Chapter 23 Erin
Erin
He watches me carefully, his chest expanding and releasing in a low measured rhythm.
“My real name is Augusto Zanotti—Augie to my friends.”
Something rope-like tightens around my heart. “You lied to me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” There’s a note of authenticity in his tone.
“So, you’re Italian.”
“Yes.”
“That man knew you were Italian. He said the Italians weren’t invited here. What did he mean?”
“He’s right, the Italians weren’t invited, because this deal is backed by our enemies. The Russians. Or more specifically, the Russian mafia.”
I almost choke on thin air. “Did you say ‘mafia’?”
“Yes.”
“Are you… in the mafia?”
I hold my breath.
“Yes, Erin. I’m underboss to Cristiano Di Santo.”
A hand covers my mouth. I’ve heard that name before. He’s the not-so-secret mafia boss of New York.
My stomach has turned to liquid. What the hell have I gotten myself into? These people have guns. They kill. It’s the mafia. And I’m now involved.
“So, why exactly are you here?” My voice shivers. “What is the deal?”
He folds his arms, drawing my gaze briefly before it snaps back to his face.
“The Russians are trying to orchestrate an unprecedented arms deal that will, if they pull it off, destabilize the Middle East.”
I feel faint.
“And… you’re a part of that?”
“No.” His response is fast. “I don’t want the deal to happen. I’m here to find out who is involved so I can sabotage it.”
“H-how?” Is he going to kill everyone?
“We have connections with government, the police, the Feds… We’ll tell them what we know, and they’ll do the rest. The less we’re involved, the better.”
“I thought the whole idea of the mafia was to act against law enforcement.”
“Unless it benefits us to work with them. And in this case it does.”
I press a hand to my hammering heart. I always knew there was something dark about this man, but I’d never have guessed he was a central figure in the criminal underworld. My legs suddenly feel like jelly.
“Who was the man you just… shot?”
“He was the middleman. He was orchestrating the deal. Or at least, he was the face of the orchestration. There will be more where he came from.”
“And the man you were treating in the woods?”
“He was one of my men. I had him drive up here, so I could—”
He stops abruptly and runs his tongue along his teeth as if he’s weighing up whether or not to finish that sentence.
I make him.
“So you could what?”
He assesses me for a few seconds.
“Beat the shit out of him, then patch him up.”
Well, that’s one of the most absurd lines I’ve ever heard.
I squint at him, confusion curdling with heat in my stomach. “I’m sorry, what?”
He sighs and pushes his hands into the pockets of his sweats, drawing my gaze briefly to the hard slant of his hips. The outline of his lower abdominal muscle swells above the waistband. I swallow and force myself to look back at his face.
“It’s a thing I have. A compulsion.”
“What, to beat people up and then make them well again?”
“Yes. That’s a rough summary.”
Oh God. This gets even better.
“Why?”
Another sigh. Then he extracts one hand and shoves it through his hair, pulling on the strands as if he’s trying to punish himself.
“When I was nine years old, I knocked my mother down the stairs. It was an accident. I was tearing about on the upstairs landing like a typical hyperactive kid, and she lost her footing and fell.”
I press a palm against my chest. “Was she okay?”
“She was awake but heavily concussed. I covered her in a blanket and called my father. He was in Chicago on business at the time so he told me to call a family friend—a nurse. She took too long to arrive. Mom tried to talk but after a while she seemed to give up and so I just sat with her, waiting. I didn’t know it at the time, but she died ten minutes before anyone came.
Internal bleeding. I couldn’t fix her. I didn’t know how. ”
“Oh my God. I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head, his eyes falling shut as if he’s trying to reject the memory.
“Then it happened again with Francesca,” he continues in a pained yet resigned voice. “She was shot in the chest but didn’t die straight away. When I got to her she still had a chance, but I didn’t have the confidence or the tools to treat her. By the time I’d carried her to safety, she’d died.”
I have no words. Recounting these stories to me is clearly tearing him apart. He looks… broken.
“I vowed I would never let anyone I loved die on my watch ever again. So, what I do is… practice.”
I wipe the tears from my face and take a deep breath.
His shoulders relax slightly and he leans back against the console. His eyes are dark but burning with a slight glimmer beneath lowered lids.
“I’ve practiced almost every day for the last ten years. I can pretty much fix anyone.”
He looks back at me as I stand over the other side of the room, a total mess in my long t-shirt, boots and coat. Red, tear-stained cheeks and bed hair.
