Gardener For The Mafia: An Instalove Possessive Alpha Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 169) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Gardener For The Mafia

  NEWSLETTER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  NEWSLETTER

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS

  LAIRDS & LADIES

  RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD

  IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS

  About the Author

  GARDENER FOR THE MAFIA

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 169

  FLORA FERRARI

  Copyright © 2020 by Flora Ferrari

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  GARDENER FOR THE MAFIA

  This dangerous and savage alpha has me feeling so possessed and taken. I’ve never felt anything like it.

  I’m just an inexperienced naïve girl working as a gardener on his billionaire’s estate. When he hears me singing one day, he confronts me, and I’m left to wonder if I’ve made the mob boss mad.

  I just can’t believe that this experienced older man who knows what he wants and knows how to take it would be interested in me.

  I’ve been tricked in the past and I can’t stop wondering if this primal possessive silver fox is messing with my head. What if it’s really too good to be true?

  I’m not from the criminal underworld like him. I don’t know how that life works. But I’ve had my fair share of drama, and now I’m just aching for a happily ever after.

  Can I follow my dreams and become a singer songwriter at the same time as being pursued by the feral savage alpha, or will my self doubt and personal pain ruin the irrefutable bond we share?

  *Gardener For The Mafia is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Lorenzo

  I sit back in the bar moving the tip of my finger around my glass, taking in the scene with the cold gaze of a lion stalking the Savannah.

  A group of men sit in the corner, trying their best to look tough, one with his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal a dagger tattoo on his forearm. They leer at the women and some of the women – in their skin tight skirts and low cut tops – grin and giggle and one even flashes a slice of her leg at them.

  I turn away, shaking my head, and then take a measured sip of my beer. Matteo, my consigliere, will be here soon. He’s never late, but I got here early due to another meeting I had close by.

  There’s a horizontal mirror above the bar, running the entire length of it, multiplying the bottle necks. The late afternoon sun slants in and catches it, causing the more colorful bottles to light up like a rainbow.

  “Pretty, ain’t it?” a woman says from beside me.

  I glance at her.

  She’s stick thin with the sort of cheeks that make her face look sunken in. Her leather skirt rides so high up her legs I’m sure I could see her underwear if I bothered to look. I catch her gazing at my gold watch with wide frantic looking eyes.

  “Not as pretty as you, though,” she croons, sliding up to the bar.

  I bite down a scathing remark. Even if this woman has no shame and even if the approach she’s taking could never, in a million lifetimes, excite me, she’s still a person and deserves respect.

  “I’m not interested,” I say, taking a small sip of beer.

  When I choose a woman, it will be for life. I want a woman who can bear my children and be a partner, not just a piece of flesh I can pick up and use whenever I want.

  I want somebody who will compliment me, a goddamned teammate. I long ago gave up on finding her though. I know that if I find her, my body will instantly react. My seed will leap around inside of me, eager to escape and make a home inside her womb. My primal instincts will beat their chest inside of me, like a silverback gorilla staking his territory.

  When I look at this woman, I feel none of that. I feel nothing. Not even disgust. I’m so used to her type and so bored of it.

  “I’ll do anything you want, baby,” she goes on, just like I guessed she would. “I know what I’m doing, too. I’m good.”

  I shake my head, biting down so my jaw juts out like boulders from my face. I feel it pressing against my skin.

  I suppose a forty-two year old billionaire mafia boss is appealing to women like this, vultures, hangers on, women who specifically target wealthy men and try to exchange their bodies for a taste of it. Or perhaps she’s the other sort, the ones who just want casual skin on skin contact and then to forget about it the next day.

  Neither interests me.

  “I don’t care how good you are,” I tell her firmly. “Leave.”

  “Wow,” she huffs, tossing her head so that her bleached blonde hair falls across her shoulders in strands. Her roots showing. “I would’ve sucked your dick, you know. I would’ve proper deep throated you. Your loss.”

  I laugh gruffly. “My loss,” I agree sarcastically.

  I turn back to the bar as she gets to her feet and walks unsteadily toward the group of men in the corner. She seems to enjoy the way they all yip at her approach like starving hyenas.

  Finally, Matteo arrives. My second in command is a short man with a shock of coconut hair and a wispy black mustache. The men are always giving him a hard time on how his hair and mustache don’t match.

  “Sorry, boss,” he says. “Traffic was a bitch.”

  “We good?” I ask.

