Say yeah, yeah, yeah [Cesare] you're under my skin

[Ravenna Elisabetta D'Angelo]

Raven was always working. It wasn’t a fact that bothered her, it really wasn’t. In fact, she actually rather enjoyed it, because she was doing a job that she enjoyed, and one that, if you asked the people she had actually worked for, she was rather good at. She was a personal assistant for the D’orolione family, specifically for the man of the house, Cesare. His life, and more specifically his time, was her job: where he spent it, what he did with it, who he spent it with… It was her business to know things about his life, to stick her nose in places that most people wouldn’t ever dare to tread, and she was the kind of person who could manage it all easily, though she wouldn’t deny that the fact he spent much of his time hitting on women in the locations that they visited made her jealous at best. Still, he seemed to dedicate a decent amount of time to her to make her at least mildly placated, though she was hardly satisfied. In fact, she was quite the opposite. She had heard what happened to, or rather with, his past personal assistants, and the fact that he hadn’t shown her the same kind of attention, the same kind of desire… frustrated her.

She rose early, just as she always did, well before anybody else in the manor usually did. She preferred it this way, really, the privacy was something she rarely got… though in some ways that was less of a blessing and more of a curse. When Raven had time to think like this, when she was completely alone with her thoughts, she had time to stew over her past, to think about her family, and a million and one other things that she could normally brutally shove down and just generally ignore. Slowly, Raven peeled off her clothing and stepped in the shower, the hot water running over her face and shoulders as, for the only time it would that day, she let her mind go blank. This half hour was the only time she could think about nothing and just be in the moment, letting herself feel the soothing warmth of the water as it caressed her body, letting the steam cloak her, filling the air with a kind of dewy moisture. As always, it was over too soon, and the slightly frigid air of the bathroom was like a bucket of ice water being thrown over her head. It brought her back to reality rather quick.

A short hour later, Raven was ready for her day, sipping a cup of coffee in the kitchen and leaning against the counter as she watched the sun rising over the horizon. Her long, blonde curls were perfectly formed, hanging down just below her shoulder in voluminous waves that framed her face, including her red lips, which somehow didn’t smear even as she sipped at the mug in her hand, perfectly. The hue of her lips was matched by the hue of her dress, which hit directly at the knee and was just barely considered modest enough for work… though she was sure that a man like Cesare might consider it too conservative, preferring her in something a little more… freeing. Like nothing at all. But somehow, she figured that walking around the manor in nothing but her lingerie wasn’t something that was the most professional of actions, and so instead, she chose clothing like this, that still showed off the shape of her hips and how tiny her waist was, without being considered “obscene”, though it was certainly more suggestive than most women chose to dress.

Looking at the clock, she knew it was time for her to get to work, and a small flutter of excitement stirred within her, as it always did, as she got closer to her destination. Cesare’s office. She was often there before him, and she knew that it was something she didn’t necessarily have to do, but she was an ambitious girl, and she liked her employer to know that, particularly when she knew that she could be replaced with ease for someone younger, someone sexier, someone more willing… not that there were many girls who thirsted after things in quite the same way that she did. Shutting the door behind her, Raven moved quickly, but quietly, to her desk and sat down, getting things organized, though she didn’t have much time before she heard the door start to open and she looked up and smiled easily, gracefully. “Good morning, Mr. D’orolione.” Her Italian accent slipped into her voice as she smoke, further smoothening the voice that was akin to… well nothing considered decent, at least by the definition of the 1920s, when absolutely everything fun was frowned upon. Who knew, maybe today would be the day when she finally ensnared the D’orolione patriarch into her little web, like the black widow she was.

[Deleted]

What Miss Ravenna perhaps didn’t know was what happened to his past personal assistants after he felt bored with them. Not even Tiberius or Ezio could tell her where they went for they didn’t even know… though Cesare does have a special little collection of the jewelry he did give them... and then took back prior to their disappearance. He was quite selective of his personal assistants… well, sort of. There were three criteria that they all must meet: 1) they must be blonde, 2) they must be beautiful, and 3) no one will miss the. The third… was very important.

There was a saying… how did it go? Be careful what you wished for, and as desperate as she very much wanted the construction mogul to pay her any attention, anyone else would tell her she was damn lucky that he hadn’t been noticing yet. But… oh, had he noticed. Cesare wasn’t a blind man, he was simply a tactical one. Heck, he didn’t get to where he was – the head of the Greenwich faction (albeit rather sketchily) – by being blind. Oh, he knew very well how alluring her body was, how tight and voluptuous those curves were, and there were many times when he would imagine her in nothing at all. And whenever he did, he’d smirk. However, to Raven’s disappointment, he did not fuck her just yet – nope. This was a game, was it not? And if he played his cards too early – well, that wouldn’t be a game, now would it?

This particular morning was no different from any other. He was a busy man, sure, running his own construction business and focusing on purchasing property, which meant that he really did require the need for a secretary. Adorned in one of his neatly pressed Italian suits and with his morning cigar between his lips, Cesare climbed the staircase that led from the bottom floor of his manor to the third floor that was situated in the building’s fifteenth story. From where he stood at the very top of the staircase, Cesare could see the borders of Greenwich Village and Chelsea, the very territory he was currently keeping an eye on given its current state of affairs.

Cesare D’orolione was no stranger to overtaking battle-ridden territories given the circumstances of how he managed to get his hands on Greenwich. And as of this moment, the Greenwich Don was looking to expand. He can strolling with a little “up” in his steps as he pushed open the door to his office, casting his assistant a side-long, approving glance at the very woman who greeted him. Her fire engine red dress that curved inward in all the right places had not gone unnoticed – oh no. He very much saw it and he very much could assume what this woman’s tactics were, and as much as he dared to ravish her at this moment… Cesare was at least gentlemanly enough to close the door behind him.

“Miss Ravenna,” he grinned, chin cocked slightly upward to regard her as he strode past her and toward the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked New York City proper. “Have the owners of the Union Square property sent word yet?” he asked in pure business form, clasping his hands behind the small of his back and taking in a deep breath.

“I’m getting tired waiting for their responses…” so tired, in fact, that he might just do something rather… drastic. Turning to glance over his shoulder, his eyes traveled down from her face to… her bosoms that were (perhaps purposely so) pushed up slightly against the desk to enhance their size. “Is that a new dress, Miss Ravenna?”