Capo Dei Capi (Secrets of the Famiglia Part 1) novel Chapter 18

He is standing behind you ALIYANA, I scream in my head.

“Why would you apologize and mean it if you don't even know me?” My question comes out as a whisper, confusion apparent in every word uttered.

He stands next to me, on my left. Everything about Marco Catelli is wrong, evil, deadly, and wrong.

“I do know you.” His answer, simple, a fact.

I should not be drawn to him, not like this. But in this glass cocoon, surrounded by peach, white, and yellow roses, with a made-mad-man next to me, I can’t deny the feelings I am experiencing right now. Belonging.

Peering from the corner of my eye, I tilt my head slightly to the right and stare at his suit pocket. The urge to touch him takes me on. His scent ingraining itself in me.

My body burns as he brushes his arm against mine. It is the second time he has touched me without consent. It feels forbidden yet, not mistaken.

“We are practically attached to the hip now, Aliyana. How about a wager?” He slips his hands in the pocket of his slacks.

His words take me off guard.

“A wager? What does that have to do with anything?”

“You question my honesty and sincerity. I, well, we can say I am a man that doesn't like to be distrusted!” His answer holds more than the explanation he gives me.

“Okay, fair enough, what kind of wager, we talking about?”

“How about I give you a clue?” He asks, but is it really a question?

I can feel him watching me as the light breeze of The State he controls with his brother, blows my hair back, cooling the heat this man is festering in me.

Did he know he was going to affect me like this?

I feel betrayed by my own body, for even staying here.

Why is Marco here with me? Does he feel the same way I am currently feeling? Or is he like Gabriel, a man who just wants to live in the moment, an impending death, an early grave? Or like Mero, a quiet fox, with a deadly plan.

“You want to spoil my virtue?” It is a rhetorical question and earns me a laugh when I say it. Not sure why I say what I do, but they are now words between us. His laughter sounds nice, but I will never admit that to him. There is a lot of things I would never tell a soul.

How I really feel right now, is one of them.