Victoria stepped into action, knowing her plans would be put on hold if she didn’t start batting her lashes once again. “Cristiano said it wasn’t a problem, Papa. We’ll be out of the house while your meetings are taking place and we’ll have our security with us.”
“Victoria, you just returned from Sicily. My men have to get used to you two and your wildness again,” Vito tried to argue, but I could tell he was about to give in.
“I promise I’ll be on my best behavior, Papa,” Victoria murmured demurely, and I could have laughed at the thought of my twin’s ‘good behavior’. Jesus Christ, my twin was the most mischievous person alive. “And it’s only a few days until your birthday. I want to buy you something special.”
“Victoria…” She started to pout when his tone said he wasn’t going to give in, which had the old man blowing out a harsh sigh. “Fine. If you must go, then go. But be careful. Do not—I repeat—do not run off on your security men. They are there to protect you.”
“Yes, Papa.” She kissed his other cheek, smiling so brightly the room could have been lit from it alone. “Thank you, Papa.”
He sighed again but gave me a wink. “Watch her.”
“Yes, Papa.”
A throat being cleared had us all turning to find one of Cristiano’s men standing in the doorway. He looked like Secret Service, with the earpiece in his ear, and I could easily pick out which side his gun was holstered on. Left side, and probably a Glock from the shape of it. “Adrian Volkov has arrived, sir.”
As if someone had turned the air-conditioning on, the temperature in the room seemed to grow cooler and I felt my father stiffening. I’d heard the name Adrian Volkov before. My father didn’t clam up when he was talking about work in front of me like he did with Victoria. Volkov was nicknamed ‘the wolf’ among most of the Mafiosi, but I’d never seen him before. I knew he’d been to prison—both in his home country and in the U.S.—but had no idea what for.
“Show him to my office,” Vito informed the man. He didn’t speak again until we were alone once more. With his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed to slits and his shoulders straight, he gave Victoria another hug, then gave me a kiss on the cheek before tapping me on the nose twice more. “Get dressed now, Scarlett. I’ll have a car and my best men waiting for you in twenty minutes. Please watch over your sister, passerotta.”
“Always,” I assured him.
Chapter 2
Scarlett
Back in my room, I showered and pulled on clothes. I would have rather been pulling on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, but Victoria would have only sent me back to change. My happy-go-lucky twin was a stickler for the proper outfit for every occasion and shopping, to her, was a time to dress up just as much as a party was.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, Victoria crossed her legs and turned her head from left to right, appraising me from every angle. “That dress is cute. Where did you get it?”
I glanced down at the simple white dress with a red rose on the skirt. It was long enough to hide the fact that I had a gun strapped to the inside of my thigh, so it fit both my needs and my sister’s requirements for shopping attire. “I don’t know. It was just in my closet, Tor.” I pulled on a pair of red sandals and then grabbed a hair tie so I could put my hair into a ponytail. “It’s probably been in there since we left.”
“Well, for something that is three years old, it looks good on you.” She stood, smoothing out the wrinkles of her yellow sundress that looked like it had been made to fit her slender yet curvy body.
I was in the process of slipping a pair of small hoops into my ears when I noticed the way she was fidgeting with her dress. “What?” My twin didn’t just fidget for no reason. Something was on her mind and she was just waiting for me to make her talk.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” She lifted her lashes and assaulted me with a pair of brown eyes that matched my own, yet held an intensity I didn’t know how to mirror.
I turned away, pretending like I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t want to deal with that shit right now. “When am I ever up for shopping, Tor? I mean, that’s your thing. I’d rather be outside, under a shady tree, reading or something.”
“Stop it, Scarlett.”
Her tone commanded my attention, but I finished securing the earrings before I turned back to her. Putting on a smile that didn’t even come close to my twin’s normal brightness, I took her hands and gave them a firm squeeze. “I’m fine, Tor. I swear. Seeing Ciro won’t be bad. I’ll pretend like the last time I saw him never happened and he’ll go about being his normal, cold self.”
“He’s such an emotionless jackass. I want to shoot him with his own gun and see if he’s actually human.” I preferred her temper to the sadness that had been in her tone just moments before.
Everyone knew I was the temperamental twin, but Victoria was so delightfully happy the majority of the time that they didn’t expect her to have a temper under that sweet little voice of hers. Yet it was her they should worry about. With me, what they saw was what they got, and a lot of them were a little scared of me. But when the wrong buttons were pushed, Victoria Vitucci was more dangerous than our father.
My sister had no qualms about getting her hands bloody. She could slit a person’s throat and smile sweetly while doing it. I wasn’t completely sure our father realized that or not. To him, she was a delicate little flower who should be watched over and protected by everyone, especially me. Because of the severity of her medical condition, he’d always worried after her. The way she reminded him of our mother only made his overprotectiveness of her that much more intense.
My clasp on her hands only tightened. “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I’m not going to chase after Ciro Donati this time around. I learned my lesson. Want to help me move on?”
Her dark eyes brightened once again. “What do you have in mind?”
“Dancing. Lots and lots of dancing.” I gave her a sly wink and released her. “Come on. I think I need something sexy to go with the dancing.”
