Chapter 16
Leonardo
New York bleeds into May. The Rosetti mansion is wired tight, nothing and no one in or out without Dom’s say-so. It’s not enough to calm the rage knifing through me. Not with the Albanian shipment closing in, with the threat they’ll see us coming.
The Albanian shipment comes in two days.
A shipment Richard Price wants more than air to breathe.
A shipment big enough to turn Eleanor's father to our competition instead of us, which is why we're going to steal it.
Price doesn't give a shit about family, and blood means nothing when there's business to be done.
He'd slit his own daughter's throat for a gem that caught his eye. He’s already done the next worst thing: traded her to me.
I pick up the phone to squeeze our guy on the dock. Before I get a word out, his panic boils over. “They’re onto us,” he stammers. “The Albanians. They’re planning an attack.”
The phone slips in my grip, but I catch it. Rafe said we’re ready to hijack the shipment when it hits the docks. So why the fuck is my informant on the line right now, telling me it's all about to unravel? I can barely keep the doubt out of my voice. "Are you sure?"
"Positive," the man says, out of breath. I can hear waves and creaking metal in the background. “They’re doubling their men. And, boss, there’s something else.”
“Spit it out.” I don’t have time for histrionics, I just want to know the facts so I can act on them.
“They heard about your marriage,” he says, and dread pools in my gut. “Word is your wife’s your new weakness. They say she’s a way in.”
The air leaves my lungs like I've been punched. The Albanians finally got something right. They’re onto us. Onto me. Onto Eleanor. “Let them fucking try,” I growl and hang up. They won’t touch her. I’ll kill them first.
I throw the phone onto the couch and it bounces to the floor, a plastic explosion.
Eleanor is somewhere in this giant glass box we call a house, probably with her ice-blue eyes ready to skewer me when I tell her she’s locked up even tighter now.
My fists ache to hit something. I crack my knuckles instead and grab the first thing my fingers find—a long-necked vase from some dynasty or other worth more than a man’s life.
With one easy throw, it’s in pieces, shattering across the marble. My hands shake. Nobody fucks with my wife.
“Dom!” I yell, hearing my voice echo through the house. “Domenico, where the hell are you?”
A door opens, then shuts. Dom is in the study, hunched over a phone of his own. Always in the same damn brand of suit, like he was born in it. Calm as ever. Even his green eyes are flat-lined when he looks at me.
“What?” he asks, not bothering with pleasantries.
“We need to double security. We need to be fucking ready.” I’m surprised the words make it out whole. They feel jagged in my mouth.
Dom stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“And since when is that a reason?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Just do it. The Albanians know we're planning to take their case of rubies, and they’re talking about using Eleanor as leverage.”
“They don’t know the location of the mansion. Nobody does.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I hear how weak I sound, grasping at straws.
“They’ll find us.” Dom’s silence is more accusing than anything he could say.
But if I can’t protect Eleanor, nothing to do with the Albanians or the fucking rubies will matter.
Not to me. “Please, Dom.” It almost fucking kills me to say it. “Please.”
He doesn’t nod or smile or say a word, but I know he’ll do it. And I know what he’s thinking, too: that she’s really done a number on me. He doesn’t need to say that either. I’m thinking it myself.
We walk out together, but I don’t stay long.
Just long enough to see Rafe, Matt, and Milo duck into the room.
We have a war to plan, and Dom can lead it without me.
He’ll have to. My feet drag me back through the house, past the cameras and men that guard every corner of this fucking fortress, to the only thing I can think about right now: Eleanor.
I find her with Carmela, like I knew I would.
The little princess is keeping my sister company while her four brothers run around like headless chickens.
The women's voices are a hum in the long hallway, one soft and low, the other bright and nervous. I stop in my tracks to listen, but I can’t make out their words.
I can see them through the glass doors of the library, leaning in together.
Heads bent close. An odd pair if I ever saw one.
Eleanor is always in skirts and heels, dressed like she owns the damn world.
Carmela looks like she raided the men’s wardrobe, sleeves of her plaid shirt rolled up to her elbows, jeans ripped at the knee. A mess of dark curls and eagerness.
I know Eleanor misses Juliet. Is my little sister just a substitute for her?
Eleanor twists the ring on her finger, her small hands brushing against Carmela’s.
The thought makes me jealous as hell. I almost prefer when Eleanor’s distant and defiant, when she looks at me with enough ice to bury New York in December.
At least I know where I stand with that Eleanor.
With this one? The one who seems to be softening? The one who Carmela is warming up to?
I don’t know her at all.
Their voices start again, too quiet for me to catch. Carmela laughs, and it twists something in me. I back away before they notice me lurking.
