Chapter 6

“So, tell me about yourself.”

Gabriella’s smile was completely fake, but if she didn’t smile, she would stab someone—maybe herself so she would have an excuse to leave. Maybe Alessandro, who wouldn’t stop glaring at her date. Not her father, although he was somehow to blame for this. Most likely, however, it would be her date.

Michael Calvet was somehow even more insufferable than the Alphas her father had listed, yet he was a Beta. This was a trick, obviously. That’s why she was blaming him. He had given her a list of Alphas from within and around the family who would be possible suitors, along with others she could consider dating for appearances. She had chosen a Beta because instinct had told her to pick a Beta like herself.

And now, stabbing was one hundred percent on the table.

“I work with my father most of the time. He runs a number of Casinos.”

Right. She remembered her father mentioning his gambling addiction. Working with his father was quite a stretch.

He was still rambling on about what he did in the day-to-day when Gabriella locked eyes with her Alpha escort. Alessandro rolled his eyes, then shook his head.

She raised a brow, then glanced at Michael. He wasn’t looking at her, so when she glanced up at Alessandro, she rolled her eyes in response.

So, they were in agreement. Michael was an idiot.

She wondered how Matthew would have responded if he were there.

She glanced across the room to where was leaning against the wall, somehow blending in. If she hadn’t known he was there to begin with, she never would have picked him out as one of her guards. Tommy was somewhere behind her.

Matthew, however, wasn’t in the car when Alessandro picked her up, and she had assumed he would be at the restaurant. That had been proven false when she entered and Alessandro had pointed out where the other two were. Unless he was good at hiding himself in a dark corner and her driver had somehow forgotten to mention him, he wasn’t there.

Perhaps he was avoiding her after their encounter.

The encounter that had left her heart racing and her underwear soaked for hours.

Alessandro sniffed, and she forced herself to take her mind off Matthew and looked at Michael, who was still talking about different brands of dice and the probability of certain rolls.

Cute, but she was a numbers girl, and his were wrong.

The wine glass in front of her was far too appetizing, particularly because she had promised herself she wouldn’t drink too much on these dates, as she needed to keep her wits about her so she could control her tongue. Still, she needed to dull her senses, until she could no longer hear Michael’s grating voice. Yes, alcohol was good while she counted down the minutes until she could return home and yell at her father.

Hours later, as Gabriella paced her father’s office in absolute silence, unable to find the right words, she wondered where Matthew was. If he were here, the date would have been bearable because she could have dazed after him while he stood around and existed. Alessandro sneering at Michael had been entertaining, but the thought of Matthew glaring at her date made her heart race and her core throb.

Something about pacing in her father’s office made her think about years earlier, when she had realized just what he was, who he was. Before, she had always somehow known that he was involved with less than legal ventures. Then, in college, others had questioned her about the Santorini Family. She had a few uncles she had never met who were doing time and a couple in the ground but had assumed her father wasn’t the one making the moves.

Which was stupid because her father would not take orders from others. When she had realized he wasn’t just a member of the most dangerous crime family but was the head of it...

She had paced for hours, demanding answers she never received. They had fought for years after that, but once they solved their issues, they had promised to work on their communication and to keep no more secrets.

So, she would communicate.

“I think that was the worst date of my life,” she finally snapped. “I would rather suffer through... I don’t know, Petyr Antorelli, rather than ever sit across from that idiot again!”

She had been reaching for the most insufferable guy she could think of. But as her father gave her an apologetic smile, she realized what she had done. She had just chosen the next name from his list.

When he offered her a glass of something dark and bitter, she accepted it without complaint and didn’t shudder as she swallowed it in one gulp.

It was absolutely shocking to her that Petyr was somehow even more stupid than he looked, but here she was, standing in a gun range with him, holding a loaded pistol in her hand. If he wanted her to shoot him, he should have chosen somewhere more public because she was ready to within five seconds of being around him. And yet she was too pretty to sit in a jail cell, even for five minutes.

Could she get away with shooting him in the foot and claiming she just didn’t know what she was doing? Because, while it wasn’t her first choice on where to shoot him, she wouldn’t rule it out too early.

