Page 61 of Assistant to the Mafia

“Detour it is.” Mo flipped on the blinker and slid into the turn lane. “I know this isn’t my place, Rome, but we’ve known each other a while and for what it’s worth … her method was wrong, but I think what your mom did spared you and Lucy a lot of pain. Despite how uncomfortable today’s been.”

Romeo frowned, irritated by the invasive statement. He refrained from barking at the other man, however, because Mo did have a couple of points. Namely that they’d known each other fucking forever—since Romeo was at least fourteen—and built up a solid friendship. That was worth some allowances from time to time, and Mo almost never asked for them. “Maybe,” Romeo allowed, turning his gaze out the side window as the SUV cruised through the city. “I’ll think about it.”

Probably Mo was right. Probably his mother hadn’t been so much wrong as she’d just been stepping on toes. That didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to be upset about the busy-body way she’d handled things, and the months of stress it had dumped on him. Not to mention that she had potentially stripped his daughter of a mother forever. There had never been a guarantee Romeo would find a woman he was comfortable enough with to bring home in the future, let alone home to his child. He had to make peace with all of that and balance it with what his mother had foreseen, what she’d spared them of.

A task that felt a lot easier after he stepped into the basement of the not-so-innocent house on the outskirts of town.

Amber had been hauled to one of their more humane holding locations on no order of Romeo’s, but still she was zip-tied to a sturdy, anchored seat in an otherwise empty room. With the lights off, the only sense she would have had available was the pain from her restraints.

He wondered if she could even feel it through whatever cocktail of drugs was coursing through her system.

She squinted bloodshot brown eyes at him, the expression on her face quickly morphing into a glare. He couldn’t help but wince inwardly. Her eyes were a different shape and visibly jaded, but the color of the iris was identical to Lucia’s. The sound of her muffled cursing sharpened his focus and he pushed the observation aside.

Romeo stepped up and ripped the gag from her mouth, despite knowing full well he’d wish he’d left it in.

“You son of a bitch!” Amber shouted, her shoulders jerking as she tried to launch herself at him. “You locked me up in one of your kill houses?”

He let the gag drop to the floor. “You disappear for seven fucking years, abandoning your newborn daughter, and you have the goddamn gall to be pissed at me for anything?”

Amber huffed. “It’s not like you missed me. It’s not like you ever even wanted me.”

“Oh, that’s rich.”

Her lips curled. “Who’s that fat-ass hussy you left with my daughter, then?”

Romeo clenched his fists at his sides. He’d been raised not to strike a woman except if it were necessary to defend a loved one. Their father had once taken all three of his sons, and his nephew, with him to watch as he strung up a man for beating on a woman. Romeo no longer remembered the man’s reasons. He remembered only the impression it had left to see his father so completely enraged on behalf of a woman they didn’t know.

But if this woman, whom he did know to some degree, slung one more insult about his future wife in his presence, Romeo wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself.

He leveled a cold glare on her. “Who I leave in charge of my daughter is my business. We should talk about what really matters while I have the patience for words. What the ever-loving fuck are you doing here, Amber?”

She let out a strangled laugh. “Pretty sure it was your paid thugs who brought me here.”

His eye twitched. “Are you on something right now? Do I need to have you forcefully detoxed before we talk? Because I’m not putting up with your bullshit games.”

“Fuck you, Romeo.”

“Detoxed it is. Should be fun.” Romeo turned toward the steps. He didn’t really think she needed such a thing, but he’d put her through it if she didn’t speak up before he got to the light switch. Personally, he hoped she didn’t.

“You sick bastard! I’m clean, asshole! I’m fucking sober, okay?”

Romeo stopped and faced her again, not bothering to come closer. He arched a brow for dramatic effect. “You don’t look it.”

She sneered at him, the expression only emphasizing the circles under her eyes and the way her face had sunken in. “I can’t even imagine how stoned I had to be to think you were worth fucking that weekend.”

Romeo rolled his eyes. “Pretty sure you were more interested in the idea of nailing a rich guy than anything else,” he shot back. “Too bad for you, you couldn’t stick it out. Lucky for the rest of us.”

Amber bristled. “That’s not even—”

“I do not. Fucking. Care!” Romeo bellowed. He marched forward and leaned in close, taking hold of the back of her chair in both of his hands. She was already trapped, but now he was caging her in, towering over her and making damn sure she recognized who was in control. “The only thing I want to hear from you is what the goddamn hell you’re doing here now.”

Fear flickered in her eyes and she tried to sink back against the chair, raising her head in some attempt to look down on him. Her jaw trembled for just a moment. “I want my daughter.”

If the chair had been anything other than steel, Romeo would have cracked it. “Not a fucking chance.”

“She’s mine!”

“No.”

---