Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DANTE
I t was evident by the third cake set before Alyssa and myself that the two girls who painstakingly planned this tasting not only knew whose wedding they were making a cake for but also thought that Alyssa and I were Brynne and Slate. Alyssa hasn’t had the heart to tell them, even though I’m sure she’s picked up on it too.
“Mr. Ricci, this is the lemon cake with the berry filling,” Sophie says.
At least for poor Sophie, I am a Ricci.
I shove the small cake topper toward Alyssa.
She digs her fork into the cake, breaking up the yellow frosting with purple flowers adorning it.
“Holy shit, that’s good.” Her moan afterward sells me on the matter, and I lift my fork and follow suit.
All the cakes have been delicious. Half of me thinks Slate and Brynne sent us here as a setup. There’s no possible way someone could only choose one.
Alyssa’s moans with each bite of cake aren’t helping the way my dick keeps filling with blood. It was bad enough I walked in here hard as stone from the moment we shared in the car. It seems my little menace has a thing for flashy cars.
Funny, so do I.
“Since that’s the last one, we’ll give you some privacy to decide which one you’d like to feature at your wedding.”
Alyssa chokes on the water she’s been drinking. I reach over and pat her on the back.
I grin at Sophie and her partner. “Thanks.”
When the two women move toward the back of the bakery, I turn in my chair as Alyssa wipes tears off her face from her coughing fit.
“You good?” I ask her.
“We need to tell them we’re here on Brynne’s behalf. It feels wrong to make them uncomfortable when you’re not Slate.”
I pucker my brows. “What does that mean?”
She takes another sip of water, waving her hand toward where the shop owners had made their hasty exit. “Clearly, they think you’re the Grim Reaper , and that’s what has them so fucking spooked. If they knew you were harmless, they’d calm down.”
I lean towards her. She’s sitting beside me in her own beautifully carved wooden chair. She shifts in her seat, setting her water down without looking.
“Darling, I’m not harmless. They should be afraid. Things go bump in the night in the city after dark, and I’m one of those things.”
She keeps her face neutral, but she can’t hide how her breathing hitches, and I eat up the reaction like the starving, sadistic man that I am.
“Well, I...” She clears her throat. “We need to choose a cake.”
She redirects our attention by turning back to the table and tinkering with the cakes spread out for selection.
“Now, that, I can’t help you with. I don’t know how the hell anyone could choose just one.”
She grins and looks down at her phone, typing something with the quickest thumbs I’ve ever seen before shooting the message off into cyberspace.
“Well, lucky for you, I’ve been texting Brynne this entire time. I think we have a handle on it.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “But she didn’t taste any of them.”
Alyssa sits straight in her chair, full breasts perking up at the shift. “Well, I have impeccable taste, and she trusts me.”
I think of how wet she’d been in my car, her creamy skin like ivory against the cherry-red leather seats. Tossing my arm over the back of her chair, I inch closer to her, my lips skimming the shell of her ear. “You, my dearest menace, have the best taste.”
She closes her eyes, trying to gain control of herself, when the doors in the back of the shop open, and the two bakers filter back in.
“Well, have we made our choice?” Sophie chirps, hiding her disdain for working for the Ricci family beneath her desperate need to stay afloat in this economy.
“We have. The missus will give you our choice,” I tell her, sitting back in my chair and stretching.
Sophie’s eyes go wide, even as she looks me up and down like a big piece of candy.
Usually, the interaction would make me happy. Even though I haven’t had many interactions with the opposite sex in the last few years, I do enjoy flirting now and again, and I’m good at it.
Now, however, it feels wrong to have another’s eyes on me.
Alyssa doesn’t give any tell she’s perturbed in the slightest.
“We’re going to go with the white cake with raspberry filling,” she tells them, gathering her phone and shoving it into her bag as she stands, kicking back her chair across the floor.
“Oh, timeless. I like that. Solid choice, and the design will still be the one you emailed me, then?” Sophie asks, rushing behind the desk to enter the information in her MacBook.
“Yes, it will be.”
Alyssa heads for the door as the second woman, who never gave us her name, eyeballs the fuck out of me.
I stand and replace the chairs under the table, giving her a curt smirk before following behind Alyssa to the desk.
“Here’s the total, and we’ll be in touch throughout the process. If anything changes, just let me know via phone or email. I’ve included my business contact info and my personal cellphone number,” Sophie tells Alyssa.
“Thank you. And thank you for doing this so late and getting us in at the last minute,” Alyssa adds.
“Of course, anything for you guys.”
It’s more like she’s happy to stay on the good side of the Reaper.
Once outside, I open the door for Alyssa to get in the car, noticing the shift in her mood before I shut it. I get in, turn the engine over, and let silence roar between us. I know she’ll tell me what’s got her riled if she wants to. I don’t want to poke the bear if I don’t need to.
“Did you see how that other girl was eye-fucking you? Jesus, I was about to batter her over the head with my bag.”
I hold back my snicker as I pull away from the curb. “You’d have done some damage with that fucking thing, too.”
She eyes me narrowly, but I keep my eyes away from her gaze.
“You ate it up.”
I shrug. “Can’t help my good looks.”
She scoffs, falling silent for a beat.
“Darling, are you jealous?” I ask her, sneaking a look to watch her reaction.
There’s denial, anger, and realization before she locks her face down into a stoic gaze and turns toward me in her seat. The leather buckles and creaks beneath her.
“Are you kidding me?” she asks.
“You seem a bit too bothered about it, is all. If we’re nothing, you and me...”
“We are nothing,” she says, cutting me off.
