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Nicco snorted out a laugh despite himself. Ash and Hanna wanted so badly to win the argument, whatever it might have been about, but they were squaring off against a version of themselves and evenly matched. There would be no victors in the battle.
“Put away the claws,” he muttered. “Iverson’s gala starts soon, so tell Daddy what the kids are fighting about and we’ll find a solution.”
Hanna ran her tongue over her teeth. “Well, Daddy, Ash here thinks I shouldn’t go to the gala. He says I should leave the mission up to you.”
Nicco swallowed hard, suddenly entirely too aware of his own skin, the throbbing pulse of heat coursing through his body at Hanna’s words.
Word.
Very, very dangerous word.
“Ash, let it go. She’s a cop.”
Hanna put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, Ash, let it go.”
Ash shot Nicco a glare of betrayal. “I will not let it go. It’s too dangerous for you to be around these people, Hanna. They know that you don’t like them and you’re not going to back off.”
Hanna rolled her eyes. “Ash, give me some fucking credit, please. You’ve been gone a long time, and I’ve gotten very good at my job.”
She pulled out the invitation and waved it in Ash’s face. “Besides, the invitation is addressed to me. If I don’t go, no one does.”
And with that, she shoved the invite down the bodice of her dress.
Nicco huffed out a laugh. Twice in one night, he really was on a roll.
But he could appreciate Hanna’s brashness. She wasn’t the type to back down, not even when faced with impossible odds, and he knew just how rare that kind of power could be.
Ash took a step closer to Hanna. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”
Hanna’s face darkened. “And don’t think I won’t taze you. I’m going, and that’s final.”
Ash growled. “Fine. Then I’m going with you.”
“No.” Hanna stepped away from him. “You’re going to cause a scene before we can get close enough to Iverson to steal the key. You need to back way the fuck off.”
Ash took another step. “May I remind you that you’re the one who called me for help, Hanna. Not the other way around.”
Hanna’s jaw tightened. “And I am grateful for your assistance. I would just prefer if you didn’t act like an overprotective asshole. You’re not my real brother, Ash.”
Ash took one final step, until he stood eye to eye with Hanna, even though she wore her heels and stood above him on the staircase. “I can assure you, Hanna, that I absolutely don’t think of you as my sister.”
“Enough.” Nicco walked across the room, coming to stand at the bottom of the staircase. “You two need some space from each other. Ash, Jinx will get you in some other way. Hanna, I’ll escort you tonight. And we’ll all live happily ever after.”
Chapter Ten
It actually might have been smarter to take Ash as her date.
Hanna had been so furious when he’d tried to tell her to stay behind that she hadn’t been thinking clearly.
Of course, when it comes to Ash Rhodes, am I ever thinking clearly?
But at least with Ash, the same Ash who always seemed to have a smile and easy laugh for everyone but her, the Ash that pressed her up against trees and held eye contact for too long just to see how far she would let him go, at least with him, she could defend herself. Hanna had been defending herself, mind, body, and spirit, against Ash Rhodes in one way or another since she’d been old enough to know what she wanted.
But his motorcycle captain Niccolo was another story entirely. Nicco Castiglione was the devil to Ash’s angel, his shadow in the dark, harsh lines and brooding gaze, and an elegant kind of beauty that called to an entirely different part of Hanna’s soul. She could see him in a thousand different lifetimes, leading armies, commanding his citizens, painting the curves of a woman’s body as she lay spread for him in an airy studio.
What she hadn’t prepared herself for was just how dangerous Nicco would look in a tuxedo.
Hanna wasn’t entirely sure how Jinx had pulled off a last-minute tuxedo delivery, especially one that fit Nicco so perfectly, with less than an hour to showtime, but he had. Which meant she was now standing on the steps to Iverson’s office, her arm wrapped around his, and her thoughts a million miles away from where they should be—getting the code and the key. Getting close enough to clone Iverson’s phone, which seemed pretty much impossible, but which would be infinitely easier if her mind didn’t keep wandering to thoughts of Nicco’s tattoos, and just how far up they went.
