The Wrong Brother (Mafia Silver Foxes #5)

1. Emma

Emma

The August heat radiating off the asphalt at noon eases a little out on Stearns Wharf.

Way out at the end, where I'm sitting and staring back toward the city, a light ocean breeze ruffles my hair.

I close my eyes, brush the unruly strands from my face, and try to tamp down the gnawing sense of failure.

Being two glasses of wine deep doesn’t help.

It’s technically sangria, a delicious red with plums and strawberries and some fruit I don’t recognize bobbing around in a sweating glass.

You’re right, I text my big sister, an obligatory once-a-day check-in since this vacation wasn’t sanctioned. California isn’t so bad.

Matilda came out here for college years ago and got a law degree. Now, she’s in New York City and well on her way to a partner position… according to our gloating parents.

And me? I’m out of a job, out of luck.

Recently out of love, too.

My boyfriend, Andrei, broke up with me three months ago.

I’m down to the last couple of grand in my bank account.

And I’m out in California for one last hurrah.

As if this will fix anything.

Great place to find a waitressing gig.

Her text back is like a punch in the gut. With a grimace, I down half of what’s left of the wine and shuffle out of the way of a family finishing up lunch.

Maybe waitressing wouldn’t be so bad, a little voice of betrayal whispers. Disappear to California…start over…get a tan…

In California, being an ex-FBI agent sounds scandalous in a good way.

I pull up my banking app again, even though I already know what it’s going to say. Like staring at it long enough will somehow change the numbers.

$5,184.22

My stomach twists.

Five thousand dollars used to sound like a lot of money. Now it feels horrifyingly temporary. One-medical-emergency temporary…which isn’t far off, considering the way I teeter for a second as I put the glass down and hop off the barstool.

Considering my track record lately, bad decisions are my specialty.

Two years ago, I thought my life meant something.

I was FBI.

Not the glamorous version people see in movies. It’s mostly paperwork, exhaustion, stale coffee, and trying to pretend the darkness you see every day doesn’t follow you home at night. But it mattered. I mattered.

Then Miami happened.

Hinto Moreno happened.

I still don’t fully know when the line blurred. Maybe it was gradual. Maybe it was the moment I realized criminals could be kinder than the people supposedly on the right side of the law. Or at least, they could appear kinder.

Moreno offered me money to look the other way here and there.

Either way, by the end of it I was in too deep and staring down criminal charges that should have ruined my life.

The Bratva saved me.

Which is still such an insane sentence that sometimes I laugh when I think about it.

“God. I really am an idiot,” I mutter, pausing to stare at some trinkets in a shop window.

It looks more like a shack tucked up against the very edge of the pier, but in an endearing way. Little animals made out of shells, Christmas ornaments that say “Santa Barbara,” glass bottles with rolled-up wishes inside.

Andrei, my ex, made me feel chosen. That’s the humiliating part. Not the breakup itself; people break up all the time. It’s the fact that I let myself believe him when he looked at me like I was special. I let myself believe a man like him would be interested in committing to a woman like me.

The shop window reflects someone curvy, in comfy shorts and a top that ripples with the wind off the sea.

The ex-FBI girlfriend looked great during election season, but I guess I wasn’t useful beyond that.

Tourists move around me in loud clusters as I get closer to the main street. It smells like sunscreen, and the air is full of happy chatter, seagulls screeching for scraps, and a jet ski taking off somewhere nearby.

I feel strangely detached from all of it, like I’m watching life through glass.

Maybe Matty is right. Maybe I should stop pretending and finally start “acting like an adult” and admit that I made a mistake.

The thought settles heavily into my chest as I drift farther into downtown Santa Barbara. Palm trees sway overhead. Storefronts glow in the afternoon sunlight, white stone and polished windows.

Everything here looks expensive. Beautiful and untouchable.

I slow near a café patio, eyeing a HELP WANTED sign taped crookedly in the window.

The logical thing would be to walk in, apply, and hope I can find an apartment that’s the perfect mix of affordable and livable. Minimal mold, a ceiling fan on the fritz, and an extra bolt on the door.

Instead, I keep walking. If I stop moving, I might have to admit I have absolutely no idea who I am anymore.

The fashion district sneaks up on me slowly—a group of women passes carrying sleek black shopping bags with elegant gold lettering: LORD dangerously so. The kind of dresses you wear when you want to become someone else for a night.

The last two days at the motel are paid for, and then I have to return to where? My parent’s house? The lease on the Colorado apartment is long up. Embarrassment immediately heats my cheeks, and I duck into the store so no one on the street will see it.

The second I walk in, I know I can’t afford a single thing.

Everything smells expensive. There’s a table just inside the entrance with a bottle of champagne chilling and several glasses set around it. The lighting is low and golden, making every rack gleam like art instead of clothing.

I immediately want to leave.

A woman in an immaculate cream suit smiles at me. “Welcome to Lord&Lion.”

I definitely can’t afford this place.

“Just looking,” I mumble automatically, inching further into the store.

Her smile doesn’t falter, though I catch the quick flick of her eyes over my tank top and sandals. “Of course.”

I wander deeper before I lose my nerve. Silk brushes my fingertips as I pass racks of dresses that probably cost more than my rent back in Colorado. Maybe more than my car payment, too, though I sold the car to afford the tickets out here.

God.

I stop in front of a display near the back and stare.

