Page 17 of Mated into the Mob

“Get out!” I leaned over the sink, hoping I wasn’t going to be sick.

“This is my house and my goddam basement. You can’t throw me out of my own home.”

There was that steel in his voice, the one that had me wanting to shrink away. But at the same time, I wanted to place my hand over his heart. But that was ridiculous. Why would I want to touch him and have his flesh beneath mine? Nope. The urge to feel his heartbeat was to reassure myself hehada heart!

I twisted around, the metal pressing on my lower back. “You don’t live down here. This is for your prisoners.” I picked up the dish towel. “How many people used this before you unalived them?”

“Unalived?” He scoffed at the word. “That’s not a real word.”

“It’s a social media thing.”

“This is real life, Tony, not fools posting cat memes.” He pushed hair back from his brow.

“Stop skirting the subject. How many?”

“You!” His voice was filled with venom as he pointed at me, his eyes blazing. “You don’t get to ask the dammed fucking questions.” He poked his chest with one finger so hard, it had to have hurt. “I do. Me. Flint, the boss of La Luna Noir and the Alpha.”

Putting my hands on my hips, I met his fire with my own. “You can do better than that. You have to end with a foot stamp and a ‘So there!’” I flung up my arms doing my best imitation of a flamingo dancer, my chin held high.

“You are the most infuriating person I have ever had the displeasure of meeting!” He was at screech level 10 or maybe 20. It was hard to measure.

“You’re complaining because I refuse to bow down and kiss your feet? F you and your alpha garbage. This is the twenty-firstcentury. Those traditional role models got left behind in the last century.”

He reacted to what I’d said, not by tossing a vase at my head or aiming his gun at me. He didn’t throw me over his shoulder and ravish me. It was as though his anger had been popped with a pin, like a balloon. He sagged like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“Not in our wider community,” he said in a small voice.

“And yet you still keep to the rules or you wouldn’t have used the word ‘