5. Chapter Five

Forty-eight hours have passed since I stood in Sophie Kellans office, and now I find myself standing at the front door of her small redbrick bungalow. I haven’t slept in two days.

I knew it would be hard. I just never imagined it’d be physically impossible to do it. Everything was ready. Clean-up crew in place. All the street cameras disabled. And I was about as useful as an unloaded gun. I couldn’t hurt her. Yet I really can’t afford to let her live.

Father’s cryptic words now echo with newfound clarity. Self-awareness is indeed a virtue.

It was a mistake seeing her. Talking to her. She’s beautiful no doubt, even more so in person. But I’ve seen hundreds of beautiful women. It’s not just the way she looks, it’s the way I react to her. She opens her sexy, sassy mouth and I get an insane desire to shut it—with me.

And it’s her eyes too. Those amber eyes are like coals of fire that see too much. She looked at me like she was trained to do it. Like she was reading my thoughts. Stared at my left hand like she was controlling the damn thing. No wonder the fucking thing couldn’t move.

I’ve always thought myself capable of anything, no matter how depraved, because in my book, the end always justifies the means. But as I hightailed it out of her office, it dawned on me: I need a new plan and, evidently, a crash course in self-awareness.

And so, over the past two days, I’ve watched her. Had her followed, and her phones bugged. I’ve sat outside her goddamned house all night and watched as the same tatted guy from her office building went in, then left an hour later—a booty call, no doubt. And no wonder. The woman radiates raw, sheet-rending sex all the way from her ‘fuck off’ amber eyes and pouty lips, right down to her stiletto heels.

Still. I have a decision to make. The fact that every single time I see her, my body takes great joy in reminding me of how gorgeous he thinks Sophie Kellan is, doesn’t matter. I can’t stalk her forever. So until I know what to do with her, she’s coming with me.

Which is why I now raise my fist and bang on her front door with more force than necessary.

In less than a minute, the woman opens her front door wearing tiny shorts and a tank top. She’s soaking wet.

Fuck me.

Her skin glistens in the morning sunlight, and water droplets drip from the wisps of dark hair that have escaped her bun.

You want to kill that?My cock rants in objection and is sounding pretty damned convincing right this moment.

Her eyes widen in shock at the sight of me. Apparently, she didn’t check the peephole before pulling the door open. She immediately attempts to slam the door shut.

But I’m quicker, catching the door and pushing it wider, I don’t yet cross the threshold, but she has to know it’s coming.

Instead of running, screaming, or anything else a rational person might do when a dangerous man shows up at their door, she huffs and crosses her arms over her chest, molding the fabric of her wet shirt to her full tits and pushing them up. I see her nipples clearly outlined under the wet white tank top.

Christ! Doesn’t she know what she looks like right now?

“You do know clothes are supposed to come off before you have a shower, Signorina Kellan?” The words leave my mouth unexpectedly, and I realize I’ve been staring for too long when I see her nipples harden.

I tell the blood rushing to my cock that it’s due to the cool draft on her damp flesh, that it’s fear, shock, or revulsion—anything but the notion that my presence might be affecting her this way.

“Leave,” she snaps while her eyes glare daggers at me.

“We need to talk,” I say, dragging my gaze back up to hers, wondering where the fuck that came from. I didn’t come here to talk. My original intent was more straightforward; I should be gagging and bundling her into the back of the van parked out front right about now.

“There’s nothing to discuss. Get your ass off my property, Mr. Vitelli, or I’ll call the—”

“Police? No, you won’t,” I cut her off. I’ve already blocked all outgoing signals.

Her eyes spark with defiance before she whirls around, making a dash across the room.

Where does she think she’s going?The back exit wont budge; I made sure of it.

She’s aiming for something on the coffee table. Closing the distance between us with three long strides, I reach out, grasping her arm to halt her, spinning her to face me. But the instant our bodies align, I feel an unexpected pressure against my crotch. And I have a feeling she isn’t offering up hand-jobs here.

She meets my gaze, her big amber eyes snapping in defiance while a smug smile plays at the corners of her plump lips. Lips that would look fucking incredible wrapped around my cock.

Then, out of nowhere, something quacks. Yes, quacks—like a duck.

“What the hell is that?” I demand, scanning the room for the source of the absurd noise.

“Don’t you think you should be more concerned with what that is?” she retorts, arching an eyebrow and nodding toward her hand, which is firmly wrapped around the hilt of a knife. A knife that is currently pressed against my balls.

Impressive. I didn’t even see her pull out the knife.

“That,” I say without looking down or backing away, “is a very big mistake if you want to keep breathing, fiammetta.”

“What I want is for you to get the fuck out of my house, gangster,” she shoots back, her voice steady. “And just so you know, your threats aren’t going to have me quaking in my shoes, so save them.”

