AUCTIONED TO HER DAD’S MAFIA ENEMIES: A MAFIA AGE-GAP REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE (AUCTIONED SERIES Book 4)

WALKING THROUGH MY MIND

The moment I see it, I know.

The heart-shaped birthmark on her wrist is small and faint but unmistakable. The scar on her chin, from an accident in my father’s garden. The way she’s been walking through my mind all night like the ghost of a memory. It clicks into place like the final move in a long-anticipated chess game.

Aemelia Lambretti.

The daughter of the man who laughed and joked with my brother then conspired in his death without a second thought.

Does she know who I am—who we are? Does she remember playing and dancing with Rosita all those years ago while we talked business over red wine from our vineyard in Sicily, and her father grinned like a shark?

My stomach tightens, and so does my grip on her small hand. It’s her. It’s really her.

When my gaze flicks to hers, she’s wide-eyed, and for a moment, I can’t tell if it’s fear or guilt.

She’s so beautiful that it makes a long, dead place in my chest ache, like a lonely echo in a cave cut deep into the cold earth.

I’m on my feet in seconds, moving through the room with purpose, dragging her behind me. She doesn’t resist; she just keeps pace with me in her cheap shoes, her breath coming in gasps that trigger my suspicions.

“Where—”

“Just walk,” I growl, low and commanding.

“But I—I’m working—”

“Not anymore.”

I steer her through the crowd, and she tugs against my grasp.

“Don’t make a scene,” I warn my voice like iron. “Unless you want every pair of eyes in this room on you and more than a few guns pointed.”

That stops her.

She glances around, but no one’s noticed us. The band is playing, the champagne is flowing, and the guests are too busy basking in their importance to care about a waitress being disciplined for spilling a drink.

I guide her through the back entrance and into a side room—a private study filled with dark wood and low-burning lamps. As soon as I close the door, I let her go, and she whirls on me, her chest rising and falling in rapid breaths.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

I ignore her, already pulling out my phone. I send a quick message to my brothers.

Found something interesting. Dad’s study. Now.

She takes a step back. “Look, if this is about the broken glass, I swear I’ll pay for it—”

I lift my gaze to hers, freezing her with my icy stare, and she stops talking.

“You think this is about a broken glass? Try again, Aemelia.”

She opens her mouth to speak but hesitates, blinking rapidly. “What’s it about then, Luca?”

My name on her lips is like a breathy sigh, and in normal circumstances, it would have made me half-hard with interest. Aemelia Lambretti is everything I look for in a woman. Hair as dark as a raven’s wing, soulful melted chocolate eyes kissed with a dark liner that gives her a feline appearance, red lips that are pouty even under my scrutiny, and a tight little body that I’d punish and relish if the circumstances were different; if I didn’t remember the feel of her body in my arms; if her youth didn’t make me feel like a man on the other side of a wall, too mature, too weathered, too tarnished to match her perfection.

I take my time, watching her, looking for panic, but she seems curious, and when she folds her arms across her chest, squeezing her pretty tits together, a little put out at my sudden accosting, my dick twitches.

A knock at the door makes Aemelia jump.

Antonio enters first, followed by Alexis. My brothers loom tall and broad, filling the small space, and Aemelia glances at them, her breathing growing more ragged.

Antonio crosses his arms, and Alexis leans against the wall, his mouth smiling but his eyes burning with suspicion.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” she asks, her voice uneven.

“I think I’ll leave that part to you. What are you doing at my sister’s wedding, Aemelia Lambretti?”

Alexis and Antonio don’t react to her name, maintaining their cool, uninterested demeanor, but now they understand why I’ve dragged them away from the celebration.

“Waitressing,” she says. “Look, I know it’s a little weird. When they told me about the gig, I considered turning it down. I didn’t want to make your sister uncomfortable.” She smooths her hands over her dress, highlighting her current status as a server rather than a guest. “I just… I need the money, okay?”

“Aemelia Lambretti needs waitressing money?” Alexis asks, his hazel eyes drifting over her. I can read my brother like a book. He’s thinking about her ass and what it would look like pink with his handprints.

“You don’t have to keep saying my full name, you know. Aemelia is fine. And yeah, I need the money.”

“What happened to Daddy’s fortune?” I ask.

“I don’t know. You should ask him if you can find him. I haven’t seen him in over a decade.”

I lean against the desk and cross one leg over the other, feigning relaxation. “Convenient.”

“Not really,” she sneers. “He left us penniless, and it broke my mom. It’s not easy to get by on my measly salary. Now, my aunt is dying, and we had to come back from Maryland. I’d rather be anywhere but here.”

I share a look with my brothers. Without a word, I can tell that Alexis doesn’t believe her, and Antonio is reserving judgment.

Alexis steps forward, and she tips her head to look up at him but stands her ground. “You expect us to believe that you just happened to end up working here at our sister’s wedding?”

“I need the money. That’s all. My mom… she’s… and my brother… All he does is get into trouble. If I don’t finish my shift, I won’t get paid, and we—”

Her throat bobs, but she raises her face further, elongating her slender, elegant neck until her chin is high. She looks like a ballet dancer, poised before a graceful movement, eyes determined, posture straight.

For a long moment, no one speaks.

