Dating the Don (Savage Crime Lords #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

MAEVE

“ I should have known you would be here!”

Justina’s voice is stern as she chastises me. I know that when I look up from the fashion magazine that I’ve been indulging in for the past hour, I will see her leering at me from the doorway with that specific disapproving look of hers that she seems to reserve only for me. She's also going to see the large oatmeal raisin cookie I am shoving into my mouth and trying to swallow as quickly as possible, hoping she won’t notice it.

A foolish endeavor, I will admit that, but I’m try it anyway.

I swallow it in one greedy gulp and nearly choke on it before I sheepishly lower the magazine so that it covers half of my face. “Good afternoon to you, Mrs. Justina.”

She doesn’t like my bright smile or upbeat attitude at all. Her lips purse sternly as she folds her arms across her chest. I know she’s waiting for me to jump to my feet and rush off in the direction of whatever work she thinks has yet to be done. However, my shift is almost over and I’m more than efficient. She knows that.

“I do not appreciate staff lounging about on the master’s couch, much less indulging in his private property!” Justina continues.

She’s talking to me like I haven’t spent most of my life inside of this house in one capacity or another. I sigh and snap the magazine closed. “I have already finished all of my chores. Including polishing the banisters you mentioned yesterday afternoon. And I’m allowed to take breaks. Plus, Ada doesn’t care if I read her magazines.”

As I get up to return the magazine to its original spot on the coffee table, traitorous crumbs tumble out of my apron and land all over the plush carpet.

Justina looks like she might blow actual steam right out of her ears. My face burns. I hurriedly bend over to begin tidying up the mess I unintentionally created, feeling the heat radiating down my neck.

“This is what I am talking about! Once again, you're not in your uniform and you’re creating messes. I still think your mother's old apron is better than the monstrosity you made for yourself.”

She’s gaining speed and we will both be standing here with herlecturing mefor the remainder of our shift if I don't stop her rant before it gets any worse. We'll even risk doing overtime, and Justina hates overtime more than anything.

“How about I do the basement for you? As penance?” I offer hastily. I hate the basement. It’s a mostly finished space but it still gives me horror movie vibes. The kind of foolish paranoia that makes me want to bolt upstairs lest something grab my ankle.

But, in terms of cleaning labor, it’s mostly just dusting all of the canned goods that Mrs. Dominio likes to keep down there in case of snow storms or bad weather. She hasn’t been doing nearly as much baking since her husband passed. She’s likely still in bed right now. I can’t say I blame her. I’ve never been anywhere close to getting married before but I grew up seeing the love that the Dominios had for one another and I can’t even fathom her loss.

If nothing else, my offering to clean up the basement that Justina’s been whining about for over a week now means that I can likely clean and read at my own pace before leaving for the day.

Justina is clearly thinking about myoffer. She doesn't want to do it, and I know it. We both know that she wouldhave me do it in any case.

“Fine. But be quick about it,” she finally concedes.

I spring up from the couch and kiss her on her leathery cheek. “I will!”

Oh, I probably just laid it on too thick. She’s going to question why I’m being so nice to her. I drop back down on my heels and quickly scurry from the room before she notices that the magazines have suddenly gone missing.

I think that all of my fondest memories from childhood are wrapped around fashion and my mother. I know that most people would consider these magazines to be a waste of time, but fashion has been my dream for far longer than I can even remember.

We didn’t have a lot of money growing up and my mom made most of my clothes. She taught me everything that I know. Justina complains about the apron that I’ve customized, but I know she only half means it. Just like she’s never going to complain about me wearing my mom’s apron.

Justina’s one of the few staff left in the Dominio estate who actually knew my mother. Loved her like the daughter she never had. Even tough love is the only way Justina knows how to express her affection, sometimes she flatters me by telling me how much I remind her of my mother. Even if we look nothing alike.

My mother could have held her own in any magazine I’ve ever seen. She was shorter, more voluptuous, and breathtakingly beautiful. Blonde hair, gorgeous skin, high cheekbones andwonderful, vivid, green eyes.

Comparing myself to her, I've always felt like an alien. Muddy brown eyes, lanky features, and red hair that's just too brassy for my taste. If they weren't so freckled, mylong legs would be great. I always wanted to look like my mother rather than a dead father who could never be bothered with us, but my mom always urged me not to be so hard on myself about my "angel kisses," as she liked to call them.

I think that if I had a child who looked like the person who broke my heart, I would not have been able to love them half as much as my mother loved me. And she did. Even now, with her being gone for so many years, I can still feel her love.

My mother wanted so much more for me than what she had. I never saw anything wrong with the way we grew up except for in my weaker moments, when I compared my life to that of family that owned the house that she worked in. The same house that I now work in to save up enough money to go to fashion school.

I know that I have the talent, it’s just a matter of timing and opportunity.

