“Another drink?” Sylvia asked, nudging Neo with her toe. Throwing her a glare, He jerked his foot away before shrugging.

“Are you going to be like this the whole night?”

He glared at her, but all that did was to make her raise an eyebrow in his direction. “You weren’t there,” he said.

“Put Cora in her place,” Sylvia said, waving an indolent hand. “Then you’ll be smiling again.”

He jerked his shoulders, trying to settle into something approaching a comfortable position. The villa’s jacuzzi should have been relaxing with its water jets, but it kept reminding him of the night Javier had forced him to marry Cora. How he’d had to jam that ring onto her finger. The way she’d stiffened when he’d kissed her.

You wouldn’t think a slut like her would turn away any man’s lips.

He knew what she did with those men; he’d overheard the staff he played soccer with. Their wives gossiped to each other about the state of the beds they had to clean.

It disgusted him, but what the hell could he do about it? His own wife bedded three men—at the same time—and he was powerless to stop her.

“Here.” Sylvia twisted around, her breasts straining in the small, white bikini she wore.

Neo washed his gaze over her body as she busied herself. She was a few years older than him—had been more than a decade younger than his father—but her body was as toned and slender as a model’s.

His father’s mistress had become a surprising ally. When the dust and ash had settled after the wedding, she’d come knocking on his door. He thought she was there to ask permission to leave, but instead, she asked if he wanted company for the night.

He’d been too broken to reject her, and too depressed to fuck her. And she seemed to know it; she’d given him a massage and watched a movie with him until they’d both fallen asleep. Last night, she hadn’t been in his room, and he thought he’d never see her again. But an hour ago, she’d knocked on his door and dragged him up to the jacuzzi to ‘get rid of his stress’, which she claimed radiated from him like cheap cologne.

Turned out, she’d disappeared earlier to find some coke.

She twisted back to him, a small mirror balanced on her palm, two lines of cremita already etched onto its surface.

“Take it,” she said in her brusque—if husky—voice.

He hesitated, but not for long. Hot ice shot through his nasal passages as he snorted up one line, then the other. He rubbed his thumb along the mirror’s surface, gathering up the cocaine dust that had settled there.

His gums went numb when he massaged his thumb over them.

Sylvia cut two lines for herself, and faced him again with a slender finger delicately patting her nose.

Stretching out one of her long legs, she ran the side of her foot up his calf. “So, what will you do, Don Neo?”

His brain sparkled like the sky on New Year’s Eve. A thousand answers spilled into his mind, each harsher than the last.

He could ignore Cora, hand her over to a rival cartel, fuck her and force her to carry his child, feed her to his father’s lion.

But all he said was, “Why do I have to do anything?”

Sylvia threw back her head and laughed. The sound was as brash as she was. “I was with Havie—” Sylvia’s nickname for his father “—for five years.” She let this sink in as she studied him, and he shifted when the intensity of her gaze only became stronger.

“So?” he snapped, sniffing and swallowing hard to get rid of the bitter taste going down the back of his throat. “Now you’re an expert or something?”

She gave him a knowing smile. “Or something…” Her foot ran down the inside of his calf, and then up the other leg.

“You tell me then,” Neo said, thumbing his nose. “Tell me what I should do, if you know so fucking much.”

She tilted her head to the side and spread her arms along the rim of the jacuzzi. Her foot brushed his knee and then crept along his inner thigh.

“Your dealers are waiting for product,” she said. “And they’re not patient men. Especially the Irish.”

“You know them?”

“I’ve met them all. Seen them all. Havie even lent me to some of them a few times.” She shrugged. “They’ll want their shipments, and soon.”

“Then we should call them. Tell them we don’t have anything. It’s the truth.”

“Not we…” Sylvia said, her foot sliding over his dick. “Her.”

Neo’s cock twitched at the touch, and he shifted in the jacuzzi’s roiling water. “Cora?”

“She won’t know what to do if they come asking,” Sylvia said, massaging him with the ball of her foot as she spoke. “She’ll crack like an egg.”

“How do I get them to contact her? They’ve only ever dealt with Javier.”

“I know someone who can help.” Sylvia’s eyes glittered. “One of Javier’s business partners.”

Neo’s eyes fluttered as Sylvia’s foot glided over his stiffening dick.

“And he can help?”

She retracted her foot, leaving him with a rock-hard dick and a sudden urge to stick it in something.

“I’d bet money on it,” she said with another secretive grin.

Neo nodded, realized he was chewing the inside of his cheek, and tried to stop. A wave of energy crashed through him. He rose from the jacuzzi, grabbing Sylvia on the way and hauling her up with him. Their wet bodies slapped together as he ground his dick against her belly. “What if it comes back to me?”

“It won’t,” Sylvia said, grabbing his ass and forcing him harder against her. She gazed up at him with big eyes, and ran her tongue along her lips as he watched. “Because…?”

She left the word dangling as his dick throbbed between them. He scanned her face, gaze darting over her perfectly sculpted features. She could have been a model. Fuck maybe she had been, before Gabriella had found her.

Just the silent mention of his mother’s name brought with it a flash of venomous rage.

Sylvia gasped when he grabbed the back of her neck and wrenched her away so he could stare at her body.

“No, she won’t suspect, will she?” he said through his teeth. “Because I’m giving her exactly what she wants.”

Sylvia’s smile stretched. “She wants to be capo so badly…Then let her.”