Her eyes go half lidded, and her breathing hitches. Rosa might be smaller than I am, and in some ways, more powerful. One shout to her brothers, and I’m a dead man walking. But she knows who I am. She knows what I’m capable of.
We’ve spent decades skirting this dance.
We’ve taken other partners. I’ve had no compunction about sleeping around after her marriage to Anthony Mercadio. And now...
I put everything down on the table and crook a finger at her and go for broke.
“Get over here.”
My pulse quickens when she takes a step closer to me.
I swallow as she nears, her high heels clicking on the concrete. Her rounded, beautiful eyes meet mine with a little curiosity and a lot of lust. Thick lashes frame her eyes, making them stark and vivid against the soft creaminess of her porcelain skin. Her eyebrows arch dramatically, and her lips part in a wondrous sigh.
“You gotta move, baby,” I whisper in a heated whisper. “Faster than that.”
We have minutes, maybe seconds, before heavy footsteps tell us they’re coming back.
“The cameras,” she whispers.
“I disabled them before we played the game,” I whisper back. “And right here we’re out of the line of vision.”
Her eyes go even wider. “Wh-what?”
“You heard me, beautiful.” When she reaches me, I brush my hand across her cheek and capture a lock of hair. I give it a little tug before I gently place it behind her ear.
“Why’d you do that?” she asks.
“Because I didn’t want any evidence of what I’m about to do, if I had the chance.”
Tomorrow I go back to Tuscany. I won’t miss my chance.
I shouldn’t do this. I’m playing with such fucking fire, I’m damn near scorched already, and it isn’t just me. If they see what I’m doing, her marriage to that fucking Campanelle could happen tomorrow. We’re on such thin ice I can feel it cracking.
I reach for her and tug her onto my knee. “You think I can’t tell you what to do?” Footsteps come nearer and we both freeze, but they retreat just as quickly. I go for broke. Without giving myself a chance to overthink it, I reach my hand to her face and trace it gently. I lower my mouth to hers and give her a tender kiss while I brush my finger over the fullness of her breast. I slide my hand down the front of her dress and gently stroke her nipple. I drink in the delectable moan she gives me.
I don’t care what happens to me.
I don’t care what they do.
She feels so good like this, smells so good, I need to taste her.
“Santo,” she whispers, but instead of getting off my lap, she only snuggles in further. “Santo,” she says, no longer a protest but a plea. “Soon, they’ll marry me off. I know they will. And it’s not fair you’re being punished.” Her voice hitches. “Santo, I—”
We hear the footsteps right outside the stockroom door too late. She flies off my lap and runs to a box, frantically grabbing things out of it. I dive behind a pallet of boxes and press my belly to the floor.
“Hey, Rosa.”
I let out a breath. Elise. Elise might not tell Tavi if she saw us together.
“Oh, those aren’t the ones I needed to look at. Sorry, it’s the smaller boxes we got earlier today that I think they messed up. I asked for the XL and I’m pretty sure—”
A flash of light flickers in warning on the stockroom wall. I stare in disbelief. Our hidden security system. Someone just pulled the alarm.
Elise and Rosa go still.
Fuck.
That light means get the fuck out of here.
But it’s too late.
Half a second later, sirens sound outside the warehouse.
“Oh my God. Oh my God!” Elise runs toward the warehouse and Rosa follows behind her.
She never saw me. I leap to my feet and follow them, just as a swarming team of armed State Troopers break down the back entrance to the warehouse.
Fuckkkkk.
“Oh God!” Rosa cries openly, her hand over her mouth. She knows as well as I do what it would mean if Orlando got taken back to jail. She knows that can’t happen. “What is it?” she asks. “Who is it?”
I join my brothers with my hands in the air, but it isn’t me they’re after.
“Romeo Rossi, you’re under arrest.”
No.
No.
Romeo looks mildly surprised, but he’s always calm under duress. Slowly, he raises his hands in the air.
“Now what the fuck—” Mario begins, but Romeo shakes his head sharply at him.
“Not now, brother. Call Flynt,” he says. Family lawyer, hired after a will fiasco before Narciso died.
Rosa’s crying softly as they drag Romeo’s hands behind his back and cuff him.
They don’t even look at any of us.
I don’t hear what they say for the ringing in my ears.
Why Romeo? Why now?
“Santo,” Romeo says, as they march him away. “Stay, brother. I lift your exile. They’ll need you here.”