I was minding my own business as an undercover FBI agent and Interpol liaison when a man walked into my life. It’s a strange thing to look at someone and know you should never have met him.
Isaias di Nascimbeni, son of a mobster. Beautiful, ruthless, passionate. He was the king of his world, the god of his existence. Or that’s what he believed. It took me a minute to see through him.
My team and I were in the process of unraveling the entire Mobespierre Sanguine slavery ring when Isaias sauntered in. He had the air of someone entitled. He stepped on my business, tap-danced on my goals. Just by his presence, he jeopardized four years of undercover work put in by dozens of specialized agents in the U.S. and even more in Italy and India.
At one point, my frustration ran so high, I was inches from arresting him to get him out of my hair. The only problem was I couldn’t get him out of my head.
When the wellbeing of thousands of young women is at stake, intense fascination with a man is irrelevant: I woke up every morning telling myself this, until Love Child.
Isaias, the expert manipulator. Even me, he got, despite my training in how to dodge psychological sinkholes. Sure, it didn’t take long before I learned Aurora was a setup. It didn’t take long before I learned the kitten trap wasn’t Isaias-approved either.
I clear my throat of sadness as I pull the lipstick out of my purse and press it to my lips, a bright coral red that’s creamy enough to look glossy in my hand mirror. I want to look my best today.
I stop in the hallway, waiting for a crying mother with a son under her arm to pass. White tiles disappear under my feet as I walk toward a steel elevator. I wait for it to arrive. Check for sleep at the corner of an eye though I haven’t had much of it since Isaias fell, two weeks ago, in what international news calls “the biggest blood bath in mafia history.”
I press my finger against a tear so it doesn’t ruin my mascara. In the mirror, I watch it flow over the tip of my digit and drip to the floor. That’s better.
They call it Il Palazzo Rosso now, in Italy. The Red Palace instead of the Pink Palace. When I gave the go-signal, I thought I knew what I needed to extract the innocent and arrest the Santa Colombini.
Fifty men waiting for us inside Il Palazzo? Not exactly. The place swarmed with Colombini when we arrived, and Mobespierre Sanguine came out of the woodworks upstairs and in the attic. A survivor admitted in interrogations that the plan had been to wipe out as many of the Nascimbeni and their loyals as possible. Whoever got Isaias had been promised a big cash reward.
The elevator arrives, gliding open with a slow creak. It’s older than it should be in such a well-kept, distinguished building.
Isaias. He was in the way at the St. Tatiana, always there when the shipments arrived. The Nascimbeni’s involvement at the docks was another milestone leading up to us hitting the path of blood together. That path ended with hell on earth at a palace in Venice. I wish I’d known.
I had to keep my cards hidden—confidentiality is part of my job—but by the time I was ready to leave Isaias behind, my boss took notice of him.
It was when Isaias stole Rain from Mobespierre Sanguine that he became a puppet for the bigger cause. We let him pull strings inside his micro-cosmos, make rock stars act like porn stars, and while he did, we pulled his strings. Does a noble goal always justify the methods? My heart has been a stone for weeks.
My Isaias never lost the edge of a hard-ass. For those he loved, he killed without hesitation. He claimed he left his father’s clan because he was sick of being under his thumb, but I’m damn sure that wasn’t the real reason.
Isaias wanted to live a life as an honest citizen, a businessman like everyone else, someone who didn’t need a gun, who didn’t need to look over his shoulder. A man who, someday, could be worthy of his child.
The elevator dings past the second floor. Then it slows on the third. I clutch my chest over my heart, because I’m not sure I’m ready for this. No one is outside when the door slides open. There’s an orange three-seater perpendicular with a two-seater in the same color. A utilitarian coffee table with a few stacks of flyers on top of the wooden surface. Birch? No. Most likely pine.
Isaias. That burn he kept under wraps exploded with me. To him, making love meant showing love. Weeks later, if I close my eyes, I still feel his fingerprints where he last touched me. I wish I could have slowed time at the Palazzo Rosa and sunk inside his arms. Isaias was formidable back there, courage so utterly selfless.
Ten years ago, an overly brave sixteen-year-old chose to have drunken sex with another. And when their one night created a new future, they both knew he couldn’t be his daughter’s father.
I walk down the corridor slowly, at first. His whole family will be there, and I’ll be the only outsider, someone he’d found worthy of his love and protection.
In the name of justice, my men got him shot. Shoulder. Back. Lung. A bullet grazed his head before we could incapacitate Amedeo.
There is such a thing as soulmates, and Fate has a sense of humor. She aligned the stars so an undercover agent and a Mafioso crashed and melted together on the same course. Look what it led to.
Law and Crime go hand in hand. They do—they really do. Just, have they ever shared such soul-shaking love before?
My pace slows. I’m finally here. In front of me, a slight girl with long dark hair stands in the doorway. She slides her back against the frame on one side, gnawing on a small painted fingernail.
She wears Minnie Mouse tights and pink little shoes with bows on them that match the color of Minnie’s ribbon. Her hair is meticulously braided, resting perfectly down her chest so it meets the bottom of her shirt. The shirt is pink too. It’s almost overly girly with lace and flowers in the exact color of her shoes.
