She felt so magical and otherworldly. She felt like no other woman I ever encountered, and I didn’t have to wonder why. I knew her. I cared about her. She meant the world to me.
I even caught myself thinking, I love her. Those words wouldn’t go away no matter how much I told myself not to get attached to her.
I loved her as a child, and somehow, that love never really went away. She was like my little sister then, but she wasn’t like my little sister now. She was something so much more than that.
I had to seriously stop myself from turning the car around, driving back to Archhurst, and telling the Padrino that I couldn’t let him go through with this plan. It was too dangerous… for her.
How could I put her in danger like this? Of all the cutting reprimands he gave me last night, that one hurt the worst. I put her in danger. That was the real reason we shouldn’t have left the table. We wouldn’t have if we had been thinking clearly. We would have kept her safe.
Dominic finally broke the silence. “Hey—do you think he’s back home fucking her right now?”
I winced. Did Luca send us out to case the Vittorios so he could make a move on Ariana? Why did that rankle me more than Dominic fucking her?
Luca was the king. He was the Padrino, and he could have any woman he wanted, including her. Did he plan to marry her like Michael Vittorio said? Who would stop him? Not me.
My stomach twisted in knots thinking about Luca fucking her… or Dominic fucking her. I should be the one, not them.
I would have been the one if Luca hadn’t taken her away from me when we got home from the club. I would have taken her upstairs, and she might have wanted me to.
Now, he was alone with her while we were stuck in this car with each other.
I floated into another fantasy about her. I drifted into the sensation of my hands gliding down her sides and feeling her body undulate under that silken dress. My hands would slide down to her hips and guide her back into me.
Dominic brought me back to reality by bumping my arm. “Take a look at that.”
I snapped alert to see a limo pulling up in front of the warehouse. Michael and Alessandro Vittorio got out. Their bodyguards flanked them on their way inside.
“Let’s rock and roll,” Dominic told me.
We both pulled black ski masks out of our pockets and covered our faces before we got out of the car. The bodyguards stationed themselves around the warehouse as Michael and Alessandro disappeared inside, so we couldn’t approach the building from the front.
We skimmed into an alley heading down the block. We darted between different warehouses and cut back to our original location.
We clambered over a fence and dropped down on the loading dock behind the building. Lights flicked on in the upstairs windows.
Dominic pointed to a fire escape attached to the brick wall. He doubled over underneath it, and I climbed onto his back. He pushed me up until I grabbed hold of the lowest rung. I hauled myself up and then pulled him up behind me.
We shimmied up the ladder as quickly and quietly as we could until we came to the lighted windows. We both peered down into the warehouse itself.
Michael was talking to three other dudes while that lackey Alessandro stood aside, but Dominic and I weren’t looking at them. The thing that really grabbed my attention was the army of black-clad guys standing in rows across the warehouse.
They were all big, burly, and I didn’t recognize any of them, which meant they were from out of town. The Vittorios must be a lot farther along on their plans if they were bringing in ringers from out of town.
They must be gearing up for an immediate strike. Dominic and I had to get back to Archhurst right away. Luca would need to pull his head out from between Ariana’s legs real quick to deal with this.
We watched for a few minutes longer. I tapped Dominic to signal him to leave when Michael turned away from the three guys he was talking to. He returned to Alessandro. He confirmed my suspicions when the two of them talked, and Michael nodded like they were about to leave too.
I almost turned away completely and would have missed the most important piece of the puzzle if a middle-aged woman hadn’t walked right past our window at that moment. She came out of a little room off a landing to Dominic’s right.
She went downstairs, and she had a conversation with Michael too. She was definitely Italian, and she was definitely from out of town.
This time, she did the nodding, and she and Michael returned to the stairs down which she just came. I almost laughed. Was this woman Michael’s treat on the side or something?
They passed us going upstairs, and Dominic and I ducked out of sight so Michael didn’t catch us spying on him. He and the woman came to the landing and passed through a different door.
Dominic and I tiptoed down the fire escape as another window lit up. We peered into a plain bedroom, but Michael and the woman didn’t go past the threshold. They didn’t get it on.
Michael looked around, and the woman said, “I set it up exactly as you said, Padrino.” So, the woman must be a member of Michael’s family.