Claimed By The Sicilian Mafia

ALEXIA GREEN.

I have seen enough loan sharks on my door looking for Rhett Kingston to know very well the men standing outside my door fall in the same caliber.

The last men who came looking for Rhett had been gracious to leave the minute I failed to answer the door. As my heart plucks against my ribcage harshly I can only hope that these new men are no different from the rest. Emphasis on the hope part.

I peep through my door hole looking at the douchebags who are pretty well-dressed for loan sharks.

The one on the front is stacking a black signature brand shirt coupled with black pants.

The sleeves of his black shirt are pulled back up his elbows to reveal veiny, muscular arms that would put even the holiest nun to her knees.

Douchebag number two has Armani slacks and a black t-shirt too.

He too is as handsome as the man in front of him, only difference is the one at the front carries more power that exudes past the door straight to my titties.

And that in itself is a bad freaking omen.

I pull away from the door making subtle steps back to the scrapheap I call my house.

“Rhett, we can hear you, man”, one of the men says.

Humor in his voice but full-on threat laced in between.

I want to scream that the man they are looking for left me nine months ago, but screaming equals them knowing I’m inside and I wouldn’t want them to know I exist.

These men…these loan sharks are as petty as they come. And they pretty much stick to that adage of ‘if we can’t find Rhett then his little woman will have to pay the debt’.

The little woman being referred to, being me. The woman who has no cent to her name or a hundred bucks in her purse let alone afford the rent to this place.

“You really want us to do this? We are losing patience here, man”, the same guy tsks.

I tiptoe to the wall separating my bedroom and the living room, scooting down to take the baseball bat that’s my only source of security.

“Fuck this.”

The quiet baritone of another voice rings the air and I feel straight to my spine that I’m fucked.

It takes only seconds for my door to fling off its hinges, for the pieces of wood to fly in the air the way ash does after a fiery massacre and when the dust and ramble settle down and my heart is beating like a metronome, two very angry figures stand in front of me.

Their presence is like a black hole sucking the warmth from my house and injecting their evil into it.

Douchebag number two, the one with the chocolate brown hair that’s slicked back, hard masculine features and tattoos peeking from his neck, sizes me up.

I gulp an invisible lump of saliva, holding my bat like it’s a rifle loaded with bullets.

“Rhett’s not here”, I say boldly. When on the contrary, I’m one step away from buckling underneath their stares and admitting defeat.

“Check the room behind her”, douche number one commands, I hold my ground blocking the door.

“I said…Rhett’s NOT HERE.”

The jerk smiles, rubbing his jaw like I’m the cutest thing he’s seen in a while.

The guy behind him…the boss, the one in charge looks around my home as if every minute in here is like subjecting himself to a dose of gonorrhea.

I mean my house isn’t much. The kitchen’s connected to the living room, the cherry blossom wallpaper is barely sticking to the wall and the floors. Well, they’ve seen better days.

“Look we don’t want trouble, sweetheart. We are here for Rhett.”

I eye the door that’s falling apart behind them then I stare at him with the nastiest glare I can summon.

“Says the guy who knocked down my door.”

“Rhett’s door. You were not supposed to be here.”

He tries to pacify me, failing disastrously at it.

“Not supposed to be here? Is that the excuse you are giving so that I won’t call 911 on you guys?”

Douchebag number two is about to fire some snarky statement when the boss, the one wearing a scowl bigger than the size of his head, pulls him back, steps all in my face and before I can whip my bat and hit him, has his huge tattooed right palm around my neck.

“Where’s Rhett?”

He thunders, squeezing the air out of me, lifting me off the ground like I’m some dead fish being sold in a deli.

My bat falls to the ground as air slowly and slowly escapes my body.

I have to hang on for dear life because someone needs me. Right behind this door, someone—

My lungs constrict, my eyes strain to look at the furious man who’s hellbent on killing me for Rhett.

All for Rhett. Everything about Rhett! I hate Rhett Kingston with every fiber of my being. I hate that my death will have something to do with him, I hate that because of him our—

“Volkov, she doesn’t know shit”, douchebag number two says behind us but that somehow encourages this Volkov to sink his hands in my neck riding me of precious oxygen.

I close my eyes feeling life ebb out of my body but just as I’m about to give up, a sharp cry resonates in the air and everyone stills.

I whimper, holding back my tears.

No. No. Please no.

The cries echo around the house again and the boss lets go of my neck.

I fall to the ground, nothing short of a coughing mess.

