1. Flashback

Giovanna.

He ran his hands down the exposed olive skin of her back, a trail of heat and tingles dancing across her skin under his touch. It felt like she was being touched for the first time as his full, delicious lips found hers. He pressed her closer to his

hard toned body as he discreetly shuffled them through a doorway into a private room. She heard the click of the lock but did not break away from this handsome

strangers sizzling caresses on her suddenly starved skin, she craved his touch. When she had entered the masquerade ball with her elder brother and cousin, this was the last thing she had anticipated. The werewolf king was throwing a lavish ball for his twins, who were turning eighteen, and she had managed to persuade her father to allow her to attend under the strict watch of her brother. She wore a teal green silk gown that hugged her curves and a lace silk masquerade mask that her cousin and mother had helped her pick out. Giovanna knew she looked good, her raven black hair falling down to her waist, and now this sexy stranger had his hands tangled into her silky strands of hair. He tightened his grip on her hair, firmly but not in any way roughly as he tugged on it gently to pull her head back slightly exposing her neck to him as he placed kisses there and dragged a needy moan from her now slightly swollen lips.

"Tell me your name, sweetheart?" he whispered seductively as she now pressed her hips lustfully against his evident rock-hard response to her.

"I can't." her husky reply answered, and he pulled back slightly. She knew with a heavy heart this could never be anything but one night.

"You don't need my name to give me the night of my life now, do you?" She challenged him sexily the champagne she had drank bolstering her bravado.

"No." her handsome sexy stranger responded with a slightly surprising note of disappointment as she reached up and pulled him by his tie back down to meet her lips.

The memory of what happened next made me shudder and squeeze my knees together at the memory of the things this chiselled God of a man had made me feel.

"Giovanna?" A loud voice scolded, and I was dragged back from my sexy thoughts of that night of freedom and back to my bleak present. "Did you hear me?" my father’s voice boomed. I hadn't, but I had been my father's personal business secretary for enough years to know what he wanted and needed me to do from this meeting.

"Of course, Father." I responded confidently with an obedient smile. I practically ran my father's legitimate business fronts whilst he and my brother were dealing with the less than savoury side of the family business. My father is Don Carlos Angelito, the head of the Angelito mafia family. As a result, I was practically under lock and key in the Angelito family mansion, but my sister and I liked to call it the prison compound. I made a choice a few years ago that destroyed any chance that I had at escaping on my own or even through a decent husband match and now my only bid for occasional freedom was being good at my job and having a use that allowed my Father to give me some freedom. I had earned back over time and complete obedience a little niche of my life that I could call my own.

The man in the meeting with my father smiled.

"You're lucky Don Angelito to have such a clever loyal daughter." he slimmed. He was another mafia heavy hitter and whilst married for years and mid fifties in age he took every chance he could to grope or touch me when my father wasn't looking.

"Yes, she is very good at what she does." my father grumbled.

"She would have been the perfect wife for my son only for her discretion." He threw out the veiled insult.

"Giovanna knows she is damaged goods and has repented for it, but she is smart and very obedient now. Any man who would have her would be hugely compensated to overlook her previous slip, but she is still my daughter." My father responded as I bit my lip, I had heard these conversations before and had watched my older sister as she was practically sold off to a criminal family in Mexico that was now another arm in my father's criminal branch.

I sat smiling, prettily making notes of what I would need to do as I ignored the sleazy comments and tuned out to the criminal undertones I didn't want to know anything about. Sadly my Father often spoke of me as a possession to be sold and a damaged posession at that. I swallowed away the urge to speak up for myself it wasn’t worth the repecusions on our lives. I could not make reckless decision that only I would pay for anymore.

 Thankfully, my father dismissed me, and I gladly left the office.

I grabbed myself a coffee and a turkey sandwich on my way back to my office, and once inside the office door, I kicked off my high heels. I loved my office, my father let me decorate it, and it had a wall of glass that gave me beautiful views of the classic New York skyline. I sat in my office chair and leaned back, stretching my toes blissfully. Once I finished my coffee and sandwich I opened up my computer and sent emails, we had just finished a refurbishment on a new upper class night club and we were in the process of hiring staff for it. One of my father's goons was managing it, but I was left with the task of hiring low-level waitresses, bottle staff, and bar staff. A vast number of applications had been placed on my desk. It was no secret that the Angelito family clubs paid really well. I divided the applications into rejections and a pile to interview before moving on to answer my emails.

My brother waved as he passed my open office door flanked by his security staff as he joined my father's meeting. My brother and I had a good relationship but sadly he subscribed to the toxic macho views of the household of Angelito, if anything happened my father he would take over and I would belong to him as an asset to the family. When I had first begged my father to let me fill in for his assistant in the company who had fallen ill, he had reluctantly agreed, my mother was horrified as I was raised to be pretty, manage house staff and have children for my husband. It turned out to be the best thing I ever did. My father wasn't foolish enough not to recognize I had a talent for the job, worked outside of my role to keep things moving and made his life much easier, and it gave me some freedom. I waited patiently for the clock to hit five pm and quickly gathered my hand bag and jacket, shoving my feet back into my designer heels I rode the elevator down to the lobby where my usual security detail and car was waiting. I was after all still an Angelito Mafia Princess all be it a damaged one.

