10. Brody
brODY
She walks into the breakfast room in the morning wearing a white sundress and gives me a nervous smile.
“I’m ready for my exam.” She takes her usual seat—at my side—and pours herself a cup of tea. She belongs here. It’s obvious in her every movement. “And then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“You’re not in the way,” I rumble, even as I think back to last night, and her thanking me. Fuck.
“Liar.” She shoots me a wry look and it occurs to me how she’s not nervous around me anymore. That sunny smile isn’t something to hide behind. “Anyway, I’ve decided that after my exam I’m going to get my passport from my apartment, and search for my parents. They said once they wanted to visit the Cayman Islands, so perhaps they’re there.”
“No.”
Her hand stops with a cherry halfway to her perfect little mouth. “What do you mean, no?”
No, in so many ways, not least that is a terrible plan.
“You should wait for your parents to contact you, as they asked.” I’m close to finding them, although Caterina is right about the Cayman Islands.
But before I can think of anything rational to say, she shakes her head. “I’m not imposing on you anymore, or putting you at further risk from the mafia.”
“Caterina. That’s ridiculous, I’m?—”
My phone trills with my second-in-command’s emergency ringtone, stopping me mid-confession of I don’t know what. That I’m the last person who fears a poxy mafia so small as to be fussing over her family’s modest theft? That I’m in love with her? That I’m not letting her go?
Shit.
“You should answer that,” she says, popping the cherry into her mouth and chewing, her gaze sliding from mine.
Not now. Please, not now.
Last night we were on the edge of something. But she’s withdrawing, and although for an instinctive moment my hand twitches to grab her, I make a fist and remember my internal vow. No forcing or suggesting physical contact. She has to ask.
“This will only take a moment,” I assure her, and she shrugs. Because for Bogdan, my second-in-command, to be using that call system, it must be something that I’ve told him is of utmost importance.
“Boss, I think I’ve found them,” Bogdan says as soon as I answer. “The Geraci mafia.”
Finally. The name of the mafia I will obliterate.
Then as Bogdan continues, my stomach bounces like a kangaroo on a trampoline. I’m so close to getting revenge on the Italians who hurt my girl. I can’t pass up this opportunity for Caterina’s safety, quite aside from my pride. But as Bogdan speaks, it’s clear. It must be today, and it has to be me that deals with them. But I was planning to spend the day taking Caterina to her exam then dealing with the fall-out afterwards. And I’m not leaving her alone and at risk for her exam, so that means I’m going to mess up the one thing that Caterina has been working towards for the last three years: her degree.
Bogdan outlines the situation and I give directions for what to do next.
“Everything okay?” Caterina asks as I end the call, and the weight of this settles onto my shoulders like a too-heavy bar in the gym, threatening to buckle my knees.
Who do I trust to look after Caterina outside of this building? Normally, I’d say my team, but Steve is still in the hospital, and I’ll need my second-in-command to ensure my revenge goes smoothly. She’ll be in an exam room full of students, none of whom I control. There are so many ways for this to go wrong, from someone pulling the fire alarm and dragging her off, to her being taken by a fellow student paid by the Geraci mafia at the end of the exam.
Clearly, she can’t go to her exam. It’s too high a risk.
The solution is unpalatable.
I need her to stay here.
“How important is your exam?” I know the answer though.
She tilts her head. “The last thing I heard from my parents was that they requested I finish my degree. For years, they’ve been telling me how I must go into business.”
My heart sinks.
“I’ve been studying for this exam, and it’s one exam between me and achieving a degree.”
Very important. I nod. “You can’t attend your exam.”
“Why?” Her brows pinch.
I search for something better than, “Because I’m a mafia boss who needs to kill the men who hurt you”. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Her expression of confusion quickly morphs into indignation. “I’ve been working hard for that exam.”
“I know.” I really do. But I cannot risk her safety to anyone but me, or hidden here where she’s been snug and secure. “If I offered you a job instead, would you stay here and not go to the exam?”
“Why?” Her eyes snap with suspicion. “What would you be doing?”
I remain silent.
“I haven’t left this penthouse since you brought me here.” She shoves her plate away, and it hits the cafetiere, which topples and cracks, spilling the last of the coffee onto the table.
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry, what were you going to say?” My heart races. That was, “Thank you and goodbye”, wasn’t it?
“Then last night, I tried to… Oh never mind,” she finishes frustratedly and dabs at the coffee ineffectually with a napkin.
“What did you try to do last?—”
“But that’s not the point.” She scowls at the broken glass, then tosses the cloth onto the coffee stain and turns back to me. “You’re telling me I can’t leave?”
I don’t reply. I can’t say the words.
Understanding creeps across her face in a mix of fear and awe and panic.
“You’re not just a landlord, are you?” she says faintly.
“Nyet.” I knew this would happen, eventually.
“You’re a mafia boss.”
“Of Angel.” I intend that to be merely fact, but I’m proud of it, even though I don’t show it in ostentatious ways. This territory is knitted into my soul as firmly as Caterina is. I spend my time either caring for my people or taking vengeance on those who dare to think that because I’m a shadow, that I won’t mind if they try to take what’s mine.
Her mouth opens in shock, and regards me, sweeping her pretty brown eyes over my body. I can almost hear the ticking of her brain as she adds up what she’s heard about me.
“The Dark Angel lives in my building?”
“Why not?”
“I thought…” She swallows and wariness wars with experience on her face. “I don’t know what I thought. Half of us in Angel doubt you exist. The other half think you aren’t human.”
There was a time when that was at least partly true. But over the last few years, knowing Caterina? She changed me.
I approach slowly and she leans back in her seat. I continue advancing, bracing one arm on the table, trapping her in. With the other, I take her little hand and place it onto my chest, under my lapel and on the cotton of my shirt, over my heart.
“I exist,” I say softly. “And I’m very human.”
The steady beat thuds on her palm as she leaves her hand there after I release it, her palm warming me, before she smooths from side to side, seemingly mesmerised as we look into each other’s eyes.
I’m forty-two years old. I’ve taken lives, I’ve had women. But I’ve never been in love until I met Caterina, or felt this connected with another person until now.
“I’m being held captive.” Her dark eyes flicker with something that could be annoyance, but also… I wonder if it’s not. If it’s curiosity. Perhaps even a bit of arousal, as her chest pinkens, contrasting against her white sundress.
“You’re still in the same building.”
“Prison,” she points out. But although she rails against me, she doesn’t attempt to move. “I can’t leave this penthouse. Thus, it’s a prison.”
“If you count something with a rooftop pool, a personal chef, a gym, infinite streamed entertainment, and any luxuries you wish for delivered, as a prison.” With a man who will worship her and give her anything she asks for. If she just asks.
“You do if you’re a captive.” Such a sassy mouth now she’s found it.
“You’re being strongly encouraged to stay for your own safety and comfort,” I growl.
“Lack of liberty equals captivity.”
“Has being here been so bad?” She’s a damn house-cat railing against walls that protect and coddle her. For ten days she’s been utterly content, so far as I can see. “It’s not like before this you left the building except to work or go to university.”
“That’s not the point,” she says, pushing gently against my chest. I allow it, giving her the distance she’s implicitly requesting. “I’m not your pawn, Angel.”
That change, to calling me by my mafia territory name, hits me in the heart. I invaded her space, and she pushed me away. I think—I fear—I’ve lost everything I’ve built with Caterina.
“I want to go to my exam,” she says clearly.
And I must extinguish the threat to her life.
“Fine.” I straighten. “You want a test of your business studies? I’ll take you to prove yourself to the richest businessmen in London.”