Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 27066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
“Matty!” the little girl shouts, wrapping her little arms around the woman’s neck. Matty?
“Delia!” the woman says, kissing the little girl’s cheeks. She props her on her hip. Her child-bearing hips. Fuck. My cock stiffens at the thought of seeding and breeding that woman. Matty.
“Uncle Alberto, Aunt Maria, I’m sorry I’m late,” she says, kissing each of their cheeks. “Uncle Fabrizio, Aunt Dawn, Mama, Daddy.” She kisses each of their cheeks while still holding the child.
“No worries, child. How was work?” Maria asks, getting another plate from the sideboard.
“It sucked.”
“I don’t know how many times I’ve told you. You don’t have to work at that God-awful club, Matty,” Nico says as she sits down directly across from me. Delia is still in her lap.
“I know, Daddy, but I like working. I can’t sit around and wait for whatever comes next for me,” she says. She feeds her from her own plate before taking any for herself. She was made to be a mother. The mother of my children. “Who are they?” she asks, finally noticing Diarmuid and me. Her gaze landed on my brother first, but it didn’t linger, not like it is lingering on me.
“This is Dorian and Diarmuid O’Shaughnessy. Up from Boston to discuss business,” Alberto says.
“The family business, pew, pew,” Delia says, making finger guns and then blowing on them. Everyone, me included, burst out laughing.
“I’m Matilde. Everyone calls me Matty. It’s nice to meet you,” she says.
“Nice to meet you, Matty. I’m Diarmuid,” my brother says in his flirtatious voice. He picks up women easily, and I fucking hate that. For some reason, the thought of my brother with this girl makes me feel murderous. Fuck that noise. I punch him in the thigh. His eyes connect with mine, and I let him know that she’s mine. He just smirks at me. Motherfucker.
“The pleasure is all mine, Matilde,” I tell her, my voice husky and filled with innuendo that, thankfully, no one but her picks up on. Her beautiful whiskey-colored eyes widen.
I’m not going to be just anyone to her. I’m going to be everything. She will depend on me for every damn thing she wants or needs. Food, water, clothing, and pleasure. Especially pleasure. I don’t give a fuck if she already belongs to someone else. They will die, and she will be mine. A plan begins to form in my mind as I go back to eating.
A very fucked up plan indeed.
TWO
MATILDE VITALI
THREE DAYS LATER
Despite being twenty-four, I still live at home, and I expect that I will until I get married; I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t marry a man in this life. I want normal. I want to live a life where getting shot isn’t exactly an option. Don’t get me wrong, I know that people from all walks of life have the opportunity to get shot, but the chance is a hundred percent greater when your whole life revolves around crime.
I overslept and am now late for my shift at The Harem, one of my family's many clubs. The Harem is a strip club in Manhattan. It’s a high-tech fancy schmancy place that boasts strippers of all shapes and sizes. I’m not a stripper, though. That’s where my dad drew the line. He’s allowing me to work but under strict guidelines. I bartend from three to three every day but Monday. We are dark on Mondays. I finished college in three years with a degree in fine arts, but Broadway roles are few and far between for chubby girls like me. I’ve had them, but I’m always a chorus girl or the sidekick. I’m leading lady material; I know I am. I just need to find the perfect role to showcase it. I’ve also thought about film and television, but attending thirty-plus monthly auditions is disheartening. I know I have to put in my dues, but I’m afraid it’s time to hang up my dreams. Thus, the boredom. I begged my dad and then my uncles for this opportunity. They all hated the idea of me working there. I knew they would. My cousin, Albie, met his wife, Autumn, there a few years ago. He made her quit the night they met. The rules my dad put in place for me are a small price to pay to stave off the boredom. I’m never to be at the club without my bodyguard, Terancio. He’s normally a hitman, but his wife requested that he take some time off from so much killing because she’s pregnant. It all worked out in the end. He protects me like he’s my big brother instead of the job. Terancio is waiting outside in the driveway when I finally make my appearance.
“You’re cutting it close, Matty,” he says, chuckling as I slide into the passenger seat of his SUV. “That uniform is something else.” I know he’s saying that more like a brother than anything else. He loves his wife so much; he’d never stray. Vitali men, both blood and those who pledge fealty to us, are honorable men, despite what they do for a living.