Magazines are just as important as any other study material. I have to keep on track with current trends and fabrics; the fashion industry moves so quickly that it’s basically deadly to fall behind. Another reason I'm happy that my boss, Cristiano Dominio, who is almost like a brother to me,an obnoxious and hot brother, doesn't make us wear uniforms except foran apron.

My mother’s apron is a mostly plain, beige-colored frock with her initials lovingly embroidered in white and silver stitching toward the bottom hemline. It’s the only thing that I really have left of her. She never believed much in material objects beyond what she could create and I keep it fastidiously clean at all times.

Underneath that, I wear a fairly simple white t-shirt tucked into bright red jeans that fit like a second skin that moves effortlessly and stretches in all the right places, making it easier for me to clean spots that are hard to reach. Paired with sneakers, which make my life even easier. It may not be the mostfashionable option, but no one can deny how much I love my colorful touches.

The walk to the basement access is mostly silent. If I hadn’t grown up alongside Ada, Cristiano’s younger sister, while being chased around by him in these very halls, I would easily say this mansion was creepy.

It is quite formal, but then again, his grandparents designed it. A family compound.

I still don’t know exactly what the Dominio family does, but they have always been kind to me so I don’t ask questions. It’s not my business.

I reach the door and fumble for the basement key, tucking a strand of chin-lengthred hairbehind my ear. Justina is the only person with a skeleton key. For the rest of us, there are doors that we can access using our security badges in addition to a few conventional keys. The fact that they don't just choose a medium and stick with it is another strange thing. However, they pay me enough not to ask obvious questions.

Some doors in this place are still off-limits, even to me.

I unlock the door and am met with voices. Nobody should be in the basement. Other than Annalisa, Mrs. Dominio, who is unlikely to leave her bedroom anytime soon, I don't thinkanyone else is home. Who could it be? Nobody could have broken in here since the Dominios have more private protection on their compound than even Jesus Christ would have.

I shouldn’t spy. I know it’s wrong and yet I find myself leaning in anyway.

If something is going on down there, it's for a very good reason, and I should get out of the way until it's over. Actually, going to hide in the bathroom for an hour or two to finish reading my magazine would make great sense. It would be the perfect excuse. There is a common understanding that when Dominio business is underway,one must become invisible.

I take half a step back from the door, silently cursing my shoe for daring to squeak at a moment like this and close the door again.

I'm holding the key that is inside the lock. Lock it and go;that's the only sensible choice. But I have to leave here early today. It's not like dusting will take a long, right? I can always just slip in and out. I can work around them. There's no way Cristiano will get upset with me, and even if he did, it won't last more than a minute or two. He’s far too nice of a guy.

He knows I have to work.

Right?

I’m sure it’s fine.

Since the meeting is being held in the basement, it doesn't take me long to come to the conclusion that it is probably not of significance. I have sketches waiting for me. Important sketches. I still have a few days till the scholarship application deadline, but I need to make a good impression.

Yes. That’s what I’m going to tell him if he asks me why I’m puttering about during his meeting.

I straighten my back, tuck the basement key back into myapron, and silentlypush the door open again. I casuallysaunter down into the basement, holding my bucket of cleaning supplies in one hand and a pair of clean dusting cloths in another. With actual dedication, it will just take fifteen minutes.

But then, my shoe slips.

Of course, it does.

One moment I’m confidently strolling down the stairs towards what promises to be an uncomfortable fifteen minutes of work and then the next I’m falling ass over face down to the basement. My bucket of cleaning supplies flies out of my hands and clatters somewhere, leaving the scent of pine cleaner everywhere in the air. My body batters and the air is knocked out of me.

The voices in the basement are silent now.

I can feel the eyes in the room on me. All of them. Before even looking at them, I'm trying to take stock of my situation to see if I have any fractured bones.However, except for a few bruises, I believe I’m alright.

With a shy, apologetic grin that I hope he finds endearing, I turn to look for Cristiano's eye, only to be greeted with an entirely other scene.

It’s not a meeting.

Well, not what I would call one.

There’s a bloodied and beaten man tied to a chair in the center of the room. The concrete floor is soaked and the metallic scent starts to mix with the pine in a way that makes me think I’m never going to be able to polish floors with that cleaner ever again.

It seems like the man is only two hits away from death. Men who I had assumed to be merely members of Cristiano's staff are behind him, followed by the man himself.

The charming boy next door that I grew up withis no longer there.

Instead, something else has consumed him. A darkness in his eyes makes me shudder right to my very core. He looks like another person entirely. His face iscovered in blood, his hands areswollen, his knuckles bruised, the skintorn. He has tortured that man.

Cristiano. Torturing. He has a knife in his hand, poised directly in front of that man’s open eyeball. If the man so much as inhales too sharply, he will lose his eye.

I must have hit my head way harder than I thought that I had.

The scream starts to build in my chest.

Instead, words come out.

“I’m so not cleaning that…”