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“Only a foolish man threatens me,” I growl.
“Who’s threatening?” Vito rushes to say, holding his hands up in a prey-like way, a though he’s scared of what I’d do if he even dreamed of disrespecting me. “It’s an honest question, that’s all. Got a guy who says he saw you pack them into your car and drive away, and the girl – that Rosie – she was smiling.”
A cord of hot tension moves through me when he uses her name, my chest pounding with the suggestion of an eruption. My mind floods with blood-red vignettes and my fingers start to twitch, getting ready for a killer’s work.
“What, nothing to say?” Vito growls. “How can you explain that? Why would she be smiling?”
I stand up, looming over him.
The men at the back – the identical-looking bastards in their blue suits with their gold watches – bristle and reach for their weapons. But I can see fear glinting in their eyes, the same look a deer gets when it sights a wolf in the dark.
They know who I am.
And even if they somehow killed me here, they know it’d be the end of them.
“You can’t behave this way toward us,” Vito snarls, bolting to his feet. He has a juvenile whine in his voice, like a kid who’s never been told no. “I won’t let you.”
I turn away from the table, my senses keen, heightened to an animalistic level, alert to any twitching alteration in the atmosphere of the room. I’ve been in too many fights not to sense them coming, like a stink in the air, the implication of all the things that could happen shiver beneath it all.
“Maybe I’ll come and have a look at your place sometime,” he says.
I turn my head slightly, sighting the men out of my peripheral vision.
Even with my back turned, the men flinch.
Vito’s hand trembles near his hip, as if he thinks he’d have enough time for gunplay when I start to dismantle him and his goons.
“My estate is off-limits,” I growl, telling him something he already knows. “You know what happens if you break that promise, Vito.”
“You think I’m scared of you?” he cries. “I’m Vito Franzese. I’m the prince.”
I grunt out a laugh.
“Sure, tough guy,” I say, striding for the door.
“I am a tough guy,” Vito yells at me as I pull it open, pacing out onto the street. “And maybe one day I’ll fucking show you.”
I curse myself as I walk across the street toward my sedan.
A smart man would’ve groveled back there. Would’ve stooped and begged and did whatever it took to calm Vito down, to placate him, so he wouldn’t lose his shit and invade my life.
Even if I have contingency plans if he ever breaks his word, that doesn’t mean I want to use them.
That will mean attention I don’t want, and right now the only person I want attention from is waiting for me back in my home.
I walk down the hallway, waving a hand at the hidden camera. I wonder if Rosie has stayed awake and is watching the tablet like I told her to.
I wouldn’t have worried about it before I left to visit that so-called prince, but now my protective need is even fiercer.
She meets me at the door, her finger to her lips.
My insides go tight and gnarled. She could so easily open those lips and start sucking on that pert little finger.
“Mom’s asleep,” she whispers. “I think Harold is, too.”
I chuckle quietly, striding over to her.
“It’s only just gone four and the whole house is asleep, eh? Maybe fate’s trying to tell us something. It wants us to be alone.”
She smiles radiantly, lifting her hands and grabbing onto the back of my neck. Her warmth travels through me, making parts of me burn and other parts tight with the need to do more than hold her.
“How did the meeting go?” she asks anxiety dancing across her eyes.
It went well, I want to roar. Don’t worry about it. You never have to worry about anything.
But the idea of lying to her settles like acid on my mind, eating through to the core, telling me it’s wrong.
I sigh and give her an outline of the meeting.
Her mouth falls open when I tell her about Vito’s veiled threat.
“Do you think he’s going to come here? Or send someone here?”
“Even if he does,” I say, “they won’t be able to get inside these walls without me knowing. They’re too tall and sheer to climb and, even if they try, I’ve got sensors that will alert me.”
I smooth my hands down her hips and squeeze her there, the perfect fullness of her.
“Let’s not worry about that. We’ve got each other. They wouldn’t dare cross me.”
“They’re the Mafia, Ryland,” she whispers. “You saw my neighborhood. People talk in places like that. Everybody’s got a cousin or a friend who’s a criminal. The mob – Vito Franzese especially – don’t let people get away with disrespecting them. That’s what I’ve heard.”
