Mafia Heir

Chapter 10

Charlotte

From the living room window of the penthouse, it felt like I could see all the way to California. The city sprawled out below me, millions of people carrying on with their evenings, oblivious to my world shattering eighty floors above them.

The Mafia. Luca was in the Mafia. Not just in it, he was running it, and he sat across from me tonight casually talking about murder as if we were discussing the weather. I'd spent a lot of time the last few weeks thinking about Luca, and who he could be, but the thought of him running a criminal organization as large as the Italian Mafia didn't even cross my mind. All I knew about the mafia was from old crime books and the movies, and it made me sick to my stomach even thinking about. Was Luca really involved in all of that? The violence and the drugs and the abuse to women. The list of transgressions was a mile long, and if I had any sense left in me, I would run. I would run out of this hotel and straight to the police and tell them everything I knew. Something told me it wouldn't be that easy, though. Didn't they kill snitches? I already had one Mafia boss after me in Silvano, I couldn't afford to piss off another.

After he left, I was too wired to go to sleep or even to sit down. I paced back-and-forth in the deafening silence, certain I was wearing a path on the dark wood floors, and now that I had stopped moving the aching in my feet was nearly unbearable. I unbuckled my shoes, tossing them to the side and collapsing onto the cool leather of the couch. My head was throbbing as I tried to sort through all of the screaming thoughts in my mind.

I wasn't sure how this could get much worse. What did that man want with me? How did a girl like me even get on his radar? Maybe it was stereotypical of me, but I was about as far as I could be from the type of person that I imagined getting in a situation like this. I rarely went out, I'd never even tried drugs, and for the last few years, I was in a committed relationship. I kept to my own little corner of the city, and my circle of friends was tightknit. None of this made sense, and the more I tried to rationalize it, the more tangled it all became.

Part of me still wanted to leave. To leave right now and go back to my simple life with my family and friends and forget about everything that happened the last few weeks. Forget about Luca. But if I was being honest with myself, I knew Luca was right. The second I walked out of this door, I could be killed. They could come back to finish the job, and odds weren't likely that Luca could save me a third time. And if he was able to find out all of that information on me, what was to stop them from doing the same? That is, if they didn't already have it. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed Luca. I needed his protection, I needed his skills, and in the very back corners of my mind, I was beginning to wonder if I needed him in more ways than just to keep me safe.

I shook myself, pushing that thought as far out of my brain as I could. Had I not been listening to a single thing he said tonight? He had threatened me, lied to me from the very moment I met him, and then he said he didn't care if I got killed. The man was a monster. His business was killing people. How could I ever think that falling in love with a mob boss would end well for me? Not to mention he probably had girls fawning over him all the time. Every woman on that rooftop tonight wanted to be with him, worshiping the ground he walked on and just waiting for their opportunity to pounce. Their jealous eyes followed every move I made, and we were enemies before we even spoke just because I was with him.

As far as I was concerned, they could have him. All I cared about was somehow making it out of this mess alive. Luca and this life were a package deal—a package waiting to explode and destroy my world at any given second

"Come on, Charlotte, get ahold of yourself." I rubbed my temples, trying to keep my headache at bay.

"Everything okay in here?" I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of Marco's voice.