Aria laughed.
“She looks pretty, right?” Marcella said, beaming.
Aria stroked Marcella’s head with a nod before she took Amo from Matteo.
“Yes, Luca. I look pretty, don’t I?” Gianna piped up, batting her lashes the same way Marcella always did. She looked like a murderous clown doll.
Matteo chuckled and I gave him an exasperated look.
“I remember a time when your name was whispered in fear…” he said.
“I’m satisfied with the list of people who fear me.”
Marcella came up to me and wrapped her arms around my leg. “Dad, why do people fear you?”
Gianna snorted. Marcella’s eyes darted toward her aunt and she dashed toward her. “Tell me, why?”
I tensed, worried what Gianna would say. She motioned toward me. “Look at him, Marci. He’s a giant. Everyone’s scared of giants, right?”
Marcella regarded me for a moment before she nodded gravely as if truer words had never been spoken. A smile pulled at her mouth and she rushed back toward me. “But I’m not scared of you, Dad!”
I lifted her. “Good.”
Aria shook her head with a grin then pressed a kiss to Amo’s head. “Thanks for taking care of them.”
“I hope you two lovebirds had time for some lovin’.” Matteo wiggled his eyebrows.
“Bye, Matteo,” I said as I stepped into the elevator. Aria joined me with a wave toward her sister and my brother.
Later that day, we settled on the sofa with our kids. Aria read a picture book to Marcella who sat on her lap while I leaned against the backrest with Amo in the crook of my arm. I rubbed his belly gently and was rewarded with a toothless smile and a few leg kicks against my outstretched palm. “You are a strong boy.”
Amusement flashed across Aria’s face before Marcella asked another question about the butterfly featured in her book. They both focused on the image with a small frown and pursed lips, looking so much alike in that moment, my fucking heart throbbed harder. I kissed Amo’s forehead then murmured, “When you’re older, you need to help me protect your sister and mom. They’re too beautiful for this world. We’ll have to kill all the boys who think they are worthy of your sister.”
“What did you say?” Aria asked curiously.
“That I need to invest in more weapons to keep you all safe.”
“I think you and Matteo own enough weapons, not to mention soldiers, to invade a small country. No need for more weapons.”
Marcella tilted her head, her black hair curtaining half of her face and contrasting strongly with her blue eyes and pale skin. Then she smiled.
I raised Amo above my head. “Definitely more weapons, right, Amo?”
He gave me another toothless grin.
FORBIDDEN DELIGHTS
A stepbrother forbidden mafia romance
(Love in Lockdown Charity Anthology, 2020)
Stella is a forbidden fruit Mauro isn’t allowed to taste.
Not only because she isn’t promised to him but also because she’s his stepsister.
She used to be his annoying shadow, the little girl he needed to protect and babysit. Now she’s all grown-up and he can’t stop noticing. Being locked into a panic room with her might be the ultimate test of his self-control…
Mauro has always been her protector and ally until she starts to see him as more. Afraid of his reaction, she hides her attraction. But can she keep doing so when they’re trapped in a small room all alone?
CHAPTER ONE
Mauro
The mafia world was built on rules.
Rules never to be broken. They’d outlasted generations, resisting the ever-occurring changes of modern society. They were like the Colosseum. The foundations of our traditions remained steadfast even as we adapted to our surroundings.
One of those rules was not to desire a girl that wasn’t promised to you, especially if said girl was your stepsister.
As Underboss of Cleveland, my father needed to remarry after his first wife, my mother, died. I was eleven when she passed away, still a boy and yet well-acquainted with death. Growing up in the mafia, especially if your father was one of the Famiglia’s Underbosses and ruled over hundreds of men, you were introduced to the dark underbelly of the business early, to harden you for future tasks.
Father waited exactly the expected year before he married Felicitas and disappeared into their cocoon of wedded bliss, leaving me to deal with something I hadn’t bargained for: a kid-stepsister. The first time I met Stella, she was seven with braces and ridiculous pigtails, and so goddamn shy, she didn’t talk to me for a week after she moved in. That changed quickly though and as her mother began popping out three babies in short succession, forgetting about her oldest daughter’s existence, Stella became my shadow and I, her—at first not so willing—protector and companion.
Stella had always been a kid in my eyes, a girl I needed to protect because we were family, albeit not by blood and not even by choice because nobody asked us before our parents sealed their bond. Being five years my junior, I hadn’t noticed the gradual changes in her body because I didn’t pay any fucking attention to her body. Small shifts right before my eyes just didn’t register. Until Father sent me away to help our family in Sicily in their fight against the other mob famiglias. I was gone for a little over a year and when I saw Stella for the first time after all that time, I did a double take. She rushed toward me with a huge smile and flung herself into my arms. I hugged her back after a moment, suddenly feeling her curves, her breasts pressing against my chest. When I pulled back, I actually checked her out. Something I’d never done. She was Stella, my stepsister, not a girl I checked out. And yet my eyes lingered on all the right places, and fuck, they were spectacular. Stella shared her mother’s breathtaking beauty, but luckily not her self-centered vanity or air-headedness.
Had I just never noticed her curves or had Stella developed them all in only a year?
It seemed impossible. I must have been oblivious, and it was a state I needed to reach quickly again. Stella was completely off-limits. Fuck, we shared a last name. We were family.
After that day, I made an extra effort to not look at her body, focusing only on her face. Yet, even that didn’t help matters. Because Stella’s blue eyes and teasing smile haunted my nights, and sometimes even popped up when I fucked another woman. It was maddening.
Stella had become a fucking star, shining so brightly that she’d burned herself into my mind. No matter what I did, the image of her smile, of her curves, flashed up, even when I closed my eyes. It was like closing your eyes after you’d looked directly at the sun for too long: speckles of light kept dancing against the dark of your eyelids, reminding you of the enticing brightness you’d closed off.
I cleaned my hands of the blood. The cleaners took care of the body and the cut off parts. Torturing Bratva assholes for information was one of the perks of my job, which currently was jack-of-all-trades because at twenty-three, my father wanted to show me the ins and outs of every area of the business in our city before I’d take over from him in a few years.
My phone rang and I dried my hands before I took the call.