Chapter 3 #2
That’s when I realize just how much bigger than me he is.
Not in the way a football player is large, but in the way that those dashingly handsome actors in forbidden romance movies are.
The length of his fingers wrapped around both my wrists is shocking.
The scrolling tattoos from his fingers to his neck had somehow hidden that from me until now.
Now I can feel every inch of his tall, lean, impossibly imposing build.
“You know,” he says, his green eyes mesmerizing, “most guests wait until after breakfast to attempt murder.”
“I’m not a guest, though, am I?”
“No. You’re more expensive than that.”
I glare at him. “Ask for a refund.”
“I don’t return things I want.”
His gaze drops to my mouth for half a second. Long enough for me to notice. Long enough for him to know I notice.
I pull against his grip. “Where are Erin and Heath?”
“There she is.” His eyes lit up with amusement at my protests.
“Where are they?”
“Alive.”
“If that is the only answer you give me, this is going to be a very boring conversation.”
“You are many things. Boring is not one of them.”
I keep my face still. “Why do you keep saying things like that?”
“Because you dislike hearing it from me.”
“I dislike many things about you,” I quip.
“I noticed.” His thumb shifts against my wrist. “You tried to stab me with my own letter opener.”
“It was available.”
“So was the decanter.”
I shrug as I say, “Too heavy. Too obvious.”
His mouth curves at that. “You considered it, though.”
“Briefly.”
“How very practical.”
“I try,” I say, once more attempting to shift out of his hold. Which remains unyielding.
He studies me with an interest that feels less like lust than evaluation, which somehow makes it more intimate.
More intimidating. The men at the auction looked at my body.
Stefano looks at the decisions behind it.
The difference shouldn’t matter, but it does, and I hate him a little more for being difficult to categorize.
I lean closer, because if he wants me off-balance, I can return the favor. “Where are the children?”
“Keep misbehaving, and you won’t see them at all.”
My face falls, and his eyes change by a fraction, almost satisfaction, almost regret, not enough of either to be useful to me.
I hate him. I hate that he found the one lever guaranteed to work. I hate that he knows it.
“You have them?”
“I have them, safe.”
“Here?”
“Close enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the only one I’m giving you. For now.”
I pull harder against his hand. He doesn’t let go. “You smug son of a bitch.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Do you ever deny anything?” I ask, exasperated.
“Occasionally.”
“And right now?”
“I find honesty more efficient.”
“Honesty?” I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “You drugged me, dragged me here, put me in a robe, and now you’re holding me on your lap while threatening to keep me from my sister’s children.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know. Shit.
His eyes sharpen, narrowing, his look intense enough to make me gulp and momentarily stop breathing.
Damn it.
“Your sister’s children,” he repeats.
I force my face into confusion a heartbeat too late. “I —”
“I heard what you said. Don’t lie to me.”
“Then you misheard it.”
“No.” His voice is cold, firm. “I didn't.”
His grip on my wrists doesn’t change, but the feeling of it does. A second ago, he was enjoying this. Now he is working through new information. Reading my mistake, arranging it beside whatever else he already knows, deciding how much of the picture has filled in.
My stomach turns.
“What do you know about me?” I ask.
His gaze holds mine. “Enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I know who you are, Maya Reeves.”
The sound of my full name in his voice makes the room colder. He feels the shift in me. Of course he does, this close, how could he not? My wrists are still in his hand, my body still trapped across his lap, every betrayal of pulse and muscle too close to hide.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he says. “Undercover.”
My mouth goes dry, and I feel the blood leave my face. He knows.
“You should look less surprised,” he says. “You weren’t as subtle as you think.”
“I was subtle enough to get on that stage.”
“Yes. And my buying you is the only reason you are alive right now.”
I go very still. “What does that mean?”
“I dislike cops.”
“Shocking.” Despite the perilous situation, I can’t contain my sarcasm.
“I dislike federal agents more,” he adds, his face flat, eyes suddenly cold.
I gulp again, stumbling over my next words, attempting to mask the sudden panic in my chest with more sarcasm. “I’ll try not to take that personally.”
“You should.” His thumb moves once over the inside of my wrist, directly where my pulse has lost every argument with self-control. “I considered putting a bullet in you on the service drive when we first arrived.”
“To be fair, I considered putting one in you first.”
