Seduced By A Villain

4

A gleam of mirth flickered along his lifeless eye.

The man tucked his knife back into his coat, businesslike. He was playing with my life, screwing with my head, and swallowing every ounce of my fear, all while looking dry as a bone.

I stared at him, slack-jawed, waiting for his next move.

He grabbed something from his pocket, uncurling my fingers between us, putting it there and making me close my fist over it. It was small and slippery. Round. A shell-less snail?

I uncoiled my fingers, staring down. My heart sledgehammered its way past my rib cage.

An eye.

A human one.

His eye.

I wanted to drop it but I knew better than to defy him.

He leaned forward, until our noses almost touched. He smelled of blood, gunpowder, and dark, haunted woods. It was an oddly pleasant, sinister scent, and it seeped into my system, touching a corner inside me I didn’t even know existed.

“Tell your brothers that next time they f**k with me, enter my territory, or otherwise disturb my business, I’m going to hunt you down, f**k every hole in your body, s***h that pretty throat, then

dump you at their doorstep to bleed out. Understand?” I was going to do no such thing.

For one thing, my brothers weren’t supposed to know I understood their language, let alone spoke. For another, I wasn’t his errand b***h.

I stared at him defiantly, saying nothing. I had a feeling he knew I understood him.

“Good.” He straightened, releasing my throat from his hold. “Now run, Gealach. Because when I catch? I kill.”

I sprang to my feet and sprinted back inside barefoot, leaving my canvas and pencils outside, as fast as I could before he changed his mind. Panicked breaths tore at my lungs.

Halfway through the journey to my front door, I realize he ripped the spaghetti straps of my nightgown. My breasts were exposed. Every inch of my upper body was smeared with his blood.

I felt the ghost of his hands slithering up and down my flesh. Warm and callused and alive.

Weeks after, I’d ask myself if he was a figment of my imagination.

A nightmare. An omen.

But no, he had to be real.

I knew.

Because I kept his eye.

Chapter 3

TWO WEEKS LATER

“Madonna Santa, Chiara, your daughter is such a beauty. What a shame she’ll never marry!” Tammy, Mama’s friend, raked her gaze along my frame, clucking her tongue.

I wore a pink chiffon dress with off the shoulder pleats and a tight corset. My long pale hair tumbled in waves down to my waist, haloed by a tiara of snow-white roses. They were real roses, twisted into one another. The tiny thorns dug into my skull, but Mama always said that beauty was pain.

Mama picked the tiara and outfit.

She dictated my wardrobe. My activities. My future.

I felt a little ridiculous in the white satin gloves and high heels. Like I was playing teatime with my dolls, something I did publicly sometimes to make people believe I was mentally delayed. I hated the teatime routine and always thought it was overkill. But as Mama said—in our world, one can never be too pretty or too cautious.

Besides, it wasn’t every day my eldest brother was getting married. And to a princess from the Outfit, no less.

Sofia’s family was well known in Chicago. So influential were the Bandinis that the wedding attracted none other than the president of the United States, Wolfe Keaton, and First Lady Francesca RossiKeaton.

Luca and Sofia stood in the far corner of the room, careful not to touch or look at one another as they politely mingled with their guests. My brother was tempered in movement and thinking. Eerily still and cold as a fish. He looked like he was attending his own funeral, not his wedding.

Sofia seemed to share his desolation. Misery was stamped on her lovely, tan face like the angry welts of a belt.

“Yes, well, in our world, marriage is overrated.” Mama huffed. “I’m relieved Raffaella won’t be subjected to a marriage with a cruel man who would cheat and disappear on her for days on end. I gave Vello three boys, and he shaped them into merciless killing machines. Lila is my reward for fulfilling my end of the bargain. Mine to keep and protect.”

Tammy and the rest of the women in the circle nodded.

“Speaking of awful husbands…” Mina, another friend of Mama’s, flashed a sly smile. “I saw Tony’s Alyssa in the shops the other day. She had a black eye. Swore up and down it was due to undereye fillers gone wrong. Just three months ago, her arm was in a cast. Does she think we’re all stupid? She’s barely even twenty-seven. And with three kids already.” Mina tsked. “I always told my Pietro to keep away from that man. He’s a hot-tempered one, Tony.”

“And what about Maggio?” Tammy clucked her tongue. “Cheatin’ on his wife left and right. Three bastards out of wedlock, all on child support, and he still sees the mothers regularly. One of them even works for him. The baldracca.”

“They’re all as awful as each other.” Mama’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Cheating, beating their wives, bringing trouble to our doorsteps. Men are terrible creatures. The world would be a better place if women ruled it.”

“What, and miss our weekly gel manicure and hair appointments?” Tammy snorted, sparking a chorus of giggles. “No, thank you. They can do the hard work while we pamper ourselves. We earned it.”

“It’s not all bad.” Mina gestured a manicured hand to the ballroom in our mansion. It was dazzling. With gilded pillars, marble arches, and frescoed ceilings so high you could barely see the medieval paintings on them. The room glowed golden by candlelight and chandeliers, its deceiving warmth masquerading the awful people inside it.

I craned my neck past the sea of puffy hairdos, searching for Tate Blackthorn.

“Are you going to Ischia for the summer?” Rita asked Mama, her lips curving around her words in the corner of my eye. They were all sipping on champagne while I was holding a pink lemonade.

Everything about me was pink. My wardrobe. My room. My ruddy cheeks.

“Of course.” My mother’s face immediately relaxed at the mention of our summer house. “Lila and I enjoy the sun, the food, the culture. Ischia is our home.”

Mama and I spend two months out of the year on the Italian island to get away from the men in our family. I liked going there. I was able to live more freely. I read in public, played sports, and did cartwheels on the beach. I had a Latin tutor and a math teacher. My mother took me to the movies to watch old Italian films, and I never had to play with dolls or school my face to a blank mask of nothing.

At home, I needed to hide these abilities. My intelligence.

“You should come,” Mama told the three women, but I knew she didn’t mean it. She loathed her friends. Loathed everyone and everything connected to the Camorra.

“What a marvelous idea,” Rita cooed. “I’ll speak to Antonio, see if we have any plans.”

I wondered why they did that. Made plans they weren’t going to execute. Feigned excitement about things they didn’t care about.

My heart skidded to a halt when I finally found the subject of my interest.

Tatum Blackthorn.