HIS BELLISSIMA

THE FIRE IN HER EYES

A knock sounded against the door.

"Come in!" Dante bellowed.

The door opened, and a maid entered, bowing respectfully.

"She is awake, sir."

Matteo had been standing by the window, his back to the room. At the words, something in his posture shifted, small enough that only someone who'd known him twenty years would have caught it.

Finally.

He turned to face the maid. "Thank you, Clarise."

She bowed again and hurried out.

Dante watched him from the desk, turning a paperclip slowly between his fingers. He'd seen Matteo pleased before, satisfied after a job well done, amused by something Salvatore said, even genuinely happy on the rare occasion it was warranted. This was none of those things. This was something quieter and, if Dante was honest, something he'd never once seen on his friend's face in the years he'd known him. Matteo didn't get distracted. He didn't stand at windows thinking about anyone long enough for it to show.

Dante filed that away without comment, the way he filed away most things worth remembering.

"Fratello," he said instead, setting the paperclip down. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

Matteo turned, a faint smirk pulling at one corner of his mouth. "All is good in the world, mio amico." He reached for the glass of whiskey on the table and took a slow sip.

"Is it now?" Dante raised an eyebrow. "Because last I checked, we buried a man an hour ago, and you're standing there like it's Christmas morning."

"What can I say." Matteo shrugged, unbothered. "Some days are better than others."

Dante huffed out a laugh and shook his head. "You're a sick man, you know that?"

"Sick men live longer, Dante. Ask Antonio." A beat. "Oh, wait."

"Stronzo." Dante laughed despite himself, lifting his own glass and knocking it against Matteo's. "To another good night's work".

"To good work." They drank, and for a moment neither of them said anything else. They didn't need to. Dante already knew where his friend's mind had gone, and Matteo knew he knew, and that was the kind of silence that had held between them since they were boys, one that didn't require filling.

****************************

She was beautiful. More than he remembered from the photographs, and he hadn't expected that to be possible.

Matteo stood just inside the doorway, taking her in. She was standing beside the bed, terrified, tears still wet on her face, and even like that, even frightened and cornered, there was something about her that held his attention. He wasn't used to it. He didn't entirely welcome it.

Her ebony-black hair fell around her shoulders like a dark curtain, so naturally beautiful that it seemed almost unfair. Thick and glossy, it framed a face that demanded attention without asking for it.

Then he met her eyes.

They were cat-shaped, slightly elongated at the corners, with a striking hazel-brown color that seemed to shift beneath the light. There was something captivating about them—something warm and dangerous at the same time. Eyes that should have belonged to someone delicate, perhaps, yet held a quiet defiance that made him look twice.

Her skin was a flawless golden brown, glowing softly against the darkness around her. It carried the warmth of sunlight, smooth and rich, drawing his attention even when he tried to look elsewhere.

And then there were her lips.

Full, naturally defined, and a deep cherry-pink, they stood out against her complexion in a way that made them almost impossible to ignore. They gave her face a softness that contrasted sharply with the guarded expression she wore.

Bellissima.

The Italian word registered in his conscience.

She wasn't beautiful in the delicate, forgettable way Matteo had seen countless women before.

There was something arresting about her.

Something that made the room seem quieter the moment his eyes settled on her.

“Who are you?”

Her voice was shaky, almost trembling with fear.

Matteo's eyes remained on her as he took another step forward, but she immediately moved back from him. The fear on her face was obvious, and for a moment, he simply stared at her.

A small smile tugged at his mouth. His gaze drifted lower to the neckline of her night gown. It revealed a hint of cleavage. His gaze traveled slowly over her, taking in the graceful curves of her figure. He wondered what she would look like without the nightwear.

"My eyes are up here." She snapped her fingers to pull his gaze back to her face, chin lifted despite the fear still written all over her.

He tilted his head, genuinely caught off guard. Terrified as she was, she still had enough left in her to challenge him. That, more than anything else so far, was interesting.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded again.

"That doesn't matter." He turned toward the window, giving her his back, a small, deliberate show of how little threat he considered her. "You'll find out in due time."

From the corner of his eyes, he saw her glance at the door. He heard the shift in her breathing before she moved.

She bolted. The door gave easily under her hands, unlocked, and she was through it and running before he'd even turned back around, feet pounding down the hall toward the stairs. He let her go. There was nowhere for her to run to, and some part of him wanted to see what she'd do with the illusion of a chance.

