I numbly reach into the pocket of my sundress and pull out the worn lanyard holding my van keys. I drop them into Dominic's massive palm. He hands them off to Santi, then turns back to me.
He doesn't ask me to walk. He doesn't guide me by the elbow.
He steps into my space, his massive thighs boxing mine in from every direction, and hooks one heavy arm under my knees. He hauls me up in a single, explosive surge, my body pressed hard against his side, held tight against the solid wall of his chest. I gasp, my arms automatically flying up to wrap around his thick, corded neck. The muscles in his shoulders flex like steel cables beneath my grip. I weigh absolutely nothing to him—a thing to be carried from the wreckage. He tucks my head under the shelf of his jaw, and the scent of him—vetiver, expensive tobacco, and raw adrenaline—suffocates my common sense.
"What are you doing? Put me down! I can walk!" I hiss, my face flushing scarlet.
Dominic's grip tightens into an iron vice, completely immobilizing my struggles.
"The floor is covered in glass and blood, Sienna," he rumbles smoothly, his chest vibrating against my side. He strides out of the ruined private dining room, carrying me down the dark mahogany hallway. "And I prefer you exactly where you are."
He doesn't set me down when we reach the front of the restaurant. He carries me through the kitchen, through the service corridor, and out into the night air, where the armored SUV is already idling at the curb, Fabio behind the wheel. Dominic pulls open the rear door and slides in—with me stilllocked against him, my body settled across his lap, my back to the door. His hand stays flattened against my hip. He does not release me. He does not put me down on the seat and slide in beside me like a man dropping off cargo.
He pulls the armored door shut with his free hand, and I feel the heavy, pressurized click of it sealing us in.
His thigh is solid beneath me. His arm is a bar of iron across my waist. Outside, Chicago moves past the tinted glass in amber smears of light, indifferent and oblivious, while I sit in the dark lap of the most dangerous man I have ever touched and try to remember how to breathe.
As he carries me through the dark, the terrifying truth settles over me like a suffocating blanket.
I didn't just walk into a mafia hit.
I walked into a building that had been watched for weeks by the enemies of the man now holding me, and he has decided, in the space of ten minutes and one shattered vase, that the only answer to that problem is to put me somewhere no one else can reach me.
I walked into a trap set by a man who had spent his entire life learning how to hold onto things with a grip that breaks bones. And he has just decided to hold onto me.
2
Dominic
She isnothing against my chest, but she anchors me to the earth with the force of a falling anvil.
I don't let her feet touch the pavement. I stride through the damp, shadow-choked alley behind L'Ombra, my arms locked around her thighs and her back, crushing her to the blood-spattered front of my dress shirt. She is shivering from the cold and the adrenaline crash. She has both hands fist-clenched into the lapels of my suit jacket—the one I stripped off and wrapped her in to cover the thin, pathetic floral dress she wore to deliver flowers to a slaughterhouse.
I should have put a bullet in her. That is what a Don does. That is what a man who has spent twenty years meticulously engineering the annihilation of the Bellanti family does when a civilian walks into his interrogation room. A witness is a loose end, and a loose end always gets clipped.
Instead, I am breathing in the scent of her hair—sweet, cloying peony petals mixed with the sharp, metallic tang of pure terror. My lungs expand with it. My brain, usually a cold, calculating machine that operates ten moves ahead, has narrowed to asingle point. Every variable I usually track has fallen away. There is only her.
Mine.
Fabio is already at the armored SUV, the heavy rear door swung wide. He stands like a dark monolith in the glow of the taillights, his massive frame tight with the restless, aggressive energy of a soldier who is sick of waiting for a fight. He inherited our mother's sharp jawline, and right now, it's locked in a hard, uncompromising line of objection. He doesn't say a word as I approach, but the sheer volatility radiating from his posture speaks volumes. I am compromising the operation. I am jeopardizing the ten men I brought from Pine Valley, the clean Ghost Fund money, the entire twenty-year revenge plan.
I look at my brother—the man I kept blind for twenty years to keep alive. I fed him safe assignments, controlled his exposure, never told him why I was keeping him at arm's length from the real war. He spent two decades furious at me for not trusting him, and every bit of that fury was the point. An angry Fabio who didn't know the truth was a living Fabio. My eyes are dead now, entirely flat, issuing a silent warning that if he speaks against this, I will put him on the ground.
Fabio swallows hard and dips his chin, stepping aside.
I slide into the backseat, but I do not deposit her on the rich leather beside me. I keep her on my lap. I pull her entirely across my thighs, my heavy arm wrapping around her waist, caging her against my chest. The door slams shut, sealing us in the soundproof cabin.
Her terror is thick in the air. Yet, beneath the fear and the peony sweetness, the faint scent of her physical reaction clings to thewool of my jacket. I press my jaw against the crown of her head and do not wash it off.
"Drive," I command. The word tears out of my throat, rough as crushed glass.
Fabio gets behind the wheel. The engine purrs, a low, guttural vibration that rumbles through the floorboards. As the SUV surges forward into the Chicago night, the streetlights bleed through the tinted windows, dragging bands of gold and shadow across the girl in my arms.
Sienna. That was the name on the delivery invoice I saw resting on the kitchen counter before the blood started flowing. Sienna Marchetti.
She gasps, a sharp, ragged sound, and pushes her palms against my chest. Her hands are small, the skin rough, the knuckles scraped. She's trying to put distance between us, her body instinctively rebelling against the heavy, dominant mass of a predator.
"Let me go," she chokes out. Her voice is a broken whisper. Her chest heaves, the rapid rise and fall brushing the soft weight of her breasts against my holster. My cock responds instantly, a thick, heavy throb that strains against my slacks. I want to rip the jacket off her and bury my face between those tits, tasting the sweat and terror and peony sweetness. I want to feel her pussy soaking through that thin dress, drenching my thighs as I claim every inch of her. "Please. I didn't see anything. I won't tell anyone. Let me out."
