Chapter 2
SILVIO
I glance at her, sitting beside me in the passenger seat. She almost climbed into the back, before I pulled open the door for her and gestured for her to get in. I guess she’s half forgotten that she’s grown now—though I’m unable to ignore just how obvious the change is.
Megan. I don’t know how the hell she ended up contacting me—it must have been some misfire, something meant for Carlotta, I don’t know.
But I could practically sense her panic through the text, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to leave a girl to handle a situation that seems as dire as that one did, so I climbed into my car and drove through the city until I arrived outside the Italian place she mentioned in her message…
Only to find her pinned between a wall and an asshole who didn’t want to take no for an answer.
The moment I saw her like that, something spurred me into action. I would have kept my distance, but the look in her eyes, the obvious panic as he slid his hands across her body like he had some kind of right to her, made it impossible to hold back or act like I didn’t notice.
The bastard, whoever he was, had the good sense to fuck off as soon as he laid eyes on me, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to keep his distance forever.
We come to a stoplight a few streets away from the address she gave me.
Her apartment block, that’s what she told me.
A place of her own—she really is grown now, a far cry from the girl who used to visit my home to see Carlotta a few times a week.
That dropped off very suddenly one month, and I always got the feeling that her parents had figured out who the hell I actually was and decided they didn’t want their daughter anywhere near me.
Not that I could blame them.
Megan and Carlotta stayed in touch in the years since, as close as ever, but I’d never had reason to lay eyes on her again—till now.
She must be in her early twenties now, same as Carlotta, though there’s something about the way she carries herself that makes her seem more mature than that.
Her features, slim and pointed, look like they belong on a sculpture, her delicate limbs wrapped around herself as she perches on the leather seat opposite me.
Her bag is planted in her lap, and she keeps fiddling with the straps, her blonde hair falling into her face, covering the green eyes that seem to search for danger around every corner.
“Did you know him?” I ask her, and she jumps slightly at the sound of my voice, glancing over as though she’d half forgotten I was there.
“What do you—”
“The man you were with tonight, did you know him?”
“Uh, not really,” she replies, shaking her head, crossing and uncrossing her legs nervously like I might take her for a liar. “It was our first date. We were just getting to know each other, that’s all. I didn’t mean for you to—”
“And he was all over you like that?” I grip a little tighter to the wheel.
That fucker. I could see in his eyes that he knew what he was doing.
The moment he heard my voice and looked back at me, I could tell that he realized he’d been caught.
Might have wanted to pretend like he was innocent, but he knew what buttons he was pushing, knew that he would twist her arm to get what he wanted.
She can’t have all that much experience in the dating world, not with how protective her parents were of her.
I might not have known much about her, but I saw the way her mother looked at me the few times she came by the house to pick her up, as though she didn’t want a man like me anywhere near her daughter.
I can’t imagine that it’s exactly made dating easy for her, or maybe I’m just naive.
Not that anyone would accuse me of something like that in any other circumstance.
“I didn’t—he told me he was just getting a car,” Megan says, an edge of defensiveness in her voice.
I sigh. I don’t want it to sound like I’m blaming her, but I’ve been told before that my words can read as more judgmental than I intend. “Does he know where you live?”
“I don’t think so…”
“You don’t think so, or you know so?”
She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, her lips pressing together. “I know so.”
Her chest rises and falls slowly, and she looks out the window at the streets crawling past us. I can practically feel the tension coming off her in waves, the same tension that I saw written all over her body when that bastard had his hands all over her.
The moment she locked eyes with me, she looked relieved—and Jesus, I know things must have been bad if I felt like a savior.
“Just around this corner,” she mumbles, nodding toward the end of the block.
She rummages in her bag and pulls out her phone, checks something, and then lets out a slight sigh, as though a detail has just fallen into place.
I consider asking her if she intended for that message to end up on my phone, but it doesn’t matter. I’m here now, and I got her out of this. That’s the only thing I give a damn about.
And Marco, it’s clear he knows who I am. Which hardly speaks well to his decency, as contradictory as I know that is. My reputation in this city is such that anyone who knows me should be distrusted as a matter of course, at least by a girl like her.
A woman like her. I have to keep reminding myself of that.
She doesn’t want to be part of this world, doesn’t need to know a damn thing about what goes on here, and as soon as she’s out of this car, I intend to make sure that she has no reason to call on me for help again.
Not because I won’t give it, but because I don’t want her to have to rely on someone like me, not if she can avoid it.
“That’s it, that’s my building,” she tells me, leaning forward to peer up at the tall, slightly run-down apartment block at the end of the street.
