Page 30 of Protected By the Mafia

She pressed her thighs together. “Well, good. I wouldn’t want to see her if you had.”

“So you do, then?” He was still grinning.

“I’ll think about it.” She paused. “You’d have to let me out of the penthouse, you know.”

“We could manage if we were careful.”

Meaning it was a risk he was willing to take for her. He wanted to protect her, so much so that he was technically betraying his beloved family and had gone to the trouble of kidnapping her. Yet he was still willing to risk ruining all of that effort for the sake of caring for her.

Felicity swallowed a lump of emotion as she watched him snag a bottle of water and stride from the kitchen. That was so much more care, in and of itself, than nearly anyone had ever shown her. She knew he needed to be leaving again, but she also knew something else. I’ll just be quick. “Okay,” she said, projecting her voice only enough to catch his attention. “I’m willing.”

ten

The Father

Dr. Laura’s earliest appointment was a week away. It was only so soon because Cristiano was the one who was asking and not some other patient who hadn’t been in in a while. It was Cristiano’s name she’d put on her schedule, and him she would expect to be sitting down with the following Thursday. She thought he felt compelled, for whatever reason, to come in and sort some things out—effectively touch base—and he was letting her keep that thought. She wouldn’t learn better until the time for the appointment came, and then the real test would happen.

Cristiano would be lying to say he wasn’t nervous about any of that. Or all of it. But it had been his idea to suggest therapy for Felicity, and she’d taken him up on the offer. Whether she genuinely wanted counseling to help her with the trauma their respective families were heaping on her or if she saw it as her only chance to step outside his penthouse in the foreseeable future, he didn’t know. He might never know. He also didn’t care. She wanted to give it a try, so he was going to make it happen.

But he had the better part of a week to let his anxieties build about that. Anxieties which would be significantly lessened if he could manage to find the punk bastard who’d escaped his storehouse before the day of that appointment.

In the meantime, he had a different errand to run.

When news had broken over the weekend of Armando Garcia Jr.’s apparent suicide in his prison cell, Felicity had finally cried. And she’d been ashamed of herself for it. Cristiano was glad he’d been home when it happened—glad he’d been able to be there for her, in some way—but he loathed each tear that trailed down her perfect face. He had no regrets about arranging for Manny’s death, but he did wish it could somehow not have caused her any distress. He also understood that regardless of all the hell they’d put her through, the Garcias had been her family. No matter how hard she tried to insist she wanted nothing more to do with them, the fact remained she’d been living in her hometown when he’d found her. Not more than an hour from her parents. Some part of her, however repressed, still yearned for that connection. That sense of family.

Felicity had a lot she needed to unpack. In some ways, he suspected he understood that better than she did. She’d been confused by her own reaction, swearing she was nothing if not disgusted by her eldest brother.

“The world’s better off without him, just like it will be when Tristán’s gone. I don’t understand why I’m crying like this!” Her words had been stammered through tears and muffled into the fabric of his shirt, and he knew the frustration in her voice was entirely self-directed.

Cristiano hadn’t argued with her or tried to talk her down. He’d held her, encouraged her to let herself feel what she needed to feel, and when she’d asked him to bring home some ice cream the next time he went out, he’d done that, too. When she’d woken herself up screaming that night, he wished he could have been the one to tie that noose around Manny’s neck.

He exhaled slowly. The weekend hadn’t all been tears and heartbreak. It just hadn’t been the best of memories for their first weekend together. But what had he expected?

His eyes caught on a street sign and he slowed, making sure not to miss the turn. He was riding solo this time, as he generally preferred, so only the obnoxious voice in his GPS could call him out if he got too lost in reflection. He turned onto the street, spotted a house number, and rolled another couple of blocks forward before coming to a stop in front of the moderate two-story he was looking for. And he wondered, for a split-second, if it was coincidence or something else that explained why this man lived not two miles from the couple who’d perished from this city the last time he’d visited.

Maybe he’d add that to his list of questions.

Cristiano unfolded from his car, made sure to lock it, and strode confidently up the broken concrete pathway. His quarry, as identified by the information his search had returned, stepped out onto the small square of a front porch before he could reach the steps. A silent message that he was not to violate the other man’s space, if the older man’s suspicious, narrow-eyed stare was anything to go by. Too bad for him, Cristiano didn’t give a shit.

“You lost?” the middle-aged man of multiple European ethnicities asked in a brusque tone.

“You Patrick Todd?” Cristiano tossed back. He pretended to show him courtesy by stopping at the outer edge of the bottom step.

Todd’s dusty brown brow pinched tighter. “Who wants to know?”

Cristiano moved up the stairs, letting his boots fall with intentionally ominous, clunking steps. He didn’t shy away from crowding into the older, shorter man’s space, looking down at him when they were on the same level and speaking in a flat voice. “Cristiano De Salvo,” he said. “We need to have a conversation, Mr. Todd. You can invite me inside like the civilized men we pretend to be, or we can do this out here. I don’t care.”

Todd’s nostrils flared as familiar recognition—familiar discomfort—lit in his eyes. “I don’t owe your family money,” he said. But his voice was less firm this time. He undoubtedly understood that owing money was only one reason a De Salvo man might show up on someone’s doorstep.

“That’s true,” Cristiano said. He took a step forward, forcing the other man to back up. “You owe me answers.”

Indignation flashed across his features. “I don’t—”

Cristiano shot out a hand and took firm hold of Todd’s throat, cutting him off. “This is your only warning. I’ll make assumptions that paint you in the worst light if you refuse to talk.” Frankly, he already had. But he’d spent enough years dragging information out of men to know that the strangest of reasons could compel someone to make a poor choice. “Blink twice if you’ll cooperate. Do anything else, and we’ll skip to the punishment.”

Todd attempted to drag in a breath through his nose, choked, and slowly blinked. Once. Then again.

Cristiano released his throat. “Wise decision.”

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