Chapter 20
Twenty
Sloane
I'm having dinner with the man who wants to own me, the father who sold me, and the husband who's been lying to me.
I can’t prove it yet, but I know he is.
If that isn't a party, I don't know what is.
The restaurant is upscale River North, all dark wood and candlelight and the hushed reverence of people who pay two hundred dollars for a steak and act like the cow died for a noble cause.
I sit in a fitted black dress that I pulled from the back of my closet because cherry lipstick goes with everything but war requires something sharper.
Massimo is beside me, his hand on my thigh under the table, his thumb tracing slow circles that are supposed to calm me but his fingers are pressing too hard and his jaw hasn't unclenched since we got in the car.
Something is wrong. Something has been wrong for days and tonight feels like the night it stops hiding.
Lorenzo sits across from me with a glass of red wine and the same dead smile he wore the day he walked into my boutique and complimented my dresses while two men bled out in my parking lot.
His suit is charcoal. His hair is slicked.
His cologne reaches me across the table and my stomach turns the same way it did the first time he touched my arm in my father's study.
Harrison sits beside Lorenzo. My father. The man who raised me. He's on his third whiskey and the bread basket hasn't been touched, and his eyes darting between Massimo and the exit, desperate, calculating, looking for a door that doesn't exist.
"Lovely choice of restaurant, don't you think?" Lorenzo lifts his wine glass. "The risotto here is exceptional."
"I'm sure it is." I pick up my own glass and take a sip because if I don't put something in my hands I'm going to use them to flip this table.
The waiter arrives with appetizers. Bruschetta with burrata and prosciutto, arranged on the plate.
Lorenzo orders for everyone without asking, rattling off dishes in Italian with an accent that sounds rehearsed.
I watch my father reach for the bread basket, tear off a piece, and put it back without eating it, his hands trembling.
The normalcy of it all has my blood ready to boil over along with my fury.
"Harrison tells me your boutique is doing well," Lorenzo says, spreading his napkin across his lap with the deliberate care of a man settling in for a show. "The emerald dresses I saw there. Very popular."
He's making small talk about my business. The man who walked into my shop while two of my guards bled to death in the parking lot is complimenting my inventory over candlelight.
"Business is fine." Screw elaborating. I don't owe this man pleasantries and I refuse to perform normalcy at a table that reeks of an agenda that ends with me being forced into an unwanted marriage.
Massimo's thumb stops moving on my thigh.
His hand sits heavy and still, his fingers rigid against my leg.
I glance at his plate. He hasn't touched the bruschetta. His wine glass is full. His eyes move between Lorenzo and Dad as if he’s running calculations trying to figure out what their game plan is.
Same.
Something is coming. I can feel it in the temperature of the table, in the way my dad won't look at me, in the way Lorenzo is savoring his wine like a man who knows the evening is about to become very entertaining. My creep-o-meter isn't just ringing. It's blaring.
"You didn't invite us here to discuss risotto, Lorenzo."
"No." He sets his glass down and the crystal hitting the table sounds like a starting gun. "I didn't."
Massimo's hand tightens on my thigh. I feel his fingers press into my skin through the fabric of my dress and I glance at him.
His face is composed, controlled, the courtroom mask I've watched him wear for weeks.
But his jaw is locked tighter than I've ever seen it and the vein at his temple pulses beneath his skin. He's not nervous. He's bracing.
My gut drops. Massimo Santoro doesn't brace.
The man who shows no fear, who told me he would burn the world before he let anyone touch me, is sitting beside me coiled so tight I can feel the tension radiating off his body through his fingertips.
Whatever Lorenzo is about to say, Massimo already knows what it is.
"Let's cut the pleasantries." Lorenzo leans forward, his elbows on the table, his manicured fingers laced.
"Massimo, you're a brilliant lawyer. Perhaps the best I've encountered.
But you and I both know that the contract between Harrison and my family is legally binding.
And you know that the clock is ticking."
My eyes cut to Massimo. "What clock?"
Lorenzo chuckles and slides a narrowed look at me, satisfied with himself for some reason.
It’s fucking eerie as hell. I swear he’s taking immense satisfaction at seeing me squirm from not knowing what the hell he is talking about.
The tension between him and Massimo is so thick, the only thing that is missing is a live grenade sitting on the table. And my father…he’s just sitting there looking into his whiskey.
