13. Lina
Lina
"If you so much as chip her favorite coffee mug, I will find out where you sleep, and I will make your life a living hell," Maya says, her finger pointed directly at the middle of John’s massive chest.
We are standing in the narrow hallway between our apartments.
Two of his men—tall, stone-faced guys in dark suits who look like they’ve never smiled in their entire lives—are currently carrying my cardboard boxes across the landing.
Maya is standing her ground, her heels clicking aggressively against the wood as she glares up at the towering mafia enforcer.
She looks tiny next to him, but her chin is tilted so high I'm afraid she’s going to sprain her neck.
John doesn't flinch. He doesn't even blink. He just looks down at her with that quiet, unyielding gravity of his, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dark trousers.
"I don't care how many guns you have," Maya continues, her voice rising. "If you bruise a single hair on her head, I will haunt you until I die. And then I’ll haunt you some more. Do you understand me?"
"Maya, please," I mutter, my face burning as I clutch a stack of my mother’s old journals to my chest. "He saved our lives. He’s not going to bruise me."
"I am perfectly capable of protecting her," John says. His voice is a low, flat rumble that makes the floorboards vibrate. He looks at Maya, his expression completely blank, but there is a tiny, almost invisible nod of respect in his dark eyes. "And I do not intend to damage her mugs."
"You better not," Maya snaps, though she finally lowers her finger.
She turns, grabs my arm, and drags me into my empty bedroom, shutting the door behind us. The room looks strange now, stripped of its books, its plants, and the familiar clutter of my life.
"Lina, are we completely insane?" she whispers, her grip tightening on my sleeve. She looks around the empty room like she’s expecting a SWAT team to burst through the window.
"I mean, yesterday we were talking about lopsided pastries at the shop, and today you are moving across the landing to live with a guy who literally breaks bones for a living. He is mafia. Actual, real-life mafia."
"I know," I say, my throat feeling dry as I sit on the edge of my bare mattress. "But those men in the garage... Maya, they had silencers. If John wasn't there, we would be dead. Or worse. My cheap deadbolt down the hall isn't going to stop people like that."
"I know," she sighs, dropping her head onto my shoulder. She lets out a long, shaky breath, her anger fading away into exhaustion. "The guards in the hall are terrifying. But they make me feel... safer, I guess. If they’re here, those creeps can't get to us."
"Exactly," I say, rubbing her back. But who is going to protect me from the man living just across the landing?
"And besides," Maya says, pulling back to look at me with a sudden, knowing squint. "He likes you."
"Maya, don't start."
"I'm serious!" she insists. "A man like that doesn't buy a whole building, set up twenty security cameras, and throw himself in front of bullets for a 'business deal.' He looks at you like you are the only breathing thing in a room full of corpses. He’s completely gone, Lina."
"He’s protecting an asset," I say, though my heart does a ridiculous, violent flutter against my ribs. "He told me himself. It’s a transaction."
"If that was a transaction, then I'm the Queen of England," she scoffs, reaching out to hug me tightly. "Just... promise me you’ll keep your eyes open. Don't let him charm you into forgetting what he is."
"I won't," I whisper, my eyes drifting to the closed door. I can't forget. Not after what I saw in that garage.
Two hours later, the move is done.
I am officially living in his apartment.
It is twice the size of mine, but it feels incredibly cold.
The walls are bare brick, the furniture is modern, and the air smells of leather, pine, and wet slate.
There are no plants, no colorful rugs, and no clutter.
It looks like a temporary camp for a soldier who expects to move at a moment’s notice.
John has given me his master bedroom, claiming he will sleep on the leather sofa in the living room. I tried to argue, but his flat, stubborn refusal shut me down in three seconds.
By midnight, the apartment is dead quiet.
I lie in his bed, staring up at the dark ceiling.
The sheets are heavy, smelling faintly of his expensive cedarwood cologne, and the scent is so thick it feels like he is lying right next to me, his broad chest rising and falling against my shoulder.
I toss and turn for an hour, my skin tingling, my mind racing with the memory of his mouth on mine from the shop.
I want him.
The thought is a hot, visceral ache in my stomach.
I shouldn't want a criminal. I shouldn't want a man who lied to me, who moved next door under a fake name, who runs a world of violence and blood.
But as I close my eyes, all I can see are his scarred bare shoulders, his heavy dark eyes, and the way his lips felt when they crushed against mine.
I am going crazy.
I slide out of bed, my bare feet silent on the hardwood. I pull my oversized green sweater tight around my thighs and open the bedroom door.
The living room is dark, lit only by the pale blue glow of the security monitors on his desk. John is sitting on the edge of the leather sofa. He isn't sleeping. He is wearing his dark trousers and a white t-shirt, his elbows resting on his knees, a half-empty glass of amber liquid in his hand.
When I step into the room, his head snaps in my direction.
"You should be sleeping," he says, his voice a quiet, gravelly vibration in the dark.
"I can't," I say, walking over to the window. The rain is still pattering against the glass, casting watery, silver shadows across his face. "Your sheets smell too much like you."
John’s hand tightens around his glass. He takes a slow, unhurried sip, his dark eyes tracking my movement as I sit on the opposite end of the sofa. The space between us feels highly charged, the silence thick enough to slice with a knife.
