Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
PIETRO
Potholes and cracked asphalt punish the Maserati’s suspension. Beside me, Nora is silent. Her fingers tap a frantic, unconscious rhythm against her thigh.
"The manifests from last week." I break the silence, needing distraction from how her perfume fills the car. "What did you find?"
Her fingers stop their dance. "Discrepancies in the European shipments. Someone's either stealing or redirecting product."
"How much?"
"Three to five percent. Small enough to avoid immediate notice, large enough to matter over time."
Smart. Exactly the kind of slow bleed that could cripple operations if left unchecked.
We are heading there to have a closer look and I wanted Nora to be with me. She sees things I don’t and that’s what makes her so fucking important right now.
The shipping office rises ahead. A concrete block of functionality squatting at the water's edge. No architectural pretense here, just steel and concrete built to withstand Chicago winters and mob business alike. I park beside the loading dock where Fabio’s crew should be working. Should be, but the space sits empty.
The air is still. Too still. The usual clang of containers and shouts of the crew are gone. A knot tightens in my gut. This is wrong.
"Stay close." My hand finds the Glock beneath my jacket, the weight familiar as breathing.
Nora is already moving, her stride matching mine. No questions, no hesitation. Her eyes are on my shoulders, reading the coiled tension there, and she adapts without a word. The woman is a survivor.
The office door stands ajar. That never happens. Fabio runs security tighter than Fort Knox.
I push it open with my foot, gun drawn but low. The space beyond is exactly as it should be. Metal desks, filing cabinets, the smell of burnt coffee and cigarettes. Fabio's jacket hangs on his chair. His coffee mug steams on the desk.
"Where is everyone?" Nora's voice stays steady, but I catch the slight rise in pitch.
"Good question."
The manifests she needs spread across the main desk. Exactly where I asked Fabio to leave them. Too convenient. Too perfect.
Glass explodes.
My body moves before thought, tackling Nora behind the heavy metal desk as windows shatter in sequence. Bullets punch through where we stood a heartbeat ago, tearing chunks from the wall.
She's beneath me, my weight pressing her into the floor. Her heart is fast, a frantic beat I feel through my own chest. There’s no panic in her eyes. They’re wide, pupils blown, but they’re tracking the room, assessing the broken windows, the angles. Calculating.
"How many?" Her breath warms my jaw.
I count muzzle flashes through the destroyed window. "Four. Maybe five."
"Your men?"
"Dead or gone." The words taste like ash. Fabio wouldn't abandon his post. Which means—
More glass shatters. They're moving, trying to flank us.
I rise enough to return fire, three controlled shots that send our attackers scrambling for cover. The dock provides too many hiding spots—shipping containers, equipment, vehicles.
Movement in my peripheral snaps my attention to the left. Nora's reaching for something.
"Don't—"
She's already grabbed the security guard's weapon from beside the overturned chair. The Beretta looks massive in her hands, but she checks the magazine.
"I'm not hiding while you get shot." She chambers a round.
Another burst of gunfire drives us lower. They're getting bolder, pressing the advantage of numbers.
"On three, we move for the door." I eject the spent magazine, slam a fresh one home. "Stay low, stay behind me."
"Like hell."
Before I can argue, she’s up. The Beretta barks in her hands, her shots making the attackers dive for cover. Her aim is raw, but it’s enough. It gives us the second we need.
We move.
Out the door, into the maze of shipping containers. My hand finds her wrist, pulling her behind a forklift as bullets spark off metal. Her breathing stays controlled, measured. No hyperventilating, no freezing up.
Who the fuck is this woman?
"Car's thirty yards." I gesture toward the SUV. "Wide open ground."
"They'll cut us down."
She's right. The attackers have positioned themselves perfectly, covering our escape route. Professional enough to plan this, amateur enough to give us warning shots first.
"Trust me." The words slip out before I can stop them.
Her green eyes lock on mine. One heartbeat. Two. Then she nods.
I pull a smoke grenade from my jacket—old habit, keeping one handy. The canister arcs through the air, billowing gray clouds across the dock. Irish accents echo. Perfect.
"Now."
We run.
Bullets crack past, blind fire through smoke. Nora matches my stride, the Beretta steady in her grip. Twenty yards. Ten. Five.
The passenger door takes three hits as I shove her inside, glass crazing but holding—bulletproof, worth every penny. I slide across the hood, action-movie style that would be ridiculous if we weren't taking fire, and dive behind the wheel.
The engine roars to life. Tires scream as we tear away from the dock, more bullets pinging off the reinforced body. In the mirror, I count four figures emerging from the smoke. All watching us go. No pursuit.
They wanted to scare, not kill. Message delivered.
The speedometer climbs past sixty, seventy, weaving through industrial traffic. Beside me, Nora sets the Beretta on the floor with careful precision, then presses both palms flat against her thighs.
They're shaking.
"You did good." The words come out rougher than intended.
"I had a good teacher." There's something brittle in her voice, an adrenaline crash hitting hard.
We're five miles from the dock when I finally ease off the accelerator, merging into normal traffic. The silence between us thrums with electricity, charged particles seeking ground.
