13. Chapter 13
Tony watched Naomi hurry down the walk, her ponytail swaying challengingly, her back straight with stubborn resolve.
He should have been annoyed at her stubborn resistance.
Instead, he felt a flicker of reluctant admiration.
She had spunk, no doubt about it. But he was already calculating how to get her to accept the damn car.
Nobody rejected something he’d fixed.
In Tony’s world, gifts weren’t really gifts—they were solutions.
He saw a problem, he addressed it. Sal handled the long game, the careful strategy, and Tony took care of implementation as well as eliminating the obstacles in the way.
It was a system that had worked perfectly since they were kids running the streets, and Tony had no intention of deviating now.
Naomi’s resistance? Merely another obstacle.
Once she was out of sight, he exhaled slowly and closed the door.
Outwardly, his day continued as usual. Meetings, calls, check-ins with his crews across the city. His voice was calm, his movements precise. But Naomi stayed in his thoughts, her fiery defiance simmering in the back of his mind.
By four o’clock, he’d had enough. In the middle of a meeting, he rose, cutting Sal off mid-sentence.
“Gotta go,” Tony muttered.
Sal barely looked up, his daughter asleep against his chest. He was outlining the mess in Minneapolis, where some idiot had taken over after Bianchi went down.
Bianchi—Catarina’s father—was finished. The evidence against him was ironclad.
For once, the law wouldn’t look away. His arrogance had been his undoing.
The FBI already had a case file thicker than an encyclopedia on the man, from his killing spree down the interstate during his attempt to take over the Chicago territory.
Now, the bastard would rot in prison for the rest of his life.
Tony left Sal to the details. He had more immediate priorities.
Earlier, he’d driven Naomi’s Toyota to the Peterson estate himself, knowing she’d have no choice but to use it.
Tom Peterson was the type of pompous bastard who wouldn’t allow anything “less than luxury” on his property overnight.
His Mercedes and Land Rover fit the bill.
Naomi’s Camry? To him, it was trash to be removed before the neighbors noticed.
Which meant she’d have to drive it here if she wanted to give it back to him. His lips curved at the thought. Checkmate, sweetheart.
The next two hours were spent in his kitchen.
He wasn’t a chef like Sal, but he was meticulous, and that skill translated to cooking.
Pasta boiled until perfectly tender. A sauce simmered low and steady, filling the house with the scents of garlic and basil.
His housekeeper had made a dessert, which was currently chilling in the fridge, ready to cap off the evening’s meal.
He moved with purpose, a dishtowel slung over his shoulder like he’d been born to this instead of violence.
When the doorbell rang, he knew exactly who it was. He’d watched her through the security feed—her hesitant drive down the back lane, her careful parking job, the way she lingered in the driver’s seat like she was rehearsing a speech.
As expected, the stubborn beauty was still trying to give the car back, he thought with a mental chuckle. Not going to happen.
Tony opened the back door, and there she was on the stoop, chin lifted, eyes flashing with nerves she tried to disguise as steel.
“You dropped something,” Naomi said, holding out the key gingerly, pinched between two fingers, like it was toxic.
Her jaw was tight, her knuckles white. But her gaze betrayed her.
She let it flicker over him—broad shoulders, rolled sleeves, chest filling out his shirt—and for one hot, suspended second, she didn’t look away. He didn’t mind. He was doing the same.
She looked frazzled, her hair a little mussed, her lips pressed together as if holding back a hundred words.
“The boys a bit much today?” Tony asked casually, reaching out and taking her hand before she could retreat. He tugged her gently inside, into the tiled area.
Some might call the space a mudroom, but not here. His house didn’t allow mud. Or disorder.
The place was a fortress, every inch designed with precision.
Two stories visible above ground, six bedrooms—though only one had ever been used.
The backyard had once held a pool, but he’d replaced it with a grid of trees and shrubs that concealed cameras and motion sensors.
To passersby, it was just another quiet, high-end Chicago home. In reality, it was part of a compound.
