Heartless Prince by Brook Wilder
Chapter 11
Lucas
Moments Before
I left Leda in the bedroom and walked down the stairs to my office, the automatic lights coming on as soon as I stepped over the threshold. It was sometime after midnight, but I felt like this night was going on forever, wanting nothing more than to crawl into my bed and catch a few hours of sleep.
Instead, I grabbed the decanter on the sideboard along the wall and poured a healthy swallow of whiskey into the glass, watching as the amber liquid filled the crystal. While I should have been upstairs, making good on my claim when I acquired Leda D’Agostino, I hesitated.
Mainly because I wanted her to wallow in the fear of what was going to take place for a little while longer. Call me a bastard, but I enjoyed watching her shrink from me.
I wasn’t a sadist by any means. I didn’t hit women or inflict any forms of abuse, but if a woman wanted to be spanked, well, I wasn’t above doing that. The pain I inflicted on my partners was for pleasure, theirs and mine.
Picking up the glass, I took a long swallow, feeling the whiskey slide down my throat. I was certain that she was sitting in that room, wondering what was going to happen to her.
Fuck, I had so many options. I wanted her to beg for me, for my cock. I wanted her to have a flicker of distrust in those gorgeous fucking eyes of hers so that I could play on that distrust.
I wanted Leda to wish she had never been born a D’Agostino.
I drained the glass and set it aside, running my hands through my hair. I could already taste her skin on my tongue, drinking in her fear of me intermingled with passion that I would pull out of her. There was something lurking behind Leda’s innocence, something that was begging to be brought to the surface, and I was the sort of man to do it.
Adjusting the front of my slacks, I forced myself to think of something else for now. If I didn’t, I would be stroking myself in a few minutes.
My cell phone buzzed in my coat and I pulled it out, holding it up to my ear. “Yeah.”
“Hello, Lucas.”
My blood ran cold at the harsh voice. I clenched my free hand into a fist at my side. “What the fuck do you want, Adrian?” Adrian Gallo fancied himself to be something other than a member of the Cavazzo Mafia.
The fool fancied himself the Don.
Too bad I had already filled that position.
“I’m hearing rumors,” he stated. “Rumors that you have the D’Agostino princess in your grasp.”
I chuckled darkly, figuring that word was spreading like wildfire already. Now that the funds had been paid, I owned Leda. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I’m not going to war over the bitch,” he growled.
My good humor left my face. “It’s not your war to decide. You aren’t the fucking Don, I am. Have you forgotten?”
Truly it had been a surprise to all, including me, that Cosimo Cavazzo would pick his enforcer to become Don in his will. I had watched the Mafia Don’s back for five years after he had pulled me out of his shithole organization to serve him in a different capacity. Adrian had been his nephew, the heir who was destined to become Don.
The funny thing was, I knew the old man was having the last laugh. His entire family, including Adrian, had protested the will, but in the end, I had inherited the title and all the fucking money.
It didn’t mean that any of them liked it. I knew I had a target on my back, not only from the rest of the actual Cavazzo family, but from other Mafias. To them, I was an outsider, someone who wasn’t born into that inner circle.
And the truth was, I wasn’t.
I was just a kid when my heroin-addicted mom sold me into the family—trading her son for her next hit.
I had suffered at their hands in ways that no one could even possibly imagine.
“So you keep reminding me,” Adrian said with clear displeasure in his voice. “You are a disgrace on my uncle’s name, Valentino, and I am going to ensure that his legacy, my fucking family’s legacy, is put back together like it should be.”
“Good luck with that,” I told him. “You’ve been trying for five fucking years. Tell me what you are going to do differently this time.”
“You have your day coming,” Adrian replied.
I ended the call before he could go any further, and reached for the bottle once more.
He was an asshole, just like the rest of the family. There were some capos that had been willing to follow me without complaint, my second-in-command Rocco being one of them. For five fucking years I had fought Adrian and his family, and earned my place among the Dons.
I was ruthless, straying on the other side of the blurred line between what I wanted to do and what were unspoken rules. I was unapologetic in my kills and dealings, stealing from the other Dons when I could and laughing in their faces when they raised hell about it.
I took after the lessons of the Don from the good old days, building my empire as I saw fit and not what everyone expected I would do. There were even rumors that I bathed in the blood of my enemies—rumors that I encouraged.
I wanted my enemies to fear me.
Drawing in a breath, I poured another glass, and then set the decanter aside on the sideboard. Adrian was right about one thing. Everything was about to be out in the open about my purchase of Leda D’Agostino.
I did it for two reasons: one, to get back at Carmine, and two, to flex my muscles as Don. There had been a room full of Dons that had been running this world for generations. They could probably go back hundreds of years in their family trees, and it would have been impossible for one of them to take the D’Agostino princess into their Mafia like I had.
I overpowered them all with my money, and damn did it feel good.
After being the one they had used for years, I knew I held something enormously powerful in my hands. The fate of the D’Agostino Mafia. Their power might have been broken, but the foundation of their wealth—the string of properties and clubs and other investments—remained.
Everyone knew that Carmine’s son Nico forfeited his rights as Don. He had no interest in the family business, and rumor was that he had a family of his own to take care of.
