Athena
“How is she?” I heard Luciano ask the doctor.
I was still in his room, in his bed, currently pretending to be asleep. It had been a solid twenty-four hours since I had been carted off by Luciano and frankly, I wasn’t planning on going back anytime soon.
“I don’t understand,” the doctor said, evidently perplexed. “Other than the bruises, she should be fine.”
‘Well, fucking understand!” Luciano spat angrily and I almost jumped in fear, blowing my cover. “She seems even weaker than yesterday!”
I didn’t have to look to know the doctor was trembling. His voice was as shaky as hell. I clenched the bedsheet tighter in my fist, restraining myself from getting up. It was all for a good cause. If I seemed weaker, I could spend more time in the mansion and find out how he ran the mafia despite heavy surveillance. I couldn’t afford Luciano throwing me out the minute I could walk.
“It could be something internal,” The doctor wheezed, getting anxious by the minute. “It has just been a day sir. Please be patient-”
“Did you do something to her?!” Luciano bellowed. The man let out a yelp and unable to help it, I opened an eye to see what was going on. “Did that bastard send you?!”
Luciano stood beside the bed, half-naked and holding the doctor by his coat. His eyes were dead and menacing. I could see why the poor old man quaked in his boots like a child. Luciano was rather terrifying. My eyes ran down his naked torso, taking note of the scars that marred his back. I could imagine various ways by which he had gotten them. and none of them were pretty.
My eye caught something right in the middle of his back. I had to open the second to see what it was clearly.
What the hell?!
I couldn’t believe this. He had branded himself! Right in the middle of his back was the mafia Insignia. The letter M in Gothic style was burned into his flesh, marring the upper part of his rather beautiful back.
Why was he showing this to me freely? It would be easy to put two and two together and suspect he was in the mafia.
No, my mind countered and I rethought about it. Luciano Moretti never acted on impulse, that alone made him much more brutal than most mafia overlords. He was cold, calculating, and plain cruel. Why would he reveal something as important as the Mafia insignia to just about anyone?
I stared at the M marked on his back and realized the only reason I had known it was the mafia Insignia was that I was used to seeing it. I had been investigating Luciano for the past two years, I had seen enough of his brand to know it.
But the general public didn’t know that. To avoid panic, only a few selected people knew about the recent killings and their being branded with the M symbol. And since I was supposed to be simple Raven Gonzalez, one of the general public, I was supposed to view the M as nothing but a tattoo.
Not a brand of the mafia.
I wasn’t supposed to know what it was at all.
“Please let me go!” The old man begged. “I did what you asked me to. I took care of her. She will be fine, I swear on my daughter’s life. Please let us go-”
Luciano let out a sharp whistle and in barely a second the door to the bedroom was thrown open, startling me. Marcus walked in, a deadly look on his face. I saw the horror on the old man’s face and realized what was about to take place.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
I had to act fast or this man could be beaten or worse killed and it would be all my fucking fault! I shifted in bed, drawing attention to myself. The three men paused to look at me and I watched the furious look on Luciano’s face flip immediately into one of concern. He abandoned the doctor and rushed over to my side.
“Raven? Can you hear me?”
“I’m sick…” I said in the most sickly voice I could muster. “… not deaf.”
The man made a face at my words and shook his head. “Witty as always.”
Taking a deep breath, I faked struggling to sit up. He placed a hand on the small of my back, helping me sit up properly.
“I…I should go home,” I whispered.
A shadow fell on his face, and his teeth round against each other. “Like hell, you will. You’re staying with me.”
“I really should go, Mr. Moretti-”
“I would like to think we have gone past formalities, Raven. Barely twelve hours ago, I had your breasts in my-”
I gave him a glare which he warded off with a glare of his own. “You’re being ridiculous, Luciano.”
He chuckled darkly, reaching a hand to tuck my hair behind my ears. “Trust me, Raven, I can be much worse. You’re staying with me. That’s final. Until I decide, you will not leave.”
I did not have a problem with that. What I had a problem with was his tone of voice. I want some piece of jewelry he got to parade about!
“You don’t own me, Luciano,” I murmured, shaking my head at him.
His face settled in a dark somber expression. Fingertips trailed from my ears down my cheeks to cup my jaw. His eyes were smoldering when he spoke.
“Do you not know, Raven? I intend to do so. To own every inch, every centimeter of you-”
“I’ll take my leave,” Marcus bit out, shooting me one of his infamous nasty looks.
Luciano nodded in dismissal. “Take the doctor with you.” And then as an afterthought, he added. “Let him and his daughter go.”
The doctor cried in joy, throwing himself at Luciano’s feet and it infuriated me. Who was he to decide who lived and who didn’t? Who conferred such authority on him?! How could he assume such power?! He deserved someone knocking him off his damned high horse.
A few minutes later, we were left alone in his room. For a minute, we stayed frozen in place. I, leaning against the headboard and him sitting beside me, his hand on my face.
“Do you feel better?” He asked gruffly, stroking my chin with his thumb.
I nodded dumbly, getting carried away by the feel of his thumb on my skin. There was something about his touch that constantly drove me into a frenzy.
“Good,” he replied, tilting my head upwards before planting a kiss on my lips. His lips had to be the only soft part of his body. They pressed firmly against mine until I felt his tongue poke at my lips for entrance. My lips parted in a moan and for a minute I let myself get lost in his ministrations. He groaned, sucking my bottom lip before pulling away finally.
“Wanted to do that ever since last night.” He murmured, reaching for the cover clothes wrapped around me. “It is madness, Raven. This hunger.”
“What hunger?” I whispered, licking my lips as he yanked at the cover clothes. I wore his shirt underneath them and shame coursed through my veins when I saw my nipples pointing through the white fabric. I was shameless. Or at least, in this case, my body sure was shameless.
Luciano stared at them, eyes darkening to a shade that was quickly becoming my favorite. “That has to be my favorite shirt from now on,” he muttered darkly.
I suppose he wasn’t running away from me anymore. That was progress and I ought to be gleeful and happy. But Luciano wasn’t just an ordinary man. I had to be on my toes irrespective of what he said.
“I’d like to go to the bathroom. I kind of stink,” I said sheepishly.
He sniffed as if to check if I did stink and burst out laughing at the annoyed look on my face.
I was stunned.
I had tailed this man like his own fucking shadow for the past two years. And yet, not once had I heard him laugh without restraint. All the laughs I had heard from him were harsh, cruel, or in mockery. But this? I watched him, surprised at the way he threw his head back in laughter, his black hair was free of gel and it bounced and shook with his body. His eyes were narrowed into squints.
In those brief seconds, he wasn’t Luciano Moretti, leader of a killer organization. A ruthless man that gave the FBI a run for its money.
He was just Luciano. Like a little kid having a great time at the park. I looked away from him, hearing the loud pounding of my heartbeat.
“Come,” he said after laughing to the full. “You do stink. And so do I. We’ll take a shower together.”
“No!” The word was out of my lips before I could think about it.