Page 33 of Rescued By the Mafia

Iris paused when she stepped back into the main sitting room. She’d told Dante she’d think over her situation with Craft Happens, but there was one other thing that needed to be buttoned up, too. So she pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled to one of her newest contacts, the man she’d met in Dante’s SUV the day before who’d since been assigned as her bodyguard.

“Yes, ma’am?” Carlo asked before the first ring could finish.

She really wasn’t used to that. “Ah, I need to run a quick errand. Dante said not to go out without you.”

“Would you prefer the Maserati or the Lexus?”

Iris felt her legs wobble and shuffled to the nearest wall for support. Never in her life would she have expected to be asked that question! “Whichever is easier for city driving,” she managed to say. As if she had experience riding in such vehicles and could articulate a preference.

“All right. Ernesto will meet you in the garage in three minutes, but if you need longer, he’ll wait.”

“Thank you.” She allowed herself a minute to find her composure. It was hard not to be a little dazzled by the names Carlo had so casually dropped. But she pushed away from the wall, plucked her purse from where it had been hanging, and made her way to the garage entrance.

As promised, the other half of her new security team stood waiting on the other side of the door. Ernesto was just shy of six-foot, lean without appearing lanky, and had sharp hazel eyes. He didn’t meet Iris’s gaze with a friendly smile, or any smile at all, but he inclined his head and shifted on his feet, holding out an arm to indicate a direction. “This way, ma’am. The Lexus is ready.”

Iris nodded, and noted that though she’d stepped forward immediately, Ernesto still found a way to appear half a foot ahead of her. Without restraining her, or even brushing against her arm. The garage wasn’t so cram-packed that manhandling was necessary, but the distinction still struck her.

Ernesto led her to a quietly idling black-on-black Lexus sedan, where Carlo stood beside the driver’s side door. Ernesto opened the back passenger door for her. “Will you be bringing anything with you, ma’am?”

She glanced his way, then shook her head. “No.” She slid herself into the backseat, set the purse at her side, and only then was the door softly closed. The careful treatment was jarring compared to the way Jarrod had been, and she wondered if Jarrod had resented his assignment.

Carlo ducked into the driver’s seat as Ernesto settled in the passenger seat. Both men buckled in and Ernesto said, “Seatbelt, please, ma’am.”

Oh, right. Iris barely kept herself from fumbling for the belt before she finally clicked it into place.

“Where do you need to go, ma’am?” Carlo asked as the Lexus began to reverse.

Iris fought the reflex to clench at her skirt. She didn’t need to be nervous. She needed to learn to embrace this. This was the life she was entering into, and she couldn’t be afraid of or so easily flustered by everything. “The Dragon’s Roast.”

Carlo’s gaze flicked to hers in the rearview mirror for the space of a second. The motion of the sedan never faltered. “Ma’am…. If you’ll forgive me for speaking out of line, does the boss know you’re going into work?”

“Carlo,” Ernesto said. His voice was almost too quiet to hear, but the reprimand was unmistakable.

“It’s not for work,” Iris said. “I won’t be working there anymore.” It felt silly to say she ever had. “I just have to pick up my check.”

“Of course. I apologize for being presumptuous,” Carlo said. He turned the Lexus onto the road as he spoke, accelerating smoothly.

They fell silent long enough for Iris’s attention to drift out the window, watching traffic and buildings go by as Carlo drove. She definitely felt like she was being pampered, being chauffeured around this way. I wonder if this is what it feels like to ride in a limo.

Ernesto broke the comfortable silence with a quiet declaration. “We will have to accompany you inside, ma’am.”

Iris looked forward as if she could meet his gaze. “I thought the restaurant would be safe?”

“In theory, it is,” Ernesto replied. “Our job is to guarantee your safety. We can’t rely on standard assumption. If we accompany you inside, and something happens, other family on staff will know without instruction to come to our aide.”

Iris gaped. “There are other—” What was the term for them? Soldiers? Made men? She was horribly uneducated, so she just repeated Ernesto’s word and hoped it was enough. “Family working at the restaurant?”

Carlo chuckled. “Oh, yeah. About half the staff, probably. Boss likes to make sure his men have real-life work experience, and ways to earn their keep if for some reason they can’t be on the street for a while.” He moved the steering wheel, though Iris hardly felt the turn. “I fill in sometimes for the wait staff when they’re short-handed.”

Iris let her head tip back against the headrest of her seat. She had no idea she’d been working alongside such dangerous men. The realization should have scared her, but she couldn’t disassociate it with the understanding that they were Dante’s men. And she was coming to realize Dante expected his men to function as an extension of his will. It almost made her sad not to get to work at least one more shift with them.

“Here we are,” Carlo said a couple of minutes later. “Please wait until Ernesto opens your door to exit the vehicle, ma’am. I’ll be right behind you when we go inside.”

Iris released her seatbelt and nodded. “Of course.” Walking in to her former place of work, flanked by armed security that at least a good portion of the staff would recognize, made her a new kind of nervous. It felt almost like excitement, but with an edge that kept her uneasy.

Another thing she needed to adjust to, or overcome.

Iris did as she’d been asked and allowed Ernesto to open her door, remembered to grab her purse off the seat, and climbed from the car. Ernesto again maneuvered into position one step ahead of her, and Carlo appeared at her back as promised before she stepped up on the curb.

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