Her Mafia Daddy (Book 1) novel À WÈDDÍÑG ~~~

Valentina POV

Toronto, Ontario; I met the devil the morning after my eighteenth birthday. Hungover and tired, I rolled over in bed, where my toes brushed against warm skin and crisp body hair. A friend of mine held a graduation party last night at her pool and my boyfriend, David, slept over after. We usually hooked up at his apartment, but I was too drunk last night and insisted on coming here.

It hadn’t been easy sneaking him into the house under the watchful gaze of the cameras monitored by Papà’s men, but I was a pro. I’d been outsmarting the guards and the cameras for years now. The one thing the guards loved? Routine. Once you learned the routine, you could get around it and do whatever you wanted.

Papà was the head of one of the seven families of the ’Ndrangheta in Toronto, a criminal network that stretched from Canada to South America to Italy. My father’s business was dangerous, so my two sisters and I weren’t raised as typical teenagers. Wherever we went, we were trailed by guards with guns inside their jackets including at school. Our extracurricular activities were severely limited, our lives kept under careful scrutiny. Which was why I couldn’t help but occasionally sneak out.

I was the responsible one, the big sister who began caring for my two younger siblings when our mother died. I deserve a break every now and then. A knock sounded at my door. “Tina . Are you awake?”

My father.Shit. Panic filled me. The first night I dared to have my boyfriend sleep over and my father was outside my door. This could not be good. Hangover forgotten, I grabbed David’s shoulders. “You have to get out of here,” I mouthed silently.

“Like, now.” David nodded and hurried to dress, while I handed him his clothes. I looked at the door. “Papà, don’t come in. I’m not dressed.”

“You need to get up and look presentable,” he said from the hall. “We have guests.”

Guests? It was barely nine o’clock. “I’ll need at least an hour,” I said. “You have ten minutes.” I could hear the command in his voice. “All right,” I called.

David zipped up his jeans and threw on his t-shirt. I opened the window and looked down. My bedroom was on the second floor, so it was high but not a death-defying jump. “Hang down from the window ledge and you should be fine.”

A rough hand slid over my bare ass. “Maybe it’s time for me to meet your family, babe.” The idea almost made me laugh. My father would strangle David with his bare hands for daring to touch his precious daughter. “You have to go, Keep to the side of the house and out of sight. There is a path on the left and it leads to a wall. The cameras won’t see you there. Hurry.”

He pressed a hard kiss to my mouth, then crawled out the window. I watched as he slowly lowered himself down, his biceps bulging with the

His eyes drifted over my face and down my body, as if I were a horse he was considering purchasing. Tingles broke out along my skin wherever he looked, but I couldn’t tell if it was from excitement or embarrassment. Even more confusing, my nipples hardened in my thin bra, which I hoped he wouldn’t notice. The smirk on his face when he met my gaze told me he was aware of the state of my nipples.

“You are eighteen?” The words rolled out of his mouth with an Italian accent and my heart gave an ominous thump in my chest. Were these men from Toronto? I doubted it. No one in my father’s employ had an accent this thick. “Yes, sir.”

He nodded once to my father. “She’ll do it.” She’ll do it? “Do for what?” I asked.

My father shot me a quick look before addressing Ravazzani. “Excellent. We’ll plan the wedding for next month.”

“Wedding?” I screeched. No, no, no. I was supposed to go to college first. My mother made my father promise that all three of their daughters would be educated before marriage. I was counting on it. “What wedding?”

“Quiet, Valentina ,” my father hissed. I glanced at my cousin, hoping to find answers, but Dante wouldn’t meet my eye. Which meant this was bad. Really bad.