My chest aches as I flick my eyes to the rearview, a habit I’ve had since the day I was made.
“Well, why are you worried if that girl wanted me? Did I want her back?”
“Well, I didn’t say...”
“Did I flirt back or even look at her for more than two seconds at a time?”
She’s silent, crossing her arms over her chest.
I eyeball a space on the street and yank the wheel, sliding the car into the spot and throwing it into park. “Look at me.”
She keeps her eyes trained away from me.
“Tesoro, you know what happens when you misbehave? Look at me.”
She sighs, and I feel it in my bones, but she finally drops her arms and turns her face toward me.
“I walked into that store with you on my arm, a stiff cock that wanted nothing more than to fuck you while the entire city watched, and fingers that smelled like you. I don’t want anyone but you.”
Even though she’s playing this game with herself, telling herself she doesn’t want me and that we’re nothing more than sex, I know that she needs reassurance. Fuck if I’m going to deny her that, either. I don’t need her spiraling about stupid shit.
Not when I’m trying to weasel my way into her good graces.
“It’s okay if you do. You’re not mine,” she answers.
When she turns back, however, her demeanor changes from rigid to relaxed again, and I know I’ve made the right move.
I nod, pulling away from the street again and heading home.
It’s not long before I realize we’re being followed. I reroute us and shoot a quick text to Slate for further instructions.
“Where are we going? We passed the apartment.”
Of all the times she’s paying accute attention.
I open my mouth to answer, but Slate calls.
I pick it up on my phone instead of using Bluetooth. “Boss.”
“How many cars?” he says, forgoing pleasantries.
“One. They’ve been on us since the cake shop.”
Now, Alyssa is turning in her seat and looking backward.
Too smart for her fucking good.
“I want you to lead them to the warehouse. You know the one. Marco and the crew are working late in the area. I’ll have them intercept.”
“Got it, Boss. You want them alive?”
“Yeah. We need to figure out who that guard was tied to.”
“I’ll contact you after.”
“Keep her safe, Dante. She’s Brynne’s best friend.”
I glance over my hand at Alyssa, who now has worry plastered on the beautiful blue oceans of her eyes. “I’ve got her.”
I shove my phone in the cupholder before reaching up and angling the rearview for a better vantage point.
“What’s going on?” Her voice is shaky. Fuck, I hate that her voice is shaky.
“We’re being tailed.”
“I got that much,” she replies dryly.
I sigh. “I dealt with a situation at the docks for Slate. Even though we own it, someone’s making a move, likely because of the power shift. Someone thinks we’re weak. A guard was left behind, and I apprehended and pressed him a bit.”
“Hence why you were covered in blood.”
I nod. “He wouldn’t give me shit. Died of his wounds before I could get anything out of him.”
“Is it one of the other families?” she asks.
I shrug. “We don’t know.”
“How are we going to lose them?” she asks, shifting in her chair to look in the side mirror at the lone car trailing us through the meat-packing district.
“We’re not. We’re going to lead them into an ambush. Listen, I need you to stay low, and keep out of sight. I don’t know how many people are in that SUV. I don’t need you getting clipped by a stray bullet; Brynne would lose her mind.”
I would lose my mind.
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a Glock 9, lays it on her leg, and lets her bag slide down to the floor.
Fuck, why is that so hot?!
“Where the hell did you get that?” I ask her, feeling overprotective.
Now is not the time for this argument, but I carry on.
“Brynne got it for me. Isn’t it cute? It has my initials on it.” She flips it over and runs her finger over it. Her red stiletto nail looks sinful against the black metal of the gun, and I shift to get my body to calm the fuck down before I do something stupid.
Like pull over, take on all these fuckers on my own so that I can bend her over the hood of my car while she presses that gun to my temple.
“Do you know how to shoot it?” I ask her.
Her face falls into a sultry look that makes my veins thrum. “I know a lot of things, Dante.”
Fucking hell.
“Well, just be careful, will you?”
She nods frantically.
“Take your seatbelt off, tesoro. We’re nearly there. I will spin us around, and I want you to get out of the car and get to the rear. You got me?”
“I got you,” she says, and it makes my fucking spine tingle.
Their headlights are off ahead of me, but I can see the moonlight shimmering off the pinstripe on Marco’s hood. Four vehicles, two on either side of where I lead my tagalong. I gas it, driving through the middle of them before I rip the wheel and pop the e-brake, doing a complete 180 as I fling my door open and slide out of the car, pulling my gun over the door at the same time the other men begin firing.
The SUV has stopped, and men are jumping out and returning fire.
“He wants at least one alive!” I shout to Marco.
I took a quick look and saw that Alyssa had followed instructions. She was out of the car and pressed up against the rear bumper.
Once the smoke clears, Marco and I move forward to assess the damage. All the men are down, and only one is breathing.
“Get the doc. Keep him alive.”
Marco nods. “I’ll handle it.”
“Let me know when he’s conscious.”
I make my way back to the car, growing worried about Alyssa with all the gunfire. I find her drawn into herself, hands pressed firmly to her ears, tears sliding down her face as her body quakes in fear.
I crouch. “Fuck, tesoro. Come here.”
Sliding to the ground, I tug her into my lap, holding her tightly.
She drops her gun as she lets me hold her. “You’re alright,” she says.
“I’m alright.”
She presses her face into my neck, her tears sinking into my skin as a reminder of how different her world is from mine.
Even though I want her more than anything, the truth is staring me right in the face in the form of her fear.
This life already killed one woman I loved; how can I pull another one in if that could be the outcome again?