I didn’t understand Lucia. Hell, I didn’t understand myself around her. The meeting earlier, it had been last minute and required both myself and my father to be present. Dominic had been pissed to be left out, but that was too bad. I knew what Dominic wanted: anything I had. Including becoming our father’s successor. But it didn’t work that way. It would have been Sergio, firstborn, as the successor, but he’d been killed, so I was next in line. As little as I wanted to be the boss of the Benedetti family, Dominic taking on the role I wanted even less. My little brother had a mean streak, a violence inside him that when unleashed was terrifying to witness. Some days, I wasn’t sure I knew him at all, wasn’t sure I wanted to know the depths of his darkness.

I stepped into the shower, the water so hot, it scalded me. I turned it down.

My father, Roman, and I had been the only three of the Benedetti’s at today’s meeting. There was talk about a new group forming. Luke DeMarco was a problem. Or he could become one. Was it vengeance that fueled him or a lust for power? I’d bet the latter. Given that one DeMarco daughter wanted nothing to do with the family business and the other belonged to the enemy, Luke stood to gain a whole lot if he were able to gather enough support and rouse them to war. Which was exactly what he was attempting to do. And he’d come farther than any of us had expected. He’d gained supporters from the Pagani family, our fiercest opponent of the two Sicilian families.

Was Lucia in any way involved? I’d seen the look exchanged between Luke and Lucia at the church, but that had fueled a different sort of burn. One of jealousy. Why did I feel so possessive of her? Why did I care? I could have any woman I wanted, as many as I wanted. Our contract bound her to me with no restrictions on me. My father had orchestrated it, enjoying the idea of having a living trophy under his thumb he could torture as he pleased.

Thoughts of my father made my stomach turn. I switched off the shower and grabbed a towel. My eyes locked on the door connecting my room to Lucia’s. I bypassed it, climbed into bed, and laid there with the sheet tossed aside. I closed my eyes and gripped my cock, the image of her standing before me, naked, suds sliding off her creamy skin, her hard little nipples, her shaved cunt. I wanted to see all of her, to take my time. To lay her out and open her. Smell her, taste her. Sink my cock inside her.