“I know. That was one of the things I liked about you.”
There is something wrong with him. The thought comes to me as quickly as the re-calculation of his character does.
Not the kind of wrong that makes men rant or throw things.
His is quieter. Controlled. Built behind the eyes of a killer.
He looks at me as if knowing I am a threat has only made the next part of our interaction more interesting.
I should find that terrifying. Part of me does, actually, but another part finds it intriguing. And that is the problem.
“You could have left me for the FBI to pick up,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You could have killed me.”
“Yes.”
“But you brought me here instead.”
“You did ask me to bring you with me, Maya.”
That amusement has returned.
“Why? Why did you?”
His silence lasts half a second, then he smiles faintly. “You are useful.”
“Try again.”
His eyes darken. “Careful.”
I pull at my wrists again, more because I need to do something than because I expect freedom.
This time, though, he lets go. The sudden release almost throws me off balance.
I push off his lap and get to my feet, tightening the robe around myself with more dignity than I feel.
He remains seated, relaxed, one arm resting against the side of the chair as if having a furious federal agent dumped across his thighs is a normal part of his morning.
Maybe for him, it is.
The letter opener lies on the rug near his foot. He nudges it toward me with the toe of one polished shoe.
I stare at it. Then at him.
“Pick it up if it makes you feel better,” he says.
“You’re insane.”
“And?”
“You admit that very comfortably.”
“Denying obvious things is a waste of time.”
I don’t pick up the letter opener, not trusting getting that close to his foot. It feels like letting him win, but not getting kicked while I’m reaching for it is a win too. Though I am not entirely sure what game we are playing or how many times I have already lost.
I put distance between us instead, walking toward the desk, toward the files, toward anything that is not his lap and the fact that my body remembers the pressure of his hand at my waist. His gaze follows me. I feel it like another touch.
“Where are Erin and Heath?” I ask again.
“You will see them soon.”
“When?”
“When you agree to behave.”
That makes me turn on him. “Do not talk to me like I’m a dog.”
“I’m not.”
“You called me expensive ten seconds ago.”
“That was not about dogs.”
“No, that was about property.”
His expression doesn’t change, his eyes still holding that edge of amusement. “You were sold to me.”
The simplicity of it scrapes against my nerves.
“Do you even hear yourself when you talk?”
“Constantly.”
“Then how do you manage to act so obnoxiously flippant and unashamed?”
This time, he laughs. I hate how it makes his already handsome face even more attractive.
“Because shame is a waste,” he says.
“You should try it anyway. Personal growth, and all that.”
“I’ll add it to the list.”
“There’s a list?”
“Several.”
I stare at him, and he looks back, almost smiling, and for one dangerous second the room tilts away from hostage negotiation and toward something sharper, stranger.
He is enjoying me. Not my fear. Not even my anger.
Me. The pushback. The refusal. The fact that I keep stepping closer to the line because he keeps drawing one.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“With you?”
“No. With Leon.”
The humor leaves his face. Enough that I see the man beneath the charm. Colder. Older. The Don, who is feared by anyone with common sense or a desire to live.
“Leon O’Reilly has been sloppy,” he says with obvious ire.
“He runs auctions. Traffics women. Abuses children. Launders money. And your complaint is that he’s sloppy?”
“My complaint,” Stefano says, standing, “is that he brought all of that into my city and thought I would tolerate it.”
The room changes when he rises to his feet. He doesn’t rush, doesn’t threaten, he doesn’t even move toward me, but his height and the power that surrounds him dominate the space.
“The Irish are getting bold,” he continues. “Leon has been moving money through Miami shell companies for months. Using pieces of infrastructure he does not own, taking cuts he didn't earn, and sending men into rooms where they should have asked permission before breathing.”
“Permission from you.”
“Yes.”
“Well, at least you’re modest.”
Sarcasm again, anything to hide the way my pulse is racing, the way my breath has quickened.
He walks toward the desk. I don’t step back.
I do, however, move sideways to place the desk between us.
Self-preservation is not the enemy of pride after all, it’s the savior of it. His mouth curves in response.
“I was already moving against Leon before the auction,” he says. “The raid changed my timing. You changed my options.”
“I didn’t volunteer to be an option.”
“No. But you became one nonetheless.”
“Charming.”