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“I was just checking on Emilia before I left,” Dante responds. He’s defensive and the tension between the two men is so intense that it makes me uncomfortable. I try to fade into the door to my room, hiding behind it for the most part. I didn’t open it all the way when someone knocked. I knew it wasn’t my father or Vic, so I tried to be careful. Dad has preached that to me since I was a little girl. I’m probably the only fourteen-year-old who has had extensive self-defense classes. I attended those while other kids my age were going to birthday parties and having sleepovers.
“Emilia has bodyguards. She doesn’t need you checking on her. You’re overstepping your importance here,” Niko growls. I jump a little at the anger in his voice. If I was Dante, I’d be leaving immediately, but he doesn’t.
“You may have my uncle snowed, but we both know the truth.”
“Yeah, Dante? What’s that?”
“You’re just trash on the street.”
“I’m essentially your boss. I think we can both agree that the way you’re talking to me gives me a license to do whatever I want to you.”
“You’re not going to do shit.”
“Right now, I’m ordering you—as your superior—to leave Emilia’s room and Maxwell’s house.”
“And if I don’t?” Dante sneers.
“Victorio?”
“Yes, sir?” Vic says, coming out from the dark hall.
“Did Emilia invite Dante up here to her room?”
I gasp. “I would never!” I can hear the panic laced in my words. If Niko tells my father that I invited Dante up here…Crap!I don’t want to even think what he would do to me.
“She didn’t, sir. Emilia only opens her door immediately for her father or me. She spoke to Mr. Russo through the door and only opened it slightly when he said he needed to talk to her.”
“Did Mr. Korslova tell you it was permitted to let Mr. Russo or any man up here without his express permission?”
“I’m family. You’re forgetting yourself, Petrova!” Dante snaps.
“He did not,” Vic answers. He moves to stand by my door, his arms dropped down, his fingers looped with one another at the base of his abdomen, legs spread apart. He looks ready to kill, the tension on his face palpable.
“Escort him out,” Niko says.“Now.”
“My uncle will hear about this!” Dante warns.
“He will because I will be telling him. Now, Vic. Escort him out. Shane is waiting at the bottom of the stairs to assist. Oh, and Vic?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Get back here immediately and guard Emilia’s door.”
“Will do.”
“And Vic? If you ever let a man get close enough so that Emilia feels obligated to open the door again—and I don’t carewhothat man is—it’s not Dante’s uncle that you need to be worried about. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” Victorio’s voice rumbles out while grabbing Dante’s arm and pulling him toward the stairs. Dante shakes him loose, straightens his suit and walks down on his own accord, promising that his uncle will demand retribution.
I’m left alone with a veryangryNiko.
“You might get in trouble,” I whisper, feeling strangely exposed in my shorts and shirt. I grip the legs of my shorts and nervously pull on them.
“I don’t want you to trust Dante. He’s not a man you can put your faith in, Emilia.”
“I don’t like him,” I answer quietly. What I don’t say is that I don’t really like Niko, either. He seems so cold and distant. I’m not sure why he is here, but there’s a part of me—a huge one—that would rather deal with Dante than Niko. At least I know Dante is icky. Niko? I don’t know him, so I can’t judge what he is. I just know he’s…scary.
“Good. Then, from now on, if Dante shows up near your bedroom again and you’re alone, you don’t open the door for him at all—no matter what he says.”
