Chapter 6
CRISTIAN
“Mr. Vitale.”
A soft knock alerts me to Sienna’s presence as she enters my private suite at the club. She’s carrying the things I requested, but her face drops as soon as she notices Chantel resting on the lounge.
“You can set the tray on the table,” I tell her.
She follows my directive and tries to make a quick escape, which is ironic, considering she’s never missed an opportunity to hover.
“Sienna.”
“Yes?” Her spine straightens.
“What part of tell me if she leaves the first floor did you not understand?”
“I…I’m sorry, Mr. Vitale. I didn’t notice.”
“You didn’t notice she was gone for an hour when your only job this evening was to provide service to her and her friends?”
She opens her mouth to say something, but Chantel stirs with a groan, peeking up at her groggily.
“Oh, God,” she mumbles. “Am I dreaming, or did you come to finish me off?”
Sienna doesn’t answer her.
I gesture for Sienna to follow me into the hall and close the door behind us.
“Do you remember what I asked you to do at the beginning of the night?”
“Yes.” She shifts, avoiding my gaze. “You wanted me to look after your…friends.”
The way she emphasizes that word betrays her unwarranted feelings toward the women who arrived with me tonight. Her jealousy has no basis in reality, considering I’ve only ever been professional toward her. But it tells me everything I need to know about the situation.
“And what else?” I ask her.
She considers it for a moment before admitting she does remember. “I was supposed to let you know if Marco showed up so you could speak to him. But Mr. Vitale, I swear, I was going to tell you. It’s just that one of the customers started talking to me, and I got distracted—”
“And your failure to do what I asked put someone in harm’s way,” I cut her off.
“I’m sorry.” She dips her head, but the words ring hollow.
“If I can’t trust you to follow simple instructions, there’s no place for you here. Get your things and leave.”
“Mr. Vitale—”
“The manager will mail your final check.”
I leave her standing there slack-jawed as I slip back into the suite and shut the door behind me.
Chantel lifts her bleary gaze to mine. “I don’t think Sienna likes me very much.”
“It would appear that way.”
“But she reaaally likes you,” she drawls, offering me a lazy smile.
I ignore that remark as I take off my jacket and loosen my tie, trying to defuse some of the restless energy coursing through my veins. Chantel watches as I roll up my sleeves, letting out a little sigh as her gaze lingers on my forearms.
“Here we go again,” she mutters.
“What?”
“You.” She gestures at me vaguely. “Out here showing those off like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”
“And what am I doing, Chantel?” My voice dips.
“You’re being obscene,” she says, as though it should be obvious.
I scrape a hand over my jaw to hide my amusement. “You’re drunk.”
Her lowered inhibitions and resulting commentary dissolve some of the tension from tonight, but it won’t last long. Now that she’s awake, I have to take inventory of the damages.
“I need to check your injuries,” I tell her.
For once, she doesn’t argue, so I approach her and tip her chin up to examine her.
As my gaze drifts over the familiar landscape of her features, something unwelcome sparks inside me.
She’s used to men staring. It’s a problematic side effect of being the most beautiful woman in every room.
I’d like to say I’m immune, but I have a functioning pair of eyes, and to my displeasure, I’ve discovered that telling myself I have an aversion to her isn’t as easy as actually developing one.
“Can’t really blame Sienna,” she murmurs as she studies me in return. “You’re too handsome for your own good.”
“That’s a problem for you, is it?”
My thumb grazes her jaw without any real purpose, but she’s too distracted by her own thoughts as she rambles on.
“It’s actually quite annoying. Not to mention, it’s a problem for the female species in general. You’re exactly the kind of trouble we need to avoid.”
“What kind of trouble is that?”
“You only have transactional relationships, you own a nightclub where you’re constantly surrounded by temptation, and you’re criminally hot.”
“Handsome and criminally hot. Tell me how you really feel.”
“It bears repeating,” she says. “But I’m sure you already know that.”
“Not everything you hear about me is true.”
She looks at me like she wants to question that before she decides better of it.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re dangerous.”
“Hmm.” I drag my fingers over the red marks on her cheek, and she shivers. “And what about Mariella? Or my brothers? Are they dangerous too?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
She averts her gaze, effectively ending that conversation before she blurts out anything else she’d rather not admit.
