“For them. For Alice. Not for you.”
“Yes, well,” his gaze drops to my mouth. “We have five days to correct that.”
Heat rushes under my skin as I stare at him. He holds me in his gaze, calm and beautiful and dangerous enough that every instinct I have is screaming in conflicting directions. Then he smiles again, that slow, wicked curve that makes him look less like a man and more like every bad decision I have ever been smart enough not to make.
For a moment, he says nothing. His gaze shifts, moving over me once, not lingering on the robe or the skin beneath it, but on my face. My bruised wrist. My bare feet. The place where his hand is on my throat. Stefano’s gaze drops to my mouth, then lifts.
“I’ll see you this evening, Maya.”
Then he lets go. Just like that. The absence of his hand is immediate, leaving an empty feeling in its place. A yearning, I can’t explain.
He turns and walks to the door, completely composed, as if he has not just rearranged something under my skin with three fingers and a smirk. No explanation. No pretty little warning I can hate enough to use to steady myself.
Chapter Four
Maya
After browsing the study and discovering several intriguing pieces of information that are all too easily located, I fall asleep in Stefano Savarese’s chair for forty-three minutes with my own file open in my lap and a letter opener tucked beneath my thigh.
Sleeping in a mafia don’s study is not a tactical decision I would recommend, but the body has strong opinions after drugs, a raid, a fight, and whatever other disastrous moments I’ve forgotten from the night before. One moment, I’m reading a redacted FBI report about myself, irritated by how much of Stefano’s file covers it, and the next, I wake to the sound of someone clearing his throat in the doorway.
I open my eyes without moving, assessing the newcomer. Omar Strada stands just inside the study, one shoulder against the frame, arms crossed over his chest. He has changed clothes since I last saw him down the barrel of a gun outside the helicopter, but not his expression. Dark eyes. Hard mouth.
“You sleep badly,” he says without an ounce of humor.
“You kidnap badly,” I retort, half asleep.
His eyes move to the letter opener half-hidden beneath my leg. “Not badly enough, it seems.”
I stand up, stretching slowly, partly because I refuse to look startled and partly because my head punishes speed.
“Where are the children?”
“Eating breakfast.”
That gets me upright faster than my body appreciates. The room tilts once, meanly, then settles. Omar watches the stumble without offering a hand, which is the first thing I have liked about him. I do not need kindness from Stefano’s men. I need honesty, and indifference is at least honest.
“Take me to them.”
“That is why I’m here.”
He turns and walks away, expecting me to follow. Which I do because hating orders does not automatically make ignoring them intelligent.
He glances back. “The Don said you were opinionated.”
“The Don talks about me, does he?”
That earns a scowl. “He currently has a fair share of poor judgment, it seems.”
“Careful. That almost sounded like an independent thought,” I tease.
Omar stops. He simply stops walking, and I skid to a standstill just barely avoiding colliding with him. When he turns, there is no anger on his face, just cold, brutal dislike.
“I don’t like you,” he says.
“The feeling is mutual. I promise.”
“You are FBI, and emotionally attached to two children who became valuable to us the moment Leon lost them. Every piece of you is a complication, and my job is to remove complications before they become threats.”
