Hunted By The Mafia Prince

Chapter 2: Ice Princess

Sienna’s POV:

The vivid greens of the landscape glow brightly under the sun. Meadows and rolling hills stretch out as far as the eye can see, and the blooming flowers are a kaleidoscope of colors. It’s like a rainbow on the ground.

Sighing, I lean my weight onto the railing, resting my elbows on the cool metal bars. I allow myself to let go of the tension that’s plagued me for the past three days. It’s hard not to relax at the sight of such beautiful scenery.

Most people think that Rome is the best place to live in Italy, but I beg to differ.

Our villa is in the countryside, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s close enough to town that we aren’t completely cut off from civilization, but standing here, on my balcony, there isn’t another person in sight. I can almost convince myself that everyone in the world has disappeared.

Then I hear heels clicking on the floor behind me, and I inwardly curse.

Mama glides over to me with a wrinkled nose. She stops a foot or two away from the railing and looks at it disdainfully.

Remember how I said ‘most people’ think Rome is the best? Well, Mama is ‘most people.’ She’s a born and raised city girl, but when she married Papa, she had to come live out here. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t make clear how much she resents him for it.

“Sienna, what are you doing out here? Are you going to throw yourself off the balcony?”

I choke.

“Mama! I’m not suicidal!”

“Well, good,” she sniffs. “I’ve already started making plans for your engagement party. It’s too late to switch to funeral preparations.”

Then she takes another look over the railing. “And besides, I don’t think the fall would kill you. You’d probably break your back and end up crippled.” Now she looks horrified. “I’d have a cripple for a daughter. What would people say?”

Holding back an eye roll, I repeat, “I’m not suicidal. I was just enjoying the peace and quiet.”

“How would anyone enjoy the quiet? Goodness, you’re just like your papa. I’ll never understand you two.”

Normally, when someone compares me to Papa, I’m flattered. Today, though…

Mama gives me a knowing stare. “You’re still mad at him, aren’t you?”

I look away.

She sighs and takes my hands. “My sweet girl, a woman’s role in this world is a very delicate one. It may look like your freedoms are limited now, but everything gets better after marriage. This match between you and Matteo is a good thing. You can’t see it now, but trust that your papa knows what he’s doing.”

“He does know what he’s doing,” I say, bitterly. “He’s making a business deal. He gives Matteo the men he needs, and Matteo helps him establish roots in the New York Famiglia. I’m the contract for them to make this deal happen. The ink on the paper.”

“You always knew you wouldn’t marry for love,” she reminds me. “You are the eldest Falcone daughter. You have a duty to your papa. To this family. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find happiness after marriage, tesoro mio.”

She’s right.

I’ve always known my marriage would be arranged. I’d accepted the fact that I would be paired with a man in the mafia, and that I would likely spend very little time with him before our wedding. I’d been okay with that.

In a controlled voice, I tell her the real reason I’m so against this marriage. “I don’t want to go to New York.”

At this, regret flickers through her eyes.

“I’m going to be alone there,” I continue. “In a foreign land that’s far from home.”

“We’ll visit,” she says, but we both know that won’t happen often. It’s too risky for people like us to travel to one place consistently. It puts eyes on us.

Shaking my head, I mutter, “I wish Papa would’ve given him Carina instead.” My sister had begged Papa to let her marry Matteo. She’d cried herself to sleep when he’d refused to.

“Matteo chose you. He asked your papa for you specifically.” Mama grimaces slightly. “I don’t think your sister would’ve made a good match, anyways. She’s far too gentle, that one. Not like you.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say sarcastically.

She swats at my arm. “Don’t get smart with me. That man would chew her up and spit her back out.”

He would.

Despite knowing that, I still wish she were the one marrying him. Does that make me a terrible person?

Maybe, but I never claimed to be a saint.

***

Whatever sympathy Mama feels for me in the morning disappears throughout the day. She forces me to do a training session to prepare for my fate as a bad maid. She tries to teach me how to cook, and I nearly burn the kitchen down, then she educates me on the art of running a home, and I fall asleep three times.

It quickly becomes clear that the only appealing aspect of being a housewife is the shopping. Buying everything you want with someone else’s money? Now that I can get behind.

“You’re not supposed to buy everything,” Mama snaps. “That’s wasting your husband’s money.”

“Oh, really,” I drawl, shooting a pointed look at the massive diamond necklace she’s wearing.

Papa laughs from where he’s sitting by the fire, reading his newspaper. Then Mama shoots daggers at him with her eyes, and he clears his throat awkwardly, covering up his laugh with a cough.

“Useless, all of it,” Mama cries out. “He’s gonna send you back the next day. Or worse, you’ll both starve to death.”