"Why did you lie to me?" I ask, my voice quiet but steady. "Why did you pretend to be 'John the neighbor'?"
John looks down at his glass, his jaw clenching. "I was afraid."
"An enforcer who breaks bones in alleys is afraid of a librarian?" I ask, a small, sad smile touching my lips.
"I was afraid you would bolt," he says, his dark eyes rising to meet mine. The weight in his gaze is heavy, raw, and completely honest. "If I walked into your shop on day one and told you what I was, you would have locked your doors and never looked at me again. I needed you to... get used to me."
"And now?"
"Now you know," he says. "And you are sitting on my couch."
"Because I don't have a choice," I say, my chin tilting up defensively. "Not because I like the lies."
"I know," he murmurs.
"Tell me the truth, then," I say, leaning closer, my heart pounding. "No more 'John.' Tell me who you really are."
John hesitates, his chest rising and falling slowly.
He sets his glass down on the wooden crate table with a quiet click.
"My name is Giovanni Marchetti. My father was the don of the Palermo syndicate.
He died two years ago, and my uncle, Matteo, took the seat as regent.
He was supposed to step down when I turned twenty-two. He refused."
"So you're fighting him?"
"Yes," John says, his voice flat and clinical.
"We have been in a quiet, bloody war for twenty-four months.
I have a smaller faction, but we are loyal.
The deal I am trying to close in Boston is a merger with the New York syndicate.
If I secure their backing, Matteo will have to surrender the throne. "
I stare at him, my mind spinning as I try to process the sheer scale of his world. It sounds like a movie, or a history book about old-world empires, but the scars on his chest are very real. He is a prince trying to claim a stolen crown.
"And what do I call you?" I whisper, the dark air of the room pressing in on us. "John? Or Gio?"
"Whatever you want, piccola," he murmurs, his voice dropping to a low, seductive rasp. "As long as you call me."
The physical tension between us snaps like a dry branch.
John steps closer, sliding across the leather cushion until his thigh is brushing mine.
The heat radiating off his body is a sudden, suffocating wave.
He reaches out, his massive hand cupping the side of my neck, his thumb tracing the soft line of my jaw with a slow, agonizing pressure that makes me shiver.
"Gio," I breathe, my eyes dropping to his lips. “I’ll call you Gio.”
"Good," he growls.
He leans down and captures my mouth.
The kiss is hot, heavy, and completely consuming.
He doesn't hold back this time. His tongue slides past my lips, tasting of neat bourbon and the sharp, clean scent of the storm outside.
I let out a soft, whimpering moan into his mouth, my hands rising instinctively to grab his shoulders, my fingers sinking into the hard, rigid muscles of his back.
He lets out a low, guttural groan, his hand sliding down my neck to grip my waist, pulling me effortlessly onto his lap.
I gasp against his lips as I feel the hard, thick ridge of his arousal pressing hard against my thigh through his trousers. I wrap my legs around his hips, my body aligning perfectly with his, the friction of our skin sending a wild, raw wave of heat straight down to my core.
Gio’s mouth slides down to my jaw, his kisses leaving a trail of fire on my skin. He bites gently at the sensitive curve of my shoulder, his teeth grazing my skin until my head falls back, my breath coming in ragged, high-pitched gasps.
"Gio... please," I sob, my fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling him closer.
He slides his hands under my green sweater, his palms hot and slightly rough against the bare skin of my ribs. He traces the curve of my waist, his thumbs dragging across my skin with an agonizingly slow pressure that makes my stomach roll in a dizzying loop of pure want.
I am completely gone. I don't care about the war, the lies, or my mother's warnings. I just want him. I want his weight on me. I want his hands on my skin until I can't think about the blood, the alleyway, or the locks on my doors.
"Take me," I whisper, my voice shaking with a desperate, raw hunger. "Gio, please. Take me to your bed."
Gio freezes.
His breathing is ragged, his chest heaving violently against mine, his jaw clenched so hard the muscle in his cheek is twitching.
His dark eyes are completely black, the pupils blown out, carrying a dark, heavy hunger that makes my stomach coil.
He grips my waist with iron-hard fingers, holding me in place, refusing to let me slide down.
"Lina," he says, his voice a low, warning vibration right against my lips. "Look at me."
I look. I can't look away.
"If I fuck you," he says, his voice dropping to a gravelly, terrifyingly intense rasp, "nothing you say, think, or fear will matter anymore.
You will have to be mine. From head to toe.
Every second of your day, every breath in your lungs, every lock on your doors.
I will not let you go. Do you understand me? "
A sudden, sharp shiver ripples down my spine. The intensity in his voice is terrifyingly real. It isn't the voice of a neighbor who wants a quick hookup. It is the voice of a man who claims territory and defends it with his life.
My mother’s warnings flash in my head like a warning light. Don't let them have you.
But as I look at his full, arrogant lips, his dark, desperate eyes, and the raw, heavy heat radiating off his bare chest, the fear vanishes, replaced by a fierce, stubborn certainty.
I can't run anyway, I think, my mind clicking with a sharp, unpolished clarity. The wolves are outside. The storm is here. And he is the safest dangerous thing in the room.
I wrap my hands around his neck, my fingers tangling in his wet hair, and pull his face down until his lips are brushing mine.
"I want you to fuck me, please," I say.