The Chefs Obsessive Don

The first assassination

The first assassination attempt came on a Tuesday.

I was in the vineyard a different one this time, the one near Marsala that produced the old Barolo Dante loved. Giovanni's replacement, a young agronomist named Lucia, was showing me the irrigation system when the car exploded.

Not my car. Dante's car. The black sedan he usually drove when he wanted to be discreet. It was parked fifty meters away, waiting to take me back to the fortress. Enzo was behind the wheel.

The fireball rose into the sky like a second sun, and for one terrible moment, I thought Enzo was inside.

Then I saw him l crawling away from the wreckage, his face black with soot, his clothes in tatters. He had gotten out. He was alive.

"Get down!" Lucia screamed, pulling me behind a stack of wine barrels.

More explosions? Gunfire? I couldn't tell. My ears were ringing, my vision blurry. I tasted blood from my lip, where I had bitten it, or from something else, I didn't know.

Dante.

I fumbled for my phone, but my hands were shaking too hard to hold it.

Then I heard his voice.

"Sofia! Sofia, where are you?"

He was running across the vineyard, his suit jacket abandoned, his gun drawn. Behind him, half a dozen soldiers fanned out, searching for threats.

"Here!" I called out. "I'm here!"

He reached me in seconds, his hands grabbing my shoulders, his eyes scanning my body for wounds. "Are you hurt? Are you bleeding?"

"I'm fine. Enzo”

"Enzo's alive. Burned, but alive." Dante pulled me into his arms, crushing me against his chest. "I thought I lost you."

"I'm here. I'm okay."

He held me for a long moment, his heart pounding against mine. Then he pulled back, and I saw the fury in his eyes—cold, controlled, terrifying.

"This was meant for me," he said. "The car. The bomb. Someone wanted to kill me, and they almost killed you instead."

"Who?"

"I don't know yet. But I'm going to find out." He took my face in his hands. "And when I do, I'm going to make them wish they had never been born."

Dante’s POV

The bomb was professional. Military-grade. Wired to the ignition of my car, set to detonate the moment the engine turned over.

Enzo had survived because he had noticed a wire loose beneath the dashboard a detail so small that anyone else would have missed it. He had thrown himself out of the car just before the explosion. Second-degree burns on his arms and face, but alive. Conscious. Talking.

"She was the target," Enzo said from his hospital bed, his voice hoarse. "The bomb was in my car, not yours. They knew I would be driving her. They knew you would send me."

I stood at the window of the private room, looking out at the Palermo skyline. "Who?"

"I don't know. But they have inside information. Someone in your organization. Someone who knows your routines, your habits, your security protocols."

A traitor.

I had known it was possible. In my line of work, betrayal was always possible. But the knowledge that someone close to me had tried to kill Sofia had tried to kill the woman I loved made my blood run cold.

"Find them," I said. "Use whatever resources you need. Whoever you have to hurt. Find them and bring them to me."

Enzo nodded, then winced as the movement pulled at his burns. "And Sofia?"

"Sofia stays in the fortress. Under guard. No one in or out without my approval."

"She won't like that."

"I don't care."

Enzo's burned lips twitched. "You really love her."

"I really do."

"Then protect her. But don't cage her. She's not the kind of woman who thrives in a cage."

I turned back to the window. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. Blood colors.

"I know," I said. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Sofia’s POV

Dante wanted me to stay in the fortress.

I understood why. The bomb had been meant for me. Someone wanted me dead. The safest place in Sicily was behind these stone walls, surrounded by armed guards and surveillance cameras and a man who would kill for me.

But I was not a prisoner. I had not survived my mother's death, my father's abandonment, and Salvatore's war to become a hostage in my own home.

"I'm going to the restaurant," I told Dante the next morning.

He looked up from his coffee, his gray eyes sharp. "No."

"It's not a request."

"Sofia”

"I am the don of the Colonna family. I own three vineyards, a shipping company, and the debts of half the politicians in Sicily." I crossed my arms. "I am not going to hide in my bedroom because someone planted a bomb in a car."

Dante set down his coffee and stood. He crossed to me, his hands settling on my hips.

