3. Gemma
Gemma
A wall of muscle and heat pins me against the faded floral wallpaper. His presence consumes the air in the small room, cutting off any route that isn't through him. Dust motes dance around his wide shoulders. His declaration hangs in the stale air, vibrating straight through my ribs.
My prize.
He says he will burn the city down to protect me. The raw intensity in his dark eyes strips away the professional mask he wore ten minutes ago in the alley. The guard is gone. Something else is awake now.
My spine presses hard against the wall. The rough paper snags the fabric of my ruined shirt.
The man is a force of violent intention.
His wide build consumes the space. The sleeves of his dark henley are pushed up to the elbows, exposing a chaotic sleeve of ink.
Armor, complex knotwork, and a compass wrap around his right forearm.
A skull tangled in dark roses stains the left.
Every line of his body broadcasts danger.
My every instinct bellows for me to run.
But there is nowhere to run. We are locked on the fourteenth floor of a dead hotel, fourteen stories above a city that just tried to shoot me to pieces.
The scent of him rolls over me—danger and security all at once. My treacherous body leans into that scent. An unbidden throb settles deep in my pussy, making the walls of my sex pulse against the denim of my jeans.
He thinks he can just bark an order at me and expect my submission and I will swoon into a puddle at his boots. Please. I survived the South Side restaurant hustle. I have chased armed robbers away from my griddle with an iron spatula.
I slide my hands flat against his chest. Granite-hard muscle meets my palms. A small, jagged scar peeks out above the collar of his shirt on his right upper chest. My fingers twitch with the absurd urge to trace it. I lock my wrists instead and push.
He does not budge a single inch.
"If you are going to burn the city down, start by buying me a new food truck," I snap. My voice is steady. A miracle, considering the adrenaline crashing through my system.
Dante blinks. The raw, territorial rage in his expression fractures. Confusion flashes across his rugged features. His messy beard twitches as his jaw clenches.
"Your truck," he repeats. His voice turns to a jagged rasp.
"Yes. My truck. La Diosa. The one your little mafia war just turned into shredded aluminum." I glare up at him. "Three years of my life. Two loans. Three different city permits. Gone. So excuse me if your dramatic declarations of protection are not exactly sweeping me off my feet right now."
He stares at me. His gaze tracks the line of my jaw before lingering on my mouth. The tactical register tries to slide back over his features. He steps back. The loss of his body heat leaves me freezing.
"The truck is gone," he states flatly. "You are alive. That is the only metric of success tonight."
"Success." I push off the wall, swiping angry hands down my jeans. They are covered in soot and grease. "You call dragging me out of my life and locking me in a haunted hotel a success."
"I call keeping bullets out of your skull a success, Gemma."
The way he speaks my name sends a localized tremor straight to the bundle of nerves between my legs. It sounds like a threat and a promise.
I turn away from him, forcing my legs to move. The penthouse is vast, shadowed, and frozen in time. Rotting velvet drapes hang limply over tall windows. The hems are black with decades of grime. A layer of dust coats every surface. The air smells of old money and total abandonment.
A gilded mirror leans against the far wall, the glass cloudy and speckled with age.
A mahogany bar cart sits in the corner, holding a row of empty crystal decanters.
Two king-sized beds dominate the center of the room, stripped down to yellowed mattresses, the comforters tossed onto the floor.
The safehouse feels like a concrete crypt.
"Where are we, exactly?" I ask, wrapping my arms around my waist. The adrenaline is fading fast. The cold reality of the night is sinking its teeth into my bones.
"The Grand Continental. Fourteenth floor.
" Dante paces toward the windows. He does not step into the moonlight.
He stays flush against the wall, peering out through a slit in the rotting velvet.
"Costa property. Sealed since 1987. No service elevator access past the eleventh floor unless you have the override key. No cell signal. No active landlines."
"A dead zone."
"A safehouse." He drops the curtain. He begins pacing the perimeter of the room. His boots make soft thuds against the threadbare carpet.
I watch him move. He paces with the coiled lethality of a predator seeking a kill-strike in a cage that is too small for him.
His eyes track every shadow while his head tilts at the slightest floorboard creak.
Doors and vents are cleared with a professional, rhythmic efficiency.