Connected by tunnels, his house linked to the others around it as well as the nerve center of their security operations next door, and to Sal’s estate beyond.
Nobody outside the organization had a clue how far their reach spread.
Naomi, standing in his spotless back entryway with fire in her eyes, didn’t care about any of that.
“I’m not taking the car,” she declared firmly, ignoring his question. Her voice shook just slightly, but she masked it with stubborn resolve.
Tony’s mouth twitched, his amusement impossible to hide. She had no idea what kind of war she’d just declared.
He pushed the door closed behind her, his movements smooth and deliberate. “I made pasta with a romesco sauce,” he said. “Are you hungry?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer, just walked deeper into the house.
He loved his kitchen most of all—this was where his mind cleared, where solutions to problems fell into place as easily as chopping herbs.
He hadn’t learned from his mother directly—she’d been gone too soon—but he remembered her humming, the heavenly way the house smelled when she cooked.
Those memories had stayed with him. Cooking was the one thing that made him feel close to her.
Naomi hesitated by the door. “I don’t…” she began, then stopped, her nose twitching. She inhaled, her expression morphing to reluctant wonder. “That smells wonderful!”
Tony didn’t grin—he never grinned—but something inside him warmed at her reaction. Without comment, he picked up a knife, chopped a handful of basil, and pointed with the blade toward a stool at the counter. “Sit down. I’ll get you some wine. Just let me finish the sauce.”
“I don’t need wine,” she protested weakly, though her eyes kept drifting to the simmering pan, to the way the scarlet sauce bubbled and thickened. “What kind of sauce is that again?”
“Romesco,” he said, giving the pot a final stir. He rinsed his hands, then reached up into a cabinet for two wine glasses, his movements efficient but unhurried. Turning back, he poured and handed her a glass, his dark eyes never leaving her face. “What happened today?”
She eyed the wine with open suspicion, sniffing it, even tilting it up to the light as though she could read its secrets through the glass. For a moment, she reminded him of a cat—cautious, watchful, unwilling to trust too easily.
“Mark hit Jacob several times today,” she admitted finally, her tone laced with fatigue. “Which meant Jacob had to retaliate.”
She took a tentative sip—and her shoulders softened, the tension easing in a single sigh. “Oh. This is really good.” She settled onto a stool, letting her bag slide to the floor with a heavy thump. “I’ll catch the next bus after dinner.”
He didn’t say anything, but the thought of her standing at some dark bus stop in that neighborhood twisted like a knife in his gut.
The gangs might give her a wide berth because of their protection order, but there were worse things than gangs lurking in those streets.
She wasn’t going back there—not tonight, not ever, if he had his way.
“Where’s this wine from?”
“Oregon,” he replied, pouring more into his own glass. “I was there last summer on business and found this vineyard. The pinot wines from Oregon aren’t like Napa. They are less bold, more delicate. It pairs better with certain sauces.”
She blinked at him, startled. “You know wines?”
Tony allowed himself the barest flicker of a smile, then winked. He enjoyed the way her shock softened into curiosity. People underestimated him constantly. He was big, he was brutal, and yet he appreciated detail, nuance, the art of flavor.
“I like to cook,” he explained, gesturing toward the scattered remnants of preparation across the countertop—garlic skins, a mortar with the remnants of crushed almonds and red peppers, a small dish of olive oil gleaming gold under the lights. “Good wine makes the food better.”
He reached into a cabinet and pulled out two bowls, plating the pasta with meticulous precision, perfect coils of noodles, sauce ladled just right. Setting one in front of her, he nudged the small bowl of freshly grated asiago cheese toward her.
“There’s the cheese.” His voice was steady, low, compelling. He glanced toward the sliding glass doors, where the last streaks of sunlight filtered in. “How about if we eat outside? The patio’s quiet.”
Naomi stared at the steaming bowl in front of her and he could see her resolve wavering with every breath of roasted peppers and garlic.