“I need you to stay down here,” he said.
“Why? I want to know what this is all about.”
“Please, just stay. I don’t want to worry about you.” His face softened, and Alessia felt herself relax slightly. Owen was obviously distrustful of her, and a little aggressive, but the flash of warmth for Ruby told her more about him than anything else she’d seen so far.
This man was nothing like her father. If her mother questions him like this in front of others, he’d be infuriated.
“Okay,” Ruby said, glancing at Alessia as if she was trying to figure out what had Owen so on edge.
She went back to work, and Alessia followed Owen up the dark stairwell until they reached a door at the top. When Owen opened the door, there was an office on the other side. Her eyes scanned the desk and bookshelf before she saw the couches on the other side of the long and narrow space. They faced each other with a low table in between, and there were two other men already seated there.
They were both relaxed back in their seats with drinks in their hands, but they tensed up when their eyes landed on her. She recognized Owen’s brother, Declan, as the second-in-command of the Irish mafia, but the other man, the one with pale green eyes, didn’t look familiar to her. But the shock and rage in his expression let her know that he recognized her.
“What the fuck is this?” the man asked Owen. “Why is she here?”
“Apparently, she wants to talk,” Owen said gruffly. “She just strolled in and ate lunch downstairs.”
“Wow. This chick has balls,” Declan said, looking less concerned by her presence than the other man.
Alessia turned to Owen as he shut the door and locked it. She immediately felt a trickle of uneasiness, stuck in this room with three men that viewed her as their enemy. Straightening her spine, she marched over the chair in front of Owen’s desk and pulled it over toward the couches. She wasn’t about to sit next to one of these men.
Taking a seat, she peered over her shoulder at Owen and raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to join us? I came here to talk toyou.”
“And just what is it that the daughter of Rocco Mancini could possibly want to say to me? Did he send you to deliver a message, thinking that I wouldn’t harm a woman?”
She pursed her lips. “Would you? Harm a woman, I mean?”
Owen shrugged, but he didn’t meet her eyes when he replied. “If I have to.”
Liar.
She couldn’t be sure of it, but her instincts told her that he wasn’t telling the truth. That emboldened her.
“I didn’t come here for my father. He has no idea I’m here.”
The man she didn’t recognize scoffed, and Alessia glared at him. “Who are you, anyway?”
The man leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as his eyes burned into hers. She couldn’t help noticing the way his arm muscles bulged and his broad shoulders and chest seemed to stretch his thin, black T-shirt. He had two full sleeves of tattoos with black and gray images of skulls, roses, daggers, and other things that she couldn’t quite make out without a closer look, and she was sure she wouldn’t get one.
“I’m Connor,” he said. “But that doesn’t matter. We know whoyouare, and I can’t think of a damn reason you’d need to talk to us.”
“My father is doing something terrible, and I need you to stop it.”
She’d meant to say that to Owen, but her eyes stayed locked on Connor’s as she spoke. Surprise flickered across his features, but he quickly went back to glaring at her.
“What are you talking about?” Owen asked, coming to sit beside his brother on the couch.
She brought her hands together in her lap, intertwining the fingers as she took a deep breath. “He’s gotten involved with human trafficking.”
“What?”
Declan was the one to respond first, and he looked way more concerned now.
“I know, it’s horrible. I didn’t want to believe it, but my dad…” She found her eyes locked on Connor’s again, for some reason that she didn’t understand. She gulped around the lump in her throat. “He’s working with a human trafficking ring.”
“Why the hell would you come to us with this?” Owen asked, and she ripped her eyes away from Connor to look at his frowning face instead.
“I need someone to stop it, and I can’t think of anyone else that could go up against my father and succeed.”
