Chapter 7 Gianni
Gianni
I watched her from the doorway longer than I should have.
She sat at the table with my men like she’d always belonged there—leaning in, laughing when Dunn exaggerated a story for effect, rolling her eyes when Larry tried to pass off a terrible hand, trying to make it look strategic.
She didn’t flirt or perform. She laughed with them, not at them, like this was a room she’d walked into a hundred times before instead of a den full of men who’d made a life of burying bodies together.
It was… odd.
There were no women in this house. There never had been. Women existed on the periphery of our lives—temporary, transactional, carefully kept out of the machinery. Mikayla didn’t hover at the edges. She stepped straight into the middle of it and somehow seemed like she was right at home.
She adapted. That was what caught my attention. She listened more than she spoke. Asked questions that weren’t intrusive. Let them talk. Let them be clever. Dangerous men liked feeling clever. It made them careless—but with her, it made them protective instead.
I didn’t like how quickly that happened.
Time passed. Enough of it, before I stepped into the room.
The shift was immediate. Chairs scraped. Cards froze mid-air. Four grown men jumped like they’d been caught stealing from the till.
“Boss,” Larry said quickly, already standing.
Dunn swore under his breath.
I lifted a hand, palm down.
“Relax,” I said. They eased—uncertain—but then sat back down carefully. I nodded once. “Carry on.”
Their relief was almost embarrassing. My attention returned to her.
She’d gone still, awareness snapping into place without panic. She turned to face me, posture composed, eyes sharp. No scrambling. No apologies. She didn’t ask permission to exist.
“Mikayla,” I said. “Come with me.”
She rose smoothly from the chair and crossed the room to meet me. As she passed, Larry offered her a sheepish smile. She returned it without lingering.
At the doorway, I placed my hand at the small of her back, a silent instruction as I steered her away from the room. She stiffened for half a second. Then she moved with me.
She was wearing a bathrobe. A fucking bathrobe, with half her body on display. The tie at the waist was the only thing standing between her and chaos. The sight of it did something inconvenient to my focus. Not because of what it revealed—but because of what it didn’t.
I didn’t like my men looking at her like that. Curious. Amused. Interested. They were loyal. Disciplined. But loyalty didn’t make them blind, and she was… noticeable. That was a problem.
“First order of the day,” I said evenly as we walked, “is to get you some clothes.”
She glanced up at me, curls brushing her cheek. “I need to choose them.”
The words came out careful. But there was discomfort underneath them, tight and immediate.
“I can have someone bring—”
“I’d rather do it myself,” she said quickly. Then slower, like she was bracing for correction. “If I can.”
I stopped walking abruptly.
I looked down at her, searching for the angle I was missing. Fear, yes—but not of me. It was something internal. Her shoulders were squared like she expected pushback, her chin lifted in defiance that wasn’t rehearsed.
Suspicion slid into place.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
Her fingers tightened in the fabric of the robe before she caught herself and shoved her hands into the pockets.
“Nothing.”
That was a lie. A small one. The kind people told when the truth felt stupid to say out loud.
“I don’t understand,” I said slowly, honestly.
“I know,” she replied, just as quietly.
I studied her closely. The curve of her hips under the robe. The width of her shoulders she seemed determined to hide. The way she stood, tense and careful, like she was already apologizing for taking up space.
Understanding came quietly, catching me off guard.
Ah.
Some things people wanted control over not because they were dangerous—but because they were sensitive. Because they hurt.
It took me a moment to connect the pieces. Clothing sizes. Fit. Mirrors that were never kind. The small, quiet humiliations women carried without ever saying a word about them. The need to decide what the world was allowed to see—and what stayed hidden.
It was… human.
And completely unnecessary, as far as I could tell.
She was striking. Anyone with eyes could see that. But insecurity didn’t care about logic. It didn’t listen to reassurance or facts. Once it settled in, it stayed, no matter how little sense it made.
So I did the smarter thing.
“Fine,” I said. “You choose.”
Relief flickered across her face before she smoothed it away. She nodded once. “Thank you.”
I resumed walking, my hand still at her back, this time deliberate, as I steered her toward my office.
“You need to learn how to behave in front of my men,” I said, keeping my tone even.
She glanced sideways at me, one brow lifting. “I thought I was doing okay.”
“You were.” I let her digest that before I continued. “But I’d prefer you didn’t sit with them again while wearing nothing but a robe.”
Her lips curved, amused but not careless. “Noted.”
“I trust my men with my life,” I added. “They’re loyal. Disciplined. Capable of extreme violence in my name.” A pause. “They are also, unfortunately, men.”
That earned a quiet huff of laughter. “Fair.”
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She stopped too, close enough that I could feel the warmth she carried with her.
Without thinking—and immediately regretting that mistake—I reached out and adjusted the collar of her robe. I tugged it just enough to sit properly on her shoulders, neat and secure.
My knuckles brushed her skin.
She was warm. Fresh from the shower. Real in a way that caught me off guard.
I pulled my hand back at once, the brief contact lingering longer than it should have. A sharp, unwelcome awareness settled in my chest—something I hadn’t asked for and had no intention of encouraging.
I stepped back, creating space on purpose, before closeness turned into something familiar.
Getting used to her would be a mistake.
And I was very good at not making those.
“We’ll start with clothes,” I said. “Then we’ll teach you how not to die.”
She exhaled, shaky but amused. “Comforting.”
And as I watched her hobble upstairs, I adjusted my plans yet again. Because teaching her the rules was easy. Teaching myself not to want to break them? That was going to be the real problem.
I paused in the doorway of her room instead of going in.
She was sitting on the couch, one leg bent carefully, my shirt hanging loose on her frame. It was oversized on her, but she wore it well, tying it loosely at the navel.
“Well,” I said after a moment, because the silence was starting to feel dangerous. “That’s unfortunate.”
She looked up at me, brows drawing together. “Unfortunate?”
“The shirt,” I said honestly. “I’ve owned it for years and never once looked that good in it.”
She glanced down at herself, then back up. “You’re welcome?”
My eyes lingered—longer than polite, shorter than reckless. She noticed. I could tell by the way she straightened, chin lifting like she refused to back down.
“You comfortable?” I asked.
“Define comfortable.”
“Not bleeding. Not cold. Not trying to escape through a window.”
“Then yes,” she said. “Thriving, really.”
I almost smiled.
She shifted again, suddenly aware of the shirt, of me, of the space between us. “Don’t get excited,” she said. “I don’t plan on making a habit of borrowing your wardrobe.”
I met her gaze. “Honesty,” I said. “Honesty is good.”
She snorted. “That’s funny. You take someone from their own wedding, and suddenly honesty is your thing.”
“I did no such thing,” I reminded her. “You ran away. Then you ran into traffic. Then you hit my car.”
“You hit me.”
“Semantics.”
“Very violent semantics.”
Something tight flickered through my chest before I shoved it aside.
“You’re not resting enough,” I said.
“I am resting,” she replied. “This is me at rest. Emotionally wrecked. Physically sore. But technically horizontal.”
I looked back at her face. “You’re not wrecked.”
“Give it time. I’ve had a long day.”
A pause settled between us.
“You don’t ask many questions,” I noted.
“I’ve learned that questions are how men like you get ideas.”
That earned my full attention. “Men like me?”
She shrugged. “The kind who look like they could end wars before breakfast.”
I studied her, weighing something I hadn’t planned to consider.
“You’re braver than you look,” I said.
“Everyone keeps saying that,” she muttered. “No one mentions the stupid part.”