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When one of my uncles called my mother and asked if I would be willing to study abroad in Italy in order to help get closer to the Valentino family, my mother laughed at him. She thought it was an absurd plan that would never work.
But Italy had always intrigued me after growing up hearing my cousins reminisce on their time here, so in spite of my mother, I had agreed to come. I had mostly planned to be a normal university student, but my uncle forced me to “bump into” Tallon. I knew that if I didn’t seem loyal to the family they would stop funding my studies abroad, so I had to at least keep up the appearance that I was trying to infiltrate the Valentinos.
The first time I met Tallon, I hadn’t intended to get him to fall in love with me. I thought the Don of the most powerful family in Italy would have dozens of women lining up to be with him. It wasn’t until after we’d had a long conversation that I realized he was single, and I figured out exactly how I could gather intel for my family–by becoming Tallon’s girlfriend.
After growing up hearing all about how he and his family had destroyed our wealth and forced us into hiding, it seemed like an easy way to get payback for my family, and I knew it would make my uncles happy.
What I hadn’t been able to prepare for was how much I would enjoy Tallon’s company. It turned out that he was far kinder than I had been led to believe, and it helped that he was one of the most attractive men that I had ever met.
What had started out as a way to help my family gain back some of what they had lost had quickly turned into a horribly anxiety-inducing problem. Not only did I not want to use Tallon to put his men in danger, but I was also quickly falling for him in a way that was dangerous for me.
I took a deep breath. My feelings didn’t matter. I needed to do this for my family. They weren’t the best family a person could have, but they had always been there for me throughout the years, and my mother was wonderful.
She was the real reason I had agreed to do this for my uncles. Even though she thought it was a silly plan, I was able to tell by the tone of her voice that she was excited at the idea of us finally regaining the power we had lost. I was too young to remember what it was like when my family had controlled the entire Russian black market, but my mother always spoke fondly about growing up in a gorgeous mansion filled with family and friends. They had servants who attended to their every need and never wanted for anything. It was difficult for me to imagine considering I had grown up in a small condo in the States, where it was mostly just my mother and me.
When I considered how much it would change my mother’s life to get some of that wealth and power back, it was obvious that I needed to continue with the plan. I made it to my next class and sat in the far back so I could text Tallon without the professor noticing.
“What are you doing today?” I smiled to myself, imagining how happy he would be to hear from me.
He responded almost immediately. “Mostly paperwork, unfortunately. How about you?”
“I’m in class. Learning about carbon-carbon double bonds.”
“Yikes. That sounds terrifying.”
“Only a bit.”
“You must be some kind of genius.”
“Not really, but you’re welcome to keep thinking that.” I smirked as I imagined his reaction to that.
“I think the world of you. I can’t imagine you being bad at anything.”
I frowned. He was right to think that I was usually pretty good at anything I set my mind to, but it made me feel guilty all over again to think of the ways in which I was going to betray him. I put my phone away, not wanting to think about it anymore.
The professor had moved on from carbon-carbon double bonds to talk about hybridized orbitals. I attempted to take notes on my laptop, but I kept getting distracted thinking about how Tallon had thought of me when he saw a bleeding heart flower. He had no idea how accurate his comparison had been. I was invading his life, and if my plan was successful, he would hate me forever.
I forced myself to think about my mother, about how sad she had been to grow up away from her family. I forced myself to remember the brother that she’d lost because of Tallon’s men. She had never really gotten over her grief for him.
I pulled my phone back out.
“What’s your favorite flower?” I asked him, trying to steer the conversation away from any discussion of me and my supposedly good attributes.
“I like red lilies. I know the white lily is our national flower, but I find the red so much more alluring.”
I rolled my eyes. His flower metaphors were getting a little pointed. But honestly, I loved it. There was something so intriguing about a man who was happy to discuss his favorite flowers when I also happened to know he was a mafia Don.
I could feel myself itching to pull back the layers of Tallon’s personality to see what was underneath. He didn’t have secrets the way I did, but I knew there were things that he wouldn’t reveal to me until he was really comfortable. If I was going to be successful at this, I needed to get him really comfortable, even if that meant compromising my own morals.
“My grandmother used to call red lilies ‘stained madonnas.'” I texted him back. It wasn’t true. In fact, I never even knew my grandmother, but I hoped that if I mentioned something small about my family, then he might start talking about his own.
