His To Claim - Flora Ferrari

His To Claim

Arturo Amato is a man who takes what he wants. The seven foot silver haired forty-one year old giant drips confidence and experience.

He never takes no for an answer. He destroys his enemies. And he’s set his sights on me.

His worst enemy is my father, the head of a rival mafia organization. I think it’s just about business at first.

I’m just a nineteen year old mafia princess who’s spent too long living a lie, never knowing what my family really does. But then Arturo kidnaps me, and my whole world changes.

“You belong to me now. You do what I say when I say it. You’re my property. Rule number one—you never look at another man.”

I know I should fear this man, but when he lays his hands on me I let my secret romance fantasy life come out to play. I’ve often read and dreamed of doing the things he asks of me, but the truth is I’m a virgin.

What if I can’t give this possessive, jealous man what he wants? What happens when Dad finds out about me and his arch-rival … and onetime best friend?

Dad and Arturo grew up together, but somewhere along the way, things went south.

And now bodies have been dropped, men dead on both sides of the mafia war.

I might have to confront some cruel truths about my family… and maybe even about my new lover, as we fall deeper and deeper into our obsession.

Maybe I can make this a good thing. Maybe I can live up to Arturo’s savage expectations. Maybe I can juggle Dad and Arturo and their resentment. Maybe I can even fulfill my dreams of becoming a singer.

Or maybe everything’s just going to go very very wrong.

*His To Claim is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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Chapter One

Aida

I stare out of the window and watch the countryside roll by as we make our way back to my father’s estate. The visit to see Lacy was a short one, just like all my approved visits are these days.

I’ve never been told explicitly that my dad is involved in the criminal world, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what all this extra security is about.

We’re at war.

It’s the only explanation as to why I wasn’t allowed to see Lacy for more than half an hour before my father’s men started pounding on the door, yelling to see if I was okay.

Lacy’s face pinched up as though in discomfort at the noise, my old friend’s features becoming taut and anxious. I felt guilt niggling at me as I rose to my feet with a sigh.

She didn’t need me bringing this trouble to her door.

Whatever this trouble is, exactly.

Hazy late-winter sunlight dances across the fields, glinting as it melts yesterday’s snow, the whole landscape covered in its winking light.

The driver is one of my father’s men, his face fixed firmly on the road. I remember when I was a little girl how these men would make a fuss over me, talk to me openly and let me share in on their jokes to some extent.

But these last few years, all of them have receded, as though the moment I started to become a woman they knew better than to risk a laugh or a smile.

Now that I am a nineteen year old woman, they barely even look at me, probably scared that Dad won’t take too kindly to them ogling his daughter.

I hate it, not because I want to flirt or anything like that – I don’t, and anyway, I’m terrible at that sort of thing – but because it’s just so isolating and lonely.

I sigh again, wondering if that’s the fifteenth of sixteenth time, and then let out a few notes from between my lips. I used to be self-conscious about practicing my singing in front of Dad’s men, but I soon realized that it doesn’t make any difference.

It’s not like they’re paying attention, anyway.

Another sedan drives ahead of us, packed window to window with my father’s men, all of them ready to leap out and protect me at a moment’s notice.

This doesn’t make me feel safe like maybe it should.

Instead, I just feel trapped, even if the bars of my cage are gilded like the cliché.

But hey, maybe cliché’s exist for a reason sometimes.

I sing softly, wordlessly, trying to let myself believe