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“I’m not going to play these games, Dawson,” I tell him evenly. “Make sure Officer Adams finds some new cause to champion. I want him away from my family and those associated with us. He leaves the girl he’s been harassing alone. He leaves all my contacts alone. I don’t want to have to have this discussion again.”
“Neither do I.” Dawson appraises me for a long moment, finally huffing out a breath as he shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll have another word with him. But consider rethinking your approach, Campano. Your money can’t entirely make up for your meddling.”
When I leave the precinct, I can’t help feeling as if that didn’t go entirely in my favor. That feeling persists throughout the day as I try to handle business, my mind drifting again and again to Mila. She hasn’t tried to contact me since last night.
I want to call her. I want to hear her voice again, to remember what she sounded like underneath me. I want to see her again. Not speaking with her, not seeing her after what we did—it sends a clear message. Incidentally, the message I should be sending. But not the one I want to.
We can’t do this again.
I’m distracted for the entire afternoon. It doesn’t help that I have a shipment to deal with tonight, down at the docks, and I need to be sharp for it. I don’t bother going home after I’m finished going over paperwork—instead, I head to a bar not too far from my office, intent on getting dinner and a drink. I can’t afford to be foggy-headed tonight, but one drink won’t hurt. I take some of the unfinished paperwork that I wasn’t able to focus on with me, getting a table near the back where I can sit with my work, a good steak, and a glass of cognac.
I like my life as it is, I think to myself as I settle in, glancing at the waitress as she walks away. She’s tall and pretty, curvy, with soft brown hair that curled around her shoulders, and I didn’t miss the look she gave me when she brought my drink. But one look at her, and my mind fills with thoughts of Mila again. Like it or not, meeting her has shifted the order of my life.
I’m no longer entirely immersed in my work, in business, in picking up the pieces of the family that Dante doesn’t want to deal with. Finding a woman to take the edge off is no longer a matter of picking out one that will do for the night. When I think of the ache still steadily throbbing through my veins, I think of Mila’s pale skin. Her soft, rose-colored lips. The small, kittenish sounds she makes when I touch her. The way she begs for my hands, my mouth, my cock.
God, I’m going to end up with a fucking hard-on in a restaurant. My cock presses uncomfortably against my fly, and I’m suddenly glad that I have business to take care of tonight. If I didn’t, I would have the unsettling feeling that I would end up at Mila’s door again, and in her bed when the night came to a close.
Nothing about last night fit with my image of myself. I care deeply about my family, but I’ve never been partial to children or the idea of them. I assumed they might be a necessity for me at one point, since Dante didn’t seem likely to settle down and Carmine definitely can’t be trusted with the family line—but all that has changed. I no longer need to provide Campano heirs. Which meant I could safely push all thoughts of necessary marriage and children into the back of my head, where I wanted them to be in the first place.
But I felt something different, when Mila’s little brother had taken a liking to me. I felt a softness, an urge to be gentle with something fragile. I had some idea of their circumstances, even if I still didn’t know exactly what happened, and I felt the urge to see the little boy’s face light up. To be friendly with him. I’ve rarely had anything to do with children, but the little bit of time we spent together felt natural.
I saw the look on Mila’s face, too. It was impossible to miss. A flash of protectiveness, the instinct to pull her brother away from danger—from me—and then the way she’d melted when she saw what was really happening. For a moment, I’d felt a glow in the room, something I’ve never experienced before in that way. Comfort. Happiness.
I’d sat there and eaten one of the worst meals of my life, and liked it because she had made it. Because of the effort that had gone into it. The wine had been awful, but I hadn’t really minded it. I’d go back and eat the same fucking thing again—swap out the filet coming to my table for that terrible plate of spaghetti, if it meant seeing Mila smile like that again.
It doesn’t take all that much to realize that I’m in far deeper than I should be. That if I’d had any sense at all, I’d have turned her away the day she walked into my office.
Or, on the other hand—thrown her over my shoulder the night I saw her at Altiere’s mansion, and never let her go.
I grit my teeth, trying not to think of her proposal. Of how I could have her in my bed every night, at my every whim, safe from that meddling cop, if I would take her up on her offer. But now more than ever, when I’ve had her soft and willing and pleading with no transaction between us—I can’t imagine turning it into a contractual obligation. A trade of sex for money, something I’ve never engaged in, and don’t plan to start now.
It isn’t the drink muddling my head when my driver reaches the edge of the docks at eleven that evening, parking in a shadowed spot so I can slip out and join the men waiting to receive the shipment and protect it while it’s unloaded. It feels as if half of my head is here, where it’s supposed to be, and half is with Mila.
It very nearly gets me killed.
I’m watching the men get the crates up onto the dock, a part of my mind wondering how late I might be able to slip into her apartment on a Saturday night, if she would want to see me after a night at work. The thought of her work makes my gut clench with resentment—the idea of other men looking at her, touching her, getting off to her. I’m barely paying attention when the air suddenly parts close to my ear, followed almost immediately by the soft thud of a bullet hitting wood.
Everything moves at once. The men by the crates drop, reaching for weapons; the ones set to guard it draw theirs. My gun is in my hand reflexively as I drop back, finding Federic, my right-hand man. He steps closer, slightly in front of me, scanning for the source of the shot.
To my right, several of my men shoot. I catch the direction of their aim just in time to see a black-clothed figure drop, and the shadows of others spill away into the darkness. One more drops, and then they’re gone, melting into the night.
There are no casualties on our side, but that’s not the problem. Now we have to get these crates out of here quickly, before the cops come. Bodies need to be dealt with. My night has gotten considerably more complicated in a matter of seconds.
I won’t be seeing Mila tonight. It should be a relief to have the decision made for me, but all I feel is a clutching disappointment. A feeling that after this, especially, I want the comfort of her next to me.
That should be enough to make me run for the hills—the idea that it’s not even just pleasure I want, but her company. Her warmth in my bed. The feeling of my arms around her.
But it’s not. All I feel is a buzzing irritation that my night is going to be eaten up with complications, instead of having some of it left to myself.
The black-clothed body nearest to us has no identification—other than a tattoo on his wrist. An eagle with spread wings, the symbol of the Bratva. “One of Egor’s men,” I mutter, looking at Federic. “Get rid of the bodies. Make sure there’s no trace left.”
It’s after one in the morning when the crates are safely moved elsewhere, to a different warehouse. I make my way back to my apartment, struggling through a shower before I fall, exhausted, into bed. A shudder of desire runs through me, the ache for her resurfacing, but I’m too tired to be distracted by it for long.
Once again, when I fall asleep, all my dreams are of her.
Lorenzo
Usually, in the past, I’ve skipped the showcases and galas involving the Campano family’s patronage of the ballet. It’s always been more Dante and Aida’s interest, and since one of them always makes an appearance, I rarely have. But tonight, a week after I last saw Mila, I find myself putting on a well-tailored suit in my old bedroom at the family mansion, preparing for a night out.
