“Sorry, boss,” he says. “Traffic was a bitch.”
“We good?” I ask.
“With Diego Romano?” he mutters, sliding onto the stool next to me.
“Yes,” I say.
He runs a hand through his hair, his silver rings gripping tightly onto the flesh of his fingers. “You know what that pricks like. The bastard won’t quit. Keeps saying that the only way to make sure the Romanos and the DeLucas are properly allied is for you to marry his daughter.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I tell him.
“I know,” Matteo says. “That’s what I keep telling him.”
I glance at the mirror, watching in the reflection as the woman drops into a man’s lap and starts squirming around, giving him a lap dance. I look away quickly, wondering if I’ll ever find my queen, the woman I’ve been searching for my entire life.
“Come on,” I say, standing up and patting Matteo on the back. “Let’s go handle business. Diego will get over it. We run a clean business, no mess, no drama. I want to keep it that way.”
I ride in the back of the sleek sedan, staring through the tinted windows as the city recedes and we cross the bridge into the country where my mansion resides. Business went well today, as it always does. I’ve been at this a long time and no man can accumulate billions without keeping a steady hand on the helm.
The driver pauses at the giant metal of my mansion. I roll down my window and lean out, brushing my thumb against the pad set within the quiet gray bricks. The gate hums and then silently slides aside, and we drive up the gravel lane, past the gushing fountain with the cherubs, and into the north driveway.
I climb out and approach the house, passing rows and rows of carved Roman statues, some of them imitations commissioned by expert artists, and a few genuine protected in pristine glass cases. They remind me of a more savage time, when men were conquerors and conflict was dealt in blood more often than not.
I brush my thumb against another access pad and the door slides open. I could afford to have an army of butlers in this place, but I only have a few staff members, and mostly they keep out of sight. That’s the way I like it.
I walk through the house with its high ceilings and tall walls covered in Italian artwork – Caravaggio, Bellini, and Michelangelo among others – and into the gym at the rear of the house, facing the garden.
The garden is like a piece of Eden stolen and transported to earth.
My life is one of being hard, always.
Tough deals, tough fights, tough nerves are what it takes to go from a humble street kid to one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.
I’m the Don of the DeLuca Family, the most powerful family in the United States of America. Nobody messes with us, from the Cartel to the Bratva to the Feds.
We have legitimate businesses that rival the biggest corporate brands.
And yet even a man like me needs a place he can unwind, and this is mine. This gym and the view of the garden, with its vivid scents and its lush green calmness, are a good way to check out from the primeval brutality required to run my empire.
It would be easier with a queen.
But, as I take off my suit jacket and unbutton my shirt, I know that’s never going to happen. I’ve always understood that when I lay my eyes on my queen, I’ll just know that she’s destined to be mine.
Something inside of me will stir.
And it never has before.
I’m starting to think it never will.
I like to work out in just a pair of shorts, so I strip down and then change, my muscles heaving as I stack weight plate after weight plate onto the long bar. I feel the bench protesting under the combined weight of my six foot six ripped body and the bar with five hundred and fifty pounds stacked onto it. I lower the bar to my chest in slow, controlled movements, hold it there, and then drive it upward.
I do this over and over, my engorged chest muscles roaring in their savage power, my forearms bulging as veins press like taut vines against my skin. I grit my teeth, letting my spit hiss from my mouth and spatter my bare sweaty flesh.
Then, from the open window, I hear it.
Somebody is singing.
And it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard in my entire life.
I set the bar in the brackets and sit up, grabbing a towel and running it down my rippling body, each muscle pulsing with primordial savage fury.
I stand up and go to the rear door, turning the handle and stepping out into the summer air. The sun has almost set and the garden glows orange red, the oak shelter at the back casting a long shadow.
The singing voice is high and airy, floating as it drifts over to me. I can’t make out the words, only the musical notes.
If I thought this place was like a slice of Eden before, then now it’s official, because I hear an Eve.
I try to think if any of my hired gardeners have ever sung before, but they haven’t. I would’ve heard it.
I walk around the edge of the house to the side path, to the row of flower beds lined along the cobblestone wall.
Something catches in my throat when I see her, as if a wolf’s howl is trying to escape, as if my seed is urging me to charge at her right now and take her over the flower beds.
I clench my fists in fiery desire as my eyes drink her in.
She has her auburn hair tied up in a bun, loose strands twirling around her forehead, and her eyes are an emerald green color. She’s wearing no makeup but that just
