Page 10 of My Merciless Don

“What do you think?” Valerio asked me.

I shook my head, “Jury’s out. She’s clearly very smart.”

“Yeah… and resourceful. We need to get that money back, Marco.”

“I know.”

“So? What’s the bottleneck?”

I turned from where I was staring out my office window to give him a look, “Have you seen her?”

Valerio’s brow furrowed, before it cleared, “You mean the resemblance?”

“Yes?” I quirked an eyebrow, giving him a disbelieving stare over his obtuseness.

Valerio sighed, shaking his head. “Look, I won’t say it’s not freaky as hell, but we can’t think with our hearts here. Gotta go with our heads. And my head is telling me that working with her is the fastest ways to replenish our coffers.”

I smirked, giving him an amused stare. “Replenish our coffers? Have you been watching Bridgerton again?”

“Hey, Queen Charlotte is hot.”

I laughed, turning back to the window. “Fine. But we need to keep an eye on her.”

“Of course.”

I sighed, “Okay then, I’m gonna go talk to her.”

“You do that.” Valerio clapped me on the back as I walked past him to the door. In a way it was a relief to stop resisting the urge I had to keep her around, find out more about her, make her look at me with something other than that cocky look that I knew was a front.

I didn’t want to feel like this. God knows just looking at her filled me with remembered pain. Ten years had passed since Amy and my father had died, but sometimes it felt like yesterday. When I think back to how happy I was, it always strikes me as extremely naïve. What a fool I was, thinking that I could have love. Thinking that I could be allowed to be happy. When the gunmen came in, spraying the room with bullets, I instantly understood why my father always told me, “Enjoy it while you can, son.”

There had been no time to grieve.

Life had gone as if my whole world hadn’t imploded. There had still been deliveries and decisions to make. Everyone had been looking to me and someone had had to make sure my remaining family was safe. My mother was devastated. My sister, just twenty-two and home from college, was bewildered and afraid. She had been just a year older than my dead fiancée at the time. Someone had had to provide reassurance, project an image of strength and continuity.

That someone was me.

Valerio had done his best to help, but he was just as bewildered as anyone else.

Why Amy? Why not me?

I had a feeling that they’d been looking to kill my father and me, maybe my brother too. He was shot in the arm instead of the heart because he’d moved in time. I had dived beneath the dais, both guns blazing. Trying to protect the already dead body of my fiancée.

The horror of it still haunted me.

I walked into Audry’s cell and found her curled up on the bed, hands around her knees, and shivering. I cocked an eyebrow, ruthlessly suppressing the need I felt to shout for someone to bring a blanket right the fuck then.

“Well, well, you look… suitably chastened.”

She snorted derisively, “Try freaking cold.” Lifting her head from her knees she glared at me, “Is this how you treat all your guests?”

“Only the ones who steal from me.”

Her mouth twisted and she looked away, her face irritated, “I said I was sorry for that.”

“Aww, you said you were sowwy? How awful of me not to let it go.” I stepped closer, giving her a glare of my own. “Can we brass tacks now? You said something about getting me my money back?”

She gave a long put upon sigh. “I can’t do that. My father has your money. It’s not as if I wanted to be in this position but he said if I didn’t, he’d kill Benjy.”

---