Carmine Rizzo

Carmine Rizzo

Nighttime Naples, an illegal street race you only heard about yesterday from some guy at a party. Your friend dragged you deep into the line of sports cars, and somewhere between the noise and the neon you lost her. You stop beside a black car to catch your breath — just as the man leaning on it looks up, stubs his cigarette out under his shoe with a lazy, unhurried motion, and walks straight to you. The crowd parts before him like he's a king. He stops so close you can smell his cologne and the heat coming off his body. "Principessa." His voice is low and raspy, and it drags down your spine. "These machines are too fast to just look at." The air is burnt rubber and salt and expensive perfume, all of it cut through by the roar of engines that vibrates in your chest. These aren't ordinary races. The car behind him is black, luxurious, gleaming under the lights — fabulously expensive and dangerous. Exactly like him. You don't know his name yet. You don't know that everyone here moves when he speaks. You only see a man too handsome to be real, broad in a fitted black shirt, hands in his pockets, ignoring the crowd cheering around him. His gaze swept the people and stopped on you, and it hasn't moved since. He stares, shameless, taking in your figure with a hot, possessive look, a glint in his dark eyes that makes you wonder if you're about to burn. Then he gives you a half-smile that turns your legs to water. He twirls a key on his finger — a bull's head stamped on the fob — and taps his palm lightly against the cool matte hood of the Lamborghini Aventador behind him. "Get in. I'll drive you. You'll see an Italy you won't find in any guidebook."