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“You don’thaveto sign it,” I say, leaning onto her desk until I’m halfway sitting atop it. “But just keep in mind, Lucius Mancino isn’t the only violent crime boss in the area.”
“Is that a threat?”
“That’s for you to decide, your honor. We have free will to do as we please at the end of the day. By the way, how was the Mill? I wonder how the public would feel about some of your more… inappropriate proclivities.”
Her eyes bulge then shrink back into thin slits. “I’ve heard rumors about you and the,ahem, special man in your life. Your withdrawal from your campaign for DA and resignation from your position as ADA have sparked many of them. This confirms those were more than rumors.”
“Sign the warrant, judge. Or don’t and deal with potential consequences that may come with that decision.”
It takes another drawn out moment for the judge to sign. After several more venomous glares directed at me and then Salvatore’s men, she whips out her pen from a drawer in her desk and scrawls her loopy signature across the warrant.
“Pleasure seeing you as always, your honor.” I tuck the warrant away in the manilla file.
“Be warned, Adams. You may feel emboldened with your criminal goons—I’m assuming that’s why you’ve brought them to my chambers—but tactics like these can only go so far. You might want to think about the road you’re headed down.”
“I’ll take advice from you the day you stop frequenting a place that keeps human beings in cages. Good afternoon, judge.”
Pivoting on my heel, I lead the way out of Judge Herrera’s chambers with the hawk-eyed woman glaring in my wake.
* * *
“Do I want to know what you did or said to get this?” Salvatore asks later in the evening. He clutches the signed warrant in his tight grip and peers at me with his head cocked, the barest hint of a grin working the corners of his mouth.
I answer him with a mysterious smirk of my own, standing at the stove in my kitchen.
It’s one of the rare nights we’re spending at my apartment in Centennial Village. As tensions between Salvatore and his father ratchet up, we’ve decided it’s best for me to officially move back into his loft. We’re spending the evening in my place, packing up my things and indulging in one of our favorite pastimes—cooking a disastrously bad meal together.
His men stand posted outside my front door. They’ve earned more than a couple strange looks from my neighbors, but I couldn’t care less.
I dim the heat on the burner and turn away from the bubbling pot. Tonight we’re having an old-fashioned beef stew recipe we’re crossing our fingers comes out halfway decent.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I did what I had to do to get it. Judge Herrera had no other choice.”
He sets the warrant down on my countertop and approaches me with slow steps and a playfully scolding stare. “You’ve got me wondering if I’ve created a monster. Something that’s crossed my mind before.”
“I learned from the best.”
“Hmmm. I seem to remember I wanted you kept away from everything.”
I mirror him, tilting my head to the side as his hands grip my hips. “I seem to remember you loving how fiercely determined and stubborn I am.”
“More like that drives me crazy about you. How’s this stew coming along? Will we be ordering some last minute pineapple pizza when it goes belly-up like the homemade chili we tried to make?”
He walks past me to the pot on the burner and lifts the lid. I can’t help following his direction with a roll of my eyes.
“The chili wasn’t that bad. It was edible, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t remember. I was too distracted by how good the chef looked in an apron.”
We continue teasing each other until Salt and Pepa meow for our attention. The rest of the evening plays out in similar casual fashion—us enjoying each other’s company, boxing up many of my things, and dealing with the cat’s demand for attention.
“This makes it official,” Salvatore says, sealing a box of my clothes up with shipping tape. The sharp ripping noise almost drowns out his words, though I catch them as I glance over my shoulder at him.
“Makes what official exactly?”
“You’re mine,” he answers. “You’re in my home. For good.”
My brown skin warms at the insistence in his low, normally controlled tone of voice. He means what he says; as far as he’s concerned, my moving in is for keeps. He won’t ever let me go.
