Owned by the mafia boss

MIA

A steel dumpster behind Alessio went airborne, filling the sky with flames. I was hypnotized by the flash of orange against navy blue as it sailed high. The atmosphere split with a loud boom, the explosion ripping my hand from Alessio’s. My hearing shattered like the glass from the windows facing the street. Shards rained down as burning debris launched into the bar, missing my ankle by inches. Everything tipped sideways.

Rough hands jerked me backward. A violent shove sent me sprawling through the door, back into the kitchen. I hit the rubber mat as a metallic shriek cleaved my ears. Car horns blazed from every direction. Male voices screamed through the agonizing ringing.

Alessio crawled to my side. His wide eyes flickered as the lights guttered. He shouted something I couldn’t make out. He pulled me on his lap. I slumped against him, trembling. A molasses-like warmth tickled down my leg. I wiped it and marveled at the red stain on my palm.

The lamps went out. My only illumination was the fire climbing the walls. Smoke rolled inward. Bright orange jumped over the matting, devouring fresh air. My throat clenched. A charcoal blanket had settled in the room.

I couldn’t see.

Alessio stood and yanked my arm.

A jagged agony tore my insides. The movement forced it deeper. I shrieked until I couldn’t, as smoke invaded my lungs. My knees buckled, and I smashed into the floor. I dragged myself up, ignoring the stabbing. Alessio seized my dress and hoisted me. My face hit his chest as pain sawed through my muscles.

He hauled me into the bar, away from the growing flames, and we burst outside.

The first inhale of fresh air sharpened my senses. Alessio’s blurry outline cleared. The building streamed with black plumes. Christmas lights still winked through the smoke-filled lounge.

“Are you okay?” Alessio sank to his knee, overwhelmed by a coughing fit.

I winced from a tugging sensation at my abdomen. Pain returned with a sharp blow as Alessio groped my waist and gasped. His fingers slipped in blood that had soaked my skirt and ran down my thigh. A twisted chunk of metal protruded from my side.

“Oh,” I said.

My vision tunneled into blackness.

ALESSIO REFUSED treatment until I’d been admitted into the hospital, and he snarled at the nurse who wanted to clean a trickling gash. They treated me for smoke inhalation, a panic attack, and a two-inch injury made by flying shrapnel.

Hours after they’d removed the metal and stitched me up, I plunged into a medicated calm that broke whenever the taste of ash crossed my lips. Alessio hadn’t expressed much, except to reveal that police had found remnants of a pipe bomb in the wreckage.

He sat at my bedside, his eyes shifting like burning coals. Melancholy seemed to have seized him since they’d irrigated my wound. I’d screamed during the ordeal. I was fine, but my low tolerance for pain had freaked him out. He watched me like I could drop dead at any second. Crimson stained his tattered shirt.

“Alessio, let them look at your arm. You’re covered in blood.”

“Most of it is yours. I’m so sorry. You keep getting hurt, and it’s my fault.”

“Like we expected this at a party.”

“Nico and I knew we were taking a risk.” He lifted his head from his hands, sounding exhausted. “I promised to protect you from this shit.”

“You’ve saved me twice.” I took his palm, but he flinched as though from the IV buried in my vein. “Alessio, we can’t run from who we are. You’re an underboss, and I’m the daughter of Ignacio Ricci. You can’t shield me from everything.”

“What’s the point of being a boss if I can’t?”

Exactly why I’d wanted to leave.

I didn’t want to lay on a guilt trip. “Alessio, get yourself looked at.”

“I’m okay.”

The stubborn bastard fought anything that so much as involved a Band-Aid.

I’d been at this for an hour.

I could’ve screamed. “This is not a negotiation. I’m your wife. I didn’t ask how you were feeling.”

Alessio said nothing, his expression mutinous.

“Get a doctor to look at your fucking arm before I have a meltdown.”

“All right. Easy.”

The horrible pang blistering my heart soothed when his soft mouth brushed mine. He touched my hair and kissed my temple. Alessio called a nurse into the room and allowed her to disinfect a shallow gash on his forearm. Then I asked them to treat him for smoke inhalation. He breathed in oxygen from a narrow strip attached to his nose before his head tipped, and he fell asleep in the chair.