Her green eyes are tainted with grief. Ariadna has seen horrors no human being should be privy to. At nine, she has suffered unspeakable losses, watched her family kill and die in her own home.
Those beautiful eyes, so much like Isaias’, light up as she sees me. I lower to my haunches and open my arms as if she were a small child. Ariadna emits a small giggle and runs to me. She folds her arms around my neck and tightens us together. There’s a lump in my throat, growing at her affection.
“Zia Tatiana,” she whispers. Kisses both of my cheeks, once, twice. “Are you here for Daddy?”
“Of course, I am.” I bob my head, feeling the tears finally come; Ariadna and I spent the first days together in hiding while the police tied up loose ends, making sure the threat to her little person was gone.
It’s an understatement to say her paternal family was in shock when they learned of her existence. They never questioned whether she really was Isaias’ daughter. With those eyes, whose daughter could she possibly be?
The matriarch—Isaias’ mother—was furious. She’d demanded to have her grandchild flown straight to her immediately, but Ariadna’s safety came first. We needed the Nascimbeni clan cleared before we could let her into the loving arms of her grandmother.
“Ariadna, dove stai?” There she is now, Granma poking her head out of the room, staring in the wrong direction first, then toward us. “Ah, Tatiana.” She waves us toward her. We go, hand in hand.
“Is he in there?” I whisper, forcing away the image of him prone, pale, frozen… and still so beautiful. Two weeks since Italy. Now, they’ve finally flown him back to Los Angeles.
“Yes, he is.” His mother’s eyes fill with tears too, and she presses the child to her, whispering against her head in Italian. “You go in, Tatiana. We’ll give you some time alone.”
“You’re the only ones here?”
“Yes, the rest of the family will be by again later.” She sniffles and smiles a trembling smile. “Thank you, Tatiana.”
You shouldn’t thank me. Look at what I did.
I bob my head, not taking a chance on my own voice. But if Isaias were my son and Ariadna my granddaughter, maybe I’d have overlooked the dirty, messy, twisted road that got us here too.
I take my time with the last steps toward his door. It’s open like they left it, and it’s so quiet in there. My heart thuds, alive and afraid. I’m often brave, but I’m not that right now, in this moment. I’m okay with that.
I curl my fingers around the doorframe and close my eyes. I’m as silent as the room when I open them again, slowly, slowly to find my love on the bed, to take in what is left of him.
Streaks of moss color furl out from his pupils. They make the ring of green around them look brighter than usual, black lashes vibrating. His face isn’t as pale as I thought it would be. Isaias stares at me from the bed, hands fisted loosely on top of the blanket. I run my eyes over the lone needle taped to his hand. Then, I’m back to his dear, dear face. “Hey, you.”
“Beautiful Tatiana of the Valley,” he whispers. “Come here.”
I let out a hiccough and hurry to him. “You’re awake.”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“They did, but they kept you under for so long. I wasn’t sure if you would—” I sob and nuzzle my face into the crook of his neck. He smells of hospital soap, and nothing has ever smelled better. “I love you.”
“God, I love you.” He exhales. Tries to hug me back, but my man is still weak. “I started tossing and turning on the plane, so they decided to put me under again.” He rolls his eyes, lips shifting in a tired smile.
“Aww, someone else pulled your strings? I’m sorry.”
He lifts his thumb and catches a tear that’s tipping over the rim of my eye. “Apparently, someone else had pulled my strings for a while, there.”
“Actually, that was all you. You got in my way with your own strings, pulling the wrong ones and making my puppets dance instead of your own.”
His laughter is sexy when it’s hoarse. I find his mouth and kiss the remnant of it away. My Mafioso groans. “Can you lock the door? I need you. It’s been so long.”
“That’s the first thing you think of when you see me? When did you come out of the coma again? Two hours ago?” I tease.
“Four, maybe? You took forever to get here. Also, my cock woke up before me. I’ve been needing you for a while.”
“Boy, aren’t I lucky to have such a romantic boyfriend,” I purr, even as my heart grows too big for my chest.
“Please? Come here and sheath me for a moment, just a little bit, before my daughter returns.”
I cluck my tongue but do as he says; I lock the door and sway my hips on the way back to him. That makes him groan again. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
I hike my skirt up. Remove my panties while he watches, stare hooding as he does. “There she is,” he murmurs. “My little heaven. Get over here.”
I scan the contraption he’s on with my eyes. He sees it and unhinges the wall of his bed on one side, letting it drop down with a click. Then he waves me over. I pull his blanket to the side and smile at his hospital gown.
“Sexy?”
“Mm-hmm.” I help him pull it upward, revealing a rock-hard extension that makes my center throb. I stroke my hand up and down the shaft, rolling my palm over the bulb on the way down. I caress his balls, weighing them in my hand before letting go. He sighs and leans back against the pillow, eyes moving over my face. They’re so bright they seem backlit.
“Stop torturing me, Tatiana.”
“Yeah? What did you want again? I forgot.” I continue my deliberate massage, and he blinks slowly and finds my eyes with his. They smolder now.
