Chapter 28
GIO
Hours later, and we’re stepping foot inside one of the top hotels in the city. A glimmering chandelier sparkles above us, the shiny black marble flooring dazzling as Red’s heels clack beside me.
Her tight jeans leave very little to the imagination, and her long-sleeved silky crimson blouse looks both professional and sexy as hell.
Every man turns to look at her, and I have every desire to gouge out their eyes for what their minds are surely doing to her body. Instinctively, I bring my arm around her, gritting my jaw at a man to her left who just looked at her ass.
“Did you have to wear jeans this tight?” I mutter close to her ear as we make it to the elevators.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I needed your permission on what I’m allowed to wear.”
“You sure as fuck do when every man has his eyes on your gorgeous ass,” I whisper. “I think you forgot who this ass…” I grab a handful. “…belongs to.”
“My, my, Gio…” She marches into the elevator after a group of people shuffle out. “Are you jealous?” She pushes on the twelfth floor.
My pulse hammers as I catch that teasing sparkle in her eyes. And as soon as the elevators close, I’m on her in a flash, pushing her up against the wall, my fingers curling around her throat, the other palm cupping her pussy.
She grins, her eyes heavy-lidded. “If I didn’t like being pinned to the wall by you so much, I’d have my knife at your throat already.”
I chuckle, my lips hovering above hers. “Promises, promises.”
My fingers climb to her waist and pop open the button of her jeans, my hand snaking inside, where she’s warm and already slick.
“Fuck,” she whispers on a groan. “What are you doing?”
“Reminding you who owns you.”
I rough two digits past her panties, flicking her wet and warm clit.
“Oh my God,” she rasps, her nails raking my back as the elevator dings past each floor.
I sink my fingers inside her, my lips dropping to her ear, sucking her lobe into my mouth.
“You can wear whatever you want, bambina, but it makes me murderous when another man looks at you like he wants to fuck you.”
“No one has fucked me since you,” she whimpers when I rub her with my thumb while sinking deeper into her cunt.
“I knew you were a good wife. I can’t wait to be inside you again.” My teeth graze her jaw, her pulse hammering beneath my fingertips.
“Stop calling me that,” she challenges even as her eyes roll back.
“You’re right. We haven’t even gone on a honeymoon yet.” My mouth trails down to her shoulder as I yank the blouse down to taste her skin. “I hear the Maldives are romantic.”
“Oh my God. Stop talking,” she cries on a breathy moan when I stroke her faster. “More… Please.”
The elevator dings one final time before the doors open.
She gasps, trying to stop me from touching her, but I keep her where she is, looking over my shoulder at a pair of elderly women in pearls and black knee-length peacoats.
“This one is occupied,” I growl.
Their eyes grow wide while I reach over and close the doors, then stop the elevator midflight. It jolts while her chest climbs with heavy inhales.
I tighten the clutch on her throat, stroking my lips with hers. “Please what, Red? Her Highness is going to have to beg for it.”
“Bastard,” she groans, attempting to ride my hand.
I slip my fingers out of her and pinch her clit, making her moan so damn loud, I’m sure those old ladies hear her.
“Please what?” I do it again, stroking her harder, and her mouth parts into a perfect O, a cry strangled in her throat.
“Please…fuck…” She throws her head back hard against the wall. “Please let me come!”
Two fingers ram inside her, my thumb back to swirling her clit.
“Oh God, Gio!”
“That’s right, you keep saying my name like that,” I growl.
Her walls quiver around me while I bring her to the edge and take her off of it, over and over until her hands tremble, until the words coming out of her make no sense at all.
“Yes, yes…that’s it,” she cries, closing her eyes.
“Look at me,” I demand. “I want you to know who’s touching you. Who’s making you feel this good.”
She obeys, staring into my eyes as I increase my tempo, working harder, faster, until—
“Yes, Gio!” she screams out, and a smirk curves over my mouth knowing I just made my little Red scream my name twice.
