Gifted To The Don The Real Mafia Heiress Returns Chapter 02
Through the Gates
A man waits under the portico — young, thin, wearing a suit too expensive for his face.
Behind him, six soldiers in matching black, hands folded, waiting.
Vivienne hisses in my ear.
“Show respect. That’s Dante’s head guard.”
I know that face.
Luca. I promoted him myself. He used to run an errands for me back when he was still a kid with a stutter.
Dante kept him. Interesting.
The old Luca wouldn’t have dared meet my eye.
Now, he lets his gaze crawl over me like I’m something on a menu.
I look back. Flat. Bored.
He frowns, doesn’t recognize me.
Fair enough. Six years of illness, six years of Salvatore’s basement wine and cheap doctors.
I’m not the woman I was. I’m a thin, sallow thing in borrowed silk.
“You’re late.” Luca’s voice is thin as wire. “The Don is thirty minutes out. You think he waits for anyone?”
Salvatore bows so low his back cracks.
“Traffic, sir, forgive us. She’s clean and obedient. She’ll — she’ll take care of him.”
Vivienne pushes forward, all dimples. “Luca, sir, she’s such a sweet girl. So quiet.”
She sinks her nails into my arm through the silk and whispers in my ear, “Bella. Play smart. Embarrass yourself, and we all die together.”
I don’t even flinch.
She raises her hand to hit me — Luca stops her with a look.
He steps closer, circling me and sniffing the air. “The Don has no patience for disobedient girls.”
His eyes glitter. “You want to live? Learn to beg pretty.”
I almost laugh out loud.
This whole begging pretty routine — I taught Dante myself.
And now his pet is quoting it back to me.
The laugh slips out, small and dry. But in the dead-quiet courtyard, it sounds so obscenely loud.
A gust catches my hair, sweeping it off my forehead.
Luca’s face changes.
His eyes lock on the small birthmark between my brows — the one shaped like a small heart.
His voice drops an octave, dead cold.
“Where did you people hear that the Don has a preference for women with a birthmark between the brows?”
Salvatore blinks stupidly.
Vivienne’s smile flickers, then rushes to fill the silence.
“Oh — sir — we thought it might please him. We searched everywhere for the right tint. Only the best for—”
Slap.
Luca’s hand crosses her face so fast I almost miss it.
Vivienne hits the marble on her knees, hand to her cheek, staring like a fish.
“If I find out anyone else knows about the mark,” Luca says, quiet as a coffin lid, “your whole family goes in the river. Do you hear me?”
Vivienne is shaking so hard her earrings rattle.
The mark between my brows has been there since the day I was born.
Only three people in the world ever knew about this birthmark.
My father. My mother. And Dante.
For years I’ve covered it. Only let it show when I was alone.
Vivienne, playing genius, invented a story about painting it on. And she just walked, blindfolded, straight onto Dante’s third rail.
Dante has been looking for me, for this birthmark.
“Sir, please — please, we swear, we won’t breathe a word—”
Salvatore is on both knees now. Groveling. Head to marble.
Luca sneers down at them. “Get inside. Now.”
Vivienne scrambles up. She shoves me hard toward the doors. “Get in there. Do your job, you useless—”
My knee cracks against stone.
The doors swing open from inside, and past them is a long, dim hallway with too many closed doors.
I push myself up, straighten the sheer red silk, meet Luca’s eyes — then walk in.