Dragging the antibiotic drip, I slipped out of bed and readjusted the tube so it sat under his nostrils. I grabbed a fleece blanket and tucked it around his shoulders, wishing I could crawl on his lap.

“Excuse me.”

A gritty voice dragged my attention to an older gentleman whose skin was bronze silk. His thick salt-and-pepper mane parted to the side. He looked like he’d left a party. A white blazer over a red shirt wrapped his skinny frame. He leaned across the threshold and crossed his arms, silently appraising me.

The gesture was so familiar that I glanced behind to make sure Alessio hadn’t time-traveled. Alessio slept, his sleeping face a dead-ringer for the man.

Alessio’s father.

A stone lodged in my throat as he sauntered inside, his words affected by a slight Italian accent that he must’ve been unable to shake off.

“So, you’re his wife?”

I offered my hand. “Mia.”

“Orazio Salvatore.”

He didn’t need to state the obvious as he took my palm. That half-cocked smirk mirrored his son’s so thoroughly that warmth nudged my heart. He clasped both hands on mine.

“Nice to meet you. Sorry you couldn’t attend the wedding.” Or Christmas dinner. Not that I’d expected him to RSVP to the invitation, but whatever.

Orazio nodded, grasping the metal of my bed. He gazed at his son with a vague sadness.

“How is he?”

I could’ve shaken Alessio awake, but instinct rooted me to the spot. I suspected Orazio would disappear the moment Alessio stirred.

“He’s okay. Minor scrapes and bumps.”

“What happened?”

“An explosion outside a party we were leaving.” My legs weakened, I backed into a chair, dragging the wheeled saline drip. “He saved my life. Again.”

Orazio watched me with quiet disapproval.

“How did you know we were here?”

“I’m on the board of this hospital.” Orazio snatched my chart, scanning the doctor’s notes with a cool arrogance that reminded me of Alessio. “They called with the news that Alessio was in the ER with his wife. I wanted to meet you, and tell his mother you’re both fine.”

I swallowed a suggestion, terrified I would offend him, and he’d breeze out of Alessio’s life as swiftly as he’d reentered it.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“I won’t be much longer, Mia. I’m only here because Gloria threatened to come down.”

“He’d love to see her. Both of you mean the world to Alessio. He’ll be so happy. We should have you over for dinner.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not interested.”

My jaw slackened. “But you’re here.”

“I was in the middle of supper with guests. However, I couldn’t blow off my son in front of everyone, especially with my wife and daughter carrying on.” Orazio wheeled to face me, his imperial stature radiating menace. “Stop contacting us. Stop sending invitations. Stop communicating. It upsets my family. We want a clean break from that prick.”

Heat blazed my neck, with it must’ve been a fierce blush.

“I-I was just being nice.”

“I don’t care.” He mimicked Alessio’s deadpan so well those words hit me like a slap. “He’s dead to me.”

“All he wants is a second chance. He loves you. He misses you.”

“I have no room in my life for a degenerate criminal.”

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

“Maybe he’s hoodwinked you, but Alessio is involved in organized crime.”

“Alessio’s not like the rest of them.”

“How would you-” He glanced at the chart again, repeating my maiden name with a sourness that turned my stomach. “Ricci.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“You’re one of them.”

“I’d much rather be a Salvatore than a Ricci.”

“You might share our name, but you’ll never be family.”

“Why are you so hateful?” I shot upright, the movement tugging my stitches. “You don’t know me.”

“I don’t have to, darling.” He backed away, mouth twisting into a sneer. “That’s the point.”

“Wait!” I caught his sleeve. “Please stay.”

His eyes were the same shape and color as Alessio’s, but they contained none of his warmth. “Don’t make me visit a judge for a restraining order.”

“The same thing you did to your son? Do you realize how that crushed him? You drove him into Nico’s arms.”

