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The battle waged in my head. Ultimately, the plan had to win out. As much as I wanted to cuff Raven to my bed and never let her leave, I was trying to stop a war and protect my family.
Without a word, I went and retrieved her dress from the floor and handed it to her.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, then darted up to the bedroom for a fresh change of clothes.
She was dressed when I returned, standing with her hands clasped in front of her. She was looking around at the different art prints on the walls.
“I don’t know how this works...” she said, trailing off. “I mean, when you have other women here. I can call a cab…”
“I’ve never had another woman here, Raven.”
I tried not to regret the words the moment they were out.
Regardless of what game she was playing, she paid a high price tonight. For some reason, I wanted to offer her something in return. “You’re the first woman to ever set foot in my home.”
She looked at me with a slight furrow creasing her brow, and I felt compelled to offer more.
“I guess you could say this is my escape from reality,” I said with a shrug that I hoped minimized the enormity of what it meant that I invited her here.
It was a calculated move. But I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have made the same move had it been any other woman.
“I’ll drive you back to the hotel,” I said before she could say anything.
She nodded and followed me through the house to the Porsche waiting outside. I opened the passenger door for her, and she slipped inside.
All the while, I was cursing my plan. I’d never admit it aloud, but part of me was secretly hoping the damn thing would fail. Just for now. Just until I’d gotten my fill of her and had no reservations about burning her family to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nico
No nibbles.
No bites.
Raven had not taken the bait I set up so freely in the open.
What was worse was that I couldn’t stop thinking about her even when I needed to get my head in the game.
The club was pretty busy considering it was only six. Every stool at the bar was occupied, the dance floor was writhing with bodies, and only two of the tables that surrounded the floor were vacant.
I was proud of Onyx. I’d taken it from the shady club it had been under my father’s care to what it was today. It was the kind of the place that appealed to everyone, from average Joes who needed to let off some steam after a week working at a cubicle to the upper crusts who knew that what couldn’t be found on the dance floor was readily available in the rooms below it.
I watched on as Amber, the redhead with legs that went on forever, snagged her first John of the night, leading him off the floor toward the door to the basement. Amber was good. The guy was in for quite a night, worth every one of the hundreds of dollars he was about to fork out.
It was strange that I felt no inclination to head downstairs for the night. Memories of Amber’s long legs and breathy moans just sent thoughts of Raven whirling in my head, flaming the wicked need to bury myself deep inside her body.
I shook my head, baffled. Maybe Raven was a witch. If I was a monster, why couldn’t she be a witch?
“Showtime,” Gabe said from where he stood beside me outside the club’s office door. He nodded to the three men who had just entered the club.
Despite the wide-scale differences in Onyx’s patrons, these three stood out like sore thumbs with their hair slicked back and their long trench coats. The man in the middle with salt-and-pepper hair had his coat undone, revealing a suit that cost more than most men made in a year. He was dwarfed by the dark-haired men on either side of him, each of whom looked like they were wearing inflatable rings around their biceps beneath their coats. I clicked my tongue. That much muscle might have looked intimidating to some, but so much bulk just slowed a man down and made him ineffective in a fight.
I glanced at my watch, not surprised to find Fiorenzo Avalone was right on time. I turned and stepped inside the office. I sat down behind the mahogany desk, thankful this wasn’t my life. The four walls would have driven me mad.
“Tell me again why we’re meeting with this prick,” Gabe said as he followed me into the office. “The guy’s got no territory here, no business with the Costas, and from what I hear, he’s an evil son of a bitch.”
“He says he’s got information about who’s been killing Costas and our associates,” I said with a shrug that belied my own concerns about the man.