“What the hell is going on?” I demand.
Lorenzo’s cold stare locks on me and I feel the coldness of his soul brush over me. Hand to God, Death is a thousand times warmer than this man. I can’t help the shiver that rakes through me from head to toe.
"Oh, you poor sweet thing. You don't know. Of course you don't know. Your husband has been keeping you in the dark."
"Lorenzo." Massimo’s voice is low and stripped of everything civilized. Murderous intent morphs over his expression. The muscles in his neck cord tight against his collar, his pulse visible and hammering beneath the skin.
His eyes cut to the tables around us, the couples with their wine glasses, the hostess seating a party of four near the window. Witnesses. Every one of them is a reason Massimo can't do what his body is obviously screaming to do.
His hand on my thigh has turned to stone, his knuckles white beneath the tablecloth.
When I look at his face the polished mask of a gentleman is gone.
What's underneath is murderous and barely contained.
His jaw is clenched so hard I can hear his teeth grinding.
Every muscle in his shoulders turns rigid with the effort of staying in that chair.
"Tell her, or I will. It’s cruel to keep the woman in the dark when there are killers hunting you as we speak.”
My blood goes cold and drains from my face.
“No? Okay. Harlon Constantine." Lorenzo lets the name drop like he's been waiting for this moment.
"I hired Genesis to enforce the marriage contract between your father and me. Their best men are on the job, sweetheart. Paid assassins who specialize in contract enforcement are waiting to fulfill their contract and collect their bounty.”
My gaze darts around the restaurant wondering who could be Genesis’ runners. Something I never thought I’d have to do. But here we are. It’s not as easy to spot a hired assassin as you may think.
The restaurant noise fades. The clinking silverware, the murmured conversations, the jazz…
all of it dissolves into a ringing silence that fills my skull.
My stomach drops so fast I press my hand flat against the table to keep myself upright.
My skin goes cold from the inside out, starting at my chest and spreading to my fingertips, and the bruschetta I ate five minutes ago threatens to come back up.
“How long do we have?” Minutes? Hours? Days? An answer I never thought I’d want to hear.
“Well, by my calculations, since I took the contract out nine days ago…”
“Nine days!” I turn to Massimo who is red in the face and pin him with disbelief.
This night cannot get any worse. Nausea churns in my belly. I take several deep breaths as I fight to keep my stomach from rebelling against me. “You knew this, didn’t you?”
"The deadline expires tomorrow." Lorenzo picks up his wine, takes a slow sip, and sets it down. What a fucking rat bastard. I wish I had poison on me. I would pay anything to a server to spike his drink.
Listen to me. I sound like I’m part of Massimo’s world. Since when did I believe in offing people?
I don’t know, but for Lorenzo Ferraro I would make an exception. And I think all the angels taking notes on my actions might turn a blind eye and let me have this one, too.
“You have assassins running through Chicago hunting you and we are dining out? What the holy fuck is wrong with you?” I grit out every single word through clenched teeth.
"Oh, no. There’s more to it than that. I put up an extra ten million so I could have more than just your husband’s head in a bag for my pleasure.” Arrogance pulls at the corner of his lip.
I suck in a breath.
“If you are not delivered to me by midnight tomorrow, Harlon's men will begin enforcement proceedings. Your husband has known about this for nine days, yes." He looks at Massimo. "Haven't you?"
I turn to Massimo.
His jaw is locked. His hand is still on my thigh but the pressure has gone slack. His whiskey eyes meet mine and I watch everything I need to know move across his face in the space between two heartbeats. Guilt and shame war for dominance over his expression.
"How could you keep this from me?" My voice comes out quiet but the rage of one thousand demons roars in my blood.
"Sloane, this is a matter between—"
"Don’t you dare fucking say it. You tell me it’s between you two and my worthless father who can’t get his head out of his drinks and I swear to God I will do those runners’ work for them and put two bullets in you myself.
” I pause and inhale deeply. "Nine days.
You knew for nine days and you didn't tell me.
I gave you all of me. My trust. Everything. And you betrayed me like this?"
"I was trying to fix it before—"
"Before what? Before when? They hauled me off the street? Or maybe I’d be at my boutique and the runner would come in, kill a few of my clients and kidnap me then. Or before they killed you and took me in a snap?"