“Which club?” Victoria was already making plans, and I was thankful her mind was no longer on Ciro.
I let her do her thing. It was going to take all her scheming to get us out of the house later, but it was better for her to find a way to sneak us out than for her to plan the death of our father’s best soldier and capo. To be honest, my sister scared the hell out of me when she lost her temper. I was the fearless one, yet she terrified me in that mood. Probably because I’d seen her at work.
Mentally shaking my head, I grabbed my purse and we headed downstairs. It had taken longer than twenty minutes for me to get dressed, so I was sure our father was about to send a search party for us. A search party that would include Cristiano, and I wasn’t up to dealing with him again right then.
As we descended the stairs, I heard deep voices speaking in low tones. They were speaking in English, but their accents were so prominent I knew it was a heated conversation without having to listen to what they were saying.
“He’s gone MIA. I have all my men looking for him. Every snitch in the city knows that if they see him, I’m to be informed.”
I stopped on the last stair as a new voice joined in the conversation. My heart leapt in my chest but I clenched my hands into fists, forcing myself not to openly react to him. Ciro’s voice had always had the ability to turn my normally calm self into a mass of hormonally induced anxiety.
“Hannigan has first rights to him for causing all that trouble in California and then bringing it here. Make sure it’s taken care of properly, though, Ciro. I don’t want any sloppiness,” Vito said with the coldness I recognized immediately.
Papa was pissed.
“If he’s still on the East Coast, he’s a direct threat to the girls,” Cristiano interrupted. “Should we still let them go out?”
“Victoria was correct when she said it would be wise that they be out of the house while we take m
eetings. The less exposure they have to Volkov, the better,” Papa assured him.
“I’ll send two of my own men with them,” Ciro offered. “Or would you like for me to accompany them?”
“Have you even slept?” Cristiano demanded, sounding concerned for his friend. “You look gray around the mouth.”
“It was a long night. I grabbed a few hours at the warehouse.”
“We shouldn’t be listening to this,” Victoria whispered at my ear. “If they realized we were, Papa would be angry.”
I grimaced, knowing she was right. Even though Papa wasn’t nearly as closed-mouthed about business in front of me, the less we knew about what our father did the safer we were, but I was dying to know what Ciro had been up to. And they shouldn’t have been having their conversation where anyone could so easily overhear, anyway. They had obviously gotten a little sloppy with where they spoke about business while Victoria and I had been away.
“I think I’ll get new shoes,” Victoria said, speaking louder than normal, making sure the three men in the next room knew we were approaching. “I’m thinking red.”
“Good choice,” I murmured.
Cristiano appeared within the next second with Vito and then Ciro right behind him. I kept my focus on my father and brother, refusing to allow myself even a glance at Ciro. If I looked at him right then, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide how much I’d missed him.
The last time I’d seen Ciro played through my head and I swallowed the hurt that tried to choke me. Why was it that this man and only this man had ever been able to touch my dark heart? I would have given him everything if he’d wanted it.
I’d fallen for Ciro when I was eleven. I’d had a crush on him before then. Every girl I knew did, so I couldn’t be faulted for having one as well. Ciro had always been a part of my life. I saw him almost every day until I was eighteen. His father was one of Vito’s closest friends, and advisor. Papa had been named his godfather at birth, just as his own was Cristiano’s. Ciro and Cristiano were best friends practically from birth and Ciro was always at our house.
The day I fell for him, he’d been sitting in the front row of my first—and last—dance recital. His parents were sitting with my father, while he and Cristiano had been off to the side with Dante De Stefano, trying to play it cool while all the girls in my class couldn’t stop gaping at them. I’d stepped out onto the stage for my solo and I’d tripped over my own feet in my excitement to show Ciro what I could do.
Tears had instantly filled my eyes in embarrassment and I’d wanted to disappear. From the side of the stage I’d heard the other girls giggling and whispering about me, but they all shut up the moment Ciro jumped up onto the stage beside me and lifted me into his arms like I was a baby.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured as he’d pressed his lips to my forehead. “You’re the best little dancer I’ve ever seen.”
Innocently, I’d fallen hard then and there and I’d kept falling ever since. It was stupid to think he could have felt the same way and I was tired of waiting for him to open his eyes and realize I was all grown up now. When I was eighteen, I’d broken my heart on him for the last time and I’d been all too willing to move to Sicily to live with my grandmother when Papa had suggested we get to know Nona better.
“Finally,” Cristiano grumbled. “I was starting to think you two didn’t want to leave after all.”
“She was in the shower forever,” Victoria complained, but she was grinning. “Whose money will I be spending today? Yours, Papa?”
He snorted, but there was an indulgent smile on his face for her. “You would break the bank if you had your way. I should have put you on an allowance from the moment you were born instead of letting you have free rein over my money.”
“I have to buy for two most times, Papa. Scarlett would only wear yoga pants and hideous graphic T-shirts if I didn’t.” She held out her hand, wiggling her fingers at him. “Your cards, please, Papa.”
“Don’t you have your own?” Cristiano teased, handing over his own credit card before Vito could reach for his wallet.
