Page 23 of Diamond In The Rough

“You can’t hear me?” He reclines again, frowning and impatient, bouncing his foot on his knee. “You still have that ear infection?”

“What I have, Mr. Malone, is a blanket rule for my life.” I stop when my thighs touch the table and I can’t possibly come any closer. “A wild belief that I should not discuss my private medical history with strangers. I especially shouldn’t discuss it with cranky mafia boys who accuse me of lying… though, I’m not entirely sure what you think I’ve lied about.”

“Mafia?” He brings his right hand up, leaving the other hidden in his lap, and rolls his bottom lip between his fingers. “I told you my first name only, Ms. Hale. Yet you mention Malone and mafia. Seems you know more about me than I’ve shared—worse, you make assumptions. And yet, you wonder why I remain guarded?”

“It’s hardly ‘making assumptions,’ when your face was on the front page of today’s paper, alongside your brother’s.” I spare a glance for the hardened guard on my left. “Perhaps it’s not proper to mention the m word, huh? Maybe it’s not the polite thing to do. But insinuating I’m some kind of sneak or liar, purely because of your own misguided need to control the narrative, isn’t polite either. I don’t know you, Micah, and I never once asked to meet you.”

“How long have you known Joseph Wilkes?”

His question is like an arrow to my gut. A stunning attack that leaves me twitching. “What?”

His lips curl upward, lending a cruel twist to his face that steals his handsomeness and replaces it with a savage intensity. “That got your attention. Sit.” He gestures toward the chair on his right. “We can discuss these matters like civilized human beings. No need for back-alley murder, when we can conduct ourselves like the professionals we are.”

“Back-alley—” I look down at the vacant chair he offers, then over to my friends, who are still glued to tonight’s episode of ‘What stupid shit can we get up to?’

“Ms. Hale?”

“I don’t wish to eat with you.”

“So, straight to the alleys, then?”

“No!” I slap away his extended hand and earn a growl from the man standing at my back. “I’m not interested in being wined, dined, or destroyed by you. I don’t know who Justin Wilkes is.”

“Joseph,” he snaps. Then he reaches out with lightning-fast reflexes and grasps my wrist, yanking me down until the corner of the chair scrapes my hip, but the padding catches my ass before I sprawl to the floor.

Silverware and crystal glasses clatter when I bump the table with my knees, but soldiers circle in to shield us from onlookers, their broad bodies creating a wall, so to the casual observer, it might appear that I’ve been completely and totally swallowed up by this man and his crew.

“Tell me how much he paid to send you our way,” Micah slowly releases my wrist, “and what information he asked you to get from us, and then I may let you go. You can return to your life of selling antiques, and I’ll make sure you never see me or my people again.”

I rub my aching wrist and narrow my eyes at the man who obviously considers himself untouchable. “Are you following me?” I study his angular jaw, and the unshaven growth he keeps instead of smooth skin. I take note of the sunspots on his cheekbones, and the lines fanning across his temples; the signs of age that come when someone surpasses thirty years. “You confronted me outside CeCe’s. And now you’re inside this restaurant tonight, though I’m quite certain Biano’s has no affiliation with your family.”

“I’m not?—”

“I didn’t tell you where I work.” I drop my gaze to the bottle of wine I wouldn’t mind sampling now. Something to wash the bitter taste of dread from the back of my throat. “And yet, you know what I do for a living. Should I start panicking?”

“Joseph Wilkes.”

“I don’t know who that is!” I slam my palm to the table, rattling the silverware once more. “I don’t know why you think I know who that is. I’m not entirely certain I know who you think I am. Surely, you have me confused with someone else.”

“Then why wouldn’t you tell me your job when I asked inside CeCe’s?”

“Uh, because you’re a stranger!”

I startle in my seat when Luigi brings my half-consumed plate of gnocchi to our table and sets it down by my hand.

I balk at him. “What are you?—”

“Your dinner, madam.” He dips his chin and refuses eye contact with the man who has definitely killed others. “I did not wish for it to get cold.”

“Eat.” Micah sits back and rubs his thumb against the palm of his opposite hand. “Let’s get to know each other.”

“Let’s not.” I push my plate away and attempt to stand up, but the guard at my back sets his beefy hand on my chair and refuses me room to rise. “What the hell?—”

“I said eat.” Micah purses his thick lips behind coarse, short stubble. “There’s no need to waste the meal you’ve waited all day to enjoy, all because of a temper tantrum.”

“A temper tantrum?!” I don’t get this guy. “I assure you, Malone, this is not a temper tantrum. And just so you know, my friend Roscoe,” I poke a thumb back toward my original table, though it’s obscured by his guard, “His cousin is a cop. So I suggest you back the hell up and let me get on with my life. You stay out of mine, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

“Not yet.” He abandons his aching hand and picks up his glass. “Let’s set Wilkes aside for a little while, and merely…” he swirls the wine, “get to know each other.”

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