That, and the fact that Carmine just wouldn’t die. I couldn’t understand why someone who was poised to be in a position of power would give it all up for a family.
Families were shit. They didn’t do anything but cause hurt and let down those that depended on them.
I threw back the whiskey, letting it burn my throat this time. I hated any sort of feelings. They reminded me of my weakest moments, moments where I didn’t think I would survive past the morning.
If it hadn’t been for Cosimo realizing I was better suited as an enforcer, I would still be living that life.
Or dead. Most likely dead.
Now I could defend myself with the best. I was a knife expert, able to hit a target from fifty yards away. I knew where to slice and dice for a slow death and how to find the quick kill without a sound.
I wasn’t half bad with a gun in my hand either, but I preferred the intimacy of knives any day. That way I could see the fear in their eyes and feel their life drain out of their bodies.
My other skills, well, I could get close to just about anyone without them realizing that the fox was in the henhouse. And by the time they knew, it was already too late.
Placing the glass down, I drew in a breath. The other Dons must be passing word to their capos and soldiers. I would now be targeted for having her in my presence. There were many that wanted to make Carmine pay, many who wanted to watch him suffer at their hand. Leda was an easy way to make that happen. Some might kill her outright, send her head to Carmine’s prison cell.
Others might marry her off to their sons, so their worthless heirs might plant a brat in her belly and extinguish the D’Agostino bloodline altogether.
Some would want her to hurt, to pay for his crimes.
Me?
I wanted to make her submit to me in every way a woman submits to a man.
I wanted Carmine to know that his little girl was worshipping someone else, someone who would take her fears and craft them in a way that would have her crawling to me for protection instead of defying me.
That was my plan for his little girl, and unless I wanted to have others attempting to kill me, I needed to start executing my plan.
“Boss.”
I turned to find Rocco at the door, his bulky frame filling up the space. “What is it?”
“Guards are all in place,” he stated, his eyes piercing in the dim lighting.
Where I was fucking great at my knives, Rocco could kill a man ten different ways with his bare hands. A former Navy SEAL, he had taken up with the Cavazzo Mafia when his fiancée had been killed in a turf war.
Cosimo had told me many times that he had never seen such a big man move with such stealth or elicit such screams from his victims. I had the good sense to keep Rocco on as my second when Cosimo died.
“Good, because word is out.”
He chuckled. “Did you think it wouldn’t be? You practically rub your balls in their faces and dared them to come after you.”
I gave him a rare grin. Rocco was the only person that would ever see me like this, not as the powerful Don but as a man who was hell-bent on making a name for himself. I knew he wouldn’t betray me and would take a bullet for me if there ever came a need to do so.
If I had been keen on having friends, he would have been the closest person to take that title.
“Did you expect me to do it any differently?”
He shook his head, his eyes flickering to the ceiling. “Want me to put a guard on her too?”
“No,” I stated, the grin fading. “I’m about to handle her myself.” My cock ached at the thought of her on her knees, big eyes looking up at me while her plump lips were wrapped around it.
Rocco shrugged. “I’ll be around then.”
I waited until he had left before I exited the office, and headed toward the stairs. Leda was mine. I didn’t need anyone to help with watching out for her, which was one of the reasons that I had left her door unlocked.
I wanted to see how far that defiance was going to be pushed. I had expected a meek and mild Mafia princess, knowing she had grown up in a world where she had always expected to be a trophy wife one day.
I hadn’t expected a hellcat with claws, but that only made me want her more.
I liked the challenge. Hell, I relished in it.
It would make breaking her in the end so much more rewarding, and she was guaranteed to give me a fight.
The thought of her trying to fight me made me fucking hard as a rock.
I reached the second landing, passing by my bedroom as I walked to hers. Likely by now she had found the lingerie in the wardrobe and knew what my plans were for her.
My cock throbbed as I thought about which outfit she was wearing or if she was wearing anything at all.
Would she give herself to me to get out of this situation? Would she be lying on the bed, those hazel green eyes flashing at me warily as I entered the room, her body primed for my touch?
Fuck, I hoped so. It had been some time since I had buried myself in a woman with some fight in her, and Leda was already driving me wild.
The door was still closed, and I turned the knob, pushing it open slowly in case she had decided not to give in and had found a weapon instead. Rocco had walked through the room himself, removing any chance of her arming herself. But she was crafty, and I left nothing to chance.
There was no attack, but my feet faltered on the plush carpeting when I saw the open balcony door and the flash of a leg as Leda heaved herself over the railing.
Fuck me. I raced over, my heart fucking stopping in my chest. She had jumped.
But then the gleaming white sheet caught my eye, and I came to the railing just in time to watch her shimmy down the rest of the sheet. She looked up, and I wanted to smirk at her.
“Run if you want,” I called out. “You won’t get far.”
Leda’s eyes narrowed, and she shot me the middle finger before taking off across the grass. When she was out of earshot, I chuckled to myself, watching as she disappeared into the night. A monster stirred in me and I felt my balls ache for release at what was about to happen.
I liked when they ran.
I loved a good chase.
And when I caught up with Leda, she was going to wish she had never run.