"You're right," he said. "You're not a prisoner. But you're also not invincible. If something happened to you..”

"Nothing is going to happen to me. I'll have a security detail. I'll be careful." I rose on my toes and kissed him. "But I need to cook, Dante. I need to create something beautiful in a world that keeps trying to destroy everything I love. If I can't do that, I'm not living. I'm just surviving."

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he sighed.

"Security detail. Armed. No arguments."

"No arguments."

"And you check in every hour."

"Every hour."

"And if I call, you answer."

"I'll answer."

He pulled me into his arms and held me tight. "I love you," he said against my hair. "I love you so much it terrifies me."

"I love you too." I pressed my face into his chest, breathing in the scent of him. "Now let me go make dinner."

The restaurant was different in daylight.

Without the candlelight and the wine and the murmur of wealthy diners, La Rosa dei Venti was just a room. A beautiful room, yes with its white tablecloths and polished silver and view of the sea but just a room.

Chef Rizzo greeted me with a grunt that might have been concern. "You're back."

"I'm back."

"The Don's men are outside. Armed."

"I know."

He studied me for a moment, his face unreadable. Then he nodded. "The walk-in is full. The new commis is useless. The fish delivery is late." He handed me an apron. "Welcome home."

I tied the apron around my waist and breathed.

This was where I belonged. Not in boardrooms or summit meetings or churches full of candlelight and lies. Here, in the kitchen, where the heat was honest and the work was real.

I pulled ingredients from the walk-in fish, vegetables, herbs, a wheel of cheese that smelled like heaven and began to cook.

For the first time in weeks, I felt like myself.

Dante’s POV

I watched her on the security feed.

The camera in the kitchen showed her moving between stations, her hands sure, her face calm. She was making something complicated I could tell from the concentration in her eyes, the way she checked and rechecked each element.

She was happy.

I had not seen her truly happy since before the vineyard. Since before Salvatore. Since before the bomb.

"She's good for you," Matteo said from the doorway.

I didn't turn. "I know."

"She's also good for the organization. The men respect her. The other families are watching her. She's not just your woman anymore. She's a player."

"I know that too."

Matteo walked to stand beside me at the window. "The traitor. Have you found them?"

"Not yet. But I will."

"And when you do?"

I thought of Sofia's face when she had asked me not to become a killer. Of her tears in the churchyard. Of the way she had said, I don't want to be a monster.

"When I do," I said, "I will show them the mercy she has taught me."

"Which is?"

"I will make it quick."

Matteo was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. "She's changed you."

"Yes."

"For the better?"

I watched Sofia taste a sauce, her eyes closing in pleasure. She smiled a real smile, the kind that reached her eyes.

"Yes," I said. "For the better."

Sofia’s POV

That night, I cooked dinner for Dante in the cathedral kitchen.

Not a formal meal, not the kind I would serve to dons and capos. Just food simple, honest, made with love. Pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil. Fish grilled over an open flame. A salad of bitter greens and blood oranges. Bread I had baked myself, still warm from the oven.

Dante sat at the kitchen island and watched me plate each dish. He didn't speak. He just watched, his gray eyes soft in the candlelight.

When I set the last plate in front of him, he reached out and took my hand.

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

"For coming back. For staying. For choosing me." He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my palm. "For being the best thing that ever happened to me."

I felt tears prick my eyes. "You're going to make me cry."

"Then cry." He pulled me onto his lap, his arms around my waist. "I'll hold you."

I pressed my face into his neck and let the tears come not from sadness, but from relief. From the overwhelming knowledge that I was loved. That I was safe. That no matter what happened next, I would not face it alone.

We ate dinner late, talking and laughing and pretending the world outside didn't exist. When the plates were empty and the wine was gone, he carried me to bed and made love to me slowly, gently, like I was something precious.

Afterward, I lay in his arms and listened to the sea.

"I'm not afraid anymore," I said.

"Of what?"

"Of anything." I traced the scars on his chest. "Because I know that whatever comes, we'll face it together."

He kissed my forehead. "Together."

I closed my eyes and let sleep take me.

Tomorrow, there would be more threats. More enemies. More battles to fight.

But tonight, I was home.