After that day, I made an extra effort to not look at her body, focusing only on her face. Yet, even that didn’t help matters. Because Stella’s blue eyes and teasing smile haunted my nights, and sometimes even popped up when I fucked another woman. It was maddening.

Stella had become a fucking star, shining so brightly that she’d burned herself into my mind. No matter what I did, the image of her smile, of her curves, flashed up, even when I closed my eyes. It was like closing your eyes after you’d looked directly at the sun for too long: speckles of light kept dancing against the dark of your eyelids, reminding you of the enticing brightness you’d closed off.

I cleaned my hands of the blood. The cleaners took care of the body and the cut off parts. Torturing Bratva assholes for information was one of the perks of my job, which currently was jack-of-all-trades because at twenty-three, my father wanted to show me the ins and outs of every area of the business in our city before I’d take over from him in a few years.

My phone rang and I dried my hands before I took the call.

“Mauro, I need you to come over right away to watch Stella.”

I paused. “I thought you were leaving for Vermont today?” At every family dinner, I’d been forced to attend in the last few weeks, Felicitas hadn’t shut up about their upcoming ski trip to one of those uptight luxury resorts.

“We are,” Father said impatiently. “But Stella’s not coming with us.”

“What about the midgets?” That’s what I called my three little half-siblings.

“Of course, they are coming with us. Felicitas would go crazy if she had to be separated from her children for a week.”

“Stella is her kid too, she knows that, right?”

“I don’t have time to talk about this. Come over. You need to stay here the days we are gone and protect Stella.” He hung up, not waiting for my reply. Naturally, he expected obedience. His soldiers always followed his command after all, and as his son, I was little more than that in his eyes.

I grabbed my car keys, left the torture room and hurried toward my car, a new Aston Martin model that Father had given me on my last birthday. What he lacked in praise and affection, he made up with money and pricy gifts tenfold. I wasn’t a little kid anymore who craved his love or approval, so I was fine with our arrangement. I froze with my pointer finger against the start engine button when I realized what Father’s newest task of babysitting meant for me. I’d have to spend an entire week under a roof with Stella, my off-limits stepsister who visited my dreams almost every night.

Fuck. I was so screwed. Something I couldn’t do with Stella—never.

Stella

Mother didn’t deign me with a single glance as she ushered my three half-siblings into the lobby where their luggage waited for the bodyguards to pick them up. She’d never been this motherly to me, not even when I had been younger. Maybe it was because she’d been only nineteen when she had me, or maybe she just didn’t like me very much because half of me was Dad. She’d never looked in love with him while she seemed infatuated like a teenager with Alfredo.

“Where is he?” Mother asked, annoyed, as she peered at her Rolex, matching the Rolex around Alfredo’s wrist.

Alfredo knew that tone, and he took out his phone to call Mauro.

Excitement bubbled in me when I thought of spending a week alone with Mauro. When he’d moved out, and worse, spent a year abroad, I’d been devastated. He’d always been the only one who sided with me in this house. As a Made Man he was busy, so I only saw him once a week when he visited for family dinner. Before his time in Sicily he’d occasionally picked me up so we could do something together, but that never happened anymore.

A ring sounded and Mauro appeared in the open doorway, rolling his eyes at his father. “I’m here. I came as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I’m not the only car on the street.”

“We’re going to be late for our flight,” Mother said. I hovered on the last step of the staircase and gave Mauro a quick smile, trying to ignore the way my belly fluttered. For three years, I’d been in love with him, a completely insane, impossible crush I couldn’t shake. It was a good thing that Mauro didn’t see me as more than his little stepsister, someone he now had to babysit as if I were eight and not almost eighteen.

Mauro cocked an eyebrow at me over my mother’s head and I had to bite back laughter. She’d probably have grounded me eternally if she’d discovered I wasn’t half as sad as she wanted me to be because I wasn’t allowed to go on their ski adventure with them.

“Will you be gone the planned week?” Mauro asked.

“Of course,” Alfredo said as if it was a stupid question.

Mauro’s eyes tightened, his brows building a V and a muscle in his left cheek twitched in a way that showed his displeasure over the situation. Was it so bad to spend a few days with me?

“Stella’s birthday is in four days. Isn’t it tradition to celebrate with the family?”

Oh. He was pissed on my behalf. The stupid butterflies in my stomach rioted.

Mother made a small noncommittal noise. “She should have thought about it before acting out.”

My little sister had hit me with her Barbie doll because I didn’t do what she wanted, which was why I’d taken the thing away. Mother had spoiled her and my other half-siblings rotten and obviously preferred to keep it that way.

I was glad to stay home. If I’d come along, they would have used me as a nanny and their metaphorical punching bag whenever something didn’t go as planned. A few chill days with Netflix, fast food, and Mauro sounded like pure bliss in comparison.

Mauro shook his head again. Sometimes I got the feeling my mother’s lack of interest in me annoyed him more than it did me. It had bothered me for a long time, and it still occasionally did, but I’d come to terms with it. Mother wouldn’t miraculously become more caring or affectionate, and if I didn’t want her neglect to break me, I needed to accept it and move on.

Mother, Alfonso, and the three spoiled little brats finally left the house. Mauro threw the door shut with more force than necessary, shaking his head. Then his gaze settled on me.

“You look as if you got a jail sentence. Is it really so bad to stay with me?”

Mauro ran a hand through his dark hair, those milk-chocolate brown eyes locking on mine. “No. But I hate to be called away from business because of last-minute theatricals.”

“You had plans?” I asked, wondering if he was currently seeing a girl.

He couldn’t really date. Women from our world were only allowed to be with their husband, and Outsiders could never be more than an affair. Still, it bothered me that Mauro was with other girls when it decidedly shouldn’t. He wasn’t mine, never would be. The butterflies stopped their maddening fluttering as if someone had ripped their wings off, and that’s how it felt whenever I considered how doomed my feelings for Mauro were.

I couldn’t stop myself from checking him out. He was tall, more than a head taller than me, and muscled but not bulky. He was lithe, deadly, and just ridiculously handsome. His shirt hugged his six-pack, his pecs, and his strong biceps. Because the shirt was white, the outline of his Famiglia tattoo that every Made Man got for his initiation shone through.