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“Am I boring you?” she asked, her voice shaking with just a tremor of embarrassment and nervousness.
“Absolutely not,” I replied softly.
Alessia’s hips shifted closer, and the movement sent a hard bolt of heat straight through my body.
I kept my hands on her hips.
A small look of satisfaction flickered over her face as she leaned back, allowing me a perfect view of the black crystals stretched over her breasts. “Does my father usually buy your attention this easily?”
“He didn’t buy anything.”
“No?” She ran one finger over the edge of my jacket. “I’m supposed to believe that Sergei Morozov flew down from Boston to drag Raffaele’s inconvenient daughter home out of the goodness of his heart? Sounds like a transaction to me.”
“The debt is mine.”
Her hand stilled.
“Your father once did something for me that I couldn’t do for myself. I promised that if he ever asked me for a favor, I would do it,” I continued.
“And now I’m the favor.”
“You’re his daughter,” I replied.
“I’m not his anything.”
Through the smoked glass, the taller man touched two fingers to his ear. Immediately, I tapped my thumb once against the inside of my ring finger, activating the silent alert on my thick silver ring. Theo would receive it. So would the control room.
Alessia wound her arms around my neck. “My father doesn’t get to call in rights over me because he helped you in the past.”
“He didn’t.”
“Then what do you call this?”
“Protection.”
Her laugh held no humor. “That’s the same word he used before my mother died.”
I looked into her eyes. I could tell that she expected me to argue, to defend Raffaele, perhaps, or maybe even tell her that she didn’t understand the decisions men like us made when war moved too close to the people we loved.
I understood them far too well.
“The last time he decided we needed protection, men appeared outside our house. By the following night, my mother was dead, and Raffaele was safely back in Sicily explaining that coming to her funeral would make everything worse.” Her chin lifted, but the anger in her face couldn’t hide the pain beneath it. “So, forgive me if armed men claiming they’re here to keep me safe don’t make me feel particularly grateful.”
“You don’t need to forgive him.”
She stilled, her eyes narrowing.
“You don’t need to accept his money. You can hate him for the rest of your life if that is what you choose.”
Her expression narrowed, searching mine for the trap.
“There are men outside this room who have followed you twice this week,” I continued. “They are not Bellandi men. They are not my men. They are here because Levon Petrosyan believes taking you will give him control over your father.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“There are more than two men,” I told her.
She paused long enough that I knew she hadn’t known. Then she pushed herself off of me and stood up on her own two feet.
