excited me.
When I closed my eyes, I pictured a faceless girl spread out for me, submissive, ready to take whatever I gave her. My dick hardened, and I forced the image away, a trace of disgust rising through the layer of indifference I lived in. That girl wouldn’t be much better than a whore, stripped of choice, sold to whoever her father deemed fit. And the fact that I was what The Outfit deemed fit, with my reputation…it didn’t say a lot for how much Sergio Donato valued his niece. But that was my line—thick, black, and unpassable. Choice. I wanted willing submission, for a woman to beg for my dick, not a terrified virgin. Still, the primal part of me roared at the thought of her blood on my cock.
2
Emilia
Water pressed in around me, the silence in the darkness absolute. Cold. Peaceful. My skin numbed, and my mind emptied as my lungs screamed for air. I had been right here so many times and wondered what would happen if I just opened my mouth and inhaled the cool waters. It was a dark whisper in the back of my mind, a curiosity I would never indulge. When my heart pattered beneath the rush of adrenaline, I kicked my legs and broke the surface. Brilliant sunshine assaulted my vision just in time for me to take in the wooden jetty and the figure now hurtling along it. My brother, Renzo, spotted me, and a wicked grin crossed his lips as he launched into the air. I screamed when he cannon-balled into the lake only a few feet away from me.
“Asshole.”
He laughed as he surfaced, and I splashed him before swimming to the jetty and hauling myself out of the water. Sunlight glittered over the lake that seemed to stretch endlessly to the horizon—the jewel of Chicago, and for me, the only decent thing about my home. Not that I’d ever really been allowed to explore the city. My parents’ lakeside mansion was my own personal prison.
Renzo splashed me as he lazily backstroked past in his ridiculous flamingo swim shorts. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. My youngest brother was pretty much the only person who could bring a smile to my face these days.
“Is there a reason you’re annoying me?”
“Yep. Dad wants to see you in his office. Dun-dun-dun,” he hummed dramatically.
With a roll of my eyes, I lay down on the jetty, and he laughed. Renzo had given up trying to get me to obey my father years ago. “How long do you think it will be until Luca shows up?”
My father would absolutely send my oldest and most-loyal brother to retrieve me when Renzo didn’t return.
“I decided to forgo waiting for you to fail, Renzo.”
I jerked upright and glanced over my shoulder at the sound of Luca’s voice. Dammit, not even any time to give him the runaround.
His great hulking form was planted on the jetty, blocking my path. I’d have to swim the width of Lake Michigan to escape him. I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to—
“Emilia,” he growled like a damn bear. “Don’t even think about it.” He tried to seem menacing, but I didn’t miss the way his hands had subtly moved to cover his crotch. He might have been big, but I was fast, and he knew it. “Father wants to see you. If you fight me, you know I’ll catch you in the end, and you’ll just make it worse on yourself.”
On a sigh, I glanced at Renzo, and he smirked as though he could read my mind. Sometimes I liked to fight on pure principle, but Luca was right; there was no getting out of it in the end. And just when I was having a nice day.
“See, I did relay the request,” Renzo said, swimming up to the jetty and hoisting himself out of the water.
If I’d asked him to run off into the woods and hide from Luca and Father with me, he would have, though, and that was why Ren was my favorite. He might have been Made and indoctrinated into my family’s crime cult, but he was fun and loyal.