"That would be helpful."
Benito checks his watch. "We should go. You have that call with Stephano in an hour."
I nod curtly, grateful for the excuse. "Ms. Vitale, I'll have my assistant coordinate with yours about the next steps."
"Of course, Don Dante." She doesn't quite meet my eyes. "Thank you for taking time from your schedule for this."
The politeness feels wrong after what just nearly happened.
But she’s right to revert to social norms.
I’d be seen as taking something that isn’t mine yet if I touched her.
I bow my head slightly before turning away
"The west entrance needs at least four men," Benito says as our car cuts through traffic. "And the service corridors could be a problem if?—"
His voice fades into background noise as my mind replays moments with Isabella.
The way her pupils dilated when I touched her face. The soft challenge in her voice.
The electricity between us seemed to charge the very air.
What the hell was I thinking?
She's not what I expected. I anticipated a spoiled princess.
Instead, I found someone with fire behind her eyes and a sharp tongue.
Someone who looks at me not with fear or reverence, but with assessment.
Like she's trying to figure me out as much as I'm trying to understand her.
It's infuriating. Intoxicating.
"—listening to anything I'm saying?" Benito’s question snaps me back.
"Four men at the west entrance," I repeat automatically. "Service corridors need surveillance."
He leans back, unconvinced. "I know it’s not my place, Don Dante, and I grant you, she’s a beautiful woman, but you need to remember who her father is.”
I might normally take offense at his talking so freely to me, but he’s not wrong.
Benito’s brother was killed in our last fight with the Bratva, the one in which Marco Vitale was supposed to be on our side, but clearly, he’d been working with the Bratva as well, playing both of us.
“I won’t forget.” I turn to look out the window, grappling with the irony of the situation.
I can't forget who she is, yet I keep seeing glimpses of who she might be beneath the Vitale name.
Every comment reveals a piece of the puzzle of who she is.
And despite everything, I want to solve her.
To understand what makes her different from the rest of her snake-pit family.
This fascination is dangerous.
It makes me vulnerable in ways I can't afford.
