her aunt and she dashed toward her. “Tell me, why?”
I tensed, worried what Gianna would say. She motioned toward me. “Look at him, Marci. He’s a giant. Everyone’s scared of giants, right?”
Marcella regarded me for a moment before she nodded gravely as if truer words had never been spoken. A smile pulled at her mouth and she rushed back toward me. “But I’m not scared of you, Dad!”
I lifted her. “Good.”
Aria shook her head with a grin then pressed a kiss to Amo’s head. “Thanks for taking care of them.”
“I hope you two lovebirds had time for some lovin’.” Matteo wiggled his eyebrows.
“Bye, Matteo,” I said as I stepped into the elevator. Aria joined me with a wave toward her sister and my brother.
Later that day, we settled on the sofa with our kids. Aria read a picture book to Marcella who sat on her lap while I leaned against the backrest with Amo in the crook of my arm. I rubbed his belly gently and was rewarded with a toothless smile and a few leg kicks against my outstretched palm. “You are a strong boy.”
Amusement flashed across Aria’s face before Marcella asked another question about the butterfly featured in her book. They both focused on the image with a small frown and pursed lips, looking so much alike in that moment, my fucking heart throbbed harder. I kissed Amo’s forehead then murmured, “When you’re older, you need to help me protect your sister and mom. They’re too beautiful for this world. We’ll have to kill all the boys who think they are worthy of your sister.”
“What did you say?” Aria asked curiously.
“That I need to invest in more weapons to keep you all safe.”
“I think you and Matteo own enough weapons, not to mention soldiers, to invade a small country. No need for more weapons.”
Marcella tilted her head, her black hair curtaining half of her face and contrasting strongly with her blue eyes and pale skin. Then she smiled.
I raised Amo above my head. “Definitely more weapons, right, Amo?”
He gave me another toothless grin.
A stepbrother forbidden mafia romance
(Love in Lockdown Charity Anthology, 2020)
Stella is a forbidden fruit Mauro isn’t allowed to taste.
Not only because she isn’t promised to him but also because she’s his stepsister.
She used to be his annoying shadow, the little girl he needed to protect and babysit. Now she’s all grown-up and he can’t stop noticing. Being locked into a panic room with her might be the ultimate test of his self-control…
Mauro has always been her protector and ally until she starts to see him as more. Afraid of his reaction, she hides her attraction. But can she keep doing so when they’re trapped in a small room all alone?
Mauro
The mafia world was built on rules.
Rules never to be broken. They’d outlasted generations, resisting the ever-occurring changes of modern society. They were like the Colosseum. The foundations of our traditions remained steadfast even as we adapted to our surroundings.
One of those rules was not to desire a girl that wasn’t promised to you, especially if said girl was your stepsister.
As Underboss of Cleveland, my father needed to remarry after his first wife, my mother, died. I was eleven when she passed away, still a boy and yet well-acquainted with death. Growing up in the mafia, especially if your father was one of the Famiglia’s Underbosses and ruled over hundreds of men, you were introduced to the dark underbelly of the business early, to harden you for future tasks.
Father waited exactly the expected year before he married Felicitas and disappeared into their cocoon of wedded bliss, leaving me to deal with something I hadn’t bargained for: a kid-stepsister. The first time I met Stella, she was seven with braces and ridiculous pigtails, and so goddamn shy, she didn’t talk to me for a week after she moved in. That changed quickly though and as her mother began popping out three babies in short succession, forgetting about her oldest daughter’s existence, Stella became my shadow and I, her—at first not so willing—protector and companion.
Stella had always been a kid in my eyes, a girl I needed to protect because we were family, albeit not by blood and not even by choice because nobody asked us before our parents sealed their bond. Being five years my junior, I hadn’t noticed the gradual changes in her body because I didn’t pay any fucking attention to her body. Small shifts right before my eyes just didn’t register. Until Father sent me