Mistress of Vendetta

CHAPTER TWO

It doesn’t take long for Diana to figure out Joanna is Sonny’s girlfriend. Diana had tried to explain her presence, but Joanna refused to hear anything and only kept screaming until Sonny appeared, half awake and fully irritated. The accusations were wild, but Diana felt a small pinch of guilt anyway; she was the reason this woman was being hysterical.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’m here to pay my father’s debt,” Diana said quietly, her head. Joanna’s glare moved over her with slow disgust.

“Shut up, you dirty sl*t-”

The insult barely left Joanna’s mouth before Sonny closed the distance and struck Joanna across the face with a sharp slap that echoed off the walls. Diana shuddered, a mix of shock and sympathy.

“You will not disrespect my property. You can leave if you cannot handle that. I did not lie to you.” He spoke with a soft calm that somehow made the slap sting even more. Joanna pressed a hand to her cheek, the skin already flushing, and stared at Diana through watery eyes before turning her gaze toward Sonny again.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She said it twice, unsure who she was saying it to, and after standing frozen for an uncomfortable second, she walked past both of them and disappeared into Sonny’s bedroom without another word.

That night, as Diana lay in the guest bed, staring at the ceiling, Joanna’s screams were carried through the walls. Some were sharp, others dragged out, and Diana could not tell if they were caused by pain or pleasure or something in between. She had never heard anything like it, and she did not understand why Joanna kept screaming the way she did.

In the morning, she did not expect Sonny to be awake so early, let alone walking around shirtless. She had been sweeping near the dining area, trying not to think about the sounds from the night before, when she glanced up and froze at the sight of him moving through the living room. She had not prepared herself for how sculpted his chest and abdomen were, or how the light cut across the lines of muscle with a kind of precision that made it hard to look away. She kept her head down and hoped he would not notice her staring, but he turned at the exact moment she tried to look back at the floor.

“Oh, Diana. Morning. Clean up and prepare lunch. The boys are coming over.”

“Okay, sir.” She answered too quickly, her voice tight, and she bent her head again, forcing herself back into the rhythm of sweeping she couldn’t find. She heard his footsteps approaching and kept her eyes down until she saw his feet stop in front of her. She held her breath, unsure of what came next.

“Let’s look at you today.” Sonny’s voice settled behind her a second before his hands did. He grabbed her and pulled her back against him without warning, tightening his arms around her waist until she gasped. Her breath left her in an uneven rush, and she tried to pull away, but his grip locked her in place. When he turned her to face him, she felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek. The defiance in her eyes only grew sharper, but her body stopped resisting once she realized she had no leverage, no angle, no escape. His grin widened as soon as she stopped fighting.

“I should find a use for you. I still can’t believe my luck. I own you!” Sonny laughed in a loud, unrestrained way that filled the dining room.

“Yes, you do, sir.” Diana muttered with a tone she could not hide, something caught between resentment and challenge. He chuckled at her reaction, the sound rolling out of him easily. He released her, and she moved several steps back, putting distance between them as quickly as she could.

“You looked so helpless in your father’s workshop,” he said as he turned away. “And you know what’s funny? You didn’t even try to fight him. Did you want this? To escape?

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you did. You could have said no.”

“Do I have a choice now?”

His laugh rose again, deep and amused. “What do you think, genius?”

Diana went back to sweeping, but her mind drifted to the idea of choice and how much or how little she ever had. The question sat in her chest, heavier than she wanted it to be.

“I didn’t want to kill your father,” Sonny said after a moment, leaning against the wall as if the conversation had simply shifted in his head. “But that kind of disrespect is bad for business. Because if I had killed him, I would have had to put a bullet in your pretty skull too, and that would have been a waste.”

Diana’s hand paused on the broom before she forced herself to move again.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” she asked quietly, once she could coax sound from her throat.

“You had that look in your eye, the same one I had for years.” Sonny crossed his arms and watched her as he spoke, no hesitation in his tone.

“Why would you have needed to kill me? I don’t owe you anything.” Diana lifted her head, needing to see his face as he answered. Her voice was steadier than it had ever been.

“That’s because I killed the person who killed my father. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake my father’s killer did.”

“The boss is dead.”

The announcement hit the room as one of the younger soldiers stepped inside and delivered the news that was going to change everything as they knew it.

“Let us have a moment of silence for the old man” Sonny said, his voice steady. They rose and bowed their heads in respect and each of them made the sign of the cross after the moment of silence. Sonny dragged both hands through his black hair, trying to shake off the feeling that the timing of the news sat wrong with him. He knew it would happen, but he had expected it so soon.

“I mean the old man had been sick. He’d fought long enough,” one of the soldiers said. There was no disrespect in it. Soldiers said what they saw. They were the lowest rank in any crew, unless you were an associate, and associates didn’t speak unless someone told them to. Till they were ‘made men’.

“Any meeting arrangements yet, Ricky?” Sonny asked.

“None yet. But the other capos already know.”

“So, the old man’s son is the boss now, right?”

“Yes. Which means we’re about to have a new underboss.”

“Any idea who that’s going to be?”

“Certainly not you, boss,” one soldier said, and the table broke out in easy laughter. It wasn’t a secret. The underboss, now the boss, had never liked Sonny, not even when he’d been promoted to caporegime. He had refused the promotion outright before the old don forced it on him. Sonny knew he wouldn’t be an underboss unless half the family died and the other half lost their minds.

“We’ve got to make him know we are his go-to, Sonny,” Bill said, leaning forward. Bill was one of the older soldiers in the crew, with a voice that never softened no matter who sat across the table.

“I’m not sucking up to anybody,” Sonny said. “I’m no teacher’s pet. And it’s not like I even like the man.”

“Of course not,” Bill said with a small shrug. “We’re not sucking up to him. We’re showing him he needs us. Those are two different things.”

“By earning,” Ricky added.

“Exactly. And as top earners…we’re untouchable.” Bill said.