La Dolce Vita: Romantic Suspense (Battaglia Mafia Series Book 7) Read online

  Giovanni slowed to a stop. He lifted his head, and his face was slick with sweat.

  “We aren’t done,” he said.

  He pulled out of her, and she groaned with disappointment. She wanted him to slow down not stop.

  “Succhiami il cazzo--suck my dick,” he said.

  Mirabella licked her lips. She eyed his turned up penis as the tip glistened with her essence. Giovanni sat back on his haunches and stroked his length for her. She got on her knees.

  The first glide of her tongue down his dick was heaven. But it was the second that caused him to thrust forward and impale her hot wet mouth. Giovanni clenched his teeth and felt his pelvis twist into a pretzel knot, and his groin seize as he summoned strength. She snorted through her nose and sucked him hard and vigorous with her jaws, no teeth.

  Control returned. He looked down at his beautiful, tortured wife. He kept thrusting his hips back and forth slowly to fuck her mouth and slip even closer to the back of her throat. He could tell by her soft moans, and the dreamy way her lashes fluttered, that she liked it. That turned him on.

  “Yes, Bella, like that, succhiami il cazzo--suck my dick,” he breathed and grabbed the back of her head. He'd never been loved so entirely by a woman. His balls hardened, his toes curled.

  “Mmm,” he moaned and nearly released into her throat.

  He pulled her hair to draw her mouth off his dick, but she still managed to use the tip of her tongue to lick at his dimpled center and the pre-cum.

  “Turn around. Inginocchiati--get on your knees,” he said.

  She did as he asked. He lifted his dick in his hand and pointed it again at her honeypot. He went deep with a single thrust. He smacked her ass and she began to move it for him. Giovanni rubbed the sweaty sheen on her back, and gazed down to her perfect bottom. Her dark brown skin glistened. The cheeks of her ass shook and jiggled after every thrust. In and out he went and loved the cushion pressed to his pelvis. The thick plump lips of her pussy brushed against his ball sack. He loved the perfumed air heavy with her scent.

  Bella wasn’t well. Her nightmares were frequent. Her night chills and sweats scared him. But at times like this he offered her pleasure instead of pain. And it helped him forget as well. Forget what another man did to her, what he failed to protect her from. He could pretend that nothing ever came between them. It was thanks to moments like these that he was reminded why she was his queen.

  Giovanni gripped both of her hips and held her still. He thrust faster and faster, pummeling her pussy until he reached the ultimate release. And then Giovanni exploded, and didn't let her go until every drop of his seed was spilled.

  Mirabella felt dizzy. Her husband made her turn and face him. On her knees, she embraced him. He held her to him. "Are you okay?" he panted.

  “I am much better now.”

  “I... I love you,” he managed.

  “It's okay, Gio. Don’t treat me like I’m going to break. Treat me like your woman. I need to feel this, us, I need it.”

  He rubbed her back and she let go a few tears that she was certain she could wipe away before he noticed.

  “Let’s get you in bed,” he said.

  He stood, and she needed his help to do the same. She crawled over the bed. Giovanni retrieved the sheets and pillows that were knocked off when the nightmare began. He covered her and made her comfortable before joining her.

  “What was the dream?” he asked.

  “Kei, a bad dream about Kei,” she said and snuggled his sweaty chest.

  He sighed. She looked up and saw he was staring at the ceiling. "I'm fine, though. It was just a dream. He can't get to me."

  “He can get to you in your dreams. I can’t protect you there.”

  “Having you here protects me.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Sleep la mia bellissima moglie--my beautiful wife.”

  And she did.

  Mirabella woke. She was alone. "Giovanni?" Mirabella called out. She rubbed her eyes wondering if he was in the bathroom. But the door stood open. The light was off. No one was inside. "Giovanni?" she said again.

  Confused, she got out of bed and picked up her night dress from the floor. She slipped it on, then found her robe. She opened the door and found Leo on the outside of it. She wasn’t surprised. Since the kidnapping Leo and two other men became her shadow. They watched her like a hawk. If Giovanni left her in the middle of the night, they would stand guard until his return.

