Page 50 of Revenge on the Mafia

He didn’t move from his spot. Not a shiver of emotion crossed his sharp face. “What you need to do is avenge your father’s death. You need to fucking kill me.”

The snap of intonation on the word fucking ripped through the room. One word that told me I’d got under his skin. Well, so had he, which was why I knew I was done. “I’ll let you live.” I wasn’t getting burned again.

He studied me. Tapped the side of his thigh, one finger at a time. I frowned. Was he counting? His gaze dropped to the carpet. A red that had faded into a dirty brown.

“Are you going to be a coward, mia piccola assassina?”

My heartbeat snagged. No somos cobardes. If he’d spoken those words in my language, they would have been Papá’s. I shook my head. It was just a coincidence. I was letting him confuse me. He was playing his game again. “I told you; you can live.”

He shocked me by snapping at me. “Come back to my fucking home and kill me there.”

¿Qué demonios? “No.”

He swallowed half the room with a sudden step. I stumbled back three and hit the wall. He studied me, gaze unblinking. Scrubbed a hand on his jaw.

“Haven’t you ever wondered why he was killed?”

His words fell in the room like a confession. My breath came to a stuttering pause. How did he know my deepest need? Only one thing kept me from wanting to find out. His eyes were two pinpoints. His words were soft and seductive. “I can tell you why.”

It was a trap. “Why?” I half-whispered anyway.

“One month.”

“¿Que?”

“I want you to wear my last name for a month.”

I frowned. Like a tag?

“Then I’ll tell you everything about your father and why he was killed.”

I’d moved. Taken one step forward. Everything about Papá? I’d know him again. My heart pounded inside my rib cage. “You don’t know him.”

“I do.”

The way he said it. So calm. Final. Confident. He knew everything about him. Why? How?

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

“One month.”

“Tell me now,” I insisted.

“This isn’t a negotiation.”

I stared at him. He stared right back. Something was off. The speed of his fingers on his thigh had picked up. He was nervous. I think. My eyes narrowed. “What did you mean ‘wear your last name’?”

He delivered his words in a calm, dead tone. “Marry me.”

I jerked back.

“¡Estás loco!” He was crazy. What was he even asking?

He turned his head, gaze trained outside, and muttered almost to himself. “Definitely.”

I shook my head. Nope. I wasn’t doing this level of crazy. I’d already decided. I was out of here on the next flight. Marry him? I scoffed. The man who’d killed my father? I whacked myself on my forehead. I’d rather throw myself off a cliff into a cave of snakes, roll through poisonous cactuses to a wild ocean and drown. “I’d rather die than marry you.”

Instead of answering, he turned around and walked to the door. About time. Picking up my bag on the floor, he stood at the door. Waiting. So fucking sure of himself.