Chapter 9 #3
In the restaurant, he kissed me like he was starving. In the laundromat, in my living room, every other time we’ve been alone, his mouth has found mine like he couldn’t help himself.
But not last night. When I was vulnerable and crying in his arms, he held back.
Why?
And why does it bother me so much?
I glance at his hands. Large, tattooed hands, strong and graceful at the same time. I don’t know much about desire, but I know I enjoy feeling his hands on my body. Caressing me. Possessing me.
I risk a glance at Vincenzo. He’s eating, but his eyes keep drifting to me. Every time our gazes meet, heat flares inside me, and I look away.
The conversation between Sofia and Matteo flows on, easy and warm, punctuated by laughter. Gradually, the tension between Vincenzo and I eases into something more comfortable.
“You free tonight, doe?”
The question catches me off guard, and I look up in surprise.
“Why do you call her doe?” Sofia asks.
Vincenzo hesitates, his eyes caressing my face. “It reminds me of the first time I kissed her.”
Sofia beams at him. “You are sweet. She’s dear to you, like a deer?”
Vincenzo glances at me over the rim of the glass, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Something like that.”
We both know it’s short for Jane Doe and therefore not sweet at all, but it’s somehow become that way. Or maybe I just have a twisted sense of what’s romantic these days.
“So are you?” Vincenzo asks, and I realize I haven’t answered his question. “Free tonight.”
“Oh—yes. I’m free tonight. Why?”
“I want to take you out.”
Despite his casual tone, there’s sharpness in his expression, and I suspect that this isn’t an invitation to dinner and a movie. “Where?”
He glances at Matteo and then back to me, and there’s heavy significance in the look they exchange. “To a bare-knuckle fight in north Malus.”
“You’re shitting me,” Matteo says. “You want to take Adora Montoni to Dashamir Dervishi’s birthday party?”
Cold prickles along my spine. I’ve heard of this man.
Dashamir Dervishi is a cold and ruthless torturer and interrogator for his brother Aleksander, the krye, which is what the Albanians call the head of a mafia family.
Dashamir is infamous even in a brutal city like Malus.
He once used a chainsaw to dismember three Lucania soldiers.
Three living Lucania soldiers. Attempts by my father’s men, and presumably Barone, Lucania, and Vici soldiers, to throw the Dervishis out of Malus have been met with pitiless violence.
Sofia sits up, outrage writ large on her beautiful face. “Vincenzo!”
She must know about the chainsawing.
“The Dervishis don’t know Adora’s face. They barely know mine.”
Matteo levels a doubtful look at him. “Cuz. They know your face.”
“I’ve killed every Dervishi who’s ever got a good look at me, or doe for that matter.
” Vincenzo turns to me, and I feel the full weight of his attention.
“It will be dangerous, but I would never take you on a suicide mission. The Dervishis stole weapons from me. Expensive weapons that I promised to Rafiel Lucania, and I need to get them back before the Dervishis sell them or distribute them among their soldiers to use against us.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, understanding the urgency. “But what does that have to do with me?”
Vincenzo’s mouth curves slightly. “The Montonis might expect their women to stay home and look pretty, but the Vicis are different. My mother’s body count was twenty-three. Valentina was learning about explosives. Sofia here can throw knives with deadly accuracy.”
“I prefer to use them to chop garlic these days,” Sofia tells me when I turn to her in surprise.
“Malus is your home,” Vincenzo tells me. “Don’t you want to defend your home? I suspect my bride has a taste for danger and adventure.”
A few weeks ago, I would have said he was completely wrong, but that was before I saved a Vici assassin and stabbed a man to death. Maybe I do have a taste for danger. Or maybe danger just keeps finding me.
But the smile glimmering around his lips makes me certain there’s something he’s not telling me. “What’s the real reason you want me with you tonight?”
He smiles wider, showing his gleaming canines. “I speak no word of a lie, but I admit that I’ll have a better chance of getting close to my targets if I seem like any other Malus man taking his woman to a Friday night fight.”
“Targets?” I ask with a worried wrinkle of my brow, picturing Vincenzo holding an assault rifle and mowing down a crowd of people.
“You’re marrying an assassin, doe. Do you have a problem with killing?”
“I have a problem with killing innocent people.”
“Good,” he says curtly. “So do I.”
Relief rushes through me. I didn’t know how much I needed to hear those words.
He sits forward and looks deep into my eyes. “Let me reassure you that tonight isn’t about killing. It’s about intel, and I don’t plan on spilling any blood. Are you with me?”
