Prologue
Fiona
I lied.
Seven years ago, I looked into the faces of my parents and two brothers, and with tears rolling down my cheeks, promised them I was going to quit hacking. At fifteen, I was so good at it that I’d charge the kids in my class a few bucks to change their grades in the school system. I did it for nearly a year and would have never been caught if one kid hadn't chickened out and blabbered to the principal about my little “business.” The incident almost got me expelled, but the school couldn’t afford to lose a bright student. It also helped that my parents were the biggest donors at the school.
Still, I got in a lot of trouble for helping the kids with their grades, something I clearly did out of the goodness of my heart. My actions called for my family’s intervention. After three solid hours of scolding from my parents and the threat to take away all my computers if I didn’t straighten up, I promised them that I would never hack into anyone's device. Of course, the ban was lifted when I turned eighteen. My family does, after all, run thebiggest security firm in New York City, and they needed my exceptional talents for some of their projects.
Still, I lied when I said I would walk the straight and narrow.
I haven’t known what a “straight and narrow” looks like since I got my first computer at six, but in all my snooping into people’s lives, I’ve never been more tempted to peer into someone’s life like I am in this moment.
His name is Lorenzo Rossi, six-foot-tall with the most stunning hazel-green eyes I have ever seen in my life.
In a crowd of people, my gaze hasn’t moved from him since he walked into the room. Tall, muscular, and handsome with glasses that give him a Clark Kent feel. In a room full of mob bosses and their families, the youngest son of the Rossi family stands out the most to me. And hell, no one saw this coming—my family sharing the same space with the Rossis and the Marinos. For years, the three families have co-existed in this city, but not once have our paths crossed. Not until we all started marrying each other.
First, it was Matteo Rossi, the don of the Rossi family, who married Sofia Marino in a highly publicized wedding. A marriage meant to bring two powerful families together. With their union, the role of protecting the Marino women fell on Matteo, so he hired my family’s security firm to protect his sisters-in-law. Matteo, the businessman who is always thirty steps ahead of the competition, never saw his sisters-in-law falling in love with their bodyguards.
But I did.
The nosy person that I am saw it the moment my eldest brother, Roarke, fell in love with Elena Marino—a woman he was supposed to be protecting. I found out about their secretcourt wedding from all the bugs I’ve planted in the city’s record system that alert me anytime the O’Shea family name pops up in police or court documents. Needless to say, that list has grown expeditiously since everyone started marrying everyone, and now, I don't just get alerts on the O'Shea family name but also on Marino and Rossi.
Somehow, the three powerful families got tangled. Now, we’re at the grand opening of Matilde Marino’s bakery, mingling as if we weren’t all strangers to each other just a year ago.
“Who are you staring at?”
I turn when my sister-in-law, Elena, pats my arm. Her marriage to Roarke is the reason we’re even in the same room with the Rossis at all.
With Lorenzo Rossi.
No one, I start to say but stop myself in time. Everything I have learned about Lorenzo has been from gossip pages, but it's hard to reconcile that man with the airhead jock the public thinks he is. I figure if someone can give me insight into the man’s life, then who better than my sister-in-law, who also happens to be his sister-in-law.
“What is he like?” I find myself saying as I take in that rugged body hidden behind a black shirt and dark slacks.
“Who?”
“Lorenzo.”
Elena’s eyes follow mine to the man seated with the other Rossi brothers, and the frown on her face smoothens. “Oh, him,” she says with a fond smile. “Lorenzo is like the most harmless of the Rossi brothers. I’d even say he’s the golden retriever that lives among wolves.”
“Golden retriever, huh,” I muse, watching the man as I have since the moment he walked into his party. Heck, my eyes have been on him the entire time, and there are pockets of time where that smile dropped, and something dark crossed his handsome face. There is more to him than the dumb jock people make him out to be, all pretty face and no brains. Just looking at him makes my fingers itch for my computer so I can dig into the secrets Lorenzo Rossi is clearly hiding. I want to see the man beneath that shell, and something tells me it’s going to be interesting.
Whatever he's hiding, I will find it.
“Why are you so curious about him anyway?” Elena asks from my side, nudging me with her arm. “Don’t tell me you like him.”
“I don’t like him,” I laugh, ignoring the little warmth that settles in my stomach. Sure, Lorenzo Rossi is an incredibly good-looking man with that raven black hair and a charming smile, but it won’t matter much if that’s all he has going for him.
“I mean, I won’t judge you if you have a crush on him,” she says, turning back to the man in question. “Lorenzo is known to be friendly and has a kind personality.”
“What does he do?”
“Something to do with IT. Oh, wait, you have that in common.”
“IT? Him? Are you sure?” I ask, surprised as my eyes narrow on the man. Nothing, other than those sexy glasses on him, screams nerd. At least not any nerd I’ve met before. Everyone I’ve known in IT comes in a package of band T-shirts, hoodies, and way too skinny jeans. None of them is built like Lorenzo Rossi.
Not a single one makes my stomach flutter with butterflies like he does.