“Is that..?” Boss asks. He moves towards the door; I hold his leg like a vise grip.

“She has nothing…to do with this”, I mutter.

His eyes linger on me for a while before he shakes me off his foot opening the door and revealing a yellow room with a bassinet next to my bed.

My baby girl’s cries engulf the room.

“Rhett has a baby?” it comes as a surprise to both of them.

The boss saunters into the room, his darkness, his height, his anger, his tattoos tainting everything good.

And when he reaches down where my daughter was sleeping taking her in his big arms, I snap.

“Let her go. Rhett owes you money, right? I’ll pay you. I’ll repay every cent just please…please don’t hurt her.”

My baby, Millie, has no clue who’s holding her. She stops crying holding onto the man’s thumb the way she does with mine.

The Boss doesn’t look at me when he says, “A million dollars”, he mutters, looking away from my daughter to me now, “Are you in a position to repay me a million dollars right now?”

A million dollars? I almost laugh. Rhett fucking Kingstone owes these douchebags a million dollars?

“No but I- “

“Then you are in no position to negotiate Mrs. Kingston”

My body tenses, his eyes are on me like lasers tracing my features, his muscle pops like he’s waiting for me to make a move or else…shit… they’ll hurt my baby, won’t they?

I mean they sort of look like the type who would do so. Hell, he was about to kill me seconds ago.

And yet with all that information inside my head, I offer myself on a silver platter HAVING NO OTHER CHOICE.

“I’ll work for you”

“I’m not in need of your…particular services Mrs. Kingston," he says. I hate it every time his voice booms the words ‘Mrs. Kingston’. Because I’ve never been that in my entire life.

I hate the way he mocks me saying ‘particular services’ and I can read the unruly thoughts in his mind.

‘I wouldn’t fuck a mother who delivered a few weeks ago.’

“I’m a nurse, I can maybe-“

The sentence is barely out of me when he says, “They are both coming with us.”

Oh yeah, I’m royally and elementally fucked.

CHRISTIAN ‘VICIOUS’ VOLKOV.

I hate complications.

And this complication comes in the form of feline blue eyes, sunshine blonde hair, delicately arched brows and a sinfully full bottom lip.

I almost laugh painfully at the thought of Rhett Kingston having a fine ass like the woman seated across me looking like she wants to put my head in a noose once I fall asleep.

She might be a fine ass, hell finest ass I have seen for a fucking while but I look at that face and I’m reminded that her husband, her lover, the father of the child I’m carrying in my arms right now raped my sister and killed her.

I might have lied about the million dollars but fuck me for enjoying the fact that I’m taking his woman and his child away just like he took something from me.

An eye for an eye.

Una vita per una vita.

The weasel might leap out from the place he’s hiding once the news hit him that I have his little family with me.

I can only wait.

Patience. Control.

Patience. Control.

“I’d like to have my baby now.”

Her voice pierces through the air. Raspy, grating, bedroom sexy and still a complication.

I eye her for a second.

Alexia Green.

Then my eyes wander to the baby wrapped up in a white blanket like a muffin.

She’s small. Way too small than anything I have ever held.

I want to hate the kid because well…I fucking hate kids and this one belongs to Rhett all the more reason to hate her. But that’s the thing… I don’t.

Her eyes might be closed but her hands once in a while fight past the blankets trying to reach for my hands.

“No”, I growl.

“You think I’d run away knowing your men might shoot me the very minute I do?”

She asks me like I’m a child who hasn’t understood the dynamics surrounding us.

“That didn’t stop your husband from doing so, Mrs. Kingston.”

She’s not Mrs. Kingston, I know that because I’ve read her profile. I’ve read everything about Rhett except this baby.

“Rhett has not been my anything for a long time. The name’s Alexia Green and unless your boobs have milk in them, I suggest you hand me my baby.”

Suggest?

She’s got a pair on her for sure. Bigger balls than I’ve seen on a woman.

“Your baby seems fine to me, Mrs. Kingston. You on the other hand don’t seem to be. What’s bugging you right now? The fact that I’m holding your baby or the fact that you know where Rhett is. Don’t try to bullshit me right now, where’s Rhett?”

She laughs.

This woman, whom I’d lost control of hours ago laughs like I’m not the man in charge of everything bad she reads in her little fairytale books.

