Chapter 13
ISLA
“No.” I shake my head adamantly, holding a purring Cid against my chest like he’s a shield and backing away from the six-foot-two wall of mobster muscle headed my way. “Uh-uh. No way. Absolutely not. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
I’ve just started to settle down after this morning’s adventure at the coffee shop, and now Alessio has returned, grim-faced and dead-eyed, telling me he’s taking me and Cid somewhere we’ll be “safe” and that I need to grab my shit.
For all I know, this is Mafia speak for he’s going to take me out to an abandoned warehouse, put a bullet in my brain, and bury me in a shallow, unmarked grave in the suburbs somewhere.
I have no intention of ending up on a Netflix cold case documentary, and I was already alarmingly close to becoming the star of one earlier today, thank you very much.
But Alessio follows me deeper into the penthouse, a lion stalking its prey. “It’s not negotiable.”
“Yes, it is. And I’m turning down your offer. Now, go back to racketeering and murder or whatever it is you Mafia crime lords do.” I wave a dismissive hand at him in emphasis, juggling Cid with one arm.
Cid takes exception to that and sinks in his claws.
“Et tu, Cid?” I grumble to him as I set him down on the floor, watching in dismay as blood beads up on the bare arm that was cradling him.
He wanders away to jump into a swath of sunlight on a nearby couch and curl up, no clue that we’re being threatened by the mobster who just invaded the penthouse. Oh, to be a cat. He’s living the good life and doesn’t even know it.
“Shakespeare,” Alessio quips smoothly, stopping before me. “Nice.”
I’m surprised he’s familiar with my play on the line from Julius Caesar. “I wouldn’t have expected you to recognize that.”
A half smirk tugs at his beautiful lips. “My high school English teacher made us memorize the entire Marc Antony speech.”
I cross my arms over my chest, wiping at the blood. “I bet you don’t remember a word of it.”
“You’re bleeding.” He frowns down at me and then stalks away.
I watch him go, nonplussed, and also annoyed that the scent of his cologne lingers.
It should be a crime for a man like him to smell and look so damn good.
I wish I didn’t look at him and instantly think about the night we spent together.
My ovaries are having zero chill, despite the fact that he stormed in here announcing he’s taking me to a mysterious location for a few days where I’ll be “safe.”
Safe, my ass.
Not with that man anywhere in the vicinity.
I blow out a breath and look at Cid, who’s eyeing me in that wise-cat way of his with seafoam eyes. He yawns, giving me a view of his sharp, pointy teeth and his pink tongue. If only I could be as calm and unaffected, nothing better to do than have a nap on a swanky piece of furniture.
Before I can contemplate how I’m going to get myself out of this mess, Alessio returns, carrying what looks like a first aid case. I’m not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. He opens it, extracting a small square that he tears open. The clinical scent of alcohol replaces his cologne.
“Hold out your arm,” he orders.
“Why? So you can break it?”
Yeah, I’m still thinking about what he did to Marco. The shock of the sick crunching of bone as it broke, the thwack of the mallet. The guilt over knowing it was my fault.
Alessio pins me with an icy glare and takes my wrist in a surprisingly gentle hold, unfolding my arm.
My body reacts to his touch because she’s a traitorous bitch and she’s still insanely attracted to him, even if my brain is way too smart for that shit.
The scores from Cid’s exceedingly sharp claws are dripping down my arm.
Maybe it’s all the adrenaline coursing through me. I’m bleeding like crazy.
“This is going to sting.” He mops it up with the alcohol pad, and he’s not wrong.
It burns. I bite my lip and don’t say anything, allowing him to play doctor with my arm. It won’t make up for what he did earlier to poor Marco. And it definitely won’t improve my opinion of Alessio or make me any more inclined to leave this penthouse with him.
He gets out a packet of antibacterial ointment next and dots it on my skin. “Want a bandage? Looks like you’re a bleeder.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Just think about all the mess you’ll have to clean up when you kill me. You’re going to need some heavy-duty tarps to catch it all. Otherwise, you’ll be one blue light away from being caught when the cops come looking for me.”
If the cops were to come looking for me, that is.
It’s not like my extended family would notice my absence from this world.
And with my parents and sister gone, I’m alone.
Except for Luna. She would miss me. And possibly Cid, but that one’s still up in the air, and besides, it’s not like he knows how to work a phone or speak in anything other than demanding meows.