Every ounce of patience was working overtime to keep her from smacking Petyr across the face. He had tried to stand behind her and wrap his arms around her body to help her shoot, but almost immediately, Alessandro stepped in and told him to keep his distance. That resulted in Petyr joking, waving his own pistol far too close to her direction, claiming he knew what he was doing.

He very obviously knew nothing.

Marco wasn’t this stupid. Was he aware of how much of a danger to himself and everyone around him his nephew was?

When Petyr tried to touch her again, Gabriella shot, purposely missing the target. Forcing herself to smile, she claimed she would rather just watch.

It was a good thing the gun was out of her hands when Petyr made a snide remark about how she was too short and big for him to help anyway.

If Matthew were there, he would have already taken Petyr out back and shot him.

Except he was missing. Again.

Alessandro had offered no explanation, and Gabriella hadn’t asked. She wanted to—but what could she even say?

Hey, where’s the guy I wanted to drag up to my room a few nights ago and have him show me the way an Alpha fucks?

Or, hey, did I scare off the guy whose Alpha pheromones don’t scare the shit out of me?

Maybe she should just ask if Matthew was scared of taking a girl out on a date—not that she would go out with him.

She could. He was an Alpha. He would be easy to control.

Only she had to figure out how to propose the idea to her father.

“Shit,” Petyr muttered, grabbing Gabriella’s attention. He put the gun on the counter, barrel pointed toward himself because he was an idiot. “Stay right here and don’t touch anything. Don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

He left the room, leaving her behind, with just her Alphas, and the handguns he was supposed to be showing off to her—or something like that. Who had taught him gun safety? Surely, even members of a crime family learned it. Yes, okay, the Alphas could quickly heal, but no one wanted to accidentally shoot themselves in the dick.

Maybe she should shoot him in the dick.

“He hurt his hand somehow and is looking for a Band-Aid,” Tommy announced from where he was sitting in the corner.

“Are you for fucking real?” she muttered as she pushed herself off the wall. “A Band-Aid. Don’t you guys heal fast?”

“Yes,” Alessandro answered, his voice low, likely so that Petyr wouldn’t be able to hear them with his enhanced hearing. “He’s going to be a little while.”

“Oh my god. Please just take me home.” She looked down at the pistols Petyr hadn’t yet shot.

She shouldn’t, particularly because no one knew. And no one would know. It was her little secret.

But these Alphas were sworn to protect her.

“Don’t tell Matthew.”

“Don’t tell Matthew what?”

She picked up the revolver she suspected Petyr had hurt himself with and checked the chamber. She wasn’t sure he had even loaded it properly, and she wasn’t going to hurt herself just because he was stupid.

It had been weeks since she held a gun—not since returning from graduate school—and the five minutes with a Glock in her hands earlier in the evening didn’t count. It was gratifying to feel its weight, close the cylinder, and wrap her palms around the handle.

Someone said something behind her, but she didn’t pause as she cocked, took aim, and squeezed. The recoil was satisfying, and she went again and again until she emptied the chamber and was staring at a nearly perfect paper.

Well, except for where Petyr had missed his shots.

“Don’t tell Matthew,” Gabriella repeated, setting the gun on the counter, pointed away from herself.

Tommy blinked. “Holy fucking—”

She whirled around to face them. “This is between us. I don’t want anyone else to know.”

“Why not?” Alessandro asked. “That was... Who knows you can shoot?”

“The shooting range I went to while I was at school,” she started, then glanced between the two Alphas. “The pair of you.”

“Not the boss?” Alessandro asked.

She shook her head. “He doesn’t need to know everything about me.”

“That was badass,” Tommy said, nodding. “I’m telling Ricky. He’s gonna be pissed he missed it. And yeah, no telling Matthew. He would lose his shit if he knew you could—”

“Tommy!”

“What? We’ve all been under the impression she can’t do anything to protect herself! Even the boss called her weak.”

“I am far from weak,” she pointed out with a scoff as she crossed her arms. “But it’s not a bad thing if—”

“If you want to go, Miss, we need to go now,” Alessandro said. “Sounds like he found that Band-Aid.”

