Auctioned to Her Dad’s Mafia Enemies Read Online Stephanie Brother

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Erotic, Mafia Tags Authors: Stephanie Brother Advertisement1

Advertisement2

A slow, deliberate awareness prickles down my spine. I try to ignore it, brush it off like an itch I refuse to scratch, but each time I pass his table, his stare lingers. Heavy. Intrusive. As if he owns me and is keeping track of his possession.

I shouldn’t look at him.

I do, anyway.

For the fifth time that evening, our gazes collide and the air between us shifts and thickens. My pulse jumps, betraying me, and I force myself to look away, shoving the feeling down. Luca's a guest at a wedding—more than that, the host—and I’m a waitress. He’s a mafia prince turned boss, a man who’s nearly double my age, and I’m nothing but a glorified kid with baggage I can barely carry. Our worlds don’t touch.

But my skin still burns from his gaze.

I shouldn’t have come. It was a reckless, impulsive decision. When Mama asked me about tonight’s job, I lied. I told her it was a wedding, but not whose, knowing she’d warn me against stepping too close to the fire again. She’d remind me that this dark underworld has already burned us once with its glittering surface excess and shady, ruthless players.

But the pull was too strong. After what happened before we left home, the need to see these people, the ghosts of my past, the remnants of a life that once belonged to me, was impossible to resist. Even from the fringes, watching from the outside, I felt something I haven’t in years: a tether to something real.

The life I’ve lived for over a decade has never fit quite right. It’s like wearing a borrowed coat, too big in some places, too tight in others, and constantly uncomfortable, no matter how much I try to adjust. But here, even in the shadows, I feel less like an imposter. Less like a woman pretending to be someone else.

Here, I remember who I was.

Aemelia Lambretti. Mafia princess. Daughter of a powerful man with enough wealth and power to keep us comfortable.

Nothing like the girl I am now.

And even though Luca’s gaze is as heavy as his palm on my skin, it’s nothing compared to the fear I felt back in Maryland when I was being watched.

I exhale a shaky breath, pushing away those memories and shifting my focus to the guests. A polished woman in her forties gestures sharply at her empty flute, her red lipstick smeared just enough to make her look like she’s baring her teeth. I lower my tray so she can grab a fresh glass, her bony fingers flashing with rings.

I reach for the empty glass, my hands trembling as I place it on the tray, desperately trying not to overturn the whole thing. I keep my face neutral, but inside, I think: Seriously? I’m doing my best here. It’s not like your glass is going to die of thirst.

And yet, even as I move away, the heat of Luca’s stare never wavers.

I don’t have to look to know he’s watching me. I feel a slow burn spreading across my skin like fingers tracing my flesh. Three Venturi brothers exist in this world, each one striking in their own right. But Luca? He stands apart in his intensity.

The scar bisecting his cheek is legendary; a sharp, deliberate cut that slices through his left brow and traces a line down his face, just above his jawline. It should make him ugly. It doesn’t. He wears it like women wear diamonds. Not a flaw, but an enhancement. A badge of deadly intent. A mark of survival.

I force myself to move, ignoring how he makes me feel like a moon caught in his gravitational pull. I have bills to pay. Responsibilities. A life that has nothing to do with Luca Venturi or the shadows that follow his family.

Yet my traitorous body betrays me once more because when our eyes meet again—when that sharp, unreadable stare pins me in place—my stomach flips.

I look away.

I keep serving.

I tell myself it means nothing.

He doesn’t recognize me. It’s impossible. And if he did, he’d remember the silly little girl whose pigtails he used to pull and whose snotty nose he once wiped with his pristine white monogrammed handkerchief. Nothing more.

It’s hard to determine if the awareness I’m feeling is fear or arousal. My responses to both are the same. I know fear well, but arousal, not so much.

My pulse quickens as I hurry back to the kitchen. The clatter of pans and the chefs’ sharp voices offer a strange relief, grounding me in the grind and chaos of my everyday world. I lean against the counter to catch my breath.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Tania, one of the other waitresses, says. She’s scraping the remnants of a chocolate soufflé into the trash, her sharp eyes missing nothing.

“I think a ghost would be less intimidating,” I mutter, trying to laugh it off.


Advertisement3

Advertisement4