Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

ALYSSA

S tanding beside Brynne’s desk after the hectic three days we’ve had, I shift on my heels, body feeling constricted by the pencil skirt and silk top I chose for this meeting to look more the part. I’ve been working with Mauro, Brynne’s father’s former right-hand man. He’s been teaching me the ropes and showing me everything I need to know about this job. By the end of the first lesson, it was clear that this was the most high-profile job I’ve ever had or will ever have.

Shit, this job might kill me.

The thrill of it, though, is enough to make me giddy each time my alarm rings. However, meeting Ardesia Ricci and his men has me on edge this morning.

“I need you to calm down. Your energy is affecting mine,” Brynne says, eyeing me as she watches the monitor on her desk.

Men who’ve arrived in two blacked-out Suburbans are dealing with John at the front gate, and I know from my own experience that they’re having the time of their lives right now.

A rueful grin tugs my lips up and spikes my blood pressure.

“You ready for this? You’ve only dipped your toe into this world so far.” Brynne looks at me head-on.

She looks fierce. Her makeup is done to perfection, and her knockout dress is form-fitting, and so fucking alluring even I might jump her.

“I’m ready. I was born for this life, don’t you think?’

Brynne laughs, shaking her head. “You know, I don’t think you’re wrong. You were the first person I thought of when Mauro called me boss. You were my first call.”

Something about her admission makes my chest rise and fall a bit quicker.

“Headed your way, Boss,” John calls over the comm system from the guard station out front.

Brynne shifts in her seat, powering off the computer screen where she’d been watching her prey arrive, and then gives me one final look—a look that says this is your last chance to run.

I straighten, hold my iPad close to my chest, and cement my feet to the marble floors.

It’s not Ardesia Ricci who opens the door, however. After the night I spent in the bar when Brynne returned home, I looked him up. He’s menacing with eyes that are laced with murder.

This man has bright blue eyes and dark jet-black hair. His jaw is angular and sharp, like he wields it as a weapon when his gun misfires. It’s covered in a tightly-trimmed beard that’s thick and sexy as hell. He’s tall, hulking over my five foot eight.

His arms are covered in tattoos, some winding around his neck, one touching his beautiful jaw.

My breath catches in my throat as he eyes Brynne, and then his eyes dust toward me.

“What the fuck?” His sentiment is cut off when he’s shoved aside, and Ardesia Ricci fills the doorframe, gun held firmly in place.

“You’re going to negotiate with me, Bianchi,” he says, pinning his menacing glare on Brynne as he takes her in. His brain works behind his crazed eyes as he snarls and tightens his trigger finger.

She assured me he wouldn’t harm us, but now I wonder. I tighten my grip on the iPad, wishing I’d brought my pepper spray.

The man who entered first is glaring at me, eyes never leaving me as he holds a gun on me, stance unwavering.

Brynne stands, rounding her desk with cool calculation and stealth, with no air of fear present as she walks toward the man holding her at gunpoint.

“Now, is that any way to treat your bunny?”

“It was you all along,” he answers, not lowering his weapon, and his man doesn’t either. If anything, his eyes narrowed on me as he tightened his grip on the Glock in his hand.

However, the way these men look gives the impression that they don’t need a weapon—they are the weapon.

The man next to me looks at Brynne as she grins wickedly at him, giving him a nod. He smiles, and his entire demeanor changes: his eyes are lit, and his perfect teeth are flashing a wicked smile that allows two alluring dimples to mark his cheeks.

He lowers and holsters his gun, moving toward Ardesia and clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re on your own with this one, Boss.”

He heads for the door but tosses over his shoulder, “Good to see you’re alright, Ms. Brynne.”

Brynne looks at me, and I send up the flare of worry that’s been growing in my stomach this entire time. She nods at me, confirming she’s alright, and as we discussed before this meeting, I nod in reply and exit the room.

I’m to remain just outside the door, however, which seems to be the other man’s orders, too. I stand in awkward silence with three other Ricci men as the rest of the house does Brynne’s bidding, getting rid of all the elaborate, overpriced furniture and bobbles to auction off to charity.