My jealousy takes me outside, to the fenced-in garden where Eleanor goes when the rest of us get to be too much.
I can tell she’s tired of us, even if she never says it.
She’s been here for almost a month, but it still feels like she doesn’t live here.
Like she’s passing through, always waiting for the right moment to run.
She tried it once. The taste of that memory—the chase, the punishment—stirs me more than it should.
I’m lurking in the trees when Eleanor approaches, and I duck out of sight.
I don’t want to ruin her sanctuary, the place she comes to get away from me.
She sits by the fountain. Water trickles down the sculpted edge and fills the silence with something alive.
I hide behind a line of trees, watching her move.
The wind plays with her hair. She has it pinned it back like she always does, but strands fall loose and brush her cheeks.
She’s usually so contained, right down to her individual strands of hair: neat, deliberate, in control.
But when it’s down? When she lets herself be something other than perfect? That’s when she gets under my skin.
And she’s under it good. I watch her hands, how they play with her jewelry, how the rings catch light. Her mother’s ring. My ring. And now the Albanians think they can rip it off her.
They’re wrong.
I can’t tell if she looks lonely, or if it’s just how she always is. Like there’s too much space around her, too much between her and everything else. Everything but the things she lets close. Her sister. My sister.
My fingers itch to close that space. I crack my knuckles instead, the sound sharp and hollow as it rings through the trees. Her head whips toward me. Her eyes find mine without missing a beat.
“Did you forget that I grew up in a house with security cameras?” She has that clipped, knowing tone I’ve heard a hundred times before. “I’ve always been watched. I know when it’s happening.”
I step out of my hiding spot and she watches me like she’s inspecting a diamond, assessing how much I’m worth.
I close the distance between us, each step harder than it should be. “Do you like it here?”
I’m a breath away when I stop. Close enough to touch her. Close enough to smell her perfume, the faintest hint of lavender. The kind she knows I like, but she would never admit to wearing it on purpose.
I hate that she’s always one step ahead.
“The fountain or the mansion?” She sounds bored, but there’s a spark in her eyes. A challenge.
“Both.”
She shrugs. “Does it matter?”
It matters more than anything. I’m beside her in an instant. “You want a new house? You got it. Bigger diamonds? They’re yours. Anything you want, I’ll get for you,” I say, the words rough and desperate.
She tilts her head up to look at me, her eyes sharp and bright. “But you won’t let me go.”
I pause a moment. “Anything but that.”
“Because I’m yours.”
She doesn’t know how right she is, not until I kiss her.
Hard and sudden, like I’m trying to prove something.
She tenses against me, then melts, her arms going soft and loose around my neck.
I pull her in, crush her body against mine.
Her blouse is silk, delicate, but I don’t care.
I can feel the heat of her, the lines of her figure, the warmth of her breath against my mouth.
If she’s my weakness, then I don’t want strength.
Her hands find my hair, her fingers a slow mess. Her touch lights me up. I want more, and I want it now. I want it to hurt.
She pulls back, just enough to look at me. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips parted. I know what that look means. I’ve seen it before. I want to see it again, and again, and again.
But she stops me before I do. “Don’t think I didn’t notice,” she says, the slightest curve to her mouth.
“Notice what?”
She drops one hand, and I follow its path. She lets it hover between us, hovers long enough for my eyes to follow it. All the way to the front of my pants, where I’m already hard. Fucking aching for her.
“What you want,” she says, “and how fast you want it.”
That look is still in her eyes. Bold, teasing. Hungry as hell. Like she owns this moment and me with it. Like she knows she doesn’t need anything but a glance to make me burn.
My whole body is on fire. She’s playing me, and we both know it. I thought it would piss me off. Maybe even scare me. But all I want to do is kiss her again, fuck her against this fountain, make her feel what I do.
It’s almost like she hears my thoughts, feels the pulse of them. Her mouth finds mine again, and it’s electricity. More than that. It’s everything we’re too stubborn to admit. She bites my lower lip and it’s a shock. The good kind, the kind that gets under your skin and won’t leave you alone.
This is what it means to be desperate for her.
To be owned.
I push her back until she hits the fountain’s edge. She gasps, a sharp sound I want to hear on repeat. I don’t wait for her to catch her breath. I pick her up and set her on the ledge.
The water is loud, rushing around us. I almost say something stupid, something that would put too much out in the open, but she stops me.
Not with words.
With the way her legs wrap around me. The way she presses her whole body to mine, leans in close and breathes the only thing I need to hear.
“You want to fuck me, Leonardo?” Her voice is a dare. “Then do it.”
She thinks she’s still in control, even now. And maybe she's right, because I’m just as much hers as she is mine.