“I told him to befriend a notorious gangster? I bought him a gun? He had a bright future ahead of him, and he went into business with that man. They can both go to hell.”

“You sound just like Alessio.”

Alessio’s darkness suddenly came full circle. He’d inherited it from his father, not Nico. The ruthlessness was the same.

“Do I have your word that you’ll stop contacting us?”

“No,” I ground out. “I won’t until his sister and mother say otherwise.”

“I’m telling you to stop.” The rock-hard exterior sheltered an unforgiving spirit that wouldn’t bow for anyone. “I’m protecting my wife and daughter from him.”

“He’d never hurt any of you.”

“Look at what he did to you.”

“That wasn’t him!”

“I don’t want him in my life.”

Frustration built in my chest. “What if he left the mafia?”

Orazio seemed to consider that, his lips curling. “If he hasn’t by now, he never will.”

“I’ll make him leave.”

“Nobody forces my son do anything.”

“He’s right.” A third voice chimed in, jump-starting my heart. Alessio sat cross-legged, head cocked as he took in the argument with a sneer. It softened when our gazes met. He lurched from the chair and balled me into his body, avoiding my wound. His smell washed over me in a pleasant wave.

God, he felt like home.

Alessio flashed a grin. “Merry Christmas, Dad. Did you open my wedding invitation?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I guess you couldn’t attend.”

“Your mother and I want no part in your new…” Orazio’s contemptuous gaze looked me up and down. “Family.”

Alessio’s face darkened. “Meaning what?”

“You married into a crime family.”

“Get over yourself, Dad. There’s no distinction between her and the Russian oligarch daughters you wanted to set me up with, except fewer people had to die to make her rich.”

“It makes all the difference in the world.”

“To your social circles filled with white-collar criminals? Your Enron buddies. The Wall Street crooks. The billionaires with teenage-girl harems. They’re fine, but her family isn’t?” Alessio tugged his wrist out of my grip, glaring at his dad. “You are such a hypocrite. Leave, you old-money fuck. Don’t ever darken my doorstep again. I’m cutting you off!”

Orazio made a derisive sound and left the room.

I gaped at Alessio. “You ruined it! Why couldn’t you keep your mouth shut?”

“He insulted my wife.”

“You were too harsh. You-you must’ve heard everything.”

“I don’t care about him, either.” Alessio balled his fists, his temperament cooling. “He’ll never take me back. It’s always been like that. Even if I quit the mob, he’d still be pissed that I married you. And if I divorced you, he’d find another reason to hate me. I’m done.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Mia, it’s okay. Really.”

“I want him to see you the way I do.”

Alessio pulled me into a hug. “I know. Thank you for trying.”

I burst into tears and clung to his shoulders.

He stood on my side, and the least I could do was accept him.

With a kiss on my temple, Alessio pushed free of my hold. “Mia, I’ve got to go find the bastards who-”

“Please.” A howl trembled from my chest. “D-don’t go! Let somebody else take care of it. I need you here. I need you alive. God, I need you.”

Alessio seemed at a loss for words. His brows lifted. “You’re having a panic attack.”

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My emotions were haywire. Tears streamed down my face as Alessio yelled for a nurse. I battered him and screamed. He’d leave. He would do things that’d put him in danger. He would get shot or stabbed and be placed on a ventilator while I sobbed at his sickbed. Then he’d pass before I told him I loved him-and shit, I was having a panic attack.

Alessio pushed me into the bed as the world shrank and blackness covered everything-nothing but despair remaining.

The nurses rushed in, and they gave me something that seeped into my veins like liquid euphoria. I sank into the pillows, the fear gone.

Alessio touched my cheek. His eyes widened. Then the steel mask he’d inherited from his father slid back into place.

“I’ve got to handle this, but I’ll be back. And then I’m taking you away.”

“Where?”

“Pick a place. We need a vacation.”

He silenced any further questions with his mouth pressing into mine, the kiss building pressure around my heart. The sweet moment that could’ve been more faded when his eyes reflected cold-blooded menace. I watched him go, already mourning the lives he would take.

He would always be a killer.

And I loved him anyway.