"Pietro."
I glance over. She's looking at me with those impossible green eyes, hair wild from our escape, cheeks flushed with fading danger. Beautiful. Alive. Here.
A tremor starts in my hands, a delayed shock from the adrenaline.
My breath catches, a ragged edge I can’t control.
It’s not the bullets. It’s the image of her, lifeless on that dusty floor.
The thought is a shard of ice in my gut.
I could have lost her. The realization is more devastating than any bullet.
When did she become something I could lose? When did my secretary become essential as breathing?
"Pull over." Her voice cuts through my spiral.
"What?"
"You're shaking. Pull over."
I am. Fuck. My hands tremble against the wheel, delayed reaction hitting like a sledgehammer. I guide the SUV into an empty lot behind a warehouse, killing the engine.
The silence stretches between us, elastic and dangerous.
"You saved my life." She turns in her seat, facing me fully. "Again."
"It's my job since I put you in here."
"No." Her hand touches my arm, electric even through fabric. "I chose it either way."
Her touch is a spark on a fuse. Years of control, of maintaining distance from any woman, just fucking around…it all detonates. The walls I built turn to dust. When I can still feel her heart racing against mine. When the ghost of her body beneath mine burns through my clothes.
"Nora." Her name is warning and plea combined.
She doesn't pull away. Her fingers curl into my sleeve, anchoring us both.
"I thought—" Her voice cracks slightly. "When the shooting started, I thought we were going to die."
"I wouldn't let that happen."
"I know." She slides closer, the console between us an inconvenient barrier. "That's what terrifies me."
The last thread of control snaps.
I haul her against me, one hand tangling in her hair, the other branding her back. There’s no gentleness. My mouth crashes onto hers in a collision of desperation and hunger. This isn’t a kiss; it’s a claim.
She gasps then she's kissing me back with equal fire. Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer, eliminating any space between us. She tastes like coffee, like every bad decision I've ever wanted to make.
My tongue traces the seam of her lips and she opens for me, the kiss deepening into something that rewrites my understanding of want. This isn't the practiced seduction I know, the calculated moves that get women into my bed. This is raw need, stripped of pretense.
Her teeth catch my lower lip and I growl into her mouth, the sound more animal than man. My hand tightens in her hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss. She arches into me, soft curves pressing against hard planes, and my brain shorts out entirely.
This is what addiction feels like. One taste and I'm gone, craving more before we've even stopped. Every kiss I've had before this feels like rehearsal, preparation for the real thing.
For her.
Reality crashes back when she shoves against my chest, breaking the kiss with a gasp.
We stare at each other, both breathing hard. Her lips are swollen, hair wild where my fingers tangled it. She looks wrecked. I probably look worse.
Her voice shakes, but her eyes are like green glass. "Don't," she breathes against my swollen lips.
The words land like ice water. "Nora—"
"No." She slides back to her seat, rebuilding distance.
The rejection stings more than it should.
I start the engine without responding, pulling back into traffic with careful precision. The drive to the compound passes in charged silence, both of us processing what just exploded between us.
When we reach the gates, she speaks again. "I should go to my apartment."
"No."
"Pietro—"
"They might know where you live. You're staying at the compound until we figure out our next move."
She doesn't argue further. I park in the garage, the automatic lights harsh after growing darkness. She's out before I can open her door, already walking toward the house.
"Nora."
She pauses but doesn't turn.
"This isn't over."
Her shoulders tighten. Then she's gone, disappearing into the house without looking back.
The whiskey burns but doesn't help. Neither does the second glass. Or the third.
I sit in my study, replaying every second of that kiss. The way she responded, giving as good as she got. The fire in her that matched mine. The perfect way she fit against me, like she was made for my hands.
Dangerous thinking. Catastrophic thinking.
Pablo died because I was distracted. Because I chose family dinner over watching his back. I can't afford another distraction, another weakness for enemies to exploit.
But Christ, the way she looked at me. Not with fear or calculation like every other woman in my orbit. With heat and challenge and something else, something that might have been recognition. Like she saw through all my bullshit to whatever's left underneath.
A knock interrupts my spiral. "Come in."
Vittoria enters, already in pajamas, looking younger than her twenty-three years. "You missed dinner again."
"Wasn't hungry."
She sits across from me, pulling her legs up under her. "Giulia says Nora's here again. In the guest room."
"She stays. She needs protection."
"Is that all she needs?"
I pour another drink instead of answering.
"Pietro." My sister's voice goes gentle. "It's okay to want something for yourself."
"Is it? Last time I wanted something for myself, Pablo died."
"That wasn't your fault."
"Wasn't it?"
She stands, moves around the desk to hug me from behind. "You can't live your whole life punishing yourself for one night."
But I can. I have. I will.
After she leaves, I sit in darkness, nursing whiskey and bad decisions. The compound is quiet, everyone settled for the night. Safe behind walls and guards and bulletproof glass.
Everyone except me.
Because the real danger isn't outside the walls. It's down the hall, probably lying awake like I am, probably replaying that kiss like I am.
Probably wondering what happens next.