  “Where is he?” she asked and smoothed back her tangles.

  “Gone,” he said.

  “Gone? Where? To villa Rosso?” she asked.

  He stared at her and didn't answer. She took a step forward, and he did as well. "The boss asked that you stay in your room until morning."

  “He what? No, he didn't!"

  “Perdonami Donna--forgive me, Donna. Please. Go back inside. He will see you in the morning."

  She had no choice but to obey. Leo would not let her out of the room, even if he had to restrain her physically. She was a prisoner in her own home. And the nightmares only made the rest of the family more paranoid. Where did he go? Why did he leave?

  "Can you find him? Tell him I need him?" she asked.

  He nodded. Mirabella closed the bedroom door. Depressed she returned to her bed and turned off the lamplight. She closed her eyes and struggled to find peace.

  ***

  “Are you sure it was her?” Lorenzo asked Renaldo as he screwed the silencer on the top of the gun. Two cars sped by, and then another. The duo had parked on the busiest road in Sorrento. The sun had barely slipped from the sky, so night was not a complete cover. He’d have to get in and out quick.

  “My contact swears it is her. He swears it on his life,” Renaldo said. “He told me she’s been dropping big cash around here the past two days to keep her secret.”

  “Which I suspect is a greeting card to bring me for a visit,” Lorenzo smirked.

  “So, it’s a trap? Should I find a phone and page the boys? Send word to Giovanni that we found her?”

  “She’s mine,” Lorenzo said. He stared up at the building. It was once a retirement center for the elderly. And before then it was known to be the most fertile land in Sorrento for lemon groves. Now it was a polluted heap of shit. A collection of rundown apartment homes, with garbage covering nearly both sides of the streets. The dregs of society littered and congregated here. Isabella had evaded Gio and his men for months; Lorenzo would not believe she did so to squat here. It smelled like a trap.

  “I’m going in with you,” Renaldo said.

  “I can handle her myself. If something goes wrong, she’ll take the back to escape. Cover it. Wait for me there.”

  Renaldo shook his head as if he didn’t agree. There was no time to debate the plan. Besides, for what he intended to get from Isabella, he didn’t need witnesses. He touched Renaldo on the shoulder. “You’ve got holes in your chest because of this bitch. It’s personal. But understand me. She’s mine. Not Gio’s. Not the clan’s. She's my sister. Giovanni will have his revenge when I bring him her head.”

  Renaldo looked torn. He glanced to the hostel and then back to Lorenzo. After a long pause, he reluctantly nodded his agreement. He then checked his watch. “Thirty minutes, and if you don’t come out, I’m coming in.”

  “Thirty minutes,” Lorenzo said and tucked his gun under his blazer to the back of his pants. He spat on his hand and smoothed his hair back. “It shouldn’t take that long.”

  Lorenzo dashed across the street, narrowly missed by a car. The men out front of the hostel averted their eyes in an attempt to pretend the meanest underboss in the Camorra was not in their midst. He pushed open the door to the hostel and went in. The stench of tobacco and bleach smacked his senses. The first person he saw was a man with a mop and bucket cleaning the floor. The guy reminded him of Rocco. Shriveled by age, with a balding head of silver hair, he wore overalls and rubber boots. He looked up at Lorenzo and then turned and mopped in the opposite dir
ection. Lorenzo decided against the elevator. He found the emergency exit and took the stairs up five floors. When Lorenzo arrived at his destination, he removed his gun.

  The door he stopped before was room 535. He knocked once. The door opened. Lorenzo put a bullet between the eyes of the woman who answered. She let out a soft gasp before falling backward to the floor. Blood pooled and spread from the back of her skull like a halo. He stepped over her body and put two more bullets into her chest for Mirabella and Giovanni. The first was for him. She was dead. He frowned at the woman. She looked too young to be his long lost sister.

  “Drop the weapon,” a woman said from behind him. He felt the cold hard steel pressed to the back of his head.

  “Isabella?” he asked.

  “You found me,” she said. “Now drop the gun.”

