“And that’s exactly how I want you,” I murmured to her as I rolled from her body to sit next to her. She moved to get up, but I stopped her. “Give me a second.”
She lifted a brow like she was going to argue.
“Please.” I didn’t beg, but I would with her. I’d have done just about anything to have her there with me for another moment. I reached for Rodney’s sweatshirt and took my time wiping myself from her body. “I used to clean up a lot of messes back in the day, but this one I’m enjoying cleaning up most.”
I smiled to myself as I threw that sweatshirt into the fire.
“You’re ridiculous if that brings you joy, Cade,” she mumbled as she pushed her bikini back into the right position and sat up, dusting the dirt from herself. “And I’m sure the messes you cleaned up were much worse than this.”
I hummed. “If you’re talking about my days as a part of the old Armanelli family, sure.” I shrugged, thinking about that part of my life, how I suddenly wanted her to understand. “We’ve tried to be a cleaner, more productive family.”
She picked at nothing on the ground, avoiding eye contact. “I know that. The world knows that. Even Heather is proud of your accolades.” She sighed. “Everyone has embraced and accepted who you are.”
I thought about my life. Growing up a son to a powerful mafia boss had shown me a lot of the ugly world. Not that my brother, who was first born, didn’t see more. “They’ve either embraced who I am or learned to fear who I am.”
“Do you get tired of people fearing you?”
“No,” I answered honestly, “because they should. If anything, I get tired of acting as if I’m not a threat, like I enjoy mingling with all of you for the sake of whatever this retreat is.”
She laughed. “It’s called building trust. Team building.”
“I don’t work well with others.”
“Probably because you don’t care if people fear you rather than respect you. And I think everyone wants to. You’re a freaking god when it comes to hacking.”
“Is that all I’m a god at?” I threw a small joke her way.
She rewarded me with a genuine smile. “So Cade has a sense of humor. Maybe you should show your team that more often.”
I tugged on a strand of her hair. “Maybe you should show your fire, your emotion, and the real you more too.”
Narrowing her eyes, she argued. “Nobody likes all that. That’s like saying you want to show the world the Armanelli mobster in you.”
“Sometimes I do.” I shrugged and threw a small piece of a twig from the ground into the fire. “But I save that for the days the world really needs a reminder.” She rolled her eyes like I didn’t make any sense. “You realize I gave the go-ahead to have my father killed, right?” I blurted, like she needed to know that the man she’d just fucked was essentially a murderer.
My father deserved his fate, and my brother and I had taken him down. He’d been a ruthless killer that hurt the nation over and over. Still, losing a father and being the one to cause that loss made many wary of me. She had to understand I’d be ruthless, that I wasn’t just a sweet man who delved into cybersecurity. I did it for the country, for my family.
And I’d kill again for them too if need be.
“I’m aware that it was rumored, yes.” She nodded, not recoiling at all. “But according to your fans, like Heather, it was for the greater good.”
I dug the heel of my shoe in the dirt, trying to play off her explanation. It was a good one. “I’ll admit it’s a brilliant twist on the story. My mother was an Italian woman with a lot of love in her heart. She told us to make decisions with love. I made the decision to have him killed for the greater good, sure, but I was also angry. I acted in anger. And I’d act in anger again if I felt a man took his power too far.”
“You have a lot of power too,” she reminded me quietly.
“Yep, and I’m happy to piss off, rile up, and fuck with anyone in the world, Izzy. I enjoy doing it. I like the control and believe I’m capable of handling how far I push everyone. My father liked it too, but I never thought he was capable of handling it.”
She considered that for a moment as we stared at the fire that was slowly dying in the cool air. “I bet your mother would have been proud of you then.”
“My mom would have been proud of a serial killer.” I laughed thinking back to her making cannoli for my father even after he came home from getting rid of a few guys. “Quite frankly, she married one. My father was a mean son of a bitch who trafficked women and drugs and laundered money.”
“Then you did the good the world claims by getting rid of him,” she murmured, and for some reason, her acceptance lifted a weight from my shoulders that I didn’t know I’d been carrying.
“Maybe. Or maybe I did it to piss some people off,” I countered. “It’s what I enjoy most, right?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt riled by you at all,” she said with mock certainty. Then she leaned in and bumped my shoulder, a sparkle in her eyes as she smiled at me.
I hummed low, just imagining the way her body vibrated when she wanted to lash out at me. “You, I might enjoy riling most, Ms. Hardy.” I saw goose bumps rise on her skin and pulled my sweatshirt over my head. “Why the hell you’d go to a damn campfire in a bikini is beyond me.”