Page 41 of Rescued By the Mafia

Dante lifted the phone. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Mother,” he said. “Enjoy your day.”

“Tomorrow?” Iris repeated after he’d tucked the device away again.

“She’s declared a family dinner.” His lips kicked up at one corner. “I imagine she’s thinking to make it like a formal introduction for you.”

Iris’s eyes went wide. “I’m a little green on some of the terminology … by ‘family’, does she mean—”

Dante chuckled. “This is more the standard definition.” He pulled them to their feet. “Now, we need to get going or I’m liable to get distracted.” He faced her fully, hands nestled in the curve of her hips, and said, “You don’t technically have to come with me to talk to the families. But if you want to see what it is I really do, this is part of that, and you should see it.”

Iris rested a hand on his chest. “I can’t ask you to accept the broken mess that I am and not be willing to face the truth of who you are in return. I’m coming.” She paused, remembering something he’d asked her before his mother had called. “And I still want to come with you to deal with Mark, too.”

That was what she’d said, some two hours earlier.

After spending two solid hours essentially delivering heartbreaking, life-changing news on a platter, Iris felt raw inside. She’d watched strangers drop to their knees and scream in agony in their own foyer, two little kids too young to understand the grown-up words burst into tears simply because the adults were crying, and a grandfather fall so hard into his recliner she’d thought he might break. Tears had flowed in every home. Angry, shouting, cursing voices and vows of vengeance had followed. She’d felt like an invader, even though all she’d wanted to do was offer comfort.

The one thing that had struck her, though, wasn’t their pain or her own awkwardness. It was that no one had so much as glared at Dante. The anger she’d heard expressed had been pleaded for as the families begged Dante to get vengeance for them.

“You have my word. The Passaic will run red with their blood in short order.” He’d been angry, of course, when he said the words. But Iris could also tell that he was deadly serious.

Iris pulled his hand into hers as the SUV rolled to a stop outside what she had to assume was the warehouse-type location where Mark was being held. Dante had been fairly silent for the ride over and she didn’t blame him, but she felt guilty all the same. So she held his hand tightly and sought out his gaze. “It’s been a hard couple of hours. If you need to put this off—”

“What I need,” Dante said, interrupting her, “is to find and obliterate the men threatening my family.” He tugged her closer and swept his lips over hers. “You, Iris, are my family now.”

Was it possible for a heart to have an orgasm? For a person to have an emotional explosion of ecstasy? She didn’t know any other way to describe the burst of unexpectedly freeing, yearning-filled heat that happened inside her with his words. It spread out from her chest, rushing through her body so fast it brought tears to her eyes.

She followed him from the SUV in a daze.

“It’s going to fucking reek in there,” Dante said as they stood outside the generically industrial building. “Someone deal with the bucket and make sure that deputy didn’t suddenly get clever.”

Two figures moved ahead, disappearing into the building. All Iris knew as she attempted to gather herself was that Carlo and Ernesto remained behind her and Dante was … stripping? Well, that helped her focus, but it was also highly confusing.

He’d left his suitcoat in the SUV, but she hadn’t questioned that choice, or the insistence that they turn their phones off after leaving the final house of grievers. Now, standing outside where Mark apparently was, Dante unbuttoned his sexy pale blue shirt until the top ridge of the winding portion of his tattoo was semi-visible. The dragon’s head was fully displayed, despite that his shoulder was covered, and he proceeded to roll up his sleeves to his elbows.

Dante looked up as Romeo appeared. “Did you get them?”

“Of course.” He handed something in a small package over to Dante.

Dante took the package and turned to Iris, holding it out. “These are for you. We can try a different style in the future if you decide you don’t like the way these fit, but they’ll do the job.”

Iris took the package, her gaze fixated on the word nose on the print. “What job, exactly?” She didn’t think she’d seen this kind of thing before, but judging from the picture, she had a good guess as to their function.

“There are some smells you can never scrub from your memory,” Dante said.

“You’re lucky,” Romeo said, grinning. “Big Brother made the rest of us deal with the stench our first time, to make sure we understood.”

Iris blinked at Romeo, then looked back at Dante.

He reached out and popped open the plastic packaging, then broke the seal on the flimsy cardboard. “Here. You have a set of two right now, if one snaps, just use the other. If they both snap, take Romeo’s. He keeps his clean.”

“Hey!”

She smiled and carefully slipped the opened package into the pocket of her skirt, once again saying a silent word of gratitude to Eleonora for the pocket dress.

“All ready for you, Boss,” someone said.

Dante turned and nodded. “Let’s go to work.” He led the way inside, Iris and Romeo just behind, her guards behind them.

The main door opened into an empty, questionably sturdy space barely large enough for the group of them. From there they filed down a hall, passed a couple of other doors, and turned into an interior room that was easily three times the size of the first. It was also bare, in a horror-movie chic kind of way, and reminded Iris of the smaller building they’d taken Jarrod to before. This one had a tall, maybe three-foot-wide steel shelving unit near the door they came in through and was lit with two flickering, snapping overhead fluorescents.

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