  “With Diego Romano?” he mutters, sliding onto the stool next to me.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He runs a hand through his hair, his silver rings gripping tightly onto the flesh of his fingers. “You know what that pricks like. The bastard won’t quit. Keeps saying that the only way to make sure the Romanos and the DeLucas are properly allied is for you to marry his daughter.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I tell him.

  “I know,” Matteo says. “That’s what I keep telling him.”

  I glance at the mirror, watching in the reflection as the woman drops into a man’s lap and starts squirming around, giving him a lap dance. I look away quickly, wondering if I’ll ever find my queen, the woman I’ve been searching for my entire life.

  “Come on,” I say, standing up and patting Matteo on the back. “Let’s go handle business. Diego will get over it. We run a clean business, no mess, no drama. I want to keep it that way.”

  I ride in the back of the sleek sedan, staring through the tinted windows as the city recedes and we cross the bridge into the country where my mansion resides. Business went well today, as it always does. I’ve been at this a long time and no man can accumulate billions without keeping a steady hand on the helm.

  The driver pauses at the giant metal of my mansion. I roll down my window and lean out, brushing my thumb against the pad set within the quiet gray bricks. The gate hums and then silently slides aside, and we drive up the gravel lane, past the gushing fountain with the cherubs, and into the north driveway.

  I climb out and approach the house, passing rows and rows of carved Roman statues, some of them imitations commissioned by expert artists, and a few genuine protected in pristine glass cases. They remind me of a more savage time, when men were conquerors and conflict was dealt in blood more often than not.

  I brush my thumb against another access pad and the door slides open. I could afford to have an army of butlers in this place, but I only have a few staff members, and mostly they keep out of sight. That’s the way I like it.

  I walk through the house with its high ceilings and tall walls covered in Italian artwork – Caravaggio, Bellini, and Michelangelo among others – and into the gym at the rear of the house, facing the garden.

  The garden is like a piece of Eden stolen and transported to earth.

  My life is one of being hard, always.

  Tough deals, tough fights, tough nerves are what it takes to go from a humble street kid to one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.

  I’m the Don of the DeLuca Family, the most powerful family in the United States of America. Nobody messes with us, from the Cartel to the Bratva to the Feds.
r />   We have legitimate businesses that rival the biggest corporate brands.

  And yet even a man like me needs a place he can unwind, and this is mine. This gym and the view of the garden, with its vivid scents and its lush green calmness, are a good way to check out from the primeval brutality required to run my empire.

  It would be easier with a queen.

  But, as I take off my suit jacket and unbutton my shirt, I know that’s never going to happen. I’ve always understood that when I lay my eyes on my queen, I’ll just know that she’s destined to be mine.

  Something inside of me will stir.

  And it never has before.

  I’m starting to think it never will.

  I like to work out in just a pair of shorts, so I strip down and then change, my muscles heaving as I stack weight plate after weight plate onto the long bar. I feel the bench protesting under the combined weight of my six foot six ripped body and the bar with five hundred and fifty pounds stacked onto it. I lower the bar to my chest in slow, controlled movements, hold it there, and then drive it upward.

  I do this over and over, my engorged chest muscles roaring in their savage power, my forearms bulging as veins press like taut vines against my skin. I grit my teeth, letting my spit hiss from my mouth and spatter my bare sweaty flesh.

  Then, from the open window, I hear it.

  Somebody is singing.

  And it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

  I set the bar in the brackets and sit up, grabbing a towel and running it down my rippling body, each muscle pulsing with primordial savage fury.

  I stand up and go to the rear door, turning the handle and stepping out into the summer air. The sun has almost set and the garden glows orange red, the oak shelter at the back casting a long shadow.

  The singing voice is high and airy, floating as it drifts over to me. I can’t make out the words, only the musical notes.

  If I thought this place was like a slice of Eden before, then now it’s official, because I hear an Eve.

  I try to think if any of my hired gardeners have ever sung before, but they haven’t. I would’ve heard it.

  I walk around the edge of the house to the side path, to the row of flower beds lined along the cobblestone wall.

  Something catches in my throat when I see her, as if a wolf’s howl is trying to escape, as if my seed is urging me to charge at her right now and take her over the flower beds.

  I clench my fists in fiery desire as my eyes drink her in.

  She has her auburn hair tied up in a bun, loose strands twirling around her forehead, and her eyes are an emerald green color. She’s wearing no makeup but that just makes her look more vivacious, a red flush spreading across her cheeks as she looks up to find her employer staring at her. She’s wearing an earth colored shirt tucked into shorts that hug her delectably curvy body.

  She has the sort of curves that drive a thousand flooding urges to my manhood, her hips wide enough so that I can clutch them as I drive a child into her aching womb.

