Owned by the mafia boss

MICHAEL

Some women wanted children.

Others liked the idea of them.

Serena was the latter. She didn’t realize how much she hated motherhood until the responsibility dropped in her lap. She was decent for a while, and then it got too hard. She stopped trying. My children paid the price for her coldhearted approach to parenting.

Carmela woke when she said she would. She took the kids to the park, made sure Mariette finished her homework, and helped my daughter prepare a memory box of Serena’s things. When Mariette missed her mom, she opened it. Simple, and it worked. Mariette kept it under her bed.

After a couple of weeks with zero hiccups from Carmela, I relaxed. I checked in on her through the camera system, but not that often. She was nothing like Serena, and I frequently found new qualities to appreciate, like Carmela’s utter lack of drama.

Several days ago, Mariette broke into our walk-in closet and found Carmela’s makeup. She’d accidentally defaced one of Carmela’s expensive purses. I’d spent hours dreading her meltdown, but when Carmela returned from her salon appointment, she shrugged off the damage. Mariette’s confusion when Carmela hugged her stood out in my mind because I’d remembered feeling the same bewilderment.

Maybe I’d gotten used to crazy.

I never realized we could handle problems without a screaming match that took down the walls. Fucking and fighting-it was all I knew. Carmela showed me that there were more sane ways of existing.

I stepped outside.

A warm front had left us with mild weather. Dew clung to the grass, but it was drying in the vibrant sunshine. Yellow finches jumped from branches as I walked under the dogwood. The garden was turning green. Life ran through the dead-looking vines that snarled the property, blooming with thick leaves.

My gorgeous brunette sprawled on a blanket under the growing rosebushes. Her caramel-streaked hair gleamed where the dappled light stroked her. She lay on her side, wearing a bright pink cut-off over black leggings, whispering to my son in a sweet voice as she tried to coax him with tubs of Play-Doh.

My four-year-old shook his head and disappeared behind a tree. Smiling, Carmela rose to her feet and chased Matteo, who shrieked when her arms wrapped his middle. She tickled his chest and kissed his cheek. My son was beside himself with all the attention. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Neither could I.

Carmela had rolled her ebony mane into a messy bun. Still, it didn’t distract from her pillowy lips, the arching eyebrows, and her irresistible curves. I imagined her in heels and a swimsuit, posing next to a vintage car. Honestly, there wasn’t much she could do without making my jaw drop.

Matteo’s head turned. “Daddy!”

He ran, a blur of rainbow tie-dye, until he crashed into my knees. My chest tightened as he locked my legs in a vise grip. When I bent over, he threw his arms around me. I hoisted him to my hip, lamenting the day he’d be too big to hold. Tears misted his lashes.

“You okay, buddy?”

“He was a second ago.” Carmela joined my side in a breeze of floral scents, rubbing Matteo’s back. “Maybe he needs a nap.”

“Nah. He has preschool soon.”Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

Matteo disengaged from me, sobbing. His pain rammed into my stomach like a swift kick. It wasn’t the usual I-skinned-my-knee crying. Matteo probably had no idea what to make of Carmela’s undivided attention. My poor kid had never really had a mother.

He looked on the verge of a meltdown, and Carmela’s affection seemed to do the trick. He bawled, hiding his face in my neck.

“What happened?” Carmela smoothed his hair, looking stricken. “What’s the matter, honey?”

Matteo shook his head.

I patted his shoulder as my shirt collar became soaked. I sank onto the steps leading to my house as he curled on my lap, bawling. Every time Carmela touched Matteo, he howled louder.

Carmela appeared to take it as a personal failure. She stepped away, her glow draining from her features. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing.” I sagged with relief when a car rolled to the curb and honked. “Look, your ride to school is here!”

Matteo faced it, hiccupping. He slid off me, his tears glistening. His crying stopped when he spotted the black Lexus.

A bewildered Carmela handed over his things. We walked Matteo to the driver, who packed him inside. He waved at Carmela and me. She waved back, beaming. When the car disappeared down the block, her smile vanished.

She hadn’t let go of my hand. “Why is he so upset?”

