I shrug, then pull the car out onto the street. “Karma and doing a small bit to try to balance the scales and all that.”
She’s silent for a bit, then asks in a soft voice, “When you told my father you don’t hurt women and children…did you meanallwomen and children or just those associated with the Santoros?”
I clench the wheel tightly as I’m reminded that her father struck her, and I force the lingering fury from my tone. “All.” Omitting unless the woman is an enemy.
“So, no human trafficking?”
I swivel my head to look at her. She’s not looking at me, but down in her lap, staring at her clasped hands.
“No human trafficking. The ‘Ndrangheta stands against it. And it’s the one thing my four top rivals in San Francisco and I agree on—we all want the routes through here shut down.”
“You control the port and smuggle things in.”
“Yes,” I admit. We bring in all sorts of things, including drugs for those who distribute and sell, weapons, along with other sorts of contraband. “Not all of it is illegal product, though. And none of it includes moving people.”
She falls quiet again, and I don’t know how to bridge this chasm that is suddenly between us. And I know I shouldn’t try to bridge it because it’s better this way.
So I don’t try.
I don’t apologize for my abrupt, harsh words or for my change in behavior. It’s better if she hates me. That’s what I repeat to myself the entire drive back to that god-awful house, convincing myself that Icannottake her to my home instead.
I regret that I wasn’t able to take her to the rest of the places I had planned to this morning, or that she didn’t get the walk I had promised her. But right now, she’d probably grab my gun and shoot me for how I acted so harshly and abruptly—how I morphed into cold Don-mode—at Caffè Amore.
As soon as I stop in front of the gate outside Caruso’s house, she opens the car door and gets out. I quickly get out as well and stride after her as she walks down the street instead of going through the gate and down the driveway to her house.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I grab her arm and spin her toward me.
She turns. And cracks me across the cheek. Her mouth falls open in horrified shock. “I’m so sorry.”
I frame her face with my scarred hands, keeping my touch tender so she doesn’t mistake it for threatening. “Never apologize, not even to me, for something that is deserved,il mio sole.”
Her eyes glisten with unshed tears and confusion. Then she pulls away from me, and it takes everything in me to resist pulling her into my arms and burying my face into the crook of her neck.
“I wanted to go for a walk and still haven’t gotten it,” she tells me stiffly.
“I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t want you to.”
Those words are lashes across my chest.
Her chin lifts, her eyes determined. “You can leave, Don Santoro.”
If I weren’t so goddamn turned on by her fire and defiance, her calling me Don Santoro—not in the teasing way she had before, but in a way that reinforces the wall between us—would hurt more. But as it stands, I refuse to let it bother me.
Because something has just become crystal clear to me.
“You’re not walking out here alone.” Before she can snap at me, I look over my shoulder at the gates, at the two guards standing there, trying not to be obvious that they’re watching this interaction. Seeing Davide, I call him over.
Gina is mad as hell, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at me.
“Davide, accompany Miss Caruso on her walk,” I order. “Keep it to this street only.”
“That’s bullshit,” she flares.
“Keep your hand on your weapon at all times,” I order him.
The hard, cold look on my face tells him that I’m referring to his gun, not his ‘weapon,’ and if he touches her, I will flay the skin off his body. His look of fear tells me he understands.