“That’s enough.” Sofia throws her napkin down. “You will not take this sweet girl to a Dervishi brawl. I forbid it. Take your cousin.”
“It’s fine if I’m in danger?” Matteo grumbles. “Thanks, Ma.”
“You know how to defend yourself.”
While Sofia and Matteo argue, Vincenzo gazes steadily at me, not breaking eye contact.
My heart is pounding. Even if we’re going to quietly gather evidence, this is still insane. The Dervishis will kill us if we blow our cover. I should be terrified. The girl who couldn’t sleep without seeing Pietro’s blood would have refused immediately.
But that girl also thought she was weak and helpless. A victim who could only survive by obeying.
There’s a spark of excitement in my chest. For the first time in my life, someone is asking me to be brave instead of obedient. This is my chance to be useful instead of decorative. To stand beside Vincenzo instead of being protected like a porcelain doll Dad keeps locked away.
“I’ll do it.”
Vincenzo’s smile sharpens with pride. “That’s my girl.”
Those three words make pride bloom in my chest, fierce and bright.
Sofia stares from Vincenzo to me with worry filling her beautiful eyes. For several minutes, she argues with her nephew, trying to convince him that this is a mistake.
Finally, Vincenzo reaches out and covers her hand with his.
“I know you’re worried about me because of what happened to Dante and the rest of our family, but I’ve wasted enough time these past weeks.
If I don’t get these weapons back, they’re going to be used against us, and we’ll lose the Lucanias as allies as well. ”
“He’s right, Ma,” Matteo admits. “We need our don.”
Vincenzo’s eyes flicker to Matteo, and his jaw flexes as though the word don has caused him physical pain, but he doesn’t argue with his cousin.
Sofia sighs heavily and gives in. “All right. But if you’re going to do this, let me feed you properly first.” She pushes the breadbasket toward him. “Eat. You’ll need your strength.”
He takes the bread, a smile warming his lips and glowing in his eyes as he glances at me. I should be thinking ahead to all the things that could go wrong tonight, but instead Vincenzo calling me his girl is making me tingle all over.
As Vincenzo mops up the last of the sauce on his plate, he says to his aunt, “Doe knows how to handle herself, Zia. First time I met her, she brained me with a baseball bat.”
“Was that before or after you kissed her?” Matteo asks.
“After.”
Matteo grins. “Damn, you need to work on your technique.”
“It was a wonderful kiss.” My voice rings out over the table, louder than I intended and silencing the others. All three of them stare at me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that out loud. I tear up a piece of bread to cover my embarrassment, but can feel Vincenzo’s heated gaze on me.
After the meal, Matteo helps his mother clean up while Vincenzo tells me everything he knows about the Dervishis and describes bare-knuckle fights in Malus. I’m so entranced by our conversation—and honestly, his handsome face and deep voice—that I realize with a jolt how late it’s getting.
“I should go home and get changed.”
Vincenzo glances at the clock. “No time. We’re going to the fight early to watch the Dervishis arrive, so we’d better get ready.”
I look down at the blouse and skirt I put on for class and then back up at him. “I can’t go to a fight like this.”
Sofia smiles at me. “What you’re wearing is fine. Some big curls, a bright lipstick, some smoky eyeshadow, and you’ll be a different woman. Come with me.”
Sofia leads me upstairs. Her bedroom is warm and cluttered, with perfume bottles crowding the vanity alongside jewelry boxes and framed photographs. She sits me down in front of the mirror and gets to work.
“You have beautiful bone structure,” she says, tilting my chin to study my face. “We just need to bring out your inner Malus girl.” She winks at me.
“Aren’t I already a Malus girl? I was born and raised here.”
“You’ll see what I mean.”
She heats a curling iron and sections my hair, transforming my neat waves into tumbling, voluminous curls.
Then she attacks my face with brushes and pots of color.
Smoky gray shadow blended into the creases, black liner smudged along my lashes, bold red lipstick that makes me look older, harder, nothing like myself.
Sofia untucks my blouse, undoes several of the lower buttons, and then ties it high beneath my bust. Suddenly I have curves, cleavage, a body that demands attention.
The pleated skirt that was preppy this morning now looks provocative.
She loans me a pair of strappy stilettos and steps back, assessing her work.
“Perfect. You look like trouble.”
I barely recognize the woman in the vanity mirror. She’s the kind of person who would turn her rings around and start a knock-down, drag-out fight with someone who got too flirty with her boyfriend. I look like someone my father would disown. I feel different.
I feel powerful.