He leans forward and I find myself at the most precarious angle yet. “Because he wanted to give me an ace up my sleeve,” I yelp, wrapping up the lie in a truth. “If I needed it.”
Damiano Orsini has always called me a liar. Why shouldn’t I lie now to save my own skin? I don’t think for a second that the Morellis would ever go after his household, buthedoes. That’s all that matters.
Uncertainty makes him pause again. And then I’m lifted, turned, and slammed against the opposite wall, practically hyperventilating with relief—until a thick hand wraps around my throat.
Not squeezing. Just holding. His palm is hot against my windpipe, his fingers curling around the sides of my neck, and my body reacts because the last time his hand was here, hewas inside me, and he held my throat just like this while he whispered filth into my ear, and my hips bucked as he?—
“If youever,” Damiano roars right into my face, “send the Morellis after them?—”
“I won’t,” I croak out, grabbing at his wrist. Somewhere in me there’s a signal firing thatshouldn’tbe firing, a dark and forbidden desire.
He throws me aside, tosses me across the landing, so that I land in a heap on the floor. I drag myself a few feet down the corridor, watching Damiano carefully, making sure I get well away from those stairs.
Damiano is pacing back and forth, so much fury in him that he can’t stand still. I get to my feet, rubbing my throat.
I knew there’d be a reckoning when we got back to his house. But I underestimated how much I’d stripped from him. Didn’t realize he wouldn’t care about his own life, as long as he could take mine.
That wasalmosta catastrophic error.
It irks me that Finch D’Amato was right. Ididneed an extra bargaining chip. And I’m just lucky I found the right one before this particular tiger, whose tail I’m tugging on, bit my head off.
Finch was right about something else, too: I still need to learn some tricks. This is another lesson I won’t forget. Push a man too far, and he won’t carewhathappens to him. If he has no other anchors to this life, if he believes he’s lost everything, you have no power over him.
Dami has very few people he gives a shit about. But his loyalty to them runs deeper than his hatred of me.
Nausea rises again at the cold recognition of what I just did. What camenaturallyto me. I used his loyalty as a weapon. Pointed it at innocent people like a loaded gun. Exactly what my grandfather did a thousand times over—used human beings as shields, as leverage, as expendable pieces on a board. Nonno Lou never hesitated to threaten someone’s family to get what he wanted.
I always told myself I was different from him.
“Why did you come back here?” Damiano demands, stopping mid-pace.
I’m leaning up against the wall, my knees still trembling from such a close brush with death. “I didn’t get far before the Morellis grabbed me. So whether I like it or not, Dami, you’re my only chance.”
“Iwillkill you,” he says quietly. “I will find a way to keep Rosa and Vito and Sammy safe, and then I will kill you.”
“Fine. But in the meantime, you still need to keep me safe.” I straighten my clothes and deliver the reality check. “Finch D’Amato expects daily texts from me. And your own Boss saw me kiss you. He thinks your heart got in the way of things.”
He scoffs. “What heart?”
“You need me alive for now, Dami. But more than that, you need mehappy. Because if I tell Finch D’Amato anything other than how wonderfully you’re treating me…well, you know what will happen to your people.”
There it is again. My grandfather’s voice coming out of my mouth, so easily.
He lunges toward me, and I slide back against the wall, wary. But I need him to understand. Understand and accept. “Things are going to change around here,” I announce. “Youwill do what I tell you. And in return,Iwon’t destroy your household.”
He stalks over, grabs me by the shoulders, and slams me back against the wall, a reminder of how much weaker I am.
Physically, anyway.
If I’m going to get this creature under control, I can’t show fear. “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, Dami.” I look up at him from beneath my lashes and slide a hand up his chest. “You want to hurt me. But that’s not the only thing you want, is it?”
He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t slapped my hand away. So I run my other hand up his chest as well, where I feel his heart beating as fast as mine. His pupils dilate even as I watch them. And as much as I hate it, I feel it too: that sick pull between us, the spark that neither one of us can control.
He shoves me back into the wall again, but not with his hands—with his hips. He’s pressed up against my crotch, and I’m rising up on my tiptoes, pinned there where he wants me.
I’m getting hard.
No. Notgetting. I’ve been hard through this whole exchange, just wasn’t aware enough to register it. From the moment he grabbed me and pushed me over the banister, I’ve been hard for him.
