He was going to take everything. The wheels to take it all had been in motion for a long time, and just as he’d noticed his bride avoiding the eyes of her oldest brother’s right-hand man, Elio made sure not to exchange glances with the Espositos’ lawyer, Vincent Angeli. Vincent had been one of the most important players during Lorenzo’s reign. His clever legal brain had helped Lorenzo transform himself from a lowlife gangster into one of Italy’s richest and most powerful businessmen. When it came to the Espositos’ businesses, shadowed and legitimate, Vincent knew everything inside out. Mattia relied on him as heavily as his father had.
And now Vincent was working for Elio.
Before Elio took it all, he would enjoy his special prize. His beautiful, sexy new wife. The woman who’d always looked at him as if he were something foul that she’d trodden on, and who’d not exchanged a word with him since they’d exchanged their vows.
Even the most critical of men would consider her sexy. Where her brothers had all inherited their mother’s height, Siena was short like her father had been. She was tiny, but with natural curves that could make a grown man weep and large eyes of the softest blue a man could drown in. Everything about her was full, from her long, tumbling blonde hair to her lips to the breasts that moved so succulently when she walked.
He would bring Lorenzo’s pride and joy to heel. He would help himself to her beautiful body, and imagine her father looking down on them, locked in his circle of hell, unable to do a damned thing about it.
And then, when he’d made her his, he would burn the whole rotten Esposito empire to the ground.
Chapter Two
The villa Sienaand her new husband were driven to overlooked the Bay of Naples. It was only a few streets away from the villa where her brother Tommaso lived, which brought a tiny bit of comfort.
The security for Elio’s villa was every bit as tight as her brother’s. Armed men guarded the gates, and once they’d driven through and parked outside the main door, Siena got out of the car and was greeted by the sound of dogs barking.
Spinning around in alarm, she saw, only feet away, two huge, midnight black, glossy monsters on leashes controlled by men as proportionately big and menacing as the dogs baring their teeth.
“You said nothing about dogs,” she said tightly when Elio closed his door.
His smile was as menacing as the dogs’ bared teeth. “They only bite if given the order.” As if to make his point, he strolled to them, his hand out and said something she couldn’t hear. The dogs immediately dropped to their haunches.
“Do they live in the house?” she asked, trying not to let her panic sound in her voice. Displaying fear to her enemy would be beyond foolish. Whatever plans Elio had for her within theirmarriage, none of them would be good for her. She would not gift-wrap him any ammunition to use against her.
“They live in their kennel.” He stroked their heads then looked back at her. “Their place is outside, guarding us. You should be grateful for them. They will keep you safe.”
She barely controlled her shudder and resisted asking if he’d always had dogs or if this was a new thing. She wouldn’t put it past him to have learned of her phobia and got himself a pair of guard dogs to use as a weapon against her.
He straightened his back. “Come,wife.” His top lip curved in a sneer. “Let me show you around your new home.” His silver eyes glittered with irony. “I’m sure we will make many happy memories together here.”
She didn’t bother dignifying that with a response.
* * *
The interior of the villa was surprisingly tasteful, and as Siena was shown around the ground floor, she noted that everything, from the terracotta flooring to the kitchen appliances, was the best that money could buy. Elio’s coffee machine was the identical model and colour as her own, and she made a mental note to bin hers the next time she went to her apartment.
From the French doors in the spacious living room, she saw the nightlights around his swimming pool. The moonlight reflecting off the water reminded her of Elio’s eyes.
They really were the most unsettling eyes. When they fixed on you, you felt them, almost like a touch. If vampires existed, they would have Elio’s eyes. And probably his temperament as well, she thought as she followed him up the stairs. Dogs excepted, Siena did not scare easily, but this man unnerved her more and more, and it wasn’t just his physicality or the vampiric gleam of his eyes.
Physically, he was much bigger than her, but she was used to that. Her brothers were all well over six foot tall, whereas she barely topped five foot. Elio wasn’t quite Tommaso’s mammoth height, but he was at least a foot taller than Siena, and twice her width, and all of it was muscle. If he wanted to hurt her, he could, and without breaking the smallest of sweats.
It was his unsettling eyes and self-containment that unnerved her the most. After years of noticing him and feeling him watching her, meeting him formally for the first time had been one of the most nerve-wracking moments of her life. That meeting had been for him to give his choice of which Esposito cousin he would make his wife. He’d insisted Siena be there for it.
He’d chosen a private room in a neutral bar for the meeting. It had been small and dark, the ineffectual lights casting menacing shadows she was certain had been deliberate in design. She’d walked into it and breathed in his cologne. Her heart had been pounding.
Elio had fixed those silver eyes on her and just stared. A coil of something she could never explain had laced her spine, and that was before he’d calmly said, in the tone of someone discussing a menu in a restaurant, that he’d chosen Francesca to be his wife. His stare still locked on Siena’s, he’d said, “She will be perfect for me – I’ve always thought virginity an underrated asset in a wife.”
She’d not been able to restrain herself. “You want Francesca because she’s avirgin?”
Those were the first words they’d ever exchanged.
“If I can’t have my first choice, then I choose the one I can mould…” His eyes had glittered. “…or break into being exactly what I want her to be.”
She’d pushed her chair back and shot to her feet. “No.”
He’d not moved a muscle, not even to blink. “Then you wish for war?”