Page 81 of The Beast Who Begged Me

This could work.

We could work.

So I tighten my arms around him. Because the moment something’s worth having is the moment someone tries to take it away.

CHAPTER 26

CALIGULA

I jam the loupe harder into my eye, turn the ring another fraction toward the window, and the engraving inside disappears. I tilt it back, fraction by fraction until the tiny scratches return, just clear enough to make me think I see…something…

Words. Words, I could swear it, but then I turn it too far and the engraving—if that’s even what it is—disappears again. I ease the ring around until even the scratches blur, then start moving it away again.

And then I yank the loupe out of my eye and throw it down on the desk in a fit of pique.

Yesterday, I contacted the shop that used to supply my grandmother’s necklaces and my grandfather’s watches. The old jeweler might even have engraved the ring, but he’s been dead for years. His son runs the place now and sounded delighted to hear from a Clemenza again. He offered to examine whatever had caught my interest himself. I thanked him and asked him to just send the loupe.

I haven’t told anyone except Dami about the engraving. I don’t think Luca D’Amato even realized it was there, or surely he would have kept it—or asked me about it.

But someone already tried to take my hand off for it, not to mention my life, and I’m not about to hope forty years of good service means a jeweler can keep a secret. Besides, even an honest man can talk to the wrong person.

And I have no idea what the words might say. What if they’re something that could bring the Family down all over again?

More likely they’re meaningless.

I’ve been trying all morning. Under the light of the reinforced window, under the desk lamp, under one of Vito’s powerful thin-beamed flashlights that he keeps for working on the cars.

So far, it’s been hopeless.

I rub the pressure mark the loupe has left against my brow bone and set the ring on the blotter. I thought I’d have this settled quickly, but it’s taken so long that Dami wandered away, bored, telling me he’d call Ferraro and Giordano, see how business was going.

I pick up the ring again, this time holding it so the light catches the inside of the band at an angle. The marks are shallow, but the spaces between them are regular. Deliberate. Whatever is written here was minute to begin with, tucked inside the band where nobody would think to look for more than a hallmark.

Nonno Lou, that old bastard, hid something in the one thing no Clemenza would ever willingly hand over to anyone outside the Family.

“Any luck?” Dami asks from the doorway. He has a cup of Rosa’s espresso in each hand, and I could kiss him. Or more. Much more. Only half of my mind has been on my task today. The other has been thinking about the time Dami threw me over this very desk and…

Well. I shouldn’t think about it now. We already started off the day with a long, lazy coupling, and at some point I need to focus.

“I’m starting to think Nonno Lou did this specifically to annoy me.” I accept the coffee and take a grateful mouthful. “It’s just too small to read. Even if it hadn’t worn down, I don’t think I could read it with this thing.” I shove the loupe away.

Dami comes around the desk, picks up the loupe, and peers through it at the ring. His brow furrows. And then he puts both down with a shake of the head, which is considerate of him.

I would’ve been fucking furious if he’d managed to read a single word.

“Need to take it to someone with better equipment,” he says. His hand settles on the back of my neck, warm and heavy, and I lean into it.

“And have them discover whatever it says before I do? We still don’t know who wants it, Dami. Or who they’ve paid, threatened, asked to watch out for it.”

“I wasn’t thinking of taking it out of the house.” His thumb moves slowly beneath my hair. In another second I’m going to start moaning for him. “Sammy’s got that camera lens thing. Macro-something. He was showing me a picture of a pencil point the other day. Took up the whole fucking screen.”

I glance up at him. “You were looking at Sammy’s photographs?”

“He wanted to show me.” Dami shrugs. “You could ask him. Might as well get some use out of all that shit I bought him. And stop him fooling around with Benedetti for five fucking seconds.”

I don’t point out that we’ve probably been “fooling around” just as often as Sammy and Ricky, who hasn’t been home for days now. Which is fine as far as I’m concerned, although Dami thinks differently.

I look back at the ring. I do actually trust Sammy; that isn’t the problem. The problem is that I wanted to be the person who read it, understood it, decided what to do with it. I hadn’t allowed for being defeated by the first fucking step. “Alright,” I sigh. “Is he in?”