He pulls back, grabbing my head to face him. “Don’t you want to know more about the Orlovs?”
His warm breath brushes mine and I tilt my head, debating it before taking him in deeper. “You know I do,” I whisper.
Our bodies realign, and I feel his length growing through his jeans.
I nudge Davide down onto the mattress, following him, keeping our lips attached, only taking a breath to ask my questions. “The Bratva isn’t meant to be our rival, so what is his problem?”
His hands rake through my hair. “Nikolai doesn’t like your brother, and Enzo is starting to think Viktor knows about you.”
I shove off him—still straddling his hips but sitting up to wipe his saliva from my mouth. “They’ll kill me if that’s the case, Davide.”
“We know. But the priority is keeping the police from noticing the increase in missing tourists.”
And just like that, I’m suddenly uninterested in sleeping with Davide tonight.
I back off him and walk toward the open glass door where he came in. “You should go now, Davide.”
“Come on, Ace, don’t be a fucking tease. I told you what you wanted to know, so get back on the bed.”
“Get out,” I say firmly.
“No wonder Elijah isn’t fucking interested in you. I bet you fuck him around just like you do the rest of us.”
I don’t say anything, but I can’t act like their faces don’t still haunt me sometimes—the men who bragged too much when I tilted my head and smiled. I didn’t pull the trigger, but I might as well have. Their blood was the price of my questions, and I paid it with my silence. Regardless of how I got the information, I did what I had to.
Davide makes a show of getting off the bed and adjusting his boner before pushing past me, making sure to hit me with his shoulder on the way out. “Bitch,” he mutters.
I smile and shake my head. How fucking predictable. I didn’t invite him to my room, yet I’m the bitch for not getting him to finish.
I make sure to flip him off as he makes his way down the wall outside my balcony.
Curling deeper into my blanket, fingers still slick with butter, I try to go back to watching my movie.
I don’t even realize I’m biting my nails until the gunfire starts. Two shots. Harsh. Close enough that the windows rattle.
The sound fades almost instantly under the crash of waves against the cliffs, the island swallowing it whole.
Well, rest in peace, Davide.
I can’t say I didn’t warn him.
The curtain stirs with the sea breeze, and I drag myself out of bed to latch the glass closed, eyes scanning the velvet-dark sprawl ofIsola delle Ombre—the Island of Shadows.
The beautiful beaches, cathedrals carved into cliffs, streets painted in coloured glass when the sun hits at the right angle.
Thisparadisebelongs to the two men who split this rock down the middle like a carcass: the De Lucas—my blood—and the Orlovs, the Bratva.
And now I wonder exactly how much longer I’ll have before they come for me.
Chapter 4
Aurelia
Hank’s nails click against marble before I even open my eyes. A wet nose nudges at my arm, then my ribs, then finally the side of my face until I groan and push him off.
“Christ, Hank, it’s too early.”
He huffs like I’ve insulted him, then leaps onto the bed anyway, all ninety pounds of muscle settling across my legs. His warm weight pins me down, and for a second, I let him.