“Of course,” Victoria assured him. “But there is a limit and I have so many outfits to buy. We have nothing to wear for the summer here.”
I tried not to roll my eyes at her. Nothing to wear. That was total BS and we all knew it. Our closets were overflowing with dresses that still had the price tags on them. Victoria would donate every one of them though, before filling the racks with new items. She loved working with her charities and donating the contents of her closet—and mine—was just one of the many ways she liked to help out those less fortunate.
“Do you have everything you need?” Vito spoke as Victoria stepped off the last stair to kiss our brother’s cheek.
“Of course, Papa.”
“I’ll take care of her, Papa,” I assured him as I stepped forward to kiss his cheek. As I past Ciro I couldn’t help but pick up the subtle scent of his aftershave and tried to keep my body from reacting, but I couldn’t stop my heart from jumping as that familiar scent brought back so many memories. “Try to be good while we’re gone. No shooting anyone,” I teased to distract myself.
“I’ll try to hold the urge, passerotta,” Papa said with a straight face.
“Am I interrupting?”
I felt all three men tense before I could turn to see who had spoken. I thought I heard Ciro curse under his breath, but I didn’t chance looking at him to confirm if I was right or not. Instead I kept my eyes on my father. The way his face became completely emotionless told me he considered the newcomer an enemy. Turning slowly, I let my eyes fall on the man standing in the doorway that led to my father’s office at the back of the first floor of the house.
It was hard to say which part of the man caught my attention first. He was a few inches shorter than Ciro, who was a beast at six foot six. His black hair was cut short, and there was a dark scruff on his face that suggested he kept it that way. His suit was handmade and expensive, but no more Italian than he was. He was leaner than Ciro, but thicker muscled than Cristiano. The tattoos on his hands looked like gang ink, and I found myself wondering if he had others elsewhere.
His dark eyes went from my father to me. I watched as he ran his gaze from the top of my head to the tip of my shoes, then back again. His appraisal was full of interest, but I was unaffected. Seeing the indifference in my eyes, he turned his gaze to Victoria. The interest that he’d had for me seemed to double in a blink of an eye and the room seemed to grow marginally warmer as Victoria actually stared back with her own interest evident.
“These must be your daughters,” the newcomer who had to be Adrian Volkov said in a voice that had the slightest Russian accent.
The three other men remained close-mouthed, but my twin stepped forward as if they weren’t even there. “I’m Victoria,” she murmured as she offered him her hand.
“Adrian.” His voice deepened when he touched her fingers, his dark eyes flashing with a desire that scorched even me.
I watched with narrowed eyes as Victoria seemed to shiver and left her hand in his. Their eyes stayed locked for a long moment as if they were trapped in their own little world, before Cristiano stepped forward and pulled Victoria back.
His jaw tense, he pushed Victoria toward me, then turned back to our guest. “Shall we?”
Adrian followed Victoria’s every step until she reached my side. Only then did he turn that predatory gaze on my brother. As the two men stared each other down, I could tell that the rumors were true about Volkov. He was a very dangerous man. Then, just as quickly as that dangerous gleam had flashed in his dark eyes, it was replaced with a neutral expression and his lips lifted into a cool smile.
“Lead the way.”
I glanced at Papa as Cristiano disappeared, trying to judge his reaction. Vito’s face remained completely impassive though, until we heard the door to his office close. Then his mask of indifference fell and I saw the anger in his eyes. I coul
dn’t ever remember him looking at either Victoria or me with that look before, but right then he was incensed with my twin.
“Have you lost your damn mind?” he raged as he took hold of Victoria’s arm and turned her to face him. She’d been so lost in watching Volkov walk away she hadn’t even realized what awaited her until right then. “That is Adrian Volkov. He is a violent felon. You are not—I repeat—are not to speak to him ever again.”
“Papa…” Victoria started to argue, but he only tightened his hold on her arm painfully. I watched as her eyes narrowed, too shocked by everything to move.
What the fuck had just happened? Volkov had appeared and tossed everyone upside down. I wasn’t sure I liked it.
Victoria swallowed hard and then nodded. “I understand, Papa.”
Chapter 3
Ciro
If the urge to kill Adrian Volkov hadn’t already been burning through my veins, it became an inferno the second I’d watched that Russian fucker run his eyes down Scarlett’s body. The only thing that had saved him was Scarlett standing there to witness his murder.
I doubted she would have blinked if I had. Scarlett Vitucci was so much like her father, I knew she wouldn’t have flinched if I’d pulled out my Beretta and shot that motherfucker where he stood. I had no desire to show her that side of me, though. I didn’t want her to see what kind of a monster most me were so afraid of.
Vito released Victoria and turned his cold glare on me. “Make sure they get off safely, Ciro. You said you were sending two of your men with them. Your best men.”
I inclined my head. “Yes, sir.”
“Scarlett, watch over your sister.” His coldness seemed to disappear when he lifted his hand and tapped her lovingly on the nose, twice. “Be safe, passerotta.”
“Yes, Papa,” she murmured, and I had to clench my jaw to keep from reacting to her slightly husky voice. Fuck me, her voice was like a softly caressing hand across my cock.