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

CUTS LIKE A KNIFE

When Luca needs something done, I am his go-to person. We need intel, and so I work my contacts, visiting places around the city where business is done.

At Emilio’s Pork Store, the butcher’s shop frequented by many families, the scent of raw meat mingles with the iron tang of blood. The saw hums as a man in a stained apron carves through bone with practiced ease. The place is dimly lit, a single overhead bulb flickering slightly, casting shadows that stretch unnaturally along the walls.

My men step inside, the bell jingling above the door to announce our arrival. Vito’s first, with his fearsome face, followed by Andre who scopes the place, his hand on his weapon. Gabe Ferrano sticks close to me while they size up who’s inside—only one elderly customer who’s selecting two pork chops. Gabe’s twin, Matteo, follows me, keeping watch for an ambush. We can’t leave anything to chance. Outside, four of Alexis’ men wait in cars, ready to step in if we need them.

Carlo’s brother, Enzo, is waiting for me in the back, standing near a counter where fresh cuts are laid out like pagan offerings. He’s older than Carlo, shorter, thicker in the waist maybe—who the fuck knows after all these years—but just as sharp-eyed. As a made man of the Mesina family, he’s protected and wealthy enough that he doesn’t need to take a hands-on role at the store his father founded, but he does because he enjoys carving up the dead. He wipes his hands on a rag, his mouth twisting into something like a smirk. His salt-and-pepper hair is slicked back, a deep scar cutting through one forearm which wasn’t earned in the butcher’s shop but on the streets. He doesn’t look nervous, but I catch the way his fingers flex around the handle of his knife.

“Antonio Venturi,” he says, his voice gravelly, thick with the weight of years in this business, smoking and drinking too much. “What brings you here? Buying or threatening?”

I lean against the counter, crossing my arms. The gun tucked in the back of my pants, hidden by my close-fitting black jacket, presses into my flesh. “That depends on what you have to say.”

He chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “Ah, so you came for talk, not steak.”

“Carlo’s still hiding. The coward won’t come out, even for his own daughter. I thought family meant something to you people.”

Enzo shakes his head slowly, slicing through a thick cut of beef with a heavy knife. The blade glides through effortlessly, severing the muscle with a wet, slick sound. “You think Carlo doesn’t value family?” His chuckle sets the hair rising on my arms. “You think you can click your fingers and everyone will come running?” Enzo sets the knife down, wiping his hands again, this time more slowly, as if savoring the moment before dropping a bomb. “Of course you do because that’s how Venturis think. It’s how you’ve always thought.”

I frown, confused. We’re a powerful family but Luca isn’t an arrogant man. He doesn’t throw his weight around. He treats every negotiation with respect for the other party. That doesn’t mean to say that he doesn’t enjoy the power he has, but Enzo is misrepresenting him. I’m about to disagree when he continues.

“There’s a lot you don’t know, Venturi. Carlo’s wife wasn’t faithful. She had a thing for your brother, even before she got married, and that one…” He waves his hand dismissively. “He never respected the sacred matrimonial vows. He always just took what he wanted.”

“My brother?” A beat of silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.

“Mario… it wasn’t some one-night thing. It was a goddamn affair. He didn’t even have the decency to hide it. He was arrogant, taking the one thing Carlo had achieved that was better than him. Carlo’s prize. You think Carlo betrayed Mario, but it was the other way around.”

My jaw tightens, my mind running fifty feet ahead while I struggle to pull it back. All of this is new news to me, and the implications—

“You’re telling me Mario was having an affair with Carmella Lambretti?”

Enzo shrugs, the picture of innocence. “What does it matter now? That woman is old and ugly, and Carlo is gone. Your brother is dead. This is history.”

“History you’re resurrecting.”

Could it be true, and if it is, I wonder what else we’re in the dark about? Who knew and didn’t say anything? Maybe our crew? They have their ears to the ground, but when Mario was murdered, telling us it wouldn’t have been easy. I pull my arm from the counter, letting it hang by my side, schooling my body to remain unbothered by his words.

He lifts his hands, a picture of mock innocence. “There were rumors, Antonio. Rumors that Aemelia wasn’t Carlo’s child, you know, because Carmella wasn’t faithful.” He smiles a shark smile, and a wave of sickness rises up inside me like a tidal wave, obliterating my grip on control. I reach out to hold onto the glass cabinet, staring at row after row of bloody meat cuts. The scent that invades my nostrils only makes the nausea worse because he’s trying to tell me there were rumors that Aemelia was Mario’s daughter without saying the words.

He’s wrong.

It can’t be true.

There’s no way. But even as I tell myself that Enzo is lying, I feel sick.

I think about Aemelia’s dark brown eyes, exactly like Carlo’s. As much as I despise it, I see him in her; the set of her jaw, something in her smile, and the shape of her hands.

He’s lying about it all, twisting the knife in his hands without ever piercing my flesh.noveldrama

Enzo watches me closely, measuring my reaction like a butcher deciding where to slice a fresh carcass. “So what now, Venturi?” He leans in slightly, his voice quieter, more dangerous. “You keeping her locked up, playing your little games? Doesn’t look so good, does it? Buying her virginity at auction. Whether the rumors are true or not, you can’t keep her.”

I took Mario’s death personally and carried the grief and rage for years, believing it was a power play from our enemies. But this—this would mean something far worse. It would mean a betrayal deeper than business. Deeper than money or power. It would mean Mario’s transgressions were to blame for his assassination.

She can’t be family. I know she can’t be. But even so, my stomach roils.

I should never have touched her. She’s innocent and sweet. She deserves so much more than me.

I meet his gaze, reading between the lines. He’s not in a position to threaten me directly, not here, not yet, but his meaning is clear. If we hold onto Aemelia, this thing spirals out of our control. There will be talk. There will be questions. Whispers will turn to certainty. Who will believe us?

I push off the counter, my stomach tight with disgust, uncertainty, guilt. I think of Aemelia, of the way she looked at me with those dark eyes, trusting and defiant all at once. We’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross.

Enzo tilts his head, his smirk widening. “You look rattled, Venturi. That’s rare.”

I don’t respond. There’s nothing to say. He doesn’t know how far we’ve gone.

I turn on my heel and head for the door, my mind racing, flanked by Gabe and Matteo who heard everything. I need to get back to the house. I need to talk to my brothers and then approach the one person who might be able to clear this up.

Aemelia’s mother.

Because if what Enzo is saying is true, that Aemelia isn’t Carlo’s daughter, then our plan to bring him out of hiding is useless.

Regardless, the shame I feel at taking from her what I never should have wanted has left me shaking.

She can’t be Mario’s.

Can she?