I glance at Antonio, then Alexis. They’re watching her the same way I am—measuring, assessing. Liars have tells. And Aemelia has none.

She’s telling the truth.

I exhale through my nose. “Give me your phone.”

She hesitates before pulling it from the pocket of her dress. I take it, flipping to her banking app. She doesn’t protest when I ask her to open it so I can check her recent transfers, and the address listed on her account. She has less than a hundred dollars to her name, and her banking address is in Maryland.

I hand it back, and she clutches it like a lifeline.

Standing, I turn to the dark window, running a hand down my face over the scar that’s still rough after all these years.

If she’s telling the truth—and I’m sure she is—then this isn’t a threat. Aemelia’s no villain or assassin. She walked into this wedding like prey into a hunter’s snare.

She’s not a danger. She’s an opportunity.

But…

I turn to Alexis. “Check her.”

Alexis raises a brow, then grins like I’ve just handed him a gift. “With pleasure.”

Aemelia tenses as he approaches, her spine going rigid, but to her credit, she doesn’t back away. His hands are quick but clinical, patting her sides, under her arms, along her calves. When he reaches the hem of her dress, he crouches, sweeping his palms up the inside of each thigh until she gasps and jerks.

“Relax,” he murmurs, not unkindly. “I’m just making sure you’re not hiding a wire or a blade between these sweet little legs.”

Her eyes narrow, but she says nothing, breathing shallow as he finishes and stands. He holds up his empty hands. “Clean. No weapons. No wire. Not even a lipstick knife. Disappointing.”

“Write down your address in the city,” I say, sliding a sheet of paper to her. She strides forward quickly, her cheeks flushed, scribbling in an elegant cursive that perfectly matches her refined features, giving the vital information with an innocence I don’t understand. When she’s done, she slides it back, and I catch a glimpse of the heart birthmark that was her tell. The last time I saw her, she told me in her sweet little voice that an angel had kissed her wrist, and the heart meant she’d find true love. I wanted to tell her that true love doesn’t exist, but I didn’t. I may be a heartless son of a bitch, but even I wouldn’t go as far as to crush a little girl’s romantic dreams. I scribble my phone number, tear it from the top corner, and hand it to her.

“If you have trouble while you’re in town.”

She nods, accepting the scrap and folding it neatly.

“You can go,” I say finally.

She blinks. “I—what?”

I nod toward the door. “Go back to work.”

Relief softens her expression. She’s thinking about the money. “Thank you,” she whispers, pushing past Antonio and Alexis in her haste to leave.

We don’t stop her.

At the door, she turns. “Tell Rosita I said congratulations, okay?”

I wait until the door clicks shut before turning to my brothers.noveldrama

“She’s not lying,” I say before they can question me. They don’t. I lick my lips, giving myself time to sort my thoughts. “But that doesn’t mean she’s useless.”

Antonio raises a brow. “What are you thinking?”

I lift and drop one shoulder. “She’s Lambretti blood. That makes her valuable.”

“Yes,” Alexis says darkly.

I stride to the door and push it open, walking the short distance back to the ballroom.

Aemelia is there, clearing plates, dodging drunk guests, trying to disappear into the crowd again, but I keep watching, and eventually, so do my brothers, flanking me on either side. I tug my sleeve and finger the cufflinks Mario bought me for my eighteenth birthday.

Alexis rubs his jaw. “Aemelia Lambretti, huh?”

“All grown up,” Antonio says.

Alexis snorts. “She looks like her mama did twenty years ago. I always said Carlo was punching above his weight, but mothers tell their daughters to avoid the most handsome men because they’ll stray. Pick an ugly man, and he’ll stay loyal.” Alexis pushes his hands into his dark jeans. I love my brother, but he never dresses like a Venturi should, not even on an occasion like tonight.

“Is that why we’re all still single?” Antonio asks dryly.

“I fuck more than every married man in here.” Alexis cracks his neck, and I grit my teeth.

Antonio shakes his head. “She shouldn’t have come back.”

“I held her when she was a child,” I say, more to myself than anyone else.

Alexis raises a dark eyebrow, his hazel eyes dancing. “Your dick doesn’t need to feel guilty.”

“Not yet,” Antonio says, walking away.

***

Long after the wedding ends, when the music fades and the guests leave, I stand in the shadows, watching Aemelia shrug on a tattered coat and hug it close against the cold. I watch as she pulls out a phone and has a brief conversation with her mom, which is mostly reassurance that she’ll be home soon and that she made some tips, so they’ll be okay. I watch as she disappears into the night like a ghost.

I exhale a long breath, the weight of old memories pressing down, and pull a cigarette from the packet, lighting it and inhaling deeply. Smoke swirls around me like Medusa’s snakes, and I exchange the darkness of the night for the darkness behind my eyelids.

Aemelia Lambretti. A mafia princess turned Cinderella.

Mario should have been here tonight. He was the oldest of us, and walking Rosita down the aisle was his job, not mine. All day, his shadow has trailed me, and his ghost has lingered in the cavern of emptiness in my chest.

He should have been at this wedding, not Carlo’s spawn.

Aemelia Lambretti.

I toss the cigarette and crush it with my polished leather shoe.

She has no idea what she’s worth.

But she’ll find out soon enough.