Slowly, she climbs down from the high and lets out a woosh of an exhale while she buttons her jeans back up. “I don’t know what that was, but you have my absolute permission to do that again.”
I chuckle, unlocking the elevator and hitting our floor again. “Pretty sure I never asked for your permission in the first place.”
“Asshole,” she mutters, but there’s a grin on her face that I put there.
The doors open, and I grab her hand in mine, strutting out together toward the room where Grant’s men are holding our witness. I knock once, and a guy dressed in a short-sleeved black tee and black pants opens the door.
“He’s inside.” He motions with his head, extending the door all the way to allow us access.
I let Red move in first, following right behind her, seeing another two men with their arms crossed. An older one, maybe in his sixties, sits at a glass table, eating a bowl of ice cream as though he’s never had any.
I greet the other men with a tilt of my chin, and it’s a good thing neither makes any attempt to check out my Red, or it’d be a pain to explain to Grant why I killed his guys.
“I hear you’ve seen something,” I tell the old man, dragging a chair for Red, which she takes, while I sink into my own beside her.
“Like I told your friend…” He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of a clean gray sweater, staining it brown. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be. It has been a long time.”
There’s a glint in his dark eyes, the wrinkles around them deepening. I bet he wants more money for talking. Grant was already paying him a fair sum.
“You know…” Iseult says, leaning toward him from across and picking up a fork from beside his bowl. She runs it across the table, slowly reaching the top of his hand. “There are always ways to convince someone to talk.”
A callous expression crosses her face, and that has his eyes growing large. He drops his spoon, backing up into the chair, fear clouding his wild gaze.
“I don’t want no trouble, ma’am. I was just trying to be a good Samaritan, offering to help when I saw those men questioning one of my friends about a murder. I was there. I saw things. Just don’t know if it’s what you folks be needing.”
His thick gray brows bunch into one another as he shakes from fear.
“Now, honey, is that how we treat friends?” I say, taking the fork from her.
She pivots toward me. “I suppose you have a better idea?” She tilts a single brow.
“In fact, I do.”
The corner of her mouth tips up just a little, and I suspect she doesn’t mind playing a little good cop, bad cop.
Removing my wallet from my pocket, I open it up and take out a wad of cash, full of hundred-dollar bills. I place them before the man, who keeps staring at the money with an unblinking look, his mouth practically salivating.
“What’s your name?” I ask him while he’s unable to peel his eyes off the cash.
“Uh…I…Walter.” He finally glances up.
“Well, Walter, being that you’re such a good Samaritan, helping me find my friend’s murderer, I say you deserve some more cash.”
“Yeah, I, um…think that’s fair.” His hand trembles toward the money, but before he can touch it, I drop my palm over it and shove it back to my side.
“First, you’re going to have to tell us in detail what you saw and heard.”
“Yeah, ’course.” He clears his throat. “So, as I said, it was late, and I was peeking out the window next to that club the young kids like to go to. I kinda like to see what’s going on, so when I heard people arguing, I peeked out from the window and saw a man—maybe like your height, pretty big dude—dragging a girl. ”
My pulse turns erratic; I can practically taste it. “Go on.”
“It was dark, so I couldn’t make out faces, but the girl was either dead or drugged or something?”
Red shifts uncomfortably. “Where was this?”
“You know that place called The Bang Room? Right next to it.”
“The Bang Room?” Her voice drops, the color draining from her face, but she quickly recovers, straightening her spine.
“What is it?” I ask, leaning in. “Do you know something?”
“Me?” Her face upturns with irritation. “How would I know something?”
“Never mind,” I say, unable to take my eyes off how uneasy she suddenly becomes.
“What else?” I ask Walter, who scratches his shaggy white beard.
“So, while he was dragging the girl, another one came screaming. She kept telling him to let the girl go, that she was going to call her father and that he didn’t want that.
The man laughed and said he worked for some powerful people and that no one could save her friend.
He told her to run before he took her too, but she wouldn’t leave. She was a tough one.”