I eye it for a moment. It doesn’t seem to suit her well. What little I remember of her from when she was young, she seemed to come from a well-to-do family, enough that they could afford tuition at the same private school where I sent my daughter.
I draw the car to a halt, and Megan sits there for a moment, staring down at her hands and the knot they’ve twisted into on her lap.
“Thanks—thanks for coming to get me,” she murmurs to me, shooting a look at me out of the corner of her eye.
She still seems a little unsure of my presence, like she’s half waiting for me to turn around and chew her out for dragging me away from my work.
But the moment I saw that message, no matter where it might have come from or why it ended up in my inbox, I knew there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her safe.
“It’s fine,” I reply. “You want me to stay tonight?”
“Stay…?”
“Out here,” I reply swiftly as she widens her eyes, clearly misreading the offer. “I can send some of my men down to keep watch on this place, if you want. Make sure he doesn’t come by and try to cause trouble…”
“Oh, no, that’s okay,” she assures me, shaking her head. “He doesn’t have my address. And besides, I think you scared him off pretty well, right?”
She smirks slightly, the first real smile I’ve seen from her since I found her. There’s a flash of mischief in her eyes, and I wonder, briefly, if there’s a part of her that likes knowing I’ve scared the living shit out of the man who tried to get his hands all over her.
“Should have,” I reply. “But I meant what I said. If he ever tries to lay a hand on you again…”
“I promise you’ll be the first to know,” she replies. “Might be nice, having my own personal bodyguard, huh?” She tilts her head to the side, seemingly a little less tense now that we’re outside her apartment.
“I wouldn’t get used to it,” I warn her. “But if you need anything, you know where to find me.”
For a moment, she just looks at me. Even though it’s just the two of us in the car, I feel a heat pass over the palms of my hands.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen her, and the woman who sits before me now is a far cry from the girl I knew when my daughter was growing up.
She’s elegant, carries herself with a certain class, and yet, underneath it all, something else pulses just out of sight—something that intrigues me, despite myself.
“Thanks, Signor Siffredi,” she tells me.
I shake my head. “Silvio. I told you.”
“Silvio,” she corrects herself. The way my name sounds on her tongue is downright dangerous, and I have to clench my jaw to keep from showing any reaction to it. “Thank you.”
Before I can reply, she leans forward and plants a kiss on my cheek.
It’s just a quick motion, nothing more than the barest brush of her lips against my skin, but something in me unseals and I know I can’t just cram it back into place.
Her hair grazes the side of my neck, the scent of her sweet floral perfume rushing through the car.
For just a second longer than she needs to, she lingers there, and then she pulls back, planting a hand on the door and pushing it open.
And with that, she’s gone.
I stare after her, watching until she makes it into her apartment building, willing myself not to let my gaze settle on the curve of her hips through her dress, the sway of her ass beneath the fabric.
She called me because she needed help, not because she wanted a man twice her age to start eyeing her up like a piece of meat.
She glances back from the door and catches me staring. She raises a hand, flashing me a grin, and then unlocks the door and steps inside. Before I know what I’m doing, I lift my hand to brush my fingers over the spot on my cheek where she kissed me.
Damn it.
It’s been a long, long time since a woman has been in this car with me, a woman I’m not related to, at least. A long time since a woman has been anywhere close to my world at all, as a matter of fact, and that’s the way I prefer to keep it.
This line of work doesn’t exactly have a lot of space for people who don’t understand it, and everyone I allow into this business has been carefully vetted.
It’s safer that way—for me and for them.
If women had any idea what they were getting into with me, they would never in a million years want a damn thing to do with me.
Which means that I spend most of my time alone.
Without women, at least. Especially at the boxing matches—fuck, it’s not like those are exactly welcoming places for the fairer sex.
And that lack has left me…wanting. Maybe in a way I didn’t even realize until now.
Because even just the brush of Megan’s hair on my skin has left something spiraling in me that I have to do my best to ignore.
I start the car and pull away from the building, hoping that the more distance I put between us, the easier it will be to leave it all behind.
Even if Megan was interested in me—which there’s no way in hell she would be, given the age gap between us—she’s my daughter’s best friend.
Carlotta would never forgive me if I so much as looked twice in her direction, and I’m not willing to put my relationship with my girl on the line for a brief moment of passing desire.
At least, that’s what I have to keep telling myself.
As I drive through the quiet city streets, rain begins to patter on to the windshield, and I stare out at the sidewalk, as if searching for someone, anyone, who makes me feel half of what Megan did when she kissed my cheek.