“Four-year-olds cry about everything.”

She still gazed in the car’s direction. “He gets overwhelmed easily.”

“That’s courtesy of their dearly departed mother.”

“What happened?” Carmela squeezed my fingers, her voice husky. “Did she hit them?”

A white van in a parking lot burned in my mind. The echoes of their screaming crashed through the birdsong, siphoning the warmth from the world until the coldness seeped into my chest.

I pulled from her grip and strode inside.

Carmela was clearly horrified. She was already assuming the worst, and I couldn’t bear her pity. I’d done what I could to minimize the damage Serena had caused, but nothing ever alleviated the guilt.

“Michael?”

I bristled. “Don’t push it.”

“I’m not asking for the gory details. I just want the general idea of what they went through. If they’ve been abused-”

“Unless you’re ready to spill the darkest moments of your life, leave it alone.” I seized the shopping tote I’d left on the kitchen table and pushed it in her arms. “I got you a present.”

Carmela set it aside, glaring at me.

“Open it.”

Her lips flattened as she yanked the tissue paper, pulling out a Burberry bag.

I’d found a store and searched for the bag my daughter had ruined, but they no longer carried that model, so I’d bought something similar. I had no fucking clue about purses. An employee picked it.

“What’s this for?”

“Mariette destroyed yours. I thought you’d like a replacement.”

Carmela dropped it on the granite, softening. “You didn’t have to do this, Michael.”

“I wanted to.”

“I appreciate the gesture,” she said bracingly. “But I don’t care about the damned purse. You can’t throw gifts at me and expect your problems to disappear.”

Well, it had worked for the last wife.

“Don’t ask questions you can’t handle the answer to.”

“Who says I can’t?”

Because she was as pure as the driven snow. “Life isn’t a fairytale. The answers aren’t always pretty.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“How could you possibly understand?”

Carmela shot me a look filled with poison.

“Something you want to say?”

She held up a hand. “Don’t tempt me.”

“You’re dying to have a go, so do it. Get it out of your system.”

“I like your kids, but I do not like you.” Carmela seized a dishcloth from a drawer and wiped crumbs from the counter. “And I don’t think I ever will.”

Not surprising. “Keep going.”

“You’re a bully,” she boomed, throwing the rag in the sink. “A joyless asshole. You’re lonely. You’re hurting over your brother and Serena.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong.”

She cocked her head and smiled. “About her or the rest of it?”

I’d kick her out if my children didn’t already love her. “How am I joyless?”

“You dodge family events. You don’t want to join the band or the pajama dance party-”

“Banging on pots and pans is not music.”

She glared at me. “It’s fun.”

“It’s rupturing my eardrums.”

“I’m helping your ungrateful ass, which you’d notice if you stopped behaving like a jerk!”

Carmela blew air in a steady stream, the only sign that she was distressed beyond the slight pink of her cheeks. I’d known no one with more grace. Beautiful, even when she gazed at me like slime under her heel.

I pulled her close. “Do you hate me, Carmela?”

Some of the fire in her eyes dimmed.

“You’re giving me little reason not to.”

“I’m trying to change that.”

She glanced at the purse. “Why?”

“Looking at you is torture, but not touching you is killing me.”

Her hourglass curves filled my hands, triggering a dozen images of us tangled in the sheets. Carmela’s flush had spread to her neck and chest, and I dipped, kissing her cheek. Her lips parted, and she let out the smallest sigh.

“Should I tell you what I think of you?”

Her nostrils flared. “I’m good, thanks. I’ve had my fill of truth.”

“I might surprise you.”

“I don’t need to hear it.”

“The man before me left a deep wound.” I traced an invisible scar over her heart. “You’re hurting. You’re lonely. And you’ll be eating from my hand soon… because only I can give what you want most in the world.”

She lifted her head, bewildered.

Nothing was more exciting than a strong woman surrendering control-that collapse of every layer of defense until all that remained was their true essence. The key to Carmela’s soul wasn’t hard-I’d discovered it within a few minutes of conversation.

She had yet to figure me out.