STOLEN SMILE

JENNIFER

"No one will ever kill me, they wouldn't dare."

-Carmine Galante

†*******†

THERE WAS NO BETTER PLACE for me than at the heart of the Cosa Nostra. Like the last piece of a puzzle, my existence was a perfect fit.

No matter if I were a lawyer's daughter, a doctor's, or a janitor's, I would have found my way on the wrong side of the law doing the one thing I loved to do: hustling.

I was Antonio Melgren's daughter, no one else's, and for that reason I was damn good at what I did. My papà used to have a saying: Non ha il dolce a caro, chi provato non ha l'amaro. It was a way of telling me there was no room for regrets in this world, that a person had to taste the bitter before they could taste the sweet.
[Translate:- To taste the sweet, you must taste the bitter.]

I'd heard it when I was seven, as I looked at the first dead man I'd
ever seen: eyes open, blood pooling on the warehouse floor. In my profession, regrets were easy to come by. They piled up, each one weakening a man's resolve. I didn't regret much, and up until recently I had only one that followed me around. I regretted fucking Grace while she was still married to my father. Most recently, and more so than even that, I regretted signing the contract for Audrey .

I wanted her sister.

In my bed.

Against the wall.

On her knees.

I'd involuntarily gone over what it would take to get out of the contract, knew exactly what I would do. My family was known for breaking agreements—it was what got my papà killed, in fact. Not the best incentive, but I didn't fear the Abelli's. Didn't fear anything at all, honestly, which would probably be the cause of my eventual demise.

I wanted Caterina Abelli, and starting a feud just so I could have her was beginning to sound less and less like a bad idea every time she was near. But I wasn't going to go through with the twisted plan my mind had created.

I wanted to fuck her.

I didn't want to marry her.

My wife was only supposed to be a woman I could respect and who'd have my children. Not one I was so fascinated with I couldn't think straight. In this life, I couldn't afford the distraction. Didn't want the attachment. And she'd fucked with my head already.

Though, as regrettable as it was, I couldn't help but to be interested in everything that came out of the girl's mouth. It was getting to the point she couldn't make a move without my notice, no matter how much I tried to stop myself.

I didn't know why she spoke so freely and obstinately with me, though it was probably because she now considered me to be a fucking sister. If only she knew that when she talked back to me, I wanted to cover her mouth with my palm, back her up against a wall, and then watch the shock in her soft brown eyes as I slid my hand beneath that tiny pink thong she was wearing. Fucking pink. For some reason when I saw that, my control shook hard.

If I'd started, I wouldn't have stopped.

I would have fucked her up against an alley wall, and I had a tenacious feeling it wouldn't have been enough. It was the Melgren blood in me. It wanted what it wanted, and fuck everything else.

The alley door shut with a click behind me, pulling me from my thoughts. I buttoned my suit jacket and followed Caterina down the hall, that silky black ponytail within arms' reach. When she'd spun around in the alley, it hit me in the chest. I had to tell myself it wasn't a fucking leash because after I grabbed it earlier, I now wanted to pull her around by it, straight to my bed whether she liked it or not.