It goes without saying Chantel isn’t afraid of the Mafia.
She spends enough time with my sister for me to know she’s disturbingly comfortable around violence and chaos, which only leaves more questions about her background. It’s a mystery I have yet to solve.
I feel my way down her neck, bloodlust seeping through my veins as I examine the bruises on her skin. I almost killed Marco earlier. Now I wish I had. If it weren’t for Angelo, I doubt I would have stopped myself.
It’s rare that I lose control, and I make a general rule to avoid anything that unleashes those emotions in me. But some things defy logic.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Only my pride. I should have seen the warning signs. I knew he was spinning out of control, I just never thought he’d actually want to hurt me.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
If anything, I should have seen it.
Marco has been self-destructing since his father pulled the plug on his free and easy lifestyle.
The pressure of carrying on his family’s legacy crushed his hubris, and his failures have been catastrophic.
He’s lost several of their biggest clients, fucked up deals that were practically handed to him, and made a mockery of himself.
Over the past few weeks alone, his mistakes have cost the company and their clients millions of dollars, not to mention the reputational damage.
Marco sunk cash into risky ventures, rushed deals without due diligence, and refused to cut losses when he should have.
Now his father is left to weather the fallout.
On the surface, Marco is naturally charismatic, but he’s also a chameleon.
He can charm a room and talk a good game, selling a different version of himself to every person he meets.
With me, he presented himself as loyal and fearless.
But beneath the mask, his loyalty is actually entitlement, and his fearlessness is performative.
He’s empty inside, and people don’t often realize that until it’s too late. But even so, there are some lines I thought he’d never cross.
Tonight, he proved me wrong.
“You knew he was cheating, didn’t you?” Chantel asks.
“I told him he needed to come clean.”
“Why?” She frowns. “Doesn’t that go against your bro code or whatever?”
“I don’t cover for liars and cheats.” My gaze drifts to the marks on her arms. “Or men who hurt women.”
She’s quiet as I check the back of her head for swelling.
“Any pain here?”
“No.” Her voice softens.
Tonight, there’s a vulnerability in her she doesn’t often show. But the moment she realizes I’ve noticed it, she disengages and leans back, reverting to the familiarity of her armor.
“I didn’t love him.” She glances down and smooths her fingers over her dress. “So you shouldn’t feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t.”
She doesn’t miss the edge in my tone, and I can feel her studying me as I retrieve her weapon from the table.
The fixed-blade push dagger isn’t an accessory.
It’s double-edged with a skeletonized handle designed for a low profile.
Against my better judgment, my curiosity won’t be sated until I know exactly where she carries it.
“Where does this belong?”
She drags the hem of her dress up with one finger, revealing a garter-style holster. My eyes trace over the black leather bands curving around her thigh, and something hot pulses through my veins.
The sight triggers my most primal instincts, two of which are currently at war. The realization that someone made her feel this unsafe fills me with a thirst for violence. But it also has the unfortunate effect of stirring a hunger I’ve tried in vain to repress.
I secure the blade back in its sheath, careful not to let my fingers touch her skin.
As I remove the dome from the tray and slide the table in front of her, an uncomfortable feeling lingers in my chest.
“Eat.”
“Why are you always telling me what to do?” She appraises me.
“Why are you always doing what I tell you?”
The faintest hint of a flush crawls down her throat before she turns her attention to the plate, her brows creasing in confusion.
“Strawberry waffles? Do you really have those on the menu here?”
I avoid that landmine by retrieving my phone and texting Angelo. A minute later, there’s a knock at the door, and I leave Chantel to eat while I join him in the corridor.
“We’re in business,” he says. “Henri has agreed to work with us.”
I nod, but something feels off, and Angelo seems to agree.
“It was suspiciously easy,” he says.
“Ares is definitely up to something,” I mutter. “There’s no way he’s not keeping tabs on Henri while he’s in Seattle. He wouldn’t let him walk in here tonight if he didn’t have a plan.”
“My guess is he’s making moves on the port itself,” Angelo says. “If he doesn’t get control over the distribution networks, it won’t matter when he can effectively eliminate us doing business there. We need to get Bastien onboard.”
Tension crawls up the base of my spine as I consider the fallout if this doesn’t go to plan.