I found one that’s mission is to rehabilitate and settle trafficking victims—the ones who make it out. That’s where every dime of Mr. Bianchi’s estate will be donated. Brynne’s expressed wishes are to do good, as much as a mafiosi can.

She’s got blood on her hands, and so do I, by extension. In nearly a year, our world has tipped upside down and stained red, all because of one decision for her to go on that fucking television show.

I’ll feel wrong for suggesting it until the day I go into the ground, and if the man next to me doesn’t stop staring at me like I’m something to eat, that day might be today.

My heart is thrumming wildly before the first sexual cry comes from behind the door we’re huddled around.

Fuck.

It’s been weeks since I hooked up with anyone, and now I’m getting wet listening to my best friend fuck her man while in the presence of killers.

What the hell has my life become?

I swallow against the building heat in my throat as more noises filter out from behind the door.

“Dante!” Brynne calls, and the man beside me, who seemed to have been memorizing my face to come to hunt me down for dinner, is moving before I can register the scream.

He shoves the door open, filling the space with his massive body so I can see nothing beyond him.

“Your boss would like to be advised on whether it’s safe to fuck me hard and deep,” Brynne says, and I fight a grin as one of the men across from me rolls his eyes and laughs.

The man I now know as Dante laughs, and there’s so much innuendo in his tone that I can almost feel its fingers rake up my inner thighs.

“Daddy has my permission,” he says, and I nearly buckle to the floor in a puddle.

His voice is deep and graveled; something in it tells you he’s seen the darkest parts of the world and lived, and I want nothing more than to hear him crying my name.

Stop! You can’t sleep with him.

It surely would complicate things, though Brynne knew how I was when she brought me into this life. She even told me I’d have my pick of men willing to warm my bed for the night. That I’d practically have them lining the halls.

I’ve never been good with commitment, not after watching my parents ruin a marriage of thirty-odd years after my dad took my mother nearly into poverty and cheated on her with a tramp from his company.

I love sex. I love to feel the touch of a man on me, but I can’t let them stay. Not in my bed. Not in my life.

The longer I stand by the door, listening to the moans and heated words between Brynne and Ardesia, I feel flush covering my body, my nipples pebbling to brush against the soft fabric cupping them.

My thighs press together in an attempt to hide how wet I am, and finally, I break.

“I need a moment. Please, excuse me,” I say to the Ricci men, who give an answering chuckle as I make my way upstairs to the room I’ve been using as mine and slam the door.

Dropping the iPad onto the bed, I rush into the bathroom and give myself a look of disappointment in the mirror as I splash water on my face.

“Get it together,” I tell myself, patting the water off with a hand towel.

I don’t hear him come in. He’s the epitome of stealth and covertness you’d expect from the Grim Reaper’s enforcer. Even though Brynne spoke about Dante with kindness when she told me about the people in Ardesia’s life she’d met, I don’t see a kind thing on his face when he steps into my bathroom and pins me to the sink basin.

“You got it together yet?” His words sink into my brain, echoing what I’d just told myself a moment ago.

How long has he been in here?

He would’ve had to immediately follow me up here to have heard…

“You’re flushed.” He towers over the back of me, placing his hands beside mine on the basin, caging me in with his size.

My heart only speeds like the needy slut she is.

“It’s hot. We’re in Florida,” I toss back, pressing my back into him to get him to move away, but he only groans and leans his face down, skimming it up my neck as he breathes in my scent.

I began wearing a pheromone perfume a couple of months ago after seeing it in an advertisement. It mixes with my body’s chemical makeup and enhances my natural scent while adding the subtlest perfume.

“Fuck, you smell good, minaccia,” he says.

The graveled tone of his voice makes wetness creep into my panties, and I know I’m thoroughly fucked.

I flick my eyes towards the ceiling, cursing all that’s holy for creating Dante Ricci and setting him in my path because he feels like more than I’ve ever gone up against.

He just feels like more.