CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
Dante hissed sharply as the antiseptic burned into his open flesh, but the brilliant, triumphant smile on his face refused to fade.
"Seriously," Cassia kept pressing, her voice a rapid, half-serious, half-exasperated stream of consciousness as she worked to hide her own vulnerability.
"What kind of mob boss are you even supposed to be?
Have you ever considered a desk job? Perhaps accounting?
You seem unsuited for physical altercations. "
Dante let her rant. He sat on the worn leather couch, the harsh halogen light beating down on them, and absorbed the frantic, edge of her voice.
Underneath all of her insults, underneath the aggressive way she was currently swabbing his blood, Dante recognized the single, most important truth of the evening.
The simple fact that she had been worried about him at all meant everything.
It meant that, in whatever small, stubborn, or reluctant way, she actually liked him.
She cared if he lived or died. It might not have been with the same devastating, all-consuming intensity that he was currently feeling for her—not yet—but it was a start.
And it was a start that Dante Fazzari had no intention of ever letting go of.
"I am an excellent boss, Cassia," Dante murmured softly, his voice dropping an octave, ignoring her insults.
"You're a liability," Cassia muttered, pulling a curved needle and black thread from her kit. "Hold still. This is going to hurt, and I am not giving you lidocaine because you don't deserve it."
Dante didn't flinch as she drove the needle through the torn edges of his skin. He didn't look at the wound, and he didn't look at the men guarding the perimeter. He found himself doing the only thing he ever wanted to do when she was in the room: he watched her.
As she worked, cleaning and treating his injuries with the same breathtaking, practiced efficiency she brought to every trauma she touched, the amusement faded from Dante’s face.
It was replaced by an expression that had grown unmistakably, tender.
He studied the fierce concentration knitting her brow, the way her auburn hair slipped from its messy knot to frame her cheekbones, and the gentle, contradictory care her hands offered despite her harsh words.
Cassia could feel the physical weight of his gaze on her face. It was hot, and too intimate for the center of an industrial warehouse surrounded by armed mercenaries.
It clearly annoyed her. Her jaw tightened, a small muscle ticking near her ear, but she resolutely refused to say anything about it directly.
Acknowledging his stare meant acknowledging the tension, and she was already on incredibly thin ice.
She chose instead to focus on finishing the job, her movements quick, precise, and flawlessly executed.
Thirty minutes later, she tied off the final suture on his ribs and taped a thick, square bandage over the wound.
Cassia stepped back, stripping off her bloody nitrile gloves and throwing them into a small waste bag. She let out a long, exhale, the adrenaline finally crashing, leaving her swaying slightly on her feet.
"You're done," Cassia announced, her voice flat and exhausted. She reached for the zipper of her medical bag. "I’m calling a cab. Zoran, text me the cross streets."
"You can't leave," Dante said instantly, his tone shifting from tender observation to absolute authority.
Cassia froze, her hand resting on the leather handle of her bag. She slowly turned her head to look at him.
"Excuse me?" Cassia bristled immediately, the exhaustion fueling a sudden flare of temper. She glared at him. "Are you out of your mind? I just spent forty minutes sewing you back together in an abandoned warehouse. I have been awake for twenty hours. Are you essentially holding me hostage now?"
Dante slowly stood up from the couch. He moved stiffly, careful of his newly stitched ribs, but his height and his presence was imposing. He didn't back down from her glare.
"I am not holding you hostage, Cassia," Dante clarified, his voice calm, steady, and devoid of threat.
"This is not about control, or possession.
We were ambushed tonight by a splinter faction of the Moretti family.
The streets are currently unpredictable, and I do not know if you were followed by anyone tracking my men. "
He took a half-step closer, his pale green eyes locking onto hers with a fierce, protective weight.
"I want you to stay here a little while longer," Dante insisted, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
"It is safer this way. Marco and the perimeter teams will make certain that the streets are secure, and once they give the all-clear, Zoran will personally arrange for an armored car to drop you off safely at your front door.
But you are not getting into a random city taxi tonight. "
Cassia looked at him. She looked at the sincerity in his eyes. He wasn't playing a game. He was protecting her from the violent fallout of his own existence.
She opened her mouth to argue, to tell him that she could take care of herself, that she had been fending off predators since she was a child.
But as she drew breath, the crushing, insurmountable weight of her twenty-hour day finally collapsed on top of her.
Her legs felt like lead. Her eyes burned.
She was too exhausted to keep arguing. She was too tired to fight the mob boss, and she was too tired to fight the strange, comforting warmth of his protection.
"Fine," Cassia muttered bitterly, dropping her bag back onto the crate. She glared at him one last time. "But I am not sitting here making small talk with you. I am too tired to stay awake any longer. I am going to sleep."
Dante felt a soft smile pull at his lips. He gestured to the empty space on the worn leather couch beside him.
Cassia walked over, kicked off her boots, and curled her long frame onto the cushions, pulling her knees up slightly. She didn't look at him. She closed her eyes, surrendering to the exhaustion.
Dante sat down slowly beside her. He was both thoroughly amused and deeply quietly tender in that moment. He looked down at the brilliant, beautiful doctor who had just insulted him for half an hour and was now treating his mafia safe house like a comfortable hotel room.
"Sure, Doctor," Dante murmured softly.
Within seconds, her breathing evened out. The rigid, unyielding lines of her posture melted away, and she was fast asleep beside him.
Dante reached out, picking up a wool rug that had been draped over the back of a nearby chair. Moving with meticulous care so as not to disturb her, he draped the rug gently over her sleeping form, tucking it lightly around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the warehouse.
He settled back against the leather cushions, ignoring the throbbing pain in his own body, and prepared to keep watch over her through the night.
Dante looked down at her face. In sleep, Cassia was unguarded. The sarcastic armor she wore so flawlessly was gone, leaving only the soft, peaceful reality of the woman beneath. It was the first time since he had met her that he was allowed to look at her without a wall between them.
The silence of the warehouse stretched around them, broken only by the rhythmic sound of her breathing.
Dante watched her sleep, the realization settling into the very marrow of his bones. She was brilliant. She was fierce. She was the only person in the world who looked at him and saw a man instead of a monster.
He found himself thinking, with a certainty, that she truly was magnificent. And that she was, without question, going to bring him to his knees.