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My jaw tightened, and I shifted the knife away from his throat and slowly stood, pointing the 9mm at Jensen. “Call Giovanni.”
The guy I’d disarmed, who’d been obediently kneeling, begged, “No, Giovanni will kill us for this.”
I grunted and cocked my head. Did I really need to warn him what I’d do if they didn’t listen?
Jensen was quick to follow my order, and he approached with caution while placing the call on speakerphone.
“Why the hell are you calling me at seven in the morning?” Giovanni rasped in a sleepy voice. “Someone better be dying.”
“Someone is about to,” I remarked in a low voice.
“Who is this?” Giovanni slowly asked.
“Lorenzo Costa. Three of your men are at my home in Charlotte. And they were sent here to try and beat me up.”
A string of Italian curses flooded the line before Giovanni said, “I have nothing to do with this. We have a deal. You know I wouldn’t break it.”
“And what about your son-in-law, Nico? I heard he’s taking over soon.” I was testing him. Testing Jensen’s story, too.
“Nico knows better than to mess with a Costa.” He was quiet before saying, “What did you do, Jensen?”
Jensen looked at me, then back at the phone. “We were just trying to make some money on the side. We never, uh, do anything in New York. I promise.” His dark-brown eyes disappeared with every dramatic blink. “I don’t know who hired us.”
“You have until tomorrow to get me the name of whoever the hell did,” I said in a steady, low voice, doing my best not to unleash my anger on the three idiotas in the room with me. “The only reason we tolerate your family is because you’re my mother’s cousin. But believe me when I tell you that won’t stop me from burning your entire operation to the ground if I don’t have a name by tomorrow.”
Giovanni quietly assessed my threat, but he knew better than to fuck with me. Family or not, I meant every word. “What do you plan to do with them? Jensen is my wife’s nephew.”
I shot a harsh look to the man on the floor clutching his throat, unsure if I could let him walk away from me, but Maria and Natalia were in the other room, and could I kill someone with them here? What would that do to them?
“They’re practically kids,” I hissed. “I suggest you encourage them to shut down their side operation and knock some sense into them when they get back home. Or I’ll hunt them down after they leave here and do it myself.” I focused on the man who’d been on top of Maria, my eyes narrowing his way. “If you ever touch a woman inappropriately again, you’ll beg me to kill you after what I do to you, understand?”
He wrapped a hand over the small puncture at his throat where I’d nicked him, and he nodded.
“I’m showing them mercy, Giovanni. That’s something I don’t do.” I peered back at the phone. “There won’t be any tomorrow if I don’t have the name.”
“Understood,” was all Giovanni said, and then I motioned to Jensen to end the call.
“Leave before I change my mind.” My eyes fell to the blood on my white carpet near my feet as I waited for them to go.
A minute or so later, I looked up to see Ryan now there with a brown bag cradled in his arm. The door must’ve been left open, and he’d assumed Natalia was here, and ...
Ryan looked at me, then at the 9mm at my side, and the bag fell to the floor as his face went pale. “What the hell happened while I was gone?”
ELEVEN
Maria
“Mafia?” Natalia exclaimed, eyes wide as she spoke with her hands, pacing around the living room. And from the looks of it, that was one secret she hadn’t known about.
I honestly wasn’t sure what to do or how to process anything that happened before my brother-in-law had shown up with my sister’s everything bagels she’d been craving.
So far, all I’d done was put on pants and one of Enzo’s hoodies to hide my body. Not that Ryan would check me out, but still.
“I’m not mafioso,” Enzo said in a low, grumbly voice, and his gaze snapped to me as I stood by the wall of windows. It felt wrong somehow for the sun to be spearing through the room as it was, illuminating the place. “I don’t know what you heard through the door, but you’re wrong.”
Ryan stopped my sister from wearing a hole in the floor and pinned her back to his chest, setting his chin on her head. The fact someone had pointed a gun at her had the tic in his jaw on overdrive ever since he’d arrived. He wanted to wipe the floors with those men’s blood, too, didn’t he?
And honestly, when we left the office, I’d expected there to be more blood staining the carpet. Enzo had shown restraint, which meant he wasn’t the monster he tried to make himself out to be.