“She sounds scary! I’d love to meet her someday. I love terrifying women.”
His text made me laugh out loud and I quickly covered my mouth. The people around me turned to look at me, no doubt wondering what I found funny about an organic chemistry lecture. “Sorry!” I whispered.
I spent the rest of the class texting back and forth, trying to toe the line between doing something good for my family and not wanting to break Tallon’s heart.
As I was walking out of class, I realized that there was no way to do this without breaking Tallon’s heart, and that my own would likely be broken as well. I shoved my phone back into my pocket and vowed to stop talking to Tallon.
I would just tell my uncles that I had tried, but he had pushed me away. Surely they would believe me. Once again, guilt gnawed at me as I mentally prepared myself to lie to people I claimed to love. How could I ever choose between Tallon and my family?
Other than my mother, my family had never been great. My cousins were mostly rough boys being raised by angry men who had been chased out of their homes years ago. I grew up quickly learning how to fight, not because of bullies in the schoolyard, but because of my own family. My first fistfight was when I was nine, and my older cousin attacked me for calling him a cheater.
But tricking Tallon wouldn’t only benefit my cousins and uncles; it would also help my mother. I chewed on my lip as I considered whether or not helping her was worth it.
I just couldn’t decide what to do. My phone buzzed a few more times with messages from Tallon, but I didn’t want to see them.
I needed to stop thinking about all of it for a little while.
*Tallon*
“The armory is running low on supplies, so Tino is requesting new updates for both the weaponry and armor stores. Our shipment from Guam is running behind due to the tropical storm, so Manuel is requesting that we delay the products we do have.”
I sighed, balancing my pencil on the edge of my pointer finger. I was only half paying attention as Vinny went on and on about things I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about. I stared down at my desk, the one I’d inherited from Giovani, and the slip of paper sitting innocently beneath my fingertips.
Her handwriting stared up at me, taunting me, but I couldn’t look away. After studying it for hours on end, I had begun to notice the little details like how she drew a tiny heart above the I in her name, the way she flourished her M’s, and how the line of ‘Call Me’ was drawn thicker than the rest of the note.
It was just a ripped-up piece of notebook paper but somehow, it had become invaluable to me, just like Natalia had.
She was an enigma, a siren who only I could hear as she sang just for me. She was too alluring to ignore, drawing me into her with every moment she made. Despite how vulnerable, thin, and breakable she seemed, she held an iron will that held up against anything I could throw at her.
I hadn’t known her for that long, had barely spent more than a few hours together, but there was just something about her that kept me coming back to her. I just couldn’t stop thinking about her and all the stolen moments we had shared.
In my head, I kept running back to our last conversation–the way her face fell, hesitation in her eyes as she stepped away from me, and those cold, biting words she’d said before leaving the dance floor and me.
Most men would’ve given up by now. They would have gone on with their daily lives and forgotten about the woman who rejected them so brutally. But that wasn’t the kind of man I was.
No, the vision of her back as she left me alone on the dance floor had only fuelled the flames of desire within me. But the more days that passed with no sign of her returning, the more bitter my heart grew with longing, leading me to grasp the only thing I had of her in my possession–the damn number that she never answered.
“Tallon!”
I snapped to attention, glancing up at Vinny, who gave me a cross look. “What is it?”
“You’re not even paying attention!” He threw his hands up exasperated, beginning to pace in front of my desk with a heated passion. “You’re so distracted these days that we’ve got a whole backlog of internal affairs to sort out, and you’re just staring at the stupid piece of paper like some lovesick hopeless romantic idiot!”
I crossed my arms, giving him a pointed look. “Update the armor and have the shipment marked express. We just got new weapons, so no to that. Tell Manuel that we’re not delaying anything. We give the product we have, and if they have any complaints, just tell them we don’t control the fucking weather. Anything else?”
There was a lasting moment of silence as Vinny and I stared at each other, neither backing down from our defensive sides. Finally, he sighed, giving me a narrowed look like he hated me and everything I stood for.
“You are the bane of my existence,” Vinny grumbled unhappily.
“Love you too,” I shot back with a grin, then I turned back to the number on my desk, laying my head on my fist. “Now, if only I could solve this issue as easily.”
Vinny collapsed onto the leather recliner on the other side of the desk, propping his feet up on the mahogany desk without a care in the world for its preciousness. If Giovani–or worse, my father–had seen what he was doing to their precious desk, there would be hell to pay.
