“Who’s your father?” he asked, ignoring her question.
Her frown deepened. “Battista Cordano.”
Don Cordano’s daughter. The woman who had started a war. He remembered her now, although without the name he would never have recognized her ten years later and all grown up. She had been there the night his father had been murdered.
Memories gripped him, and he crushed the paper in his hand.
He had been so proud the night his father asked him to join him in a sit-down at Luigi’s Restaurant with Don Cordano, the boss of one of the three leading crime families in Las Vegas. Don Cordano wanted permission to whack Danny Mantelli, an associate in the crew of one of his father’s capos. Made men could only be whacked with the permission of a boss, and Danny had secretly been dating Don Cordano’s teenage daughter—something strictly forbidden in the Mafia world. The women of made men—daughters, mistresses, and wives—were considered untouchable. Women were property and often the objects of passion. More than anything, passion could destroy the careful balance that existed between the Mafia families. As it had done that very night.
“You were at Luigi’s.” Bile rose in his throat, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. Nothing in his life, not even the death of his mother when he was eight years old, had prepared him for the moment his beloved Papà had been murdered, his blood spilling through Nico’s fingers as he desperately tried to save him. He had declared the faida that night. A man of honor could do no less, and a son had to avenge his father.
Her face paled as recognition dawned. “You’re the boy who held me. Nico Toscani.”
He spun the pen faster as he remembered holding Mia in his arms, trying to protect her from her father’s anger. Don Cordano had been enraged that Mia dared interrupt the sit-down to beg for Danny’s life, and he struck her so hard she fell to the ground
Raised in single parent households—first by his mother and then, for a short time, by his nonna after his mother died—Nico had a tremendous respect for women, and the brutality of Don Cordano’s attack on young Mia had shocked and appalled him. Without thinking, he had stepped in to defend her. She wrapped her arms around him, held on tight. And in that one moment, in the midst of the horror, eighteen-year-old Nico came alive. He felt a sense of purpose and worth that he’d never felt as a bastard son—he was a protector and this sixteen-year-old Mafia princess who felt so right in his arms, was his to protect. When her father turned his gun on Danny, Nico covered her ears and pressed her face to his chest to spare her the horror of witnessing her boyfriend’s death. And then she’d been ripped away and life as he knew it had ended with the crack of a gun.
He had no desire to rehash that night, or to hear what she had to say, whether it was regrets or apologies, thanks or accusations. He had lost not only his father, but also the fleeting glimpse of a life that could have been more than just following in his father’s footsteps—a life with purpose and fulfillment. A life with love.
Mia was a brutal reminder of the emptiness he’d felt since that night, the black hole that had opened in his chest and couldn’t be filled no matter how many women he took to his bed or how much success he achieved. He lived now solely to avenge his father and take his place as boss of the family.
Dropping the pen, he tossed the crumpled letter on his desk and vented his frustration. “Cristo santo! I told Vito to hire the best cyber-security firm in the city and he hired you?”
Mia folded her arms across her chest. “What do you mean by that?”
Nico made a dismissive gesture with his hand, trying not to focus on any one part of her beautiful body. “First of all, you’re a Cordano. Second, you’re a woman.”
She gave an indignant sniff. “So what? Women can be hackers. A woman wrote the first ever C Sharp virus. Women speak at DefCon, one of the world’s most prestigious gatherings of hackers. If you’re not familiar with us, it’s because most female hackers are interested in technology for what it does and not so we can break it or watch people suffer. We’re not interested in cyber-vandalism. There’s nothing clever about dismantling a system, and everything good about helping companies secure themselves against cyber attacks, which is what Vito hired me to do.”
“Hacking is for men. This stuff…” He waved vaguely at her outfit. “Security work is for men. It’s a dangerous business. It involves skill, deception, focus, and intelligence.”