Despite the precarious situation, my attention drifts to her lips, and against all reason, my softening cock goes rock hard again, the fucker oblivious to the danger of being sliced apart. I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a woman more than Sophie Kellan right this moment. I want all that fire and ferocity trapped under me, eyes shooting daggers just like this, moments before rolling back in orgasm.

Fuck. I’ve lost it.

I let go of her arm and raise my hands up in surrender, waiting for her to retract the blade so I can properly disarm her.

But then, the absurdity escalates. My focus is lost again when a mallard duck—wearing a fucking diaper—waddles into the living room down the hall, its webbed feet slapping the floor and sprinkling water everywhere.

Sophie heaves a sigh and takes the knife away from my crotch, though she keeps a firm hold on the hilt.

Caught off guard, I can only gape in bewilderment. “That’s a duck,” I state, eyeing the bird, not entirely sure I’m not imagining shit—it’s been some time since I last slept.

“Brilliant observation,” she quips with unmistakable sarcasm.

The duck, oblivious to the unfolding human drama, pecks at Sophies leg, seeking attention.

Sophie looks down at the duck but keeps me in her peripheral vision and the knife close. “You’re supposed to be in the bath, George,” she tells the duck, a hint of affection in her tone despite the ongoing standoff.

The duck quacks. I have no fucking clue if it understood her. I don’t think it’s the smartest creature, though. It doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the wicked-looking dagger in her hand—a knife that could turn it into dinner with one stroke.

Sophie meanwhile reaches into her pocket with her free hand, pulls out a few pellets of something, and scatters it on the floor for George, who eagerly pecks at the morsels. Duck food, maybe? Who the fuck knows. The duck sure seems happy about it.

Then Sophie turns her attention back to me. “I don’t know what the hell it is you thought you’d accomplish by this intrusion—”

“Therapy,” I blurt out, the idea crystallizing at the moment. My initial plan of forcibly taking her isn’t panning out. I’d underestimated her and didn’t bring anything to drug her with. Something tells me that if I grab this woman as I initially planned to and she fights me, we might end up on the floor, her knife in me… Or my cock in her. Neither of which would do. So therapy it is.

Sophie rolls her eyes. “While I have no doubt you’re in serious need of some help, I somehow doubt you’ve come here—to my home—with an earnest interest in improving your mental and emotional well-being.”

I shrug. I don’t bother denying it, I can’t believe I suggested it myself. “But if someone comes to you for help, are you really going to turn them down?”

“When they show up at my door uninvited and then barge into my house?” She throws her arms out in a broad, encompassing gesture. “You bet your ass I am. That’s creepy stalker territory, Mr. Vitelli.”

She has no idea I’ve gone way beyond that, bugging her phones and all, but I’m still feeling like a fucking altar boy here, considering she should have been bundled into the back of my van right about now. I try reasoning with her.

“Keeping Maria and her daughter safe is on me, and you’re in the way. I can’t have that, but it seems you don’t scare easily, and for some reason I can’t quite figure out yet, I don’t want to hurt you, Sophie Kellan.” I can’t fucking make myself hurt you. “So, I see only one option here.”

Something ghosts through her eyes, a thought or a memory that takes her far away from her living room, but she’s back in a flash.

“And what option is that?” she asks, her tone flippant, but she can’t hide the way her voice cracks on the words. Something I said has touched a nerve, one that has softened her in some way rather than putting her further on the defensive.

“You won’t admit Maria Ricci was your client, much less divulge the extent of what she shared with you. I can’t turn my back on a loose cannon. So… therapy, an assured confidentiality between us.”

Her expression shifts to a frown. “It seems to me that you’re twisting the rules to suit your needs.”

I concede with a nod, “Twisting. Not breaking.”

She stares at me, and though I can tell she’s aware of my every movement, her thoughts seem to turn inward.

After a moment, she mutters to herself, “You’ve come back to haunt me, haven’t you?” Then, more directly to me, “Fine. I’ll be back in Chicago in two days. Make an appointment with my receptionist, and we’ll have your ‘therapy’ session.”

“What do you mean you’ll be back?”

She elaborates with a hint of sarcasm, “Return, come home, re-arrive, travel from point A to point B and back again.”

I shake my head. “No, fiammetta, you’re staying right here. That’s not up for negotiation.”

Her chuckle is light but filled with defiance. “And yet, here we are, with you on the cusp of fucking off my property and me about to get on a plane regardless of your opinion on the subject.”

I heave out a sigh. This isn’t going to work. With every minute I spend with her, the need to hurt her lessens considerably but is replaced by a baser, stronger urge. To shove my cock between those sassy lips and shut her up.

I notice her grip on the knife in her hand hasn’t relented. The way she holds it tells me she knows her way around knives, which is interesting, but I’m more intrigued that she thinks she has a hope in hell against me if I choose to attack. It should be cute—like a chihuahua thinking it could take on a pit bull—but there’s a confidence radiating from her pores that is sexy as hell.