“Hell, yes. Get me out of here before I shoot him...”

And that was how she explained it to her father, thirty minutes later, when he demanded to know why she had disappeared in the middle of her date with Petyr.

“Papa, I know that I might not know everything there is to know about guns or whatever, but he was lacking basic gun safety. I wasn’t safe there! He’s an idiot!”

“She’s right, sir. He was lacking...” Alessandro paused, and Gabriella gave him an approving look outside of her father’s line of vision. “It was for her own safety that she be removed.”

Her father groaned as he sat behind his desk and shook his head.

Marco had called, complaining about Gabriella leaving early, so he demanded answers. Alessandro was backing her up, thankfully. Not that she should have to explain herself to anyone, but her father was treating her like a child.

“I’m going to shoot the next person you force me to go on a date with,” she warned her father as he threw up his hands, as though in acceptance. “Just so you know.”

“Gabriella, you can’t—” Her father shook his head again. “Fine. But only because I doubt you could even figure out how to shoot a gun. Remind me to fix that in the future.”

She was going to need to find a therapist. Immediately. Like, she needed one of her useless enforcers to research one.

Therapists could prescribe sedation medication, right? Because she needed to be sedated. Immediately.

Alphas were absolutely useless because all of them refused to hand her a gun.

She would have to start carrying a weapon.

“You look tense,” her date pointed out casually as he leaned forward to pick up his glass of wine. “I know you must be tired of all these dates your father is forcing you to go on, but you can relax with me.”

“If you know about my dates, then you should know why I’m not very relaxed right now,” she answered through clenched teeth.

I doubt you could even figure out how to shoot a gun , her father had said. He had bargained and lost.

She would shoot Darius Morcan before the evening was out, and Alessandro would hand her the gun.

Or fuck it. If Darius touched her, she would just take his gun, which she was certain he had to have on him. There was no way a weapons dealer with friends and enemies throughout the city would head out on a date with a mafia boss’s daughter without at least one gun on him.

Darius stared at his wine glass after taking a sip, then set it back on the table. Gabriella wanted to reach for her own, but if she did so, she would break the glass.

“Gabriella, I have no idea what I have done to upset you but perhaps if you enlighten me, I can alleviate some of your concerns.”

She scoffed and shook her head. She didn’t want to accuse without proof, even if she was all but certain. She had warned her father that Morcan couldn’t be trusted. No one could trust a man with his hand in every single cookie jar.

“Fine,” Darius answered with a sigh. “We shall sit here in silence.”

That was good enough for her.

Because she couldn’t escape yet. She had promised her father she wouldn’t leave early again. Of course, that was before she had all of the facts. Could she argue that she had made a promise based on false pretenses?

Gabriella forced herself to relax so she could pick up her wine glass and took a sip. He was watching her, and she didn’t like it. But what for, a sign of relaxation? What was with men and staring at her?

She drained her glass, then set it down. There. That way, she didn’t have to worry about breaking it.

Darius repeated her action, draining his own glass before placing it on the table. He waved over their waiter, who was standing diligently a few steps away, waiting to be summoned—the perks of her father owning the restaurant and clearing it out for the evening.

“Do you enjoy scotch? I feel like we would both be happier to be drinking something stronger. Or at least, I know I would.”

Gabriella stared him down, then glanced toward Alessandro. He was facing her, leaning against a wall, messing with his phone.

Well, if she got sloppy drunk, at least she didn’t have to worry about driving or Darius taking advantage of her in her inebriated state.

“I like scotch,” she answered with a shrug.

It was a half lie.

“Ah but do you enjoy it?” he asked, leaning forward. “Or what do you prefer? I won’t judge you for your drink choices.”

She thought about it for a minute, considering. She didn’t drink often, so she didn’t really know what she enjoyed. Well, she did like wine and mixed drinks, but hard liquor sounded far more enjoyable. And the glasses they came in tended to be less fragile.

“I like scotch,” she repeated with a shrug. “And I don’t care about what you think of my drink choices. You said scotch and that sounds good to me.”

Darius nodded to their waiter, then resumed looking at her. He studied her, and she stared back. Hard. She wanted to know what he was thinking but wouldn’t dare to ask.

