“From who?”
Her heart started to race. Shoot. She was going to give herself a heart attack at this rate. Bad attention? What did that mean?
“From one of the leading crime syndicates in the city.”
“Oh God. Are they going to hurt you? You can’t let them hurt you.” Visions of him being tortured, waterboarded, his fingers chopped off filled her head. “I like your fingers!”
Nothing could happen to him.
“Of course, I won’t allow that,” he said arrogantly. That voice soothed her. It told her that he had everything under control. “I like my fingers too. Have you been watching mob movies?”
It was a sickness. She couldn’t seem to stop. No matter how many nightmares these movies gave her, she just had to keep watching them.
“Juliet,” he said sternly.
“I saw one a long time ago,” she lied. A small lie wouldn’t matter, right? “What happened? Why are they after you?”
“I failed to successfully defend one of their guys.”
What? Reuben never failed . . . unless . . .
“What did he do?”
“Abused a child.”
Ahh. That explained it. Reuben never defended anyone on charges of abuse.
“Why’d you take the case?”
“Because that wasn’t actually one of the things he was charged with.” His jaw worked. “But we had a meeting at his house, and there was this little boy . . .”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“I should have backed off then, but this asshole was adamant he wanted me. And I figured if he went away then that little boy was safe for a while.”
This was a side of him she knew no one saw but her. Most people were terrified of him. For good reason. He had power. Money. Influence. He had information on a lot of important people. Reuben could move mountains. And he would. For her.
Which made her wonder why he was so worried.
“So, this criminal group is now angry? Don’t you have something on them to make them back down?”
He sighed. “I’ve got stuff, but there’s a lot of players to deal with, and it’s going to take me longer than I anticipated to get things moving, and I need to make sure you’re protected.”
“You think they’ll come for me?” She and Reuben had different last names for just this reason. While he’d paid for this house and everything in it, it had all been done through a trust he’d set up for her.
But plenty of people still knew that she was his sister.
“I’m not taking any risks, okay?” he said to her.
Panic filled her. “I don’t like that you’re in danger.”
Nothing could happen to him. He was her anchor.
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” he soothed, clearly seeing her panic.
“I . . . I . . .” She started to pace, excess energy coursing through her body. She was dressed in a long, black dress that completely hid her body. It swished around her bare feet.
“Mini, it will all be all right.”