Page 21 of Diamond In The Rough

“Are you sure about that?” Taking the gnocchi onto my tongue, I barely stop myself from groaning out loud. “Damn, I’ve missed this.”

“Right?”

We’re like a couple of cows out to pasture, shoveling food into our mouths, completely undignified, unlike everyone else here.

“And yes, I’m sure,” Jazzy adds. “You like to act like my friendship is a bother to you, Tiia Ailani, but deep down, beneath your Kevlar exterior and too-cool-to-be-affected armor, I know you would sob at my graveside if I ever left you.”

“I wouldn’t miss the once-a-month bathroom dates, when we dye your hair and get red everywhere.”

She snorts, gulping pasta and following it with a sip of wine. “It’s called a team-building exercise. Can I try some of your gnocchi?” She doesn’t wait for my answer, merely leans across and stabs her fork into my dinner.

“Uh… sure.” I roll my eyes.

On a laugh, she explains, “I always like the things you pick off the menu, but not so much that I want it to be my entire meal.”

“Whatever. How was your day?”

“You mean besides my trip to Jakeline Colby’s snobby shop?” She makes a face. “It was fine. Roger wants me to try my chops on the local crime beat. Small-time stuff: petty theft, nonviolent robbery.” She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “He knows I want bigger stories, but he’s starting me small and at least clearing the way.”

“Gets you off the obituaries,” I tease. “And the how-to columns. ‘How to pluck your eyebrows like a pro, without a pair of tweezers.’”

“‘How to get hairless legs,’” she plays along, “‘without a razor, wax, or expensive laser treatments.’”

“‘How to kill your boyfriend and make it look like an accident.’”

“Ladies?”

I swallow my words and shoot a look to the waiter who stands over us, his crisp white shirt a stark contrast to the midnight-black apron tied around his hips. He carries an icy bottle of wine, and presents it the way the monkey presented Simba to the Pride Lands.

Well, not exactly. But now that I’ve thought it, I can’t unsee it.

“Another bottle of?—”

“No thanks.” I give him a gentle smile and hold my hand up to stop him from setting down the three-hundred-dollar bottle, since the moment it touches our table, it’ll get added to our bill. “I’m good with what I have.” I lift my wine, then look to Jaz. “Right? I don’t think we need another bottle.”

“It’s a gift, madam.” Luigi—though his nametag clearly says Salvatore—steps to the side and gestures across the restaurant.

I allow my eyes to follow. My focus, to zoom past the hundreds of diners, and into the heated stare of a man who makes me uneasy.

As soon as our eyes meet, mine narrow.

“A gift,” the server repeats.

Micah Malone reclines in a dark corner on the opposite side of the restaurant, wearing a suit nothing like the shorts and tank he wore the last time we were in the same place. His hair is similar to how I remember it: a little long on the top, so the ends dangle over his brows.

He sits alone with a bottle of red wine and a still-full glass, seemingly untouched. But I would be blind not to notice the guards nearby. The one, two, three of his men who position themselves throughout the dining room.

Micah Malone is, reportedly, his brother’s protection. But when Micah is out and about, and Felix is nowhere to be seen, Micah himself has guards.

I may only be an antiques dealer with a crime-beat-wannabe-reporter best friend, but I understand the hierarchy in my city.

Felix is the new boss, now that their dad is dead. And Micah is second in charge; the underboss, I suppose he’s called. The consigliere. So although he’s someone else’s security, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t command his own army when he’s away from home.

“Madam?” Luigi clears his throat. “Will you accept his gift?”

“Yes,” Jaz announces, seizing the bottle and grinning foolishly in my peripherals. “She certainly will. Thank you, good sir. Tiia?” She kicks my leg under the table, but my attention remains on a staring Micah. My heart, thundering in my chest, and anxiety fluttering throughout my stomach. “Tiia! What the hell?”

I break our staring match and drag my focus around to my best friend. But my appetite has vanished, now that I know who watches us. My ravenous hunger, gone in an instant, because I had one run-in with a dude who everyone knows is mafia… and now, no matter how loud I protest, I can’t seem to escape him.

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