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Another step closer, another finger down, and I take one more step back.
“Jason is too focused on his own family to worry about his true family, and you giving his little waste of space the time of day won him over.”
Another finger down, one remaining as he takes another step closer.
I bump into a buffet table against the wall of the back of the office, nowhere left to go.
Carmine gets closer to me.
The office door is open, and I pray someone is close.
I pray that if I raise my voice, someone will hear, that my words will echo through the bare hall until it hits the ears of someone who can help me.
Anyone who can help me.
Because the look in this man’s eyes . . .
It’s what they write about villains.
It’s a look that will haunt my nightmares for years to come, should I get out of this in one piece.
“Carmine, please back up,” I say, my voice louder than needed when he’s barely two feet from me—the space between us not too close, but shrinking quickly.
“Tino is fuckin’ that stripper, one of your friends, so he’s gone to us, gone from common sense. A woman is twisting his mind just like you all fuckin’ do.” Another step. “And the rest of the men have been pulled away from me with the promise of a nice pair of tits and playing it safe.”
His words come through gritted teeth, fury in them.
But what I find most interesting is the use of away from me.
Not from Paulie.
Not from his side.
Not from the family.
From Carmine.
“From you? Not Paulie? I would have thought you’d be more worried that the men wouldn’t be loyal to your successor.”
“I don’t give a shit about that. I care about this family remaining loyal and staying in power. That’s where they’ve all fuckin’ gone wrong. It’s me who is the Don of this family. Not Tony, who was stepping into my shoes well before it was time. Tony, who let a woman plan his demise just because she caught him fuckin’ some broad. Not Paulie, who walks around thinking he’s already the boss when he can barely tie his fuckin’ shoes, much less keep his men loyal and committed. Sure as fuck not Dante, with his grand schemes and ideas of how things should be. It’s me.” He’s fully in my space now, the heat from his body warming mine, and I wonder once again if he would be telling me all of this, confessing this way, if he didn’t have some kind of plan.
Some kind of scheme to keep me quiet.
THIRTY-SEVEN
-Lilah-
“Carmine—” I say, loud, panicking now.
But then I feel it.
The heat.
The electricity that always snaps when he’s near.
“What’s going on here?” Dante says, stepping into the room, and every bone in my body melts.
He’s here.
