Page 32 of Under His Protection

I pursed my lips together as he pulled into the driveway. I didn’t know what to tell him, and it seemed he wasn’t waiting for a response, anyway.

When I reached for the door handle, he got out and rounded the front of the car.

“Right. I’m supposed to be a delicate, pampered lady unable to open a damn door,” I mumbled to myself, somehow peeved by this gentlemanly gesture the Constella man insisted on. It probably annoyed me because I’d grown up without such simple shows of chivalry, but now wasn’t the time to stress about it.

Romeo assisted me out of the car and led me up to the front door. “You’ll be all right here?”

“I, um… He moved me in here Monday.”

“Oh.” He looked at the door, opening it. “I haven’t been staying here lately. So, news to me. Will you be all right?” Only now did he glance down at my chest where the men ripped my dress and scraped my skin. When he lifted his gaze to the small scrape on my cheek, he clenched his jaw, murderous at the reminder that I’d nearly been violated.

“George can arrange assistance,” he added.

I shook my head. “I can slap a Band-Aid on. I’ll be all right.” Truthfully, I doubted I would be until I saw Dante again, but I wouldn’t go there. I didn’t want to think about what he might be doing, looking so sinister and malicious while those two waiters were dragged away.

I knew this was a Mafia family, but right now, I hated to consider the violence happening by the man I was pretending to date.

“I can…” Romeo turned back after nodding at me. He returned to me just inside the foyer. “I can set up some self-defense lessons for you. If you’d like. I know what you mean about him. My dad often gets into his business mode and struggles to see anything beyond it. His work has been his life for too long. If he neglects to show you how to fend off men, if any punks ever dare to bother you like those two men did tonight, you can be trained and prepared.”

I opened and closed my mouth, at a loss for what to say. For as serious and solemn as Romeo was, he was considerate, too. “Really?”

He nodded, unsmiling and sincere. “Yes.”

“Okay. Um, yeah. Thank you. I would like that.” I nodded once. “I appreciate that.”

With one last look, he turned and left me.

Romeo’s offer to show me the basics of self-defense was a gift I could rely on well after this fake-dating ruse was up with Dante. That simple suggestion of protection meant a lot to me, especially after the fact that my brother lost me in a bet and had been prepared to hand me over to rough bikers.

I’d never been protected. Not from life, not from punks or assholes. Sure, men groped me when I waitressed, but tonight was a striking turning point. I’d almost been raped, and being saved by Romeo, then Dante, I felt treasured and secure.

Instead of seeking out George or Eva, or any of the staff here, I trudged upstairs to clean up.

This night hadn’t gone like I thought it might. It’d ended on a lousy note.

But as I let myself into my guest room, I rolled my eyes at the absurdity that Romeo acted like the big brother I’d never had in Ricky.

And to make it even weirder? I was dating his dad.

“No.” I closed the door and sighed. “No, I’m not.”

I was fake dating Dante, and I winced at how hard it was to reinforce the distinction.

13

DANTE

Dante

Torturing the two servers didn’t take long. The faster I killed them at the building my soldiers took them to, it was that much sooner that I could go home and check on Nina.

As I beat them to bloody pulps before shooting them, I realized the first mistake I’d made.

One of two crucial mistakes.

By asking Nina to pretend to be my girlfriend, I’d made her a target. Any significant other of a Mafia leader would be targeted for an attack, kidnapping, or rape. Aside from the Devil’s Brothers MC looking for her, any of my enemies could also try to reach her and hurt her. Fake or not, once people realized Nina was “mine”, she could be taken or hurt.

These two servers weren’t operating from a rival family. They were merely that stupid, commoners who wanted to rape a woman by herself.

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