"Okay. I'll bite. What do you do for the state of California?"
"I work as a translator in the court system."
"Then what are you doing in New Jersey?"
"Vacation." That was technically the truth. I'd needed to take some stacked-up sick leave and vacation days to fly back home, then to New Jersey. I didn't want to think about what might happen if I ran out of those paid days off. I wasn't exactly in a place where I could be without a job for any stretch of time.
"You're on vacation, but you stay here?"
"What can I say? Interpreting doesn't pay that well."
"You have beaches in California."
"They're crowded," I said.
"So are ours."
I was out of arguments.
"Look, Romy, you don't strike me as a professional of any sort. Are you in some kind of trouble?"
"Because women must always be damsels in distress," I shot at him, arms folding over my chest.
"I know plenty of men who have found themselves in over their head. They end up doing things they never thought they would. If that is the situation, then I can put this away," he said, tapping his gun, "and we can figure something out."
I didn't know how to answer him.
Because, yes, I was in distress, as much as it pained me to admit that.
And, yes, I was in over my head.
But I also doubted I could trust this man.
Because if he was involved with what I knew he was involved with, then he had no good nature to appeal to. He certainly wasn't going to help me steal from him, take money out of his pocket.
No.
I was on my own in this.
And men with poker faces like his couldn't be trusted.
"I appreciate your offer of assistance, Mr. Grassi, but I don't need it. I am going to ask you to leave, or I am going to start screaming."
To that, his lips curved upward.
"Do you want to bet that no one would come to save you?" he asked, making me stiffen.
Maybe I had underestimated the power the mob still had in certain parts of this country.
Now that I thought about it, it was entirely possible that he had his men stationed around, that they had the ability to keep anyone from stepping in.
"Stay off my docks, Romy," Luca demanded, unfolding from the chair, moving across the room toward me, stopping near my shoulder. Up close, he seemed even taller than across the room. And there was the lingering scent of some spicy cologne clinging to his suit. It was ridiculous, but I found myself taking a deep breath, breathing it in, approving of it. "This is your first and only warning."
With his intense gaze on me, with his hulking body seeming to steal all the air from the room—and my lungs—I was finding thoughts and words hard to string together.
Taking a deep breath, I swallowed hard, barely recognizing my voice—low, airless—when I spoke. "And if I don't?"
"You don't want to know the answer to that."