Page 31 of Savage Ambition

His shoulders slumped at the painful reminder that he only bought me an hour at a time.

Ishi’s knock broke the silence.

Shaw got dressed, but I remained naked and unabashed. I watched him struggle with buttons, his fingers trembling from what we’d done. The knowledge that I could reduce him to such a state of disarray filled me with a dark satisfaction.

He fidgeted when he finished, avoiding looking at my nudity. “Um, have a good weekend.”

“You too.” The reappearance of the almost virginally shy side of Shaw amused me. It made me want to do untold perverse things to him.

“I guess I’ll see you Monday?”

As much as I wanted to prolong the experience, I couldn’t do it without risking repercussions that weren’t worth it. “As always. Have a good night.”

“Yeah, I doubt that’ll be happening.”

I arched an eyebrow at the unexpected response. “Why?”

“The guys came here tonight, too.”

Although it was none of my business, I had to know. “What poor woman had to put up with Jace’s incompetence?”

“Secretary Dominique. He was with her last time, too. It was his idea to visit.”

Her real name was Natalia, and she was the only other ally I had in the brothel besides Ishi. I hated the thought of someone so unworthy defiling her.

Making a mental note to check on her later, I focused on the latter part of his comment. “You accompanied Jace to make sure he didn’t choose me, didn’t you?” It was foolish logic, but Shaw’s protective instinct intrigued me. “Why are you so convinced he’d hire me when he’s homophobic?”

Shaw looked down at the floor as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m worried he’ll try to confirm whether you’re actually you, hoping to use it against you somehow.”

“How? You know he can’t afford my rates.”

He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. “That’s true. I guess I wasn’t bringing logic into it when I’m so worried about him trying to use you being here to hurt you. Sorry.”

Pushing myself off the desk, I tilted his head up to initiate eye contact. Only when his uncertain emerald gaze focused on me did I say, “Thank you.”

It was cute how flustered I made him. “That’s not the only reason I came here tonight. I wanted to see you, too.”

“I know.” He wasn’t the only one eager for another encounter. I placed the softest of kisses on his lips, lingering longer than I should have in a rare moment of tenderness.

We were getting into dangerous territory, so I put walls between us once more for both of our sakes. “You should leave before they charge you a late fee.”

Opening his mouth as if to say something further, Shaw shut it. He settled for a last lingering look before leaving the room.

Left alone, I remained where I was as I sorted through emotions I shouldn’t have been having. I couldn’t shake the dread settling in my gut. I’d let Shaw see too much, let him push me too far. Worse, I’d enjoyed it.

The last person who’d become attached to a client had disappeared without a trace. Salvatore had made everyone watch the security footage of his enforcers dragging her from her bed in the middle of the night. We never found out what happened to her, but the bloodstains they couldn’t quite remove from the basement floor said enough.

“Loyalty to the family comes before all else,” Salvatore had reminded us afterward. “Emotional attachments to clients undermine our business. They compromise our intelligence gathering. They make you forget where your true allegiance lies.”

He’d looked at me as if he could already see the seeds of my future betrayal. “Every time you choose a client’s interests over the family’s, you spit on that name. On my name. And I won’t stand for such an insult.”

The unspoken message was clear that we weren’t mere sex workers. We were soldiers in Salvatore’s information war against his enemies. Our bodies were weapons, and our relationships with clients were strategic assets. Developing genuine feelings was to become a liability, a potential traitor. And the Gennaro Mafia had only one sentence for traitors.

I had carried out that punishment myself countless times, with the knife in my hand and Salvatore watching to ensure I didn’t hesitate. The weight of a garrote wire around a throat. The sound a body made hitting water after falling from the Brooklyn Bridge. Each execution served as a test of loyalty, where each death was another piece of my soul traded for Raphael’s safety.

If Salvatore caught even a whisper of genuine feeling for Shaw beyond being a client, he wouldn’t grant us the mercy of quick deaths. He’d drag Shaw into his private room where screams never escaped and make me watch as he dismantled him piece by piece. Then he’d place a gun in my trembling hand, stand behind me with his breath hot on my neck, and force my finger against the trigger for the killing shot. All while whispering how it was my fault for forgetting his cardinal rule.

In Salvatore’s world, love wasn’t weakness. It was suicide with collateral damage.