“I’m not killing you,” Alessio says, his tone businesslike as he releases my arm. His ocean-blue eyes flick back up to mine. “‘O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.’”
It takes me a second to realize that he’s quoting part of Marc Antony’s soliloquy from Julius Caesar.
Something new to add to my list of unusual nerd kinks: a sexy mobster reciting William Shakespeare.
Because maybe it’s the intensity of his stare or the fact that he’s close enough to touch and dressed all in black like some kind of Mafia god, I don’t know, but my panties are completely soaked right now.
“‘Bear with me,’” I add, picking up where he left off. “‘My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it come back to me.’”
He gives me a slow clap. “You get an A, Miss Austen.”
Damn it, I could almost forget everything he is, everything he’s done. The gangster charm he turned on me that night in St. Thomas is back, and it’s pretty irresistible.
I clear my throat and rub the ointment into my arm, needing a distraction. “Thanks. You get an A for effort too, even though I don’t teach English Lit at the moment. I’m impressed you remember those lines after all these years.”
“Eh.” He shrugs. “I only liked high school English for one reason, and it didn’t have anything to do with Shakespeare. Miss Esposito was a babe.”
“Ew.” Thankfully, my ovaries choose to recall why this man is all wrong for me in every way and settle back down. I can think again. “Thanks for the first aid, but I’m sure you probably have better things to do than tend cat scratches. Feel free to go.”
“Pack up your things,” he orders me, like I didn’t just basically tell him to get lost.
“I already told you, I’m not packing up anything because I’m not going with you. I’m staying right here.”
“It’s not safe for you here,” he says like he’s reasoning with a small child who won’t let go of her favorite toy.
“I have guards. I’m in a building with its own security.”
“You don’t know Mikhail Sidorov like I do.” A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Now go and pack your fucking shit or I’ll pack it for you, and I have a feeling you won’t like that.”
He’s right. I definitely won’t like that. The last thing I want is for Alessio Andriani to be rooting through my bras and underwear and piling them into a suitcase.
“Who’s Mikhail Sidorov?” I ask instead of obeying his edict. “Is that the guy who was following me yesterday?”
“Yes.”
A chill goes down my spine. “What was he doing following me around the city? I’m just a creative writing professor who’s here temporarily to cat-sit.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t know anything more yet than what I’ve told you.”
Icy dread settles in my stomach. I really don’t like the sound of this.
“You know, if you had led with the whole Russian Mafia thing, I might have been more amenable to going wherever it is you want me to go.”
“The less you know, the better.”
I wince. “See, that doesn’t work for me.”
“It doesn’t matter what works for you. I’m my brother’s second-in-command, and it’s my job to make sure nothing happens to you. There’s no way he’d want you to stay here, knowing that Sidorov has been sniffing around.”
I bite my lip. “Maybe I should call Luna and run this by her.”
He raises a brow. “And ruin their honeymoon? Go for it. They’ll both be back here as soon as they can get the jet up and running.”
Damn it, he’s right. If I tell Luna, she’ll be here in a heartbeat. And that will defeat the purpose of my coming here in the first place. I can’t do that to her.
“Valid point,” I allow slowly, still thinking my way through the info dump he’s just thrown at me. “But where do you propose taking me that’s going to be so much safer than here? Won’t this Sidorov guy be able to find me anywhere I am in the city?”
Alessio cracks his knuckles. “We would take precautions, and we have multiple locations that aren’t common knowledge.”
“But I thought this penthouse was supposed to be a secret,” I point out, completely the opposite of reassured. “What about the whole no-Uber speech you gave me?”
He inclines his head. “It is supposed to be a secret. But obviously, word has gotten out. We expected it to, given Priest’s role as the head of the family businesses. But we didn’t think it would get out there so soon.”
“How would the other places be any different?”
“Jesus, what is this, Law & Order?” he snaps. “The place I’m taking you is a safe house. It’s an underground bunker, and it’s the absolute best spot for you to be right now.”
I’m shaking my head before he can even finish. “No. Sorry. Nope. You lost me at underground.”
“Too fucking bad.”
“I need windows,” I say, already starting to panic. “Cid needs windows. I mean, assuming you want to bring Cid, which, since he’s the whole reason I’m here, I’m sure that was the plan.”
“You don’t need windows. There are lights. Now pack your shit. We have to get out of here. I’m on a tight timetable.”