  She stops singing when she spots me, her lips pursing, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from striding across and tasting those lips, hearing how musical her moans are, bending her over and driving my searing length into her voluptuous beauty and giving her what I have waited all my forty-two years to give.

  She’s the one.

  I just know it.

  I’ve finally found my queen.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lena

  Eliza, my supervisor, specifically told me not to talk to or look at Mr. DeLuca when she offered me the position.

  We were sitting in her small office at the rear of the house, with her I Love My Cat mug sending coffee steam into the air, when she peered through her red framed glasses and told me.

  “You are to be invisible,” she said in her matronly voice. “He must never even know you’re here. He doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

  They’d given me the job because I’m an orphan. I knew that because Eliza basically told me, though she skirted around using the exact words. “We hope you’ll grow loyal to the Family and, one day, see it as your Family, Lena.”

  Even if I’m only eighteen years old, I like to think I can read between the lines, and these lines were sharp.

  You have nobody. Do what we say. Or there will be consequences.

  With a tacit warning as nuclear as that, I expected Lorenzo DeLuca to be an evil looking man, the sort of man that would cause hairs to prick on the back of my neck.

  Hairs are pricking on the back of my neck, but not for the reason I thought they would.

  He towers over me, standing there just in his shorts like one of his statues at the front of the house has come to life.

  Each of his muscles is ridged and outlined in solid stone flesh. As his chest eaves, his ab muscles go tight, his eight pack pressing firmly through his skin. His thick trunk like arms hang ready at his sides. His dark brown eyes gaze at me, his hair swept to the side, specks of silver dotted throughout the brown like threads of strong steel.

  My heart thumps and my mouth falls open. For a crazy second, a thought attacks me that he might kiss me. I don’t know where it comes from. The silliness of it is undeniable. But it’s like my womb does a frickin’ backflip in my belly as those autumn leaf eyes stare at me, penetrate me.

  I kick that thought aside, not allowing my mind to gallop into silly land. I’ve let it go there once before and it resulted in razor sharp humiliation, the aftershocks of which I still feel to this day.

  Nightmares often remind me of the time I let myself think anybody would be attracted to the curvy shy girl with the mousy brown hair.

  Nah uh. Never again.

  Finally, he steps forward.

  His fists are clenched.

  He must be angry at me for singing. I only realized I was doing it when I heard him walk up towards me, his footsteps, even in bare feet, sounding loud on the fresh cut grass. He looks absolutely savage, and I know he’s just come from the gym. I heard him lifting weights in there. It sounded like he was tearing a car to pieces with his bare hands, the weights were so heavy.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, forcing myself to look down at the ground. A lump forms in my throat and I know I’ve been staring at him for too long. I wasn’t even supposed to glance at him, and now here I’ve gone and basically gaped at him for several long aching seconds. “I didn’t mean to sing, sir. It just sort of happened. I guess my love for singing sometimes carries me away and—”

  I clamp my mouth shut, willing myself to be quiet.

  The thought that I’m making this situation worse riots through me with acid certainty. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut, but sometimes awkwardness just turns me into a talking machine.

  He just keeps staring, his jaws clenched, his eyes flitting up and down my body. He must think I’m super gross with mud splattered over my clothes. But then again, I am working in a garden. What does he expect?

  I can’t take him just staring at me.

  “I won’t sing again,” I say quickly, even if a voice inside me is screaming at me to just shut the heck up.

  “You can sing,” he growls, his voice a deep rumble.

  “Um, okay,” I say, confused.

  He stalks forward, moving with the sure movements of an expert predator. For a man of his size, his movements are agile, like a jaguar slinking skillfully through the underbrush to seize his prey.

  Am I his prey?

  He stops so close to me I’m sure I can feel the volcanic heat radiating from him like his six foot six frame is merely a vessel for containing frothing lava, and any second he could erupt and shower me in his heat. I feel my sex twinge and ache and somewhere deep inside me my womb cries out in desire.

  Take me. Take me.

  I ignore the silly thoughts, bouncing around pointlessly. Of course he’s not interested in me. I need to rein myself in. I’ve never felt like this about a boy, not once in all my eighteen years.

  But then, he’s not a boy. He’s a giant, handsome, hotter than Hades man with steel in his hair and unflinching confidence in his eyes.

  “Thank you,” I mutter.

  I wonder if the heat I’m feeling is me, actually, my center sending surges of sultriness steaming through my body, enveloping me in a warm blanket, as though my body is firing me full of chemicals so that my womb is ready to take what he’ll give me.