Page 38 of Stalking Ginevra

“Stick out your tongue.”

She obeys.

I rub my cock’s wet tip over her velvety flesh, feeling every little taste bud. She squeezes her eyes shut, and I wonder what she’s plotting. Once I’m clean, I shove her backward, allowing her to scamper into the corner.

“Until next time, kitten,” I murmur, reveling in the way she trembles.

I slip out of the door, letting it close behind me with a soft click, and cross her friend’s hallway. Triumph soars in my chest, mingling with the anticipation of what’s to come.

There will be a next time. I’ll savor it more than this. Now I know just how far she can fall—I will make sure she plummets even further.

Soon, there will be nothing left of the woman who once dared to think she could leave me.

FIFTEEN

BENITO

Hours later, I walk through the grounds after watching the sun rise from my old treehouse. The morning sun filters through the juniper trees, warming my skin. The Bluetooths in my ears buzz with a barrage of calls. Roman has confined us to the grounds until we eliminate the threat of the assassins. According to Cesare, their client ordered a triple hit.

Last night was a public relations catastrophe. Everyone who mattered in the state of New Alderney was at the party, from the governor to the police chief.

The Mortis House boys I sent to watch over Nick Terranova are managing most of the fallout, while I focus on smoothing over last night’s disaster with the press and the highest echelons of New Alderney.

Whoever commissioned that public attack on Roman made the Montesano family look weak. I know what the underworld used to call Cesare and me—the princes in the tower.

Roman ordered us not to retaliate against Capello or even Galliano, who lured our mother into marriage. I couldn’t even take back Ginevra. He told us to play small, focus on fighting hisunjust imprisonment, and help Leroi plan the elimination of the entire Capello bloodline.

For five years, we lay low, plotted, waited for the right time to rise from the ashes of our ruin, only for some bastard to piss on our kindling.

“Yes, Governor Johnson,” I say, barely listening to his rant. “We’ve handed all the evidence to the authorities. Police Chief Reed assures me he will investigate the matter personally.”

He won’t.

Every official holding any measure of power within the state of New Alderney is neck-deep in corruption. If we’re not paying them off, then they’re accepting kickbacks from the Orazi family. Or the Capellos. Now that they’re dead, I expect the officials will switch loyalties to the Galliano brothers.

“I’m sorry to hear your wife sprained her ankle in the rush to exit,” I reply to whatever he just said. “Please send her my fondest regards.”

Governor Johnson rejected Roman’s multiple pleas for clemency because he was so indebted to Capello that his breath stank of the dead man’s balls.

But today, Johnson’s out of excuses, and I hang up on him without a shred of regret, switching to the call waiting from the mayor. It’s the usual whiny bullshit, only this time, he’s complaining about the escort we detained. She’ll continue staying with us until we determine she isn’t an assassin.

I tune out his diatribe. Men like him are susceptible to the allure of a pretty young thing, so blinded by her tight skirt and fake smiles that he won’t notice her red flags. Just like Leroi with Rosalind. And Cesare with Rosalind. Neither of them realized she was dangerous until it was too late.

This is why I would rather be alone than under a woman’s thumb. All they ever do is take what they want and leave a man in ruins.

The hour I spent degrading my darling Ginevra was exactly what I needed to face this shitstorm. Everything’s now under control. Mostly. Roman has confined Capello’s daughter to the master suite, and Cesare is interrogating the assassins who failed to escape.

I’ve sent Reaper and his team after the blonde who fled down the chute, but I’m not hopeful. She’s a trained professional, who will likely lead us into a wild goose chase.

Leroi is safe in his hiding spot. I made the mistake of walking across the grounds to check on his recovery. Even after calling ahead to tell Seraphine that the house and grounds were no longer on lockdown and to open the shutters, she still tried to shoot me in the face.

Maybe my cousin was high on painkillers, but he didn’t even register her behavior as unhinged. He just gazed at her like she was a broken masterpiece, a Picasso in human form, failing to even notice he’s taken in a deranged little hellcat. I told them there’s a new hit on the three of us and advised him to leave the house and convalesce in the mansion. Leroi glanced at Seraphine and refused.

My phone buzzes. It’s a message from someone at the door, telling me Losanna Di Marco and Valentino Bossanova are ready to leave. Cutting off the mayor mid-sentence, I burst out of the trees, passing the pool house, and sprint across the lawn.

Sunlight beats down on my back, powering my stride as I round the side of the house. The muffled sounds of conversation from the front grow louder with each step, and I falter, catching sight of Losanna at the front steps, bickering with my men.

Her eye is bruised from being trampled in last night’s stampede. My lips tighten. She’s either disorientated or still drunk. Her green dress, now more like a rag than a gown, hangs off her like a crumpled leaf, the fabric clinging to her pale skin, reminding me of all her wasted trips to rehab.

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