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It struck me suddenly that since my mother passed, I'd never really had someone on my side. Someone willing to fight for me.
If someone had told me that the person that finally would be on my side would be the underboss of New York's biggest mafia family, I would have had a good, long, much-needed laugh about it.
Yet here we were.
I felt I knew Lorenzo enough at this point to know that look on his face.
Determination.
And that he was a man of his word.
He would do everything in his power to fix this.
If there was a way to do so.
"Hey," he snapped, grabbing my chin again, yanking it up high, like I always did when I was being stubborn. "Don't give up on me now, do you hear me? Where's that hellcat who wanted to bash my brain in with a bottle of whiskey? I need her back. Just for a little while longer. Because I am going to need to leave you here. And I am going to need to go up there and fix this. Don't crumble on me now."
"I don't crumble," I told him, jaw getting tight. I knew he was baiting me. And that I was biting. But I guess that was the point, wasn't it?
"Prove it," he demanded, eyes bright.
I didn't see it coming.
But he leaned forward as his hand slid from my jaw to my cheek, slipping down to the side of my neck where he liked to rest it, and his lips pressed to mine.
But it wasn't hard and demanding, like I expected from him.
No.
This was something I didn't think he would be capable of.
Soft and sweet.
It was like a warm drink to my system, working through me, warming me from the inside out.
It was over far too soon, though, leaving me cold and alone in the basement as Lorenzo stood, walked to the door, gave me one final glance, then walked out, closing the door behind him.
I could hear him talking to someone through the door, making my stomach twist.
I could trust Lorenzo. He was proving that more and more by the moment. And if I could trust Lorenzo, I could trust Emilio and Chris. But Arturo? Arturo's men? Definitely not.
"It's me," a voice called through the door.
"Who?" I called back, trying to keep my voice low.
"Chris," he answered.
"Maybe I would know that if you ever spoke to me," I shot back, hearing a small chuckle in response.
"Hang tight," he told me, voice barely above a whisper. He must have been talking to me between the crack in the door, paranoid we might be overheard. "We got this."
I wanted to believe them. I wanted to trust that their confidence wasn't misplaced, that they could somehow spin this conversation into something positive.
But I had finally met Arturo Costa.
And he didn't seem like the kind of man who let people get things over on him.
For the supposed "boss of all bosses," he was a surprisingly small man. In both stature and nature. He clearly got off on my father's ass-kissing. He loathed it when I didn't cower before him. Then there was that oddly weak, higher-pitched voice.
I guess movies and TV—and, let's face it, Lorenzo—had skewed my perception of what mafia men were supposed to look like and act like.
It seemed like Arturo understood this preconception, too. I guess it was why he was so ruthless. Because he knew it was the only way a man like him could command respect.
Except it wasn't respect at all.
It was fear.
And being made to feel fearful made people angry; it didn't inspire loyalty.
So maybe Lorenzo and Chris were right. Maybe they could work this out, after all.
I couldn't let myself get too hopeful, though.
My gaze shifted around the cold, empty side of the basement.
This was not the place for hope.
This was where it went to die.
A shudder moved through me as I wondered how many men had lost their lives right where I was sitting, how much blood had been bleached from the floors, how many people had begged for their lives while being chained to a wall.
I wasn't naive enough to believe everyone made it out of this place alive. I wasn't even naive enough to be sure I would.
At this point, though, I was more worried about the things that could happen before death than the act of dying itself.
If Arturo was a small and weak man who used fear as a motivator, if he employed rapists and child molesters, if he didn't have the respect of his own damn son, who knew what could happen to me down here.
And Christopher would be powerless to stop it.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, resting my head back against the wall, suddenly wishing I had put on pants and a normal shirt for this event.
At the time, I thought the dress and heels would make me feel more sure of myself, that they would work as some sort of shield between me and the men I would be faced with. I figured I would be going back to Lorenzo's penthouse after the meeting.