“You do realize I could keep you against your will,” I say with deceptive lightness, the imagination of such control sending a thrill through me.

“You could try.” She counters, “You might even succeed, although not without you getting mortally wounded, by which time a vengeful ghost would be waiting to finish you off. So I’d strongly recommend against it.”

I eye her for a moment, waiting for further explanation. When she doesn’t give it, I prod, “What do you mean?”

With a sigh of exasperation, and a hint of sadness, she reveals, “I’m going to a funeral today, Mr. Vitelli. I need to say goodbye to an old friend.”

Pain slams into me, blindsiding me with emotions I’ve refused to confront. Leo’s funeral is today. I’d shut him off into a compartment of my brain, just so I could continue to function like nothing had changed, despite losing my best ally and my second in command to betrayal. My decision made in an instant, I state, “Well, it appears, then, you’ll have a plus one at this funeral.”

“You can’t possibly be serious,” she protests, her voice a blend of disbelief and amusement.

“As serious as a bullet.”

Attending Leo’s funeral is a debt I owe to our lifelong friendship. Yet it’s unthinkable that Don Vitelli would appear at a traitor’s farewell. So it’s just as well there’s another service today. It doesn’t matter whose it is at this point—dead is dead.

She pauses, her lips parting as if to speak, then closes them again, the room charged with a palpable tension as she contemplates her next words. “So, you’d accompany me to a funeral, all to keep Maria ‘safe,’” she air quotes.

“Correct.”

“Why does this woman mean so much to you? She has a husband, doesn’t she?”

I wonder if it’s the therapist in her that’s wondering if there’s something more between me and Maria. Or the fiery woman under that cool, unflappable demeanor. The woman whose heated gaze rakes over me like she can’t help herself.

“She doesn’t,” is my terse reply.

“Which are you denying, Mr Vitelli, that she doesn’t mean much to you or she doesn’t have a husband?”

I’m not in the mood to explain, but Sophie’s gaze seems to pull at me, demanding honesty. I find myself giving it because an irritatingly stupid part of me wants to encourage her to keep looking at me like she wants to devour me. “Maria’s husband was my friend.”

“Was…?” The word hangs between us.

I nod, watching a shadow cross her features and the slight widening of her amber eyes when she realizes that Maria’s husband is dead.

“Oh God. Poor Maria.” She turns away, her shoulders slumped as the fight drains from her stance. She slowly sheaths her dagger.

“All right,” she nods, though it seems the gesture is more for herself than me. “If you can wrangle yourself a last-minute plane ticket to Carlsbad—good luck with that, by the way—then you can be my plus one. But on one condition.”

“What?” I snap in irritation. The last thing I want from this sexy, sassy woman is her thinking she can make demands. She’s getting away with too fucking much already.

“To earn my professional silence and provide all the confidentiality your heart desires, then you’re going to talk, and not just about Maria Ricci.”

I snort, “You’re hoping I’ll talk myself right into something that lets you spill to the cops with a clear conscience?”

She shakes her head. “No. Not at all. I suspect youre too clever to give me anything useful. And I’m not as big on ‘spilling to the cops’ as you think. But I am big on helping people, in whatever form that takes.”

This time I let out an amused chuckle, “And you think you can fix me?”

She pauses, and I’m shocked to see her eyes get suddenly shiny with unshed tears. “No, I can’t fix you, Mr Vitelli. You’re not a vase or a broken-down car.”

“So what would I gain by spilling my guts to you?”

“I offer people the tools to better understand themselves, to make changes as they see fit. The real work, the ‘fixing,’ if you will, comes from within. I can’t force that on you.”

“And why would you want to give me those tools?”

The tears are back, dancing through her amber eyes and making them shine brighter. “Because you remind me of someone.”

I decide to go for blunt, “Oh? Someone who wanted to kill you?”

She doesn’t even flinch. Instead, she shoots back, “Yes. Well, he thought he wanted to. But now he’s dead.”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think she just issued me a threat.

Me. Nico Vitelli.

And do I wrap my hand around her graceful neck and show her what a real threat feels like? No. Instead, I look into her luminous golden eyes, transfixed by the single tear gathering on her lower eyelash, and my hand twitches. It’s taking every effort to stop myself from taking her face in my hand and swiping that tear away with my thumb.

What the fuck?

I turn my back to her abruptly and jam my fist in my pocket. Already, the bells in my head are pealing again, telling me it’s time to leave. Time to abort yet another failed mission. Time to accept defeat and call Fredo Batti, who will end this complication in a heartbeat.

“You remind me of the man we’re going home to bury, Mr. Vitelli.” She adds gently as if she senses my inner turmoil. Then I hear her soft footsteps recede as she leaves me to go and change.