  “Why would I do that?” Lorenzo answered.

  “You came to kill me. I know. But before you pull the trigger and do away with the only sister you will ever have, I think you need to hear what I have to say.”

  “I’m not putting down my gun, sweetheart. I don’t give a fuck what you have to say,” Lorenzo answered.

  “Then let me give you some motivation. Killing me does nothing to protect you. Right now my people are here in this hostel, and if I die, they deliver a special package to every clan boss in the Campania. Want to guess what’s in it?”

  Lorenzo raised his hand with the gun. He used his thumb to reset the safety.

  “Good boy,” she said and took the gun from his hand. “Now go over there and have a seat. I think you and I have what... ten, to fifteen minutes left before your man in the alley comes crashing in?”

  He smirked but didn’t reply. By the look of his watch, she had twenty-two minutes before the game changed.

  “It won’t take me that long,” she smiled. She stepped back over the dead girl. Lorenzo didn’t bother to ask who she was. He didn’t give a fuck. The truth was he had a good look at his sister and what he saw chilled him to the bone. She was the same height; same build and possessed the same lethal beauty of his mother.

  “I only have one regret in all of this. And can you guess what it is?” Isabella asked.

  Lorenzo didn’t answer.

  “You. My baby brother. All these years and they kept us apart,” she said. She tossed his gun to the other side of the room. She gripped her gun with both hands and trained it on him. “If we had a chance. If we truly had a chance, we could have been what our mother wanted. We could have started our dynasty.”

  “You don’t know our mother. And from what I hear, she couldn’t wait to throw you out with the birth water.”

  “Shut up!” Isabella let out an unholy scream. It had to reach through the walls of every room on the floor. She trembled with rage “That’s a fucking lie. My mother loved me. But Tomosino and Rocco. They forced her to give me up. She had no choice.”

  Lorenzo chuckled.

  “What’s so fucking funny?” she demanded.

  “Like I said. You don’t know a damn thing about our mother. No one ever forced her to do anything.”

  “Well here is what I do know. You’re desperate. You always have been as Giovanni’s shadow. That’s why you wanted the old man dead when Giovanni was sent off to college. You thought you’d be the next one to the throne.”

  The accusation was not one worthy of a response. Lorenzo stroked his jaw. “So you set me up. Got your hands on those tapes and thought what? You could turn me against Giovanni?”

  She laughed. “You should be more grateful. After all, I gave you your half-breed wife.”

  Lorenzo sat forward.

  She nodded. “All your life you’ve imitated and envied Giovanni. Wanted the good life here in Italy, and felt like you were robbed because you are second best. Flavio knew it. Giuseppe Calderone contacted him. Told him about the tapes. Sent him a copy. Giuseppe was never working with you. Giuseppe knew he couldn’t trust you.”

  “Va’ a farti fottere--go fuck yourself. Bullshit. Flavio wouldn’t sit on the tapes or that kind of knowledge. He never liked me.”

  “He did it for Giovanni. Everything in that fucking family is for Giovanni. He wanted him strong. He knew if he revealed the truth to Giovanni about what you did it would break him. Just like he knew if he didn’t send away that American puttana Mirabella, Giovanni would be stupid enough to fall in love with her. And for all of Flavio’s loyalty Giovanni had that runt Dominic put a bullet in his head.”

  The story made sense. Flavio was consigliere, counsel to the Don. No one knew more of the family’s deepest secrets better than the consigliere.

  “So, that’s how you got the tapes. When Flavio died, you found them.”

  She nodded. “And I also found out that Mirabella had a twin sister. I lured her here and gave her to you as a gift. Because I knew once again, you would want what Giovanni has.”

  “I love my fucking wife!” Lorenzo said.

  “Maybe,” Isabella shrugged. “But you love power more. And her being a Mancini is all the power you will need. Right, baby brother? Am I right?”

  “What is the point of this history lesson?”

  “The point is, brother, it’s time to shit or get off the pot. You can join me, and I’ll finally end the war between you and Giovanni. Stop negotiating your future with that half-breed bastardo of a Don, and take my hand. Be your own man. Make our mother proud.”