The space itself seems to be under tactical assessment.
But there is something else under the surface. A tightness in his shoulders. A frantic edge to his pacing. He pauses near the bathroom doorway, his chest expanding as he takes a sharp breath. His jaw locks so tight the muscles jump beneath his beard. He is scanning for threats that are not there.
"Why me?" I ask softly. The silence in the room is too loud. I need to fill it.
Dante stops. He slowly turns to face me. The oversized gold watch on his wrist catches the pale moonlight filtering through the gap in the curtains.
"You were in the alley," he says. The tactical tone is back. "The Bellantis do not leave loose ends. They were aiming for my men. Your truck was collateral. You saw the shooters. You saw the vehicles. They will come back to scrub the scene."
"Scrub the scene. You mean kill the witnesses."
"Yes."
The word lands with the finality of a casket closing. My knees feel weak. I walk over to the edge of the nearest bare mattress and sit down. Dust puffs up around my jeans. I stare at my hands. They are trembling.
La Diosa. The bright pink paint. The smell of sizzling cumin and orange marinade on the flat top.
The line of loyal customers stretching down the block every Tuesday.
He’s stripped away my identity and my independence in a single afternoon.
I built that business from zero. I worked eighteen-hour days until my feet bled and my hands burned.
I finally got out from under the weight of my neighborhood's expectations. I was free.
Now I am sitting on a dirty mattress in an abandoned hotel, a target in a war I know nothing about.
A raw sound escapes me—half-choke, half-sob. before I can stop it. I clamp a hand over my mouth, furious at my own weakness. I do not cry in front of men. I definitely do not cry in front of armed, terrifyingly handsome mafia enforcers who kidnap me for my own good.
Footsteps cross the room. The mattress dips hard as Dante sits beside me. He is too close. The heat radiating off his body is a presence.
I keep my hand clamped over my mouth. I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the hot tears burning my lashes.
"Do not cry." His voice is a rough, jagged command.
"I will do whatever I want," I snap, dropping my hand. My voice wavers. "You don't get to dictate my emotions. You already dictated my location."
"Tears don't provide cover. They just blur your sight."
I whip my head around to glare at him. "Are you out of your mind? They don't provide cover? They just blur my sight? My entire life was just blown to pieces by automatic weapons. Excuse me if I need a minute to process the fact that I am officially unemployed and hunted by the mob."
Dante stares at me. The blank lack of comprehension in his dark eyes is almost comical. He operates on a different frequency. Bullets, blood, survival. Emotions are obstacles to him.
"I have money," he states.
"I don't want your money." I wipe my cheeks fiercely with the back of my hand. "I want my truck back."
"The truck is scrap."
"You are horrible at comforting people."
"Comfort isn't in my repertoire. Security is."
"Clearly." I huff out a harsh breath. I look away from his intense gaze, staring straight ahead at the grimy wallpaper. "So what is the plan, Terminator? We sit in this dust bowl forever? Someone has to know we are here. Someone has to be looking for you."
"My brother Matteo expects another check-in." Dante rests his forearms on his thighs. The gold watch gleams. "When I miss it, he will lock down the compound. He will send sweepers to the alley."
"Then we call him. There has to be a way to get a signal."
"No." The word is final.
"Why not?"
"Because the Bellantis have eyes on the street. They have ears in the precinct. If Matteo sends men to extract us, it creates a convoy. A convoy is a target. I will not put you in a moving vehicle until I am sure the streets are clear."
"So no one except Matteo knows we are here." The panic begins to bubble up again. The isolation of this fourteenth-floor grave.
Dante shifts. His shoulder brushes mine. A jolt of heat arcs across my skin at the brief contact.
"Turi might guess," Dante says quietly. The rough edge of his voice softens just a fraction.
"Who is Turi?"
"Family." Dante looks down at his hands. "He raised us. My brothers and me. After… after the old guard fell. Turi is the only one who knows all my fallback points. He is the trusted elder. If the Bellantis track us here, Matteo will coordinate the extraction quietly. No convoys. No noise."
The way he talks about this Turi softens the harsh lines of his face. A brief glimpse of the boy beneath the tattooed, traumatized man.
"He raised you?" I ask, my curiosity overpowering my anger for a second. "All of you?"