“What’s bugging me? Gee, what’s bugging me? My ex left the minute I told him I was pregnant, I’m all alone and Millie’s all I have. I’ve been fighting men off my doorstep every single day of the week and right now I’ve been kidnapped by a man who was about to snap my neck had my daughter not cried. Yes, Mr. Asshole, I’m bugged by the fact that you are holding my baby!”

By the time she finishes, her tears are well underway.

She sobs, tries to wipe the tears with the back of her palms only for her to sob again.

I hold her baby.

Damn straight I sit there watching her sob, basking in her pain because a few weeks ago, I was the same helpless man watching everything I had crumble to pieces.

I’m no saint.

I’m no hugger who’ll fucking assure her that she and her baby will be alright because the truth of the matter is, I couldn’t give two shits if she cried and filled the Missouri River.

She belongs to Rhett and best believe she’ll work herself to the bone till my wounds are healed and I find it in my stone-cold heart to forgive.

***

“From the start”, I bark, nursing back the Macallan that dislodges in my throat when my buddy Tommy struggles to speak.

Beaten black and blue, he wiggles in his chair like the piece of worm he is, trying to peer at me with the one good eye that’s working.

The one good eye that won’t earn him brownie points from me.

“Vic—please…I didn’t know she was…one of yours. I didn’t know she was your sister.”

Tommy chants the same chorus he’s been singing since I caught him and Rhett escaped.

I tip my nose at Maximo.

Maximo raises his fist about to punch him for the tenth time in the night when dear ole Tommy starts talking.

“Rhett said she needed to be taught a lesson. W-we cornered her just outside her college…she bit me trying to resist us, she would have caused a commotion so I-I strangled her. S—she passed out.

When she…she came to, Rhett and I were already-“

“Taking what wasn’t yours. Assaulting her like she was nothing but a whore?” I smirk but beneath my smirk is the pain impaling me to the ground, the pain chaining and tethering me to my own guilt.

I drink the last of my liquor tipping my head at Maximo before I stand up and leave the gross warehouse.

Tommy’s screams follow my way out and his pain is like a soothing balm to my wounds because I know Maximo has cut away one of his fingers.

Again.

“How long are we holding them hostage?”

“Until she repays me”, I quip, Maximo grunts at my bullshit.

“Rhett killed Catelina, not her. You are in a bad place, Volkov. Fuck, I am too but getting an innocent civilian won’t erase your grief”

He’s the only one, out of my men who calls me Volkov. Who’s close to me enough to call me out on my bullshit but right now, I want nothing more than to shut him up with a bullet between his eyes.

“It’s sure as hell making me feel better that I have her and not him”, I grit looking into the night and wishing to get lost in the darkness.

“Then what? She and her kid work for you their entire lives?”

No.

“Yes.”

“You are fucking sick, man”, he grunts, tired of trying to knock some sense into me.

The irony isn’t lost in me that he calls me sick when he’s my enforcer. The one who finishes my dirty work when I spiral out of control.

“You know Juana says Alexia and her baby light up the house. I’m guessing you haven’t been there for a while so what’s your excuse for visiting today?” he continues running his mouth.

Only when the car stops in front of my mansion, the same mansion my parents left me and Catelina. Do I turn to him and say, “I’M KEEPING AN EYE ON MY ASSET"?

***

I saunter into the house alone; Maximo having had driven off to take care of some raucous brawl at one of my clubs downtown.

My head throbs and my anger ignites at the new smell of vanilla and wildflowers that hog the foyer, the living room and I’m not entirely surprised that I’ll find the same scent in the kitchen too.

Only when I enter the kitchen, the sight that greets me is one that would make even a man of the cloth sin without thinking twice.

Her back to me, Alexia Green stands on her tippy toes trying to reach for something on the high shelves.

Her legs are creamy, milky, the type that belong to one of those Vogue cover models. For a minute there, all the blood that’s keeping me sane flows right down south and the urge to mar those legs of hers with my teeth grows.

When my eyes rake north, past the back of her knees to her heart-shaped ass, anything remotely connected to fucking her brains out flies out the window.

The summer dress she’s wearing, the one that I’m too familiar with because I bought it myself stares right back at me, taunting me, pushing memories I thought were locked away to the surface.

I have no damn clue what I’m doing as I strut across the room angrily.

I have no damn clue what gets to me the minute I grab her by the wrist scaring the wits out of her.

All I see is my sister’s smile wearing the same dress this woman is wearing and I lose it.

“Take it off”, I scowl.

“What?”

I lean closer, right to her ear where she can hear me loud and clear.

“I said… fucking strip!”