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ONE
Luciana
Most of mymother’s gangster minions had obviously never considered that a skate could be a lethal weapon. Even with two of them dangling over my shoulders as I headed out of the house, the lackeys standing guard in the front rooms had to make their teasing remarks.
“There goes the Ice Princess, off to her frozen castle,” one of the guys said from the living room doorway, with a salute that could have passed for respectful if he hadn’t been smirking at the same time.
“When are you going to start ruling around here, chica?” another called out from across the foyer.
I paused to shoot a glower at the second guy. No doubt they’d have said a lot worse if Ihadn’tbeen the daughter of their boss, the Deadly Rose, one of the most powerful crime bosses in the world.
But Mom had taught me plenty of lessons as her heir apparent, including that I should never let anyone intimidate me or get the upper hand, not even for a moment.
“Si yo te gobernara, te estarías comiendo tus bolas,” I replied.If I ruled you, you’d be eating your balls.After I sliced them off with the blade on one of these skates, maybe.
I kept my tone firm but even. Maintain control, show only confidence.
The criminal underworld wasn’t an easy place to survive for anyone, but it was twice as hard when you didn’t have balls at all. At least not the literal kind.
Mom liked to say we Cordova women had to make up for it by making our metaphorical bolas twice as big. She’d also insisted on me learning Spanish, though I’d never even gotten to meet my great-grandparents who’d emigrated from Mexico.
Every piece of knowledge you collect and every skill you cultivate gives you that much more of an advantage, she’d said. Funny how she didn’t apply that philosophy to my figure skating.
At five foot one, I was nearly a foot shorter than the dude who’d shot his mouth off, but he knew his place well enough to shrink at my retort, ducking his head while the others chuckled. Rafael emerged from the shadows of the hallway to flank me, and suddenly all of the house guards had much more important things to focus their attention on than the nineteen-year-old mafia princess in their midst.
“Ready to go, Lou?” my bodyguard asked in his typical low, subdued voice.
Rafael could have won awards for his poker face. Even the short coils of his wiry black hair stayed perfectly still with the turn of his head.
I’d never seen him show any emotion except the few times some prick had hassled me enough that he’d felt the need to turn on some real rage.
It was a little annoying how quickly the asshole underlings got their act together when they had to face a man instead of just me, even though I had a gazillion times more authority than he did. But I was used to it.
“I think so.” I cast a quick glance around before I strode on toward the front door, half expecting a random flunky to come running with a message that the Deadly Rose needed me for some important task right this minute.
Mom had never been particularly enthusiastic about my dedication to my skating, but in the last few months it’d felt like she was outright interrupting my training sessions more and more.
No one charged over this time, though, so I made it out the door unhindered.
The dry summer air hit me with a smack of heat even this early in the morning. I wasn’t going to need the sweatshirt packed in my duffel bag until I reached the chilled air of the indoor arena.
I walked around the white-washed walls of our sprawling mansion, enjoying the brief glimpse of the Colorado River I got before I reached the garage.
Rafael didn’t make any comment when I headed for the driver’s side door of my Mini Coop. As soon as I’d gotten my license, we’d had the argument about who got to be behind the wheel, and he hadn’t been able to deny that he’d have a much easier time protecting me in an emergency if he wasn’t having to steer at the same time.
I slipped my small frame into the driver’s seat easily. Rafael had to fold his tall, brawny form in beside me a little awkwardly even with the passenger seat pushed all the way back.
But he fit just fine once he was inside. And, I mean, he wasfinein general. I couldn’t help admiring his burnished brown skin and broad, muscled shoulders for a second before he flicked his intense burgundy gaze toward me and I jerked my eyes away.
There wasn’t any point in looking for more than a bit of eye candy anyway. I’d already tried to hit that once when I was sixteen—and really should have known better, considering that Rafael’s stoic discipline was one of the qualities I admired about him beyond his looks—and again once I was eighteen and totally legal.
He’d still turned me down the second time, with his usual calm reserve, and no amount of flirting had changed his mind, despite the hint of a smolder I thought I caught in his gaze now and then. I’d decided it was better to stop before I crossed the line between persistent and pathetic.
I was reaching to start the engine when my phone chimed with a text alert.
Oh, God, it’d better not be Mom calling me away for a mission after all.
I pulled the phone out of my pants pocket and flicked it on. One glance at the words that popped up on the screen had me frowning.
