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She was fucking brilliant, a sharp mind that was even more beautiful than the package it came in.

“Yes, but that doesn’t matter. We live in the fucking jungle, fiamma, don’t forget that. It’s survival of the fucking strongest. People respect big moves. I was the one to kill Lando’s stepfather, the capo before him. Slit his throat in the middle of a busy restaurant so everyone would know the Ferrettis had brass balls and they were not to be fucked with.”

“It’s worked for the most part,” she allowed.

“Whoever is behind this play, they want to make a splash big enough to drown out any dissent from the ranks when they step onto the throne,” I explained as we walked into the shadows of Lincoln Park.

Behind us, on cue, Ben and Paulie dropped farther back.

“Are you scared?” she asked softly, tightening her hold on my arm as he walked into the nearly empty park.

Chicago was fairly safe, but it was after eleven at night, and most people knew better than to take a late-night stroll through the park.

“Are you?” I countered.

“A bit,” she admitted. “But I like a little fear.”

“Does it turn you on?” I asked into her ear, ducking down to nip at her lobe.

She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the September-evening air. “Yes.”

“If we weren’t being followed, I’d fuck you up against one of these trees,” I told her, letting one hand travel down her spine to grab her sweet ass through the coat. “Your skirt is so short people would be able to see my cum trailing down your leg as we walked back to the car.”

“Dio mio, you’re filthy,” she breathed and then shook her head. “People are following us?”

“A car parked just outside the gates and two men got out. Another has been following farther behind on foot, but we lost him at the entrance. He probably went a different way to cut us off up ahead.”

There was a soft susurration as Fia sucked a deep breath in through her mouth and slowly released it.

“I told you,” I said, each word a punctuation. “If anyone so much as stirs a hair on your head, they’re dead, and it won’t be pretty.”

“No?” she asked, a little smile playing at the side of her mouth.

This was part of her unending charm, that she found my psychopathy somehow endearing or attractive.

“No. I would skin them alive with a rusty blade, break every bone beneath their skin, and rip out their throat with my teeth so the last thing they saw before death was my smile limned in their blood.”

Her shiver was delicate, but I could tell by the way she pressed slightly into my side that it wasn’t from abhorrence.

My little flame liked violence.

“Would you like that, principessa?” I murmured, leading her to the center of a small bridge before spinning her into my arms as if we were two casual lovers in a tight embrace.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a shift in the shadows across the water, and the hair raised on the back of my neck told me someone was watching us from the other side. Up on the curved hump of the bridge, we were entirely vulnerable looking, especially given our intimate pose.

If they were going to take the bait, this was it.

I stared down at Fia, momentarily mesmerized by the way the moonlight glinted like hammered silver over the green brown of her eyes.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it, Fia?” I murmured, distracting her by trailing my nose down the side of hers as I bent closer, twisting us slightly so it was my body between her and the most obvious threat. “Not flowers or chocolates, but a body. The way a cat might pay tribute to its master by presenting a dead mouse. Do you want me to kill for you?”

Her lids were heavy, mouth parted on a rough exhale as her fingers dug into the collar of my coat and pulled me even closer.

“I should be scared of you,” she whispered, her gaze hot on my face as she tracked my features. “You’re the boogeyman, the babau,” she said in Italian. “You could kill me as easily as kiss me.”

“Yes,” I breathed against her lips, one hand diving into the back of her thick silken hair to cradle her skull, the other banding around her hips. It looked possessive, was, but my greater purpose was to have a good hold on her when the threat came, so I could throw her to the ground behind the stone balustrade or over the side into the water so she could hide under the bridge for safety.

“But you wouldn’t,” she confirmed, her gaze darting between my eyes and mouth.