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TATUM
They did things differently in Cali, no doubt about it.
This was my first thought whenever I sat down at the oval-shaped table in the long shadows of the Hagi library. It was typical to have mafie men like myself, Nicu, or Sebastian at the negotiating table. Same for the Hagi clan boss, Boian, or his consilier Grigore.
It was unheard of for a woman to sit at the table during negotiations between clans. But after spending weeks in LA, I’d quickly learned things worked differently than in the bastion of Romanian mafie power, New York City.
Might not have been a problem if Clara wasn’t both drop-dead gorgeous and infuriatingly difficult.
She sparked like a firecracker at the other end of the table in the dusky library of their huge mansion, a room with floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed full of books and crowded with heavy mahogany furniture. The library’s medieval castle vibe contrasted starkly with the crisp powder-blue Los Angeles sky framed by long, narrow windows.
We were in the middle of a tense discussion about opening their drug routes from Mexico to my clan. I snarled in response to Grigore’s stonewalling tactics when Clara glowered at me from across the table and said, “Why don’t you call off your goon?”
Addressing her insult to me, about me, this woman had the audacity to talk like I was some low-life criminal. The woman was nothing if not bold, and she took any chance to humiliate me. I was the Lupu consilier, for God’s sake, not a mere soldier. And here this woman ran her mouth at me, insulted me, in front of my clan brothers and her own people?
Fury coursed through me. She was baiting me again. I rarely lost my patience, but if there was one woman on God’s green earth who could manage the feat, it was Clara Hagi.
Why Boian didn’t control his daughter was a mystery to me. Certainly made my fingers spasm with the urge to smack her plump ass into submission myself.
It was either that or fuck her.
Between my flushed body and twitching hands, I was about to lose control, and that was unacceptable. Without speaking a word, I made my displeasure known by slapping a palm on the lacquered tabletop, screeching my chair back as I rose to my feet, and stalking out.
I paced the richly carpeted corridor outside the library of the Hagi mansion, passing a window overlooking the Hollywood Hills. It was a canyon dotted with huge luxury homes like this one, interspersed with little bungalows clinging to bluffs. Marching up and down the hall, I halted for a moment to stare at the red walls. Who but the vulgar Hagi family would paint the walls of a hallway this godawful shade of red? Jesus, where were we? The Moulin Rouge?
Shaking my head, I resumed my walk of fury and tried to focus on anything other than the woman I hated and shouldn’t want; my mind naturally turned toward the worry constantly plaguing me.
My last, but most deadly, secret.
But let’s back up for a second because for most of my thirty-odd years, I’ve held three secrets close to my chest.
The first secret was about our last sef and the second family he kept hidden from us. I found out as a kid, eavesdropping on my mother’s gossip. The second secret was that our sef had treated his second son, Luca, worse than an animal because Luca wasn’t his natural son. I’d found this out on my own when I discovered Luca locked in a closet, battered and bruised.
The last secret, though, was deeply personal.
At first, it was my father’s secret, and if he’d been a real man, he would’ve taken it with him to the grave, but the bastard never could do the right thing. By extension, his secret became mine, tainting me and everything I touched.
A smooth as silk feminine voice reverberated through the door of the library, followed by a husky laugh, distracting me from my thoughts.
Clara.
As usual, my rage quickly turned into another kind of heat. Heart rate quickening, my stride picked up to match its pace, wearing a path on the opulent floral runner beneath my custom-made Italian wingtip shoes.
Burdened and tainted as I was by my secret, along with the mutual hatred we had for each other and the fugitive urges roaring through me, I made a point of keeping my distance. She hounded me by incessantly testing my boundaries and poking the demon inside me. She did it just to get a rise out of me, and most of the time, it worked.
Clara Hagi, the Virgin Queen. The story goes her father gave her the moniker to scare away men. I snorted. Ice Queen would’ve been a better fit. Despite an hourglass shape and a pair of tits that would make a grown man cry, the woman did everything she could to hone her sexuality into a sharp, brittle thing—
The door to the library swung open and out stomped Grigore, the Hagi consilier, and my nemesis. My hatred for him might only be topped by his for me.
He bumped his shoulder into mine as he stormed past me and disappeared down the hall. It took every ounce of control, and God knows I was endowed with an immense amount of it, not to bodycheck him into the wall. Wouldn’t have been hard. The man might be tall, but I was huge, a frame of pure muscle.
Suddenly, the door slammed wide open, smashed against the wall, and Clara barreled out like an avenging angel, eyes alight with fury.
She didn’t just wear makeup. No, she wore a battle mask.
She didn’t just wear a suit. No, she wore armor.
And the worst of it was, despite applying layers of makeup that could rival a geisha’s and wearing a power suit more structured than a man’s, she taunted me with a hemline short enough to leave me salivating for a peek of that untouched pussy of hers.