“I’m trying to decide if you actually don’t care or if you’re trying to be agreeable,” he said.

Gabriella laughed, unable to help herself, rolling her eyes. “I am not the sort of woman to try being agreeable. If I have an opinion on something, you’ll know it.”

“Like the fact that you don’t like me.”

“Exactly.”

Their waiter returned with two glasses and set them down, then opened a bottle. She knew immediately which bottle it was, as her father was particular about having his preferred brands of everything in all of his establishments. She doubted their waiter or the bartender, who was tucked around the corner, would dare to serve her anything other than the best.

Darius picked up his glass as she sipped from hers. Leaning forward once more, he even went so far as to prop a forearm on one knee. “Let’s ask questions, to pass the evening. We’re both stuck here until we’re done eating and our fathers will both know if we leave early. You’re already on thin ice after what happened with Petyr Antorelli and I’m not allowed home unless you are singing my praises to your father.”

Gabriella forced herself to sip her drink to give herself a moment to think. What did he know about her date with Petyr, and how could he know? Would her father have told his father? Was he friends with Petyr? Her other few dates had been out in public, so it was understandable she would be seen, but her date with Petyr’s had been on his estate.

How had he known?

Her father really was pushing for this choice despite knowing she was angry about dating and that she didn’t trust any of the Morcans. Why was this his top pick and why was he insisting so hard?

Questions. So many questions—but not for Darius. She would have a long talk with her father when she returned home.

“Very well, then. I get to ask the first question. Why did you agree to go on a date with me?”

Darius swirled his glass, studying it before taking a sip. He seemed to be thinking it over, which told her he was either considering giving her a whole honest answer or working on a lie. It was a good thing she happened to have a reliable lie detector.

“My father wants this,” he answered. “But I have no complaints. You’re a beautiful woman with power. I like powerful women.”

Did he now?

“Alessandro,” Gabriella called out, pulling the Alpha’s attention away from his phone and toward her. “What do you think? Is he telling the truth?”

She had been delighted to learn that all the Alphas seemed to be really good at detecting lies. Something about scents and heartbeats, things she didn’t understand. All she knew was that it would be useful in interrogations, like dates.

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Alessandro answered.

She watched his eyes, and he nodded. It really was the truth.

An Alpha who enjoyed women with power? That was interesting.

“Alessandro, if Darius lies, will you please be wonderful and shoot him for me?”

The glare Alessandro gave her wasn’t a no but also wasn’t a yes. She could work with that.

Darius slowly turned to look at the Alpha behind him, then swiveled back, his expression panicked. Good. That was good.

“Your turn to ask a question.”

“Uh, what are you looking for in a husband?”

Gabriella’s brow raised slightly, and she swirled her glass, considering the answer. She hadn’t actually thought about it. The whole her-getting-married thing? That was her father’s plan. Gabriella fully intended on having a very long engagement once the decision was made, with hopes of getting out of it all together.

What she needed was for the rest of the family, for her father’s closest confidants and the heads of the families, to all see a future in her. Just her. Then she could drop the fiancé and move forward.

The only man she wanted was—no. She wasn’t going to think about him. Not while she was angry with him for still avoiding her.

How pathetic was she to be on a date with one man while refraining from thinking about another? Darius was here, even if she did want to shoot him. Matthew was not someone she would think about. She had only seen him a few times, and it didn’t matter that he made her heart race because he was avoiding her, clearly, and that was...

“Gabriella?”

“I don’t want a husband. Don’t need one. But, my father seems to think the only way anyone in the family will take me seriously is if I have a strong husband beside me.”

“Hence why he has you dating Alphas?” Darius asked, but she shook her head.

“Not your turn to ask a question. What do you want in a wife?”

Darius scoffed, sipped his drink, and leaned forward. “Ahh, well, I already told you I like a woman with power, but inevitably, I’ll probably marry the first Omega who gives me the time of day.” He stiffened, eyes going wide. “Sorry. That was—”

“Honest,” she answered with a shrug. “You’re an Alpha. Of course you would want an Omega. Which is why I’m surprised you’re even wasting your time here with me. You have to be my age or a few years older. You’re going to need an Omega soon, unless...”