The gown is dark red—deep, like spilled wine in candlelight. Black lace curls over the bodice and hips in delicate patterns, dramatic without being tacky. The slit climbs scandalously high up one thigh.

It’s ridiculous. Which is probably why I can’t stop looking at it.

“Beautiful choice.”

I glance over as the saleswoman appears beside me again.

“Oh, no,” I laugh softly. “That’s definitely not my kind of dress.”

Something flickers in her expression. “Sometimes that’s the point.”

Before I can stop myself, I reach for it. The fabric is impossibly soft between my fingers. The back laces up, and a whispered thought crosses my mind: How would this look wrapped around my waist, draped over my hips? Would it give me my confidence back?

Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing alone in a fitting room, wondering what the hell possessed me.

The dress is halfway on and already fighting me.

“Oh my God,” I mutter, twisting awkwardly as I try to reach the laces.

This thing was clearly designed for someone with approximately half my body mass.

The bodice cups my breasts almost obscenely, pushing them up high enough that I barely recognize myself. The slit exposes far too much thigh. And the back—

I crane my neck toward the mirror.

The lacing pulls tight across my curves, leaving slivers of skin exposed between the ribbons.

It’s too much.

Too sexy.

Exactly the kind of thing a woman like Matty could wear effortlessly, while I spend the entire evening tugging at fabric and apologizing for existing. Plus, she has places to wear this kind of thing—galas, exclusive polo matches, premieres.

The curtain opens, and a yelp slips out. “Oh, my—”

“I’m so sorry, darling, I just thought you might need some help?”

The saleswoman again. My eyes narrow, that instinctual part of my brain kicking in—the one that got me through the academy and into analytics before I was shoved briefly into the field.

What’s the ulterior motive?

But her smile seems genuine. I turn slowly, and her fingers graze my back, deftly loosening and straightening the laces.

A sharp laugh sounds outside the fitting room. The saleswoman and I both glance over our shoulders at a blonde woman standing in the hallway, her dark eyes skimming my body.

“Well, that dress is certainly ambitious.”

Heat floods my face instantly.

Her friend snickers behind her, coming briefly into view. “Maybe they make it in a more forgiving cut?”

I want the floor to swallow me whole. Same feeling as middle school dressing rooms. Same feeling as college parties.

Same feeling standing beside polished political wives while Andrei introduced me as his girlfriend, and I wondered if everyone noticed I was too soft around the edges to belong there.

I cross my arms over my chest, which at this point is ready to spill out of the wine-red top.

“I was just taking it off—” I mumble, already reaching for the curtain.

“Why?”

The voice is male.

Low.

Smooth.

The blonde woman straightens immediately.

I look up and forget how breathing works for a second.

He stands a few feet away like he stepped out of a magazine spread—tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a striped black-and-white suit, the jacket open to reveal a cerulean shirt that shouldn’t work but does. His hair is striking: pale blond threaded with silver at the temples.

He glances at the blonde woman with lazy displeasure. “You seem confused,” he says mildly. “I asked why she should take the dress off.”

When he repeats the question, one finger delicately slides the glasses down his sharp nose, revealing eyes so pale they almost look silver.

And those cheekbones.

The woman flushes. “I was only—”

“You were being rude in my store.”

My store.

Oh.

The blonde sputters slightly. “I didn’t realize—”

“Out,” he says calmly.

Everything happens all at once, like a well-oiled machine. The saleswoman steps out of the fitting room and suddenly seems to tower over the blonde woman and her friend. The woman’s mouth is open, her eyes wide as she stares at—What was his name?

I heard it on the street, but words seem like way too much effort with this man’s cool eyes flicking back toward me.

In just a moment the two rude women are gone, as if they had never existed. The chime of the door sounds, and it feels like I can breathe once more.

The man’s gaze slides back to me. It makes my pulse skip strangely, especially when he steps closer, eyes drifting over the dress clinging to my body. Not leering, but assessing. I recognize that look because it’s the same one I used to wear at work.

“It fits beautifully,” he says.

I almost laugh because that is objectively untrue.

“The back doesn’t close,” I point out, internally mortified at the attitude in the words

His mouth curves slightly.

“It closes.”

Before I can react, he moves behind me.

Long fingers skim lightly along my spine as he gathers the laces. The touch is efficient and practiced, but warm enough to send a shiver through me.

The fitting room suddenly feels much too small.

“You’re pulling too tightly,” he murmurs near my ear. “The dress is supposed to worship your shape, not fight it.”

He tightens the final lace. Then his hands slide slowly and deliberately over my waist and hips, smoothing the fabric into place.

I should step away.

Instead, I’m torn between being completely still and leaning into that touch. God, when was the last time someone touched me?

“There,” he says softly.

I don’t recognize the woman staring back at me. Not because the dress makes me thinner, it doesn’t. But it makes me look… powerful.

The man watches my expression in the reflection, clearly pleased.

Then he smiles.

God help me, that smile is devastating.

“I’ll buy it for you,” he says.

“What?”

“But,” he continues smoothly, “you must have dinner with me tonight.”

Every survival instinct I possess immediately starts screaming.

Stranger.

Older man.

Rich.

Dangerous.

Probably insane.

And yet, I look at myself in the mirror again. At the woman I could become for one night.

One last bad decision.

My eyes meet his in the reflection.

“Dinner,” I say carefully. “That’s all?”

His smile deepens like he knows exactly how reckless I’m being already.

“I want to see what the dress looks like on my bedroom floor.”