She made it to the first floor before his men closed in around her from every side, cutting off every direction she might have tried. Cornered, she spun once, searching for a gap that didn't exist.

Matteo watched from the top of the stairs, a low laugh escaping him before he could stop it.

She looked up, fury cutting through the fear on her face.

"Amici miei." He spread his hands, addressing the men around her like he was introducing a guest at a party rather than a woman who'd just tried to run from him. "Meet Alondra Rosario. My special guest."

He came down the stairs at an unhurried pace, in no rush at all, and she said nothing as he approached, though the look she gave him could have drawn blood.

"You were going to leave without telling me?" He clicked his tongue. "How rude."

"Who are you," she said, "and what do you want from me?"

"All you need to know, Bellissima, is that you're my guest, and your questions will be answered by dinner." He glanced at two of his men without looking away from her. "Escort la bella Alondra back to her room."

"No." Her voice wavered, though she tried to hold it steady. "I want answers now. Why am I here?"

"Shhh." He took her hand before she could pull it back, held her eyes, and pressed his mouth to her knuckles, slow and deliberate. He felt her breath catch, watched it happen, and didn't bother hiding that he'd noticed.

"You'll have your answers," he said, "when I decide you deserve them.Capisci?"

Something shifted in her expression. The fear was still there, but beneath it, something else surfaced—something hot and sharp. She yanked her hand back from his grasp like his touch had burned her, and the force of it made her stumble half a step backward.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

The words came out low and trembling, not with fear this time, but with fury. Her chin lifted, her hazel eyes blazing, and for a moment, Matteo forgot to breathe.

She was magnificent.

"You drag me here. You lock me in a room. You change my clothes while I'm unconscious—" Her voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed her lips together, swallowing whatever else had been about to come out. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier. Harder. "And you stand there talking about what I deserve? You don't know me".

She took another step back, putting distance between them, and Matteo let her. He could have stopped her. He could have reached out, grabbed her arm, reminded her exactly how little power she had in this room. But he didn't.

He just watched her, a slow smile spreading across his face.

"No," he admitted. "Not yet. But I plan to."

She stared at him, and for a moment, he saw something flicker in her eyes—confusion, maybe. Or uncertainty. Then it was gone, replaced by that same sharp defiance.

"Take her," Matteo said to his men, his voice calm. "She's tired. She needs to rest."

He didn't look at her as they led her away.

He didn't have to.

He'd remember the fire in her eyes for a long time.

******************************

Matteo poured himself a drink in his office, Alondra still sitting somewhere at the back of his mind, uninvited and refusing to leave. He told himself it was simply curiosity. A puzzle he hadn't solved yet. He was still turning that thought over when the door opened.

"Matteo." Dante's voice cut through it. He dropped an envelope on the desk and helped himself to the chair across from him, and, a moment later, to Matteo's glass. "Here's what you asked for."

Matteo didn't reach for the envelope yet. "What is it?"

"Everything we could get on her without digging loud enough to draw attention." Dante studied him for a moment. "So. What's the plan?"

"I want to keep her close."

Dante didn't answer right away. He turned the glass once in his hand instead, weighing something. "You know your grandfather isn't going to like this."

"My grandfather doesn't need to like everything I do."

"No," Dante agreed. "But he'll have questions, and so will half of the men, and neither of us has a good answer for them yet." He said it plainly, no judgment in it, just the kind of thing only Dante could say to him without it costing either of them anything. "I'm not telling you not to. I'm telling you to have an answer ready before someone asks."

Matteo held his gaze for a long moment, then allowed a short nod. It was, he knew, exactly why he kept Dante close, the one person willing to put the truth in front of him instead of what he wanted to hear.

"I'll have one," he said. "Now give me the file."

Dante slid the envelope across the desk without further comment and let the matter rest.

Inside was the rest of what they'd gathered. She was the only child of Adrian and Daniella Rosario. Three close friends, Melanie, Audrey, and Dave, and beyond them almost no one, a handful of relatives on her mother's side she'd barely spoken to since the funeral.

Matteo set the file down.

This would be easier than he'd expected. Getting her to Sicily wouldn't take much convincing at all, not when there was so little left in Philadelphia to convince her to stay for.