“Fucking Christ,” I mutter, not understanding any of this.
What the hell was Bryce doing? And what people could he have been working for? We would’ve known. There’s no way he was keeping secrets from Grant and me. None of this is making sense.
“What else?” I ask. “Better be more if you want that money. And don’t lie to me. I want the truth.”
“No, sir.” He shakes his head. “I don’t lie.
” He nervously glances back at Red, who steels her gaze.
“Um…s-so the man dropped the girl on the ground and went right at the other girl, like he was going to hit her. She told him to back away, that she was gonna shoot him if he didn’t let them both go.
” He pinches his lips. “I have a daughter who’s probably in college right now, and it made me think of her, ya know? ”
He blinks back his emotions.
“Anyway, he laughed and said she probably didn’t even have a gun.
But then she reached into her purse and was pointing one at him.
I saw it clear as day. The guy seemed afraid, holding out his hands and moving back.
Told her to put it down before she got hurt.
” He pauses in between uneven inhales. “She told him to leave, but instead the idiot darted right at her, and when he did, she shot him. Just one bullet, and he was on the ground.”
I curl a fist against the table, my pulse banging in my ears. How can I believe Bryce was trying to kidnap a woman, but how can I deny that he was doing something shady?
“After he was shot, the woman put her gun back and ran toward her friend,” he goes on. “Dragged her against a brick wall by a large trash can. She sat there with her for a while until other people showed up.”
“What people?” I growl.
He takes a long pause, his gaze bouncing between Iseult and me. “Maybe fifteen minutes later, a man showed up. A scary man. The girl called him Devlin, I think.”
Red sucks in an audible breath, circling her index finger on the table. She’s either nervous or upset. I can’t tell yet.
“You definitely heard that name? Are you sure it wasn’t Donny?”
“Absolutely. Because I remember thinking I never met a Devlin before.”
“What did he look like?” I ask.
“His hair was kinda long for a guy, and his voice was cold when he told the girls to come with him, and he was tall like the dead guy was.”
Donny had long hair too. Definitely not a fucking coincidence.
“Did the women go with him?”
“Yeah. He took the girls with him. That’s all I know.”
I hand him the cash.
“May I go now?” he asks.
I look up to the men behind him and gesture with my head to take him out of here.
“Let’s go,” one tells him.
He quickly takes another two spoonfuls of his ice cream, finishing it all, before he gets up and scurries out of the hotel room.
Once he’s gone, I look over at Red, but her eyes are cast in the distance, as though she’s not even here anymore.
And I wonder why.
ISEULT
This is bad. So fucking bad.
“God damn it!” I slam a fist onto the wheel of my car, speeding back home.
As soon as I found out who Gio’s friend was, my body grew ice cold. I wanted to run. But I couldn’t. I had to sit there and pretend I wasn’t dying inside. Dying because the man I’ve been sleeping with is friends with the enemy.
I know exactly the kind of man Bryce was and what he wanted to do that night.
And now Gio will find out everything. It’s only a matter of time. He heard Devlin’s name. He’s going to piece it all together, and I can’t let that happen. He can’t find out.
When Gio was talking to Grant and mentioned a Bryce, I didn’t think it was that Bryce. But once I heard Walter describe what he saw and the name of the club, I knew. I tried to deny it at first, but I knew as soon as I heard that bastard’s name.
What are the chances?
Does Gio know what Bryce was into? Is he involved too? If he is, I can’t let Eriu marry him.
And you can’t let yourself continue to fall for him either.
Did I read him wrong? Did I develop feelings for a man who would do the kinds of things Bryce did?
No, I refuse to believe that. He can’t be. But then again, he is in the Mafia, and I know the kinds of things the Cosa Nostra have their hands in.
Finally getting home, I pull into my driveway, just sitting there—confused, pissed. How will I ever face Gio again and pretend everything is okay? I don’t do fake with the people in my life. If I’m angry, you sure as hell will know about it.
But this is different.
This isn’t just about me.
This is about all of us.