Page 216 of Don’t Say Mafia

“Thank you, Eden.” The way he said my name forced my gaze up before I could stop it.

As he reached for the cup, his fingers brushed mine. The contact was brief . . . and it should have been nothing. But it sent a ripple through me, like the first tremor before something gave way. My breath hitched, and I felt it travel from my fingertips straight to my center.

He didn’t immediately pull back, and neither did I.

For half a second, we just stood there, connected by the thin line of skin against skin. Something changed in his face, and the easy, self-assured amusement he’d been wearing since he’d walked in vanished. His brows pulled together slightly, and his mouth parted just a fraction in something that almost looked like confusion.

His gaze dropped to our hands, then lifted back to my face, searching, as though I might have an explanation for whatever had just passed between us.

The bell over the door jingled, and he blinked, the moment shattering. He pulled his hand back, his fingers curling around the cup instead of me as he glanced toward the door.

Another man stepped in, and for a split second I wondered if I’d slipped into some alternate reality, because the probability of two of the most gorgeous men I’d ever seen walking into our run-down coffee shop felt statistically impossible.

This one had dark hair and a faint crescent scar near his chin that only made him more unfair to look at. He spotted the blond man immediately and walked toward him, leaning in once he got close. “We need to go,” he murmured.

His eyes suddenly shifted to me, and he gave me a slow, assessing once-over that made my shoulders square on instinct. He quickly winked, and I could have sworn I heard him add, quieter this time, “Is that her?”

The blond man didn’t answer right away. He took a sip of his coffee, set the cup down, and reached for his wallet. When he slid the hundred-dollar bill across the counter, my breath caught.

It was . . . absurd. Completely, undeniably absurd. Almost more than I made in an entire shift. I stared at it, then at him. “This is too much.”

He glanced down at it like he genuinely hadn’t registered the amount. “Is it?”

“Yes.” I pushed it back toward him. “I can’t take this.”

His fingers closed over the bill before it moved an inch. “You can,” he said evenly. “And you will.”

I swallowed. “Sir⁠—”

“Keep it,” he added softly, like it wasn’t a command at all. “For the good taste.”

The other man cleared his throat pointedly, and the blond man finally stepped back, that maddening smile returning as if this hadn’t just knocked the breath out of me. “See you around, Eden.”

Then they were gone, the bell chiming cheerfully behind them.

I stood there for a long moment, staring down at the counter. My pulse thudded in my ears, and my fingers closed slowly around the bill like it might disappear if I loosened my grip. I had the insane thought then that he’d just walked in, rearranged something inside me . . .

And I still didn’t even know his name.

CHAPTER 7

JAGGER

The docks always smelled the same—salt, diesel, and secrets nobody wanted traced back to them. I stood near the edge of the concrete with my hands in my pockets, suit jacket open, and my tie long gone. The wind off the water tugged at my shirt like it thought it had a say in my life.

A container ship eased into place, slow and heavy, metal groaning against metal. From the outside, it looked harmless and industrial. Boring.

But inside?

It was stacked with enough product to shift markets and enough cash to make senators forget their morals and CEOs forget their wives.

Definitely not harmless or boring.

The cranes hovered overhead, skeletal and patient, waiting for permission to descend. I liked this part. The quiet before the movement. The moment where everything could still go wrong.

People always assumed money looked like champagne and rooftop views. It didn’t. Sometimes it looked like standing on wet concrete at four in the morning, making sure nobody decided to shave a few million off the top because they thought you wouldn’t notice.

They always realized their mistake the moment I did.