  Lorenzo stood.

  “Sit down!” she raised the gun and aimed it at his head.

  “Or what? Are you going to pull the trigger? You went through all this trouble to bring me here. Tell me bullshit about how I need you to be a man.”

  “Don’t take another step.”

  “And the truth is, bitch, I was drunk one night and said something I shouldn’t have, about a man who was more of a parent to me than that cunt of a mother of ours ever was.”

  “Shut up!” Isabella shouted at him.

  Lorenzo sneered. “Giovanni isn’t my rival. He’s my brother. I’ll fucking die for him. And so will you. Because that’s how this ends.”

  He grabbed the gun and then lunged for her throat. Isabella gagged. Lorenzo smiled when he saw the terror and rage overcome the face that was so like his mother’s. “I’m going to kill you, bitch. Slow.”

  The pitiful hits and scratches to his face didn’t slow him. He didn’t even need two hands to snuff her life out. He felt her pulse erratically fluttering beneath his palm as his fingers crushed in. Her eyes stretched to the point of bulging. Her face turned purple, and her mouth hung open with her bottom lip drooling. And then her gaze cut left to something behind him. Lorenzo let her go and swung around to fire the gun, but a needle was stuck in his neck. The hot liquid that felt like battery acid was released into his jugular. The shock from the sneak attack, and the potency from the injection broke him. He dropped to his knees. Before his consciousness slipped, he saw Isabella rubbing her throat and standing over him. The other person wasn’t in his sight, but it was a man. The voice sounded vaguely familiar. And then darkness came.

  ***

  "Lo? Lo? Wake up! Lo!"

  Two slaps on the face and he gasped. Lorenzo gagged and rolled over and vomited. Renaldo dragged him up by the collar. Lorenzo's neck was bleeding.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Where the fuck is she?" Lorenzo roared. He shoved off Renaldo's help. Lorenzo staggered to stand. His head swam with disillusionment, and he dropped on his ass once more. His neck felt like someone stuck a dagger in it. He drew his hand away to see the small traces of blood. "What the fuck did she inject me with?"

  "When I got here, the door was open. You were on the floor. She was gone." Renaldo handed him a wet rag.

  "And you didn't go after her?" he shouted.

  "I didn't know if you were dead or alive. I..."

  "Fuck!" Lorenzo shouted. "Help me up."

  Renaldo once again offered assistance. This time, Lorenzo was able to stand, but the lethargic feeling didn't subside. He staggered o
ver to the chair in the room and sat

  "So it was her? You found her?" Renaldo asked.

  "I found the bitch."

  "And who is that?" Renaldo asked about the dead woman on the floor.

  "Someone that got in the way," Lorenzo sighed. "She set this up. Like we thought."

  "Why?" Renaldo asked.

  Lorenzo’s gaze went up to his enforcer. There were few men he trusted with his life. Renaldo was one of them. But sadly he could not trust him with the truth. Isabella didn't understand his desperation. It wasn't to take anything from Giovanni. It wasn't just to be equal to Giovanni. His desperation had always been about losing the only brothers he ever had. Being raised by his evil mother had taught him one valuable lesson. Protect the ones you love, and in doing so, you protect yourself. He would find Isabella and snuff her life out. He'd convince Giovanni to give him the Mancini empire, and together they would be greater than their fathers.

  "What now, Boss?" Renaldo asked.

  "We don't stop. You don't stop. We find her, and we kill her."

  "And this? The dead woman?" Renaldo looked over to the woman on her back, lying in her own blood.

  "Giovanni doesn't need to know about this. Wrap the woman up in a sheet." Lorenzo sighed and put his face in his hand. "She's coming with us."

  Chapter Two

  Residual

  Capri, Italia - One Week Later

  "You like it, don't you, cara?" Exalted in passionate fervor, his gruff tone held a hard edge of mocking delight. With his fist full of her curly hair he yanked. The force pulled her head back from the root. Her husband's lips brushed her temple, and his tongue licked along the outer curve of her ear.