If I don’t take control right here, right now, I’m gonna strip this woman and fuck her over that marble counter, job and onlooker and status be damned. I’ve hardly touched a woman since I got out of jail and didn’t realize just how hungry I’ve been. And there’s something about a woman like her that ticks every fucking box in my book.
She’s a Montavio.
My captive.
And I have a job to do.
I pull away from her as if burnt and face the man sitting next to her.
“Thought you two were together?”
He snorts. “You thought wrong.”
She flinches as if struck. Guess that was news to her. For some reason, his callous nature and her surprise infuriates me. I grab him by the front of his shirt and lift him, chair and all.
“Does she know that?” I ask in a deadly growl.
“She does now.” I drop him and he flinches. Good.
I want to beat his scrawny ass, but I have to stay focused.
“Which one of you tried to hurt Marialena Rossi? Which one of you was behind that attempted hit?”
Vivia gives a strangled cry. The guy in front of me doesn’t bat an eyelash, and he jerks his head at her. “Who do you think did? I don’t even know who Marialena fucking is.”
“Marialena?” Vivia whispers. “What?”
Looks like I’ve got some filling in to do.
I stand in front of them, cross my arms on my chest, and shake my head. “Let’s start at the beginning.” I want to watch every reaction, see what’s news to them and what isn’t. “My name’s Dario DeRocco. I’m a sworn brother of the Rossi family, which probably comes as no surprise to either of you. Head Capo for Romeo Rossi.”
No surprise. They knew that much.
“You two were caught by one of our detectives as the very same people who put a hit on the youngest Rossi sister, Marialena. She has a very perceptive bodyguard who’d lay down his life for her, who discovered the attempt on her life just in time to save her, but not without scaring the shit out of her and seriously pissing off her oldest brother Romeo.”
Vivia’s eyes fill with tears, and she shakes her head.
“I had no idea,” she whispers. “I didn’t know. You have to believe me. I’d never hurt one of my cousins. Never.”
She doesn’t look like someone who’s lying, but then again, they never do. I can’t let her pretty looks and pleading soften me.
“Then why no surprise when I apprehended you?”
She looks away and bites her lip. What the fuck is she hiding from me? Yeah, I thought so.
I jerk her chin so she looks back at me. She flinches at the look I give her.
“I thought—I thought you worked with Sergio.”
“I do.” Sergio, the eldest Montavio and Don of the Montavio mob, is one of our closest associates.
She slams her lips together and looks away, shaking her head.
I turn to him. “You. Tell me.”
“I have nothing to tell you,” he says, shaking his head. “It was all her idea. She was behind the whole thing.”
“What? No!” she screams, shaking her head. “He’s lying!”