There’s a deep chuckle behind me. I whip around, right as Matteo says, “I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

I’ll have to remember to refer to him as the unnamed from now on. Obviously, saying his name out loud makes him pop up like some demon.

Mama and Papa are pleased and not at all surprised to see him. They must’ve arranged a date for us without bothering to tell me.

Typical.

Matteo greets my parents with all the warmth of a son returning home from war, then he turns to me. He offers a pretty smile and bends down to kiss both of my cheeks.

It’s not affection. It’s just a custom for Italians. We’re all about the smooching. Sometimes, if you’re very unlucky, someone might even go in for a third kiss, which usually ends with an awkward lip bumping accident.

I give him nothing but a cold look in return.

Of course, he’s completely unruffled. He drops into the seat beside me, and imagine that… suddenly my parents are done here and itching to leave.

“Well, would you look at the time?” Papa exclaims. “I better get going. I’m gonna be late.”

“Late to what?” I challenge.

“Breakfast with a friend.”

It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.

Then Mama stands up as well. “I suppose I should go check on Carina.”

Unimpressed, I remind her, “She’s with our cousins.”

“Exactly why I should go check on her. Kids these days. You never know the kind of things they’ll get up to when left alone,” Mama titters.

They both rush out before I can get in another word. I catch Mama giving me an exaggerated wink as she closes the door, and I glare back at her.

I know what they’re doing. They wanna give us alone time. They wanna let him woo me into being happy about this marriage.

Once they’re gone, though, Matteo stands up. At first, I think he’s gonna leave, but he just walks around the living room with slow, measured steps. I realize he’s looking at our picture frames.

He smiles faintly at a photo of me in an ice rink. “You figure skate?”

“I used to,” I say neutrally. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s fitting, don’t you think? For an ice princess and all.”

“An ice princess?” I’m wondering if I should be offended.

Of course, now that I want him to speak, he falls silent.

He continues to scan the photographs littered around the living room. The ones he’s most interested in aren’t the family vacation pictures, nor the high school graduations, nor the parties. Instead, he focuses on the random ones that we took simply because the moment was too perfect not to preserve.

I’m uncomfortable.

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, and he’s staring at mine like he’s reading my life story. I want to blindfold him and tie him up to the couch— not in a kinky way, but just so he stops.

I glance down at my thin arms thoughtfully. Could I do it? I look back at Matteo. His tall, suit-clad frame, with his broad shoulders and toned torso.

Probably not.

I decide to go with the next best thing, which is distraction.

Sitting straighter, I murmur, “I want your opinion on something.”

He spares me a glance.

“Baby names,” I deadpan. “For our future children.”

Nothing usually terrifies a man more than the mention of a family. Settling down, commitment, becoming fathers— you might as well be hanging them up by the balls.

Matteo nods and comes to sit beside me. His gaze is warm as he gestures for me to continue.

Well. That didn’t work.

I guess it’s time to bust out the big guns.

“If our first child is a boy, we should name him Brando, for my Papa, and if it’s a girl, we could name her…” I pretend to think. “Emma?”

Something shifts in his expression. It’s gone within a millisecond, but I see it, and I consider it a small victory.

He sits back, resting his arm behind me on the back of the couch. He spreads his legs a little, really settling in, and one of his thighs brushes mine. It’s so hard, a part of me wonders what the rest of his body feels like.

Ebola. It feels like catching Ebola, dumbass.

There’s a long pause.

Finally, he asks, “You been reading up on me?”

I have indeed.

As soon as he left my house the other day, I went straight to my room and spent a solid two hours studying him online. Apparently, his dad had been some hot-shot senator in the U.S. before Matteo had gotten arrested. Beats me how someone can pass off as a senator while being the head of the New York mafia.

Anyways, due to his father’s status, the facts about Matteo’s arrest were all over the internet. To cut a long story short, Matteo fell for some broke girl he’d met at college— Emma— and she ended up betraying him to the cops. It brought down his whole operation, threw Matteo and two of his brothers in jail, and gave his dad a heart attack.

Talk about a complicated breakup.

Instead of telling him all that, I lift a shoulder and say, “Maybe.” Then I tilt my head so we’re staring at each other, our faces inches apart. “Are you trying to use my Papa for your own gain?”

“Maybe,” he mimics.

I shake my head, a humorless chuckle escaping my lips. “If you think for one second that I would let you do anything to hurt my family, I will happily prove you wrong. I’ll make everything Emma Hashimi did to you look like child’s play. I don’t know what girls in New York are like, but over here? We protect the ones we love. At all costs.”

For the first time, I see something other than charm in his expression. I’d expected anger. Irritation, at the very least. But he looks at me with… respect?

He appraises me through new eyes, then he simply says, “I understand.” And he takes my hand, kisses it, and just leaves.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there, baffled, thinking I might need a team of experts to keep up with this guy.