“I want you to stop messing around.” In a burst of energy, he hoists me onto the bed. Surprised, I let out a yelp. I shoot a glance around me, scanning the windows and the door—to be on the safe side, you know.
It makes him snort. “Look at her. She’s such a badass. Kills for a living and shit, but she’s afraid someone’ll see her butt while she— Holy. Shit.”
I sway, letting him glide deep before I rock forward. When I lay down on him and find his mouth, his angle changes, and it instantly drives us to the brink of bliss. His hands go up, cupping my ass. He helps me. God, and I’ve missed everything about him. All this time, I didn’t know if I’d get him back.
As the heat builds inside of me, I form my hands around his face. I watch too-long hair slide through my fingers, and I tell him how he was gone, not there, away, so close to leaving me forever. I tell him how I couldn’t accept it, how I couldn’t face his family after the ambush I let him walk into.
“You can’t,” he whispers, irises glazed with desire, “You can’t blame yourself. It was my choosing. You think I’d have done anything differently?”
“Yes.” The single word hisses from me. You would have saved them both.
He shudders under me. It shoots pleasure straight to the center of my stomach. I kiss him. Move with him. He presses me close, until I stop thinking, until he takes over all movement, until I tremble in ecstasy, and he buries his nose against my throat, letting my hair cover his face.
Below me, he ripples languidly. His fingers dig into my neck and my hip, keeping us close, and I contract as I peak. When he groans his relief out against my ear, a hot stab goes off in my womb.
Later, soft caresses run down my spine and through my hair, combing it with jagged masculinity. “Gabriela was here.”
“She was?”
“Uh-huh. She’s guilt-ridden. Needs a shrink is what she does. Also needs to stop apologizing.”
“I bet. Are you ready to tell me a few things, now?”
“I guess.” He smiles tiredly. “Gabriela was the only one who knew about Melania and my fling. It was a stupid late-night decision we never intended to follow through on. Since we were of warring mafia nobility, our moment of rebellion felt great. What can I say—it was fucking hot to know our parents would kill us if they knew. Months later, she called me, letting me know she was pregnant.”
I kiss his temple and slide down beside him, leaving my knee over his thigh as I hug myself close.
“What needed to be done was never a discussion. The baby was there to stay, and it needed a father other than a Nascimbeni prince. Melania chose a boy a few years older, a Santa Colombini who was shot in a confrontation a few days earlier. It’d have been her word against anyone else’s, and his family wasn’t in a position to request blood tests.”
“Amedeo wasn’t too happy, I suppose.”
“No. But as far as he was concerned, Ariadna was Santa Colombini blood through and through, so once he was done punishing Melania for her slutty behavior, he supported them the way any doting grandfather would.”
He laughs under his breath. “You’d probably think a sixteen-year-old can’t love like a father, but all I thought of while Melania was pregnant was my kid.”
“You were in contact with her?”
“In the beginning, yes. Melania shot me updates via throwaways, pictures of her stomach I deleted afterward.”
I send him a quizzical look.
“Obviously, I had to erase our footprints. I’d never jeopardize my child by keeping shit around that could tie me to them.” Isaias swallows heavily, his Adam’s apple bobbing and dipping. “Her last text came when she was seven and a half months pregnant. Something was wrong with her. She was in severe pain. I threw fucking all caution out the window and called her, but she didn’t pick up.
“Three weeks passed. I worked my ass off to find someone who could get me news about her without giving away our connection. Those three weeks were the worst of my life. It was when I decided I’d get out of the mafia as soon as I moved away from home. It was also when I determined I’d have influence wherever I went, with actions attributed to me because I could afford to pay for them.”
I nod into his chest, pursing my lips against my amusement. “Seems you made that happen.”
He grunts quietly. “Melania called me back twenty-two days later. I was keeping that damn throwaway phone on my person day and night in case she contacted me. She’d given birth to our daughter prematurely. Ariadna was still in an incubator at the NICU, but she was growing stronger by the day.
“The last time I talked with Melania was a week after she had taken our newborn home to Il Palazzo Rosa. After that, it became too dangerous. She called me from the gardens, assuring me that Ariadna was doing great. She was greedy, she said, wanting milk every hour of the day, and I remember how that made me smile. We’d been so fucking close to losing her.”
I stroke a finger over his eyebrow, watching him blink calmly back at me. “So Gabriela was your spy?”
He lets humor out in a soft blow through his nostrils. “She was. Gabriela’s good at being no one.” He shrugs. “It’s what mafia children learn, so every summer she’d head over for me, hang with the famiglia, but the main purpose of the trip was always to watch Ariadna from afar and snap pictures for me.”
“Pictures you’d delete.”
“Of course.”
“Do you know how selfless you are, Isaias di Nascimbeni? Do you see it?”
“Bullshit. I was satisfying my own need by making sure Ariadna was growing into a happy little girl.”
“Right,” I breathe. “You’re such a tough guy, without scruples, just doing your own thing for your own winning.”
“That’s me.”
“Except everything you’ve done for the last decade has been with one goal in mind, hasn’t it?”
He sighs and pulls me down. “Your brain needs a break.”