I urged the car to move through the heaving city traffic to make it home I needed to see the only thing that mattered to me anymore and the reason I stayed in this hellish golden gilded cage. The only thing my father had that held me firmly to the family. My three year old son Luca who I had named as such because he was my light and my Father had approved the traditional Italian name without argument. Luca Angelito was a firm asset to the Angelito mafia as it had been shown in DNA testing he had werewolf blood. It shocked our secret specialist Doctor that I had carried him at all as apparently after research human females struggled to carry shifter babies but I had and when he was born seemingly at full term after only six months it was foretold by a shifter Doctor that he was most likely of high ranked wolf blood. I had done a little research secretly to try track down the man I had left alone in that room with such a heavy heart but it was an event that had been crammed full of high ranked shifters so it had been futile and every one was in masquerade mask’s. The only reason I was allowed to keep Luca was because he was a werewolf shifter and I suspected it was the reason my life was more then the locked four walls of my bedroom or worse as one of the girls abused in my fathers many clubs. My father had hired a nanny to look after Luca and she answered to him strictly but she was a kind woman and did allow me time with my son, this was why I was so anxious to get home. If I made it home in line with my son’s strictly ordered routine she would allow me bath him and read him his bedtime story. I worked hard and skimmed away some of my wages in the hopes that one day I would make my escape with Luca. The car eased out of the city traffic and I let out the breath I was holding I would make it to see my little boy. The gates of our house came into view and I bolted from the car as soon as it came to a stop. Making my way quickly to Luca’s nursery I scooped him up into my arms and breathed in my babies scent. He smelt divine and I lived for the smell of his skin, he smelt like the old books my grandmother used to give me, mixed with a masculine musk that was mouth watering.

“Mamma” he squealed delighted to see me.

“hello baby.” I smiled my voice muffled against his hair as I held him tightly. He held up his hands to show me the bright red and black paint on his fingers and palms.

“Look Mamma, Tata and I painted lady bugs.” he said using the Italian word for Nanny to refer to Samantha the woman who had more time with my son then I would ever be granted. I swallowed as I looked at the paint, I felt a tug at my heart, oh how I wanted to be the one painting lady bugs  all day with my boy. We lived in the lap of luxury here but I would trade it all in for a dingy bedsit, tinned food and public school if it meant I could raise him and we could be free. Samantha gave me a small smile as she nodded to me and slipped out into her room which was across from Luca’s nursery. I gathered my toddler in my arms and gently carried him to the bath, removing his clothes I placed him in the water.

“Mama tell me our secret story.” he whispered as I sighed. He was so innocent in all this and yet he knew that our life here was precarious. “Tell me about my Papa.” his eager eyes looked up at me and I knew those eyes they were his father’s, they were the eyes that had looked at me with such want and desire through his dark mask the night I conceived his son. I had begun to tell my son this story when he was a year old because I knew if the chance came I would smuggle him to the royal wolf pack and leave him there to have freedom and not be a horrible Hench man for the Angelito Mafia. I knew my father had vision’s of his own brutal wolf shifter killing machine and it was a fate I was going to save my son from.

“Your Papa is a good wolf, he helps his pack. He is strong and he protects the weaker wolves. He was kind to your Mama and he gifted me you.” I said lowly swallowing the lump in my throat. “He had to stay with his pack to mind them but one day you will go to him and he will show you how to be a good man like him.” I added.

“Grand-papa says being a wolf means I am better than the others, I am more powerful and people will fear me.” He responded matter of factually and my stomach dropped.

“No baby, you are not better than anyone, being a wolf shifter means you are blessed by the Moon Goddess but that gift you must use wisely and to help others not scare or hurt them. Even without wolf blood there will always be those weaker then you but you are never better than them.” I reached out and caught his little face between my hands. “Promise me Luca you will not hurt others with your shifter powers. You will step up and protect the weak and those who need it but not to hurt people because someone tells you too.” I whispered.

“I promise Mama.” he whispered and I knew in this moment he was telling the truth. “But Mama I will always protect you.” He added and my heart lurched at his unwavering love of me.

“Thank you Baby.” I smiled hiding the tears. “Now lets get you into your pyjama’s.” I said more jovially as I scooped him from the bubbles. He laughed the heaviness of our conversation forgotten. I dressed him and read to him and lay with him until he was asleep. I kissed him good night and slipped out, briefly knocking to tell Samantha he was asleep. She thanked me and I wandered to my own room.  I quickly showered and pulled on my bed clothes before curling up on the armchair by the window as I started out at the moon and prayed to the moon Goddess to watch over my son and make him a good man and to send him a good wolf spirit so my father wouldn’t break him like he had broken me.