There was no denying that she came through tonight, and there was definitely no trap waiting for him. Not only that, but he’d heard a little of her conversation with her brother when he slipped out of the study, and he just couldn’t believe that she would be working as a spy for the Italians if they treated her like that, even if shewasfamily. Hearing the way that Leo spoke to her enraged him more than he expected.
“Wait a minute. Look at this,” she said, holding the phone out. It was a picture of a piece of paper with ten surnames written on it.
“Do you recognize any of these names?”
She shook her head. “Maybe these are the names of the girls that have been taken.”
Handing his phone back to him, Alessia grabbed her laptop off the coffee table and opened it up. “What’s the first name?”
“York.”
She typed it into the search engine along with the words missing person and Misso City, but there were no matching results. She frowned. “Maybe she hasn’t been reported missing yet?”
Connor continued to read off the names, one after the other, and Alessia insisted on trying each one before admitting defeat.
“Okay, maybe they aren’t the names of the women. But I don’t know what else it could be.”
She scrawled all ten of them onto a piece of notebook paper. Tossing it onto the table, she snapped her laptop closed and put it aside as well before slumping back on the couch with a sigh. He could see the despair in her face.
This was torturing her, and he knew now that he must have been a fool to think that she was lying. He made a lot of assumptions about who she must be based on who her father was, but this woman was nothing like him.
He found himself scooting closer to her, reaching out to place a hand on her arm. His thumb ran over the smooth skin there as he tried to comfort her.
“We’ll figure this out. We’ve made progress already.”
Her eyes met his, and there was a haunted look to them. “Maybe Leo is right. He thinks I’m useless because I’m not a part of the ‘family business.’”
“Fuck him.”
She flashed the ghost of a smile at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Is there something I’m missing here?” he asked. “This seems more personal for you than you originally let on.”
She stiffened. “Of course not. I just want to help these women.”
“Are you sure?”
Alessia didn’t answer him. Instead, she suddenly leaned forward, her palms landing on his chest as her lips connected with his. His body came to life, all synapses firing. His skin tingled as her hands slid up his chest and looped around his neck.
He quickly took charge of the kiss, his tongue sliding inside in an attempt to dominate her in some small way, just like he’d been fantasizing about since they met. Alessia pressed herself closer, her chest against his, and his cock responded to the feel of her soft curves. It grew rock hard, aching for her.
But he pulled back from the kiss.
“What was that?” he asked, taking in the sight of her flushed skin and darkened eyes.
“I was just shutting you up,” she said breathlessly. He smirked.
“Oh yeah? Well, that’s too bad, because I want more.”
Burying his hand in her hair, he pulled her in for another searing kiss.
9
ALESSIA
She was breaking all the rules tonight.
As Connor carried her into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him, she couldn’t seem to care about what was right or wrong. She didn’t even care what the consequences could be to sleeping with the enemy like this.
