Page 36 of Claimed Through Deception

I am betraying everything I ever stood for.

I swore I would never be my mother. I swore I would be independent. I swore I would never let a violent, controlling man hold power over my body or my mind. And yet, here I am. Crying in a dark room over a mafia boss who belongs to a woman born in a castle.

"I'm sorry," I whisper into the dark, the apology meant for the ghost of the little girl who watched the rain hit the porch. "I'm so sorry.

12

Niccolò

Caterina Falco is a noose tightening around my neck.

I sit behind my mahogany desk, staring at the locked safe in the corner of the room. The engagement ring sits inside it. Three carats. Flawless cut. It cost more than most men make in a decade. It means absolutely nothing to me.

Every time I close my eyes, I don't see Caterina’s perfect, aristocratic smile. I see Livia.

I see her pinned against the wall in the service corridor, her chest heaving, her eyes burning with a hatred so deep it hollowed me out. Go back to your fiancée. You want a whore you can press against the wall in the dark? Buy one. But do not touch me.

Her words gnaw at my sanity, driving me feral.

She hasn't spoken a word to me since that night. Three days. She brings my coffee. She dusts my shelves. She moves through my private quarters with her eyes fixed firmly on the floorboards, treating me like a ghost. I built a cage to trap her, but she locked herself inside her own mind, and she swallowed the key.

The frustration is tearing my operations apart just to find an outlet for the rage.

The heavy oak doors to my office open.

Enzo walks in, followed by Alessio and two of my Capos, Dante and Silvio. Between them, they drag a man. It is Salvo, one of my lieutenants from the harbor. He is bleeding from a split eyebrow, his clothes rumpled and stained with grease. Dante and Silvio throw him onto the center of the Persian rug. Salvo hits the floor hard, groaning as he clutches his ribs.

"Explain," I hum.

"The shipment from the Greeks," Enzo states, stepping to the side. "It didn't make it to the warehouse. Salvo was in charge of the transport. He took a detour through the narrows. The Irish ambushed the trucks."

I lean forward, resting my forearms on the desk. "You lost the guns."

Salvo scrambles to his knees. He is shaking. He looks at my face and knows he is already a dead man.

"Don Niccolò, listen to me," Salvo begs, his words tripping over each other. "I had a tip. They said the main route was being watched by the feds. I made a judgment call to protect the cargo. I didn't know the Irish had the narrows blocked off."

"A judgment call," I repeat.

"I can fix it," Salvo gasps, wiping blood from his eye. "Give me two days. I know where they stash their stolen cargo. I'll get a crew together. I'll get it back."

Alessio scoffs, leaning against the doorframe. "You lost two million dollars’ worth of automatic weapons because you got spooked by a rumor, Salvo. You don't get two days."

I stand up. Salvo flinches, sinking back on his heels. Dante and Silvio stiffen, their hands dropping closer to their holstered weapons. They know my moods. They know the violent, unpredictable edge I have been walking all week.

I walk around the desk.

I don't pull my gun. I don't need it. I step up to Salvo, grab him by the lapels of his jacket, and haul him off the rug.

He cries out as I slam him backward into the heavy wooden bookshelves. The impact shakes the room. Books tumble from the shelves, hitting the floor around us.

"You made a judgment call with my property," I growl, my forearm pressing hard against his windpipe.

Salvo’s face turns an ugly shade of red. He claws at my arm, his boots kicking uselessly against the baseboards.

"Please," he chokes out.

The rage blinds me. It isn't just about the guns. It is about the lack of control. It is about the ring in the safe. It is about a maid in a black uniform who looks right through me. Everything in my life feels fractured, and this pathetic, bleeding man is standing right in the blast zone.