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As he reaches for the hem of my skirt, a surge of adrenaline prompts me to slap his hand away. His response is swift; a backhand across my face that sends me reeling. My cheek stings, the taste of iron filling my mouth.
“Your dad knew we were coming,” he sneers into my ear, his breath hot and foul. “Abandoned you, knowing what we do to girls like you. How does that make you feel?”
The leader, his hand inches from violating me, is suddenly airborne, yanked back by an unseen force. I look behind him. A giant of a man is tossing him aside as if he were nothing but a ragdoll. The newcomer is wearing a jet black suit, his eyes burning with fury.
I look down at a corpse, neck bent at an impossible angle. “Touch her and you die,” my savior growls, turning his attention to the others.
Apologies spill out, a desperate attempt to save themselves from the wrath of my unexpected hero. In their haste to flee past me, they stumble over their own feet, one barely making it out but the other is caught. The stranger has him by the throat, lifting him effortlessly off the ground.
The thug kicks his legs, his hands clawing at the stranger’s arm, trying to pry away the vice-like grip cutting off his air. “Help,” he wheezes, turning his gaze to me. “He’s killing me.”
My hero only releases his grip when the thug’s chokes have faded into a wet gurgle. He lets go at last and a second body joins the first on the floor.
The room spins as I try to make sense of the chaos, my gaze flitting between the unmoving figures on the floor and the enormous brute striding toward me.
My knees hit the ground with a soft thud. “Please,” I beg, my voice a desperate whisper. “Don’t kill me. I’m sorry, okay. I’ll find the money. Just please don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not here for money,” he replies, fixing me with a stony stare that makes me shudder.
“Then what are you here for?”
“You.”
TWO
Alessandro
Thirty minutes earlier…
“You have to understand something,” I say, reaching into my jacket. “This is nothing personal, it’s just business. Now, I’ve got two minutes before I need to be someplace very important. I need to get this dealt with quickly.” I pull out my gun.
He gulps, opening his mouth to start whining again. “But, Alessandro,” he pleads. “We went to school together. We grew up together. Have mercy.”
I nod. “I treated you like a brother, Teddy. My father brought you over for dinner at our home many times. And how do you repay my family’s generosity? You borrow money you don’t repay. You go to work for Angelo Garibaldi behind my back. You think I wouldn’t notice when a man I trusted betrays me?”
“Please,” he begs, his eyes wide with the realization that it’s all over. “I was just trying to?—”
“Survive?” I cut him off, the word tasting like bile in my mouth. “We’re all trying to survive. Some of us retain our sense of honor, of family, of responsibility.”
He tries a different tactic. “You can’t kill me. The truce, remember?”
I smile coldly. “You believe your death will reignite the flames of war between me and Garibaldi?”
Reality crashes in and his face turns white.
I nod, pointing the gun at his face. “See, your new boss doesn’t give a shit about you, only the truce. I told him you went behind my back and he accepted this consequence. All he cares about is business, same as me. And that’s what this is, Teddy. Business.”
I pull the trigger. As Teddy slumps, a part of me wonders if I should have let him live. I’ve long stopped seeing murder as wrong but I don’t like anything that has the potential to disrupt my dealings.
There’s a slight chance this act will ripple out and affect profits. That is unacceptable. But owing me money? Taking a job with my only rival for more money? Losing all sense of what’s right and wrong? I couldn’t let that go. A man must have a code.
Stepping out of the alley, I climb into the car. Almost out of time. “Usual route, Luca,” I say.
He gives me a nod as he starts the engine. “Clean up crew is on their way to deal with the body.”
“Good.” My mind is already far from the dead man. It’s on her. My obsession. The only woman in the world who gets my heart rate elevated. I make sure I watch her going to work every single morning but it never gets old.
As we drive, the familiar sight of her store comes into view and my heart starts pumping. Soon, she’ll be here and I get to watch her.