“But why now? Why did you ask your man to come all the way up here? You’ll be back in New York in four days.”
“I couldn’t wait that long.”
My skin prickles with something unseen. A chemical tension in the air. “Why?”
“I needed to let off some steam.”
“Because of the meetings? The deal?”
He shakes his head, a sad smile pulling at his lips. “No, Erin, not because of the deal.”
I wait, breath holding fast in my lungs.
“Because of you.”
And there it is. An absolute whack of realization that August sees me as something else. Not just a fake wife.
My voice is barely there, just a whisper of lust. “Because of me?”
“Yes.”
He remains still, leaning back against that console, one foot crossed over the other, solid nonchalance if there ever was such a thing.
His threat to make me come so hard I forget my own name feels like less of a threat in this moment and more of a promise.
“Why?” The word comes out as a breath of air.
He watches me for a moment, making my knees weaken under his gaze. Then he pushes himself off the console, his hands still in his pockets, and saunters toward me, only stopping when his chest hits mine. A finger comes up under my chin, tilting my eyes to his.
Amber and moss, swirling darkly, hiding depths I haven’t even scratched the surface of.
“Because I’m mad for you,” he says quietly.
My heart thumps dangerously hard.
He continues in a low, husky timber. “Because I think about you when I shouldn’t. In boardrooms. In cars. In beds that aren’t empty.”
His thumb brushes once along my jaw. “And because every time you look at me like that, I forget why I needed this arrangement to be fake.”
My pulse is rioting. “August…”
“Erin,” he murmurs, leaning in just enough that his breath ghosts over my lips. “This isn’t about the deal we made. This is something else.”
His eyes darken, something feral slipping through the cracks of control. “I am completely, utterly obsessed with you. I’ve tried to dress it up as protection, civility… care. But it’s lies. All of it.”
His forehead presses down against mine, the contact electric and unbearable.
“I’ve wanted you since I felt your perfect body slam into mine, since you opened your brilliant mouth and vomited your life story all over the floor.
You’ve made me feel alive, Erin, for the first time in years.
Sharing a bed with you and keeping my hands to myself has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. ”
His hand slides from my chin to my waist, and he grips me hard. I can’t tell if it’s an attempt to keep me from running, to ground himself or to stake his claim.
“The only thing that’s been stopping me is the fear of what you’d think if you ever discovered the truth about who I am,” he says, his voice rough. “That was the last thread of restraint I had, and…”
He releases a sharp exhale and it’s followed by a pause that feels like a breaking point.
“It’s gone.”
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes again, giving me one final, devastating look—a warning and promise all at once.
“So tell me, Erin,” he says in a soft voice laced with threat. “Do you want me to walk away? Or do you want me to stop pretending I can?”
My heart has screeched to a halt, my breath has frozen in my lungs. My entire body is on edge, waiting for a verdict from my head.
I’ve only ever been with a man who never opens up, who goes to bed fully clothed, whose idea of a decent sex life is the missionary position once in a blue moon, followed by a hot shower and heavy exfoliation.
Though I haven’t known this man long, he’s opened up to me more in twenty-four hours than Gerard did in twenty years.
He doesn’t go to bed fully clothed—he goes to bed wearing a pair of low-slung grey pajama pants that could have jumped straight out of a Calvin Klein ad.
And if the way he’s looking at me now—like he wants to rip off my clothes and sink his teeth into every inch of my flesh—is any indication, I expect missionary is just one position in an expansive repertoire.
I tuck my bottom lip between my teeth, trying to find a reason why I should want him to walk away. He lied to me? I now know it was to keep me safe. He’s in the mafia? As my gaze trails over his dark eyes, rounded shoulders and thick, muscular frame, I can’t bring myself to care.
My lip pops free, my voice a whisper.
“Stop prete—”
I don’t get the last word out before his mouth crashes against mine. His hands come up to my face, one pushing into my hair, wrapping it around his fist, the other gripped around my jaw. He holds me still this way as his tongue delves deep into my mouth, making me open up to him.
Shivers wrack down my spine, creating little waves of electric shocks, as he takes every single thing he wants.
I’ve never been kissed like this in all my life—like I’m not something to be handled delicately; like I’m something to be consumed.
I’m utterly helpless in his hands, my bones weakened by the intensity. He feasts on my lips, tongue, teeth, everything he can reach, guttural sounds of desperation making me embarrassingly wet.