She thought about it, now frustrated with herself for not questioning it sooner. Why would an Alpha waste his time on a date with a Beta when they would need an Omega to survive their ruts. Why would an Alpha even want a Beta wife? Why would they risk—

“My father is giving you whatever drugs he has in his Alpha Program. Or, he’s promised them to you.”

“It’s not your turn to ask a—” Darius sputtered, his eyes wide.

Gabriella shook her head and rolled her eyes. “It’s not a question. It’s a statement. That’s the only way an Alpha would even be willing to consider a Beta. And the way you just panicked? I don’t need to have one of my enforcers put a gun to your head for the answer nor do I need to ask if you’re telling the truth. If you’re going to be in this game, you’re going to need to get better at lying.”

If Darius was on the same drugs the Alphas were being given or promised them, she had to wonder how many others were also involved. How many members of the family. And what about other families? Her father had said this was exclusive for his enforcers and that it was still a testing thing, but she hadn’t asked about it since returning, and a lot could change in a few years.

She needed to learn more about this Alpha Program—and fast.

“Miss Santorini,” Alessandro said, pulling her from her thoughts. “We need to leave. Immediately.”

Gabriella blinked when Alessandro approached, phone in one hand, keys in the other. “What—”

Why did she have the sudden feeling that her mentioning the program was a problem. Was she not allowed to know about it? Why would Alessandro be—

“Something has happened. Your father is waiting for you.”

Her father? What could have happened?

“Don’t expect me to call,” Gabriella said as she stood. She swallowed the rest of her drink and groaned at the burn. Ugh, turned out she didn’t enjoy scotch all that much. “And if I find out the guns used on my Alpha enforcers came from your family, I’ll shoot you myself.”

Darius’s eyes were wide as she walked past him, following Alessandro with Ricky and Tommy.

When they approached the car, she asked, “Is there really something happening?”

Alessandro turned on the car and glanced over his shoulder. “For the love of God, neither of you let her disarm you. No telling what she can do. But yes. We know where the guns came from.”

It took her all of two seconds before weeks of rage was on the verge of exploding.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

The drive back to her house was absolutely silent. She was too angry to say anything else, and tension blanketed the atmosphere. This explained why Alessandro had been messing with his phone the entire time—probably updating her father on what was going on. How long had they known about the guns? And why had no one told her until now? Why was Darius even a possibility for her future spouse?

She wasted no time when they arrived and entered her father’s office, still filled with rage. She paused, however, when she saw Matthew was also in the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He was glaring at her, which reignited her anger towards him. Why would Matthew glare at her?

“You were right, Gabriella. Morcan did sell the guns to the group that shot Matthew’s team last week,” her father said, his voice eerily calm.

She closed her eyes while taking in a slow breath. Not anger. She needed to not speak with anger despite it coursing through her.

“Who was it that shot at them?”

“He didn’t say.”

Oh, and there was that anger, overflowing once more. Morcan wouldn’t say? Wouldn’t answer? How was that even a possibility?

“Matthew, I need you to go and drag both Darius and his father in. We’re getting answers, tonight.”

Matthew pushed off the wall, but her father raised his hand, stopping him.

Gabriella turned on her father, furious with him. Why was he not demanding answers?

“We cannot drag Jannick in here and demand answers nor should you be threatening his son.”

“Why not? Papa, if they—”

“This is politics, Gabriella. Sometimes, you don’t get what you want.”

His tone sounded final, but she refused to accept that.

“Are you or are you not the head of the most powerful crime family in this city? You once told me that you held all the power in this town and that you make the decisions. You told me that one day, I would make the decisions. That I would be in charge. Being in charge means that we can drag people in and demand answers. It means that we get what we want.” Scorching with anger, she stomped, ready to break anything. She would burn the whole city down in search of Jannick Morcan and his son. “You sent me on a date with him. You’ve been insisting I date complete idiots, all to find me a husband. Why? So they can stand behind their desk and claim politics, rather than dealing with someone who is selling weapons to our enemies?”

“Gabriella!” her father snapped. “I do not answer to you. I am still the head of this family. Stomping your foot like a child and throwing a tantrum? Is that what graduate school taught you?”

A tantrum. He was calling this a tantrum?

“Clearly I have much to learn,” she hissed, balling fists at her sides, struggling to refrain from throwing something. “It looks like I will no longer be going on anymore dates until I can understand politics.”

“Figure yourself out, Gabriella. Take your medicine or whatever it is you need to do to set yourself right. I don’t recognize you right now and I dislike it,” her father snapped with a dismissive wave.

“You figure your shit out,” she snapped back, and marched out of the room.

“You haven’t spoken to your father in a week?”

Gabriella stared at the wine glass in her hand, not even able to muster the energy to look at her uncle. She was drained, exhausted, running on fumes, struggling to sleep, to eat, to do much of anything. She had spent the past week in her room, binge-watching garbage television and guzzling all the water she could get her hands on.

The rage of the week before had continued into the night and then the next day, she had woken up exhausted. During her rage, she had never bothered to remember to take her night meds, and she was paying for it the next day, particularly because of how much she had also drunk the night before.

She would not skip her meds again if they were going to make her this funky.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” she insisted.

“Then, what do you want to talk about?”

Meeting with her uncle had been a spur-of-the-moment idea. He had texted her, and she was amazed the old man even knew how to text, asking how she was. Without answer, she had immediately called Alessandro, demanding the car be brought over. Only Alessandro had accompanied her, as the trip was last minute and the rest of the team was unavailable for some reason.

She didn’t ask about Matthew, even though she knew she needed to. Just like she needed to talk to someone about her father and the family and her new position in life. And she desperately needed to talk to someone about the dreams that had been plaguing her.

The dream wasn’t a new one, but never had it plagued her night after night, nor had the dream ever lasted so long. Sometimes, it was like a nightmare, but this was mostly the good parts, with none of the bad that occasionally flickered in. Every night, it was the man who called to her, reached for her. She would go to him, cradle him. He would take strength from her touch, and she always felt soft and small and whole. The warmth that would envelop her at his touch made everything else cold in comparison. Unable to see his face nor place his voice, she could sense his smell calling to her, a mixture of metal, smoke, and wood. Every morning, she woke up, aching and longing for whoever it was in that dream. She woke up, wishing she was still asleep, still wrapped up safely in those arms.

But something was keeping her from him, from seeing his face, and from having more than just his arms around her. Something was in the way. And night after night, she clung to him in that dream.

She couldn’t tell Uncle Toto about that dream, however. Because, on top of waking up cold, she also woke up absurdly horny. And there was no way she would discuss anything like that with him.

“I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot lately,” she answered. “Thinking about what she would have wanted for me.”

That was another thing on her mind. Wondering how her mother had sat beside her father, day in and day out, listening to the politics. They hadn’t been married for a long time before they had her and then her mother had died shortly thereafter. Still, she had been married to her father for long enough that her father still missed her and loved only her.

“Your happiness,” her uncle answered. “Your mother always spoke of how her child would know happiness, in a way that so many in our world do not.”

Happiness. Something Gabriella wasn’t entirely sure she had ever actually known.

“My father doesn’t trust me with things. He’s keeping things from me. And one moment, he wants me to make decisions and the next, he insists on making them for me. I mean, I can’t even pick my own doctors. And, I know it’s because of the whole heart thing but I swear, every time I talk to the doctors, they don’t even look at me, only him. I’m hitting my late twenties, Uncle, but he still treats me like a child.”

She looked up at her uncle, wanting some wisdom or at least commiseration, but instead, her uncle was stiff, looking away from her. Why wouldn’t he look at her?

“Uncle Toto?”

“You should talk to your father, about everything,” her uncle insisted, still not meeting her eyes. “About him trusting you and listening to you, yes but also about your heart and about the doctors. Perhaps you should even find one of your own.”

Find her own doctor? Yes, that was something she wanted to do, but why would Uncle Toto mention it?

Of all the people she could talk to, of all in her circle, her uncle had the least allegiance to her father. While he was loosely within certain circles, he was not technically a member of the Santorini Syndicate. His allegiance had only come because of his niece’s marriage to her father and, since, through his connection with Gabriella.

If anyone was going to tell her any sort of truth, it would be her uncle.

“What do you know?” she asked, leaning forward with her eyes wide. “What are you not telling me?”

“I failed your mother, in that, when her condition presented, my brother looked at it as though she was... something shameful. My generation, you must understand, we were not as understanding about certain things. I should have asked more questions. Do I think your father has your best interests in mind? Yes, of course, but I think a second opinion would do you well. Do you understand?”

She nodded, eyes wide.

A second opinion. Good idea.

“Good. Now let’s play a round of chess. It’s been a while since I last had any real competition.”

Her own doctor. Okay, then.

“I need to ask you something and I need the truth.”

Gabriella knew Alessandro had other orders and had been instructed to not tell her certain things. He also probably had a loyalty to Matthew that superseded her. Yet she still had to ask. She needed answers.

“Why has Matthew, who is the head of your team and the one in charge of my safety, avoided me ever since he was granted the position?”

She didn’t want to say it like that, as though he had been avoiding being around her, but she didn’t know what else to say or how else to describe it.

Alessandro looked away from her, as though he would rather be anywhere else. Great. So, a lie, then, or?

“He’s afraid of himself and of scaring you with his brutality. He’s more Alpha than man.”

Gabriella laughed, unable to help herself. He was afraid of himself and that she would be scared of his brutality? She had been begging him to bring in a man for her to shoot. If he didn’t want to be brutal, then he was in the wrong business.

“And for the record, I think he’s being an idiot about it but Alphas in the program, we’re—” Alessandro shook his head.

There it was again. Something people were refraining from discussing with her.

“Do you like being in the program?” she asked carefully. “Do you like your work?”

Silence was his only response.

“Are you allowed to talk to me about the program?”

Still no answer. His eyes were on the ground, forcing her to wonder.

Who was it that said he couldn’t talk to her about it? Her father? Or was it Matthew?

“Am I the heir to the Santorini Syndicate?” she asked slowly.

“You are.” He flicked his eyes up to her.

Good. He had probably been breaking his neck, given how he had to stare at his shoes to avoid looking at her.

“Is Matthew the one who—”

He shook his head, and her eyes went wide.

Ah. That had been a theory, that Matthew hadn’t wanted her to know more about the program, which was absurd. She was becoming more and more convinced she had just imagined the attraction between herself and the Alpha.

But if not Matthew, then her father. Why didn’t he want her to know more about the Alpha Program, particularly if he had given her an Alpha enforcer team as her bodyguards?

“My father has been keeping me busy with dating, rather than learning more about the business,” she stated.

“I think so.”

“And if he doesn’t want me learning the business, then obviously, my priorities need to shift into figuring out why he’s keeping things from me, particularly after he promised no more secrets.”

Alessandro nodded.

She nodded back and licked her lips. “The next time I see you, Matthew needs to be with you.”

Alessandro’s brows shot up, and he tipped a single nod before asking, “Why?”

She opened her mouth, then froze.

Lying to Alessandro would be pointless. Well, it would be the truth—but a partial one. She could easily say that she expected the head of her personal security to concern himself with her actual security, but he would know she was lying. She had to be honest in a way.

“Have you ever met someone that answers questions you didn’t even know you had? And, you’re still figuring out what to ask but somehow, you just know that they’re the answer?”

Alessandro stared back at her, and she shook her head. “Never mind. Forget what I said. None of that made sense. Just tell Matthew to get his ass in the damn car and to stop abandoning his duty to protect me. Understood?”

“Understood.” He was still staring at her, but something was plucking the back of her brain. His brow shifted, and maybe his lips quirked a little but then he was taking a step back as his eyes went wide. “We should get you home.”

Right. Home. Probably a good idea.

She was warming up, becoming sweaty. She needed a shower and to go back to bed.

And then tomorrow, it was time to get to work. No more dates. No more men.

Except for a doctor, but...

She was the next Santorini Syndicate Boss. It was time to act like it.