The line goes quiet.
“Who are you?”
“Salvatore Bennici, your friend’s companion for the duration of her stay.” Andrea smiles at my middle finger.
“How do I know you don’t have my friend tied up in a dungeon?”
She is.
“One of my properties is on a citrus grove,” I add. “I’m taking her there soon.”
“A citrus grove?” Stephanie’s voice perks. “She wanted anUnder the Tuscan Sunexperience. I want proof of life, or I’m flying there to beat your ass.”
The call ends.
Andrea is on the ground, holding his sides. “These women got you whipped!”
“Shut up.” I make a mental note to take a photo of Trouble once I see her.
Dealing with one Bianca is a lot to handle. Two might kill me.
Andrea clears his throat. “I should move in to watch you lose your shit. Bianca’s friend is ready to kill you,andyour girl is mad.”
“She’s not my girl.” My gaze casts over dark waves. “Do you think I’m making the wrong decision?”
“I think you’re soft on her,” he says. “Didn’t your parents get married within a month or two of dating?”
Pain I once buried creeps into my chest. I swallow the burn clawing up my throat, the urge to scream I’d laid to rest with my parents three decades ago.
“Let’s go back,” I say.
Luiggi guides us toward the shore. Waves crash and crest. The scent of the salty air taking me back to the days on my father’s boat. We’d spend hours on the water, with him teaching me fishing techniques his father had taught him.
In a different life, I could imagine a wife and child to pass Parisi traditions down to.
Chapter 23
Going Undercover
Bianca
Idid not sign up to be an FBI profiler in a thong.
“I’m zippering his balls ’til they pop,” I mutter to the pussy cleavage staring back at me in the mirror. One wrong move and my lips will swallow the thin material between my thighs.
I mock Benny’s Sicilian accent. “Bring back the information I need.”
When I said I’d go to the club, I did not agree to play Harriet the Spy with my butt out. My “uniform” is fishnets under a leather thong bodysuit. The high-waisted cut curves up my lower abdomen toward my hip, where it disappears into my crack—uncomfortably, might I add.
Benny left out key details about tonight. Like why I look like an extra from one of Prince’s music videos, may he rest in peace with his assless chaps. The only thing I got was gentle coercion and a charming smirk before his driver dropped me off in front of an old brick estate. He had to call Benny because nary a toe of mine was stepping into someEyes Wide Shutmansion in the middle of the night. I don’t know what type of club Eden is, but I guarantee nobody is playing Backgammon in here.
We’re thirty minutes from civilization or any help should someone chase me around with baby oil in an adult diaper. Benny assured me that a “disco club” was inside and he was on his way. When I didn’t move, he threatened to spank my pussy, like I was scared. I eventually went inside…because I was cold.
“Stephanie would lose her mind.” I turn from side to side in the mirror and add a booty bounce. “Okay, jiggle.”
She jokes that I’m in my Kelly Rowland era. My thighs have some weight to them, as does my ass. I’m petite compared to some, but I can still throw it in a circle with the baddest.
“Got me out here looking like aP-Valleyepisode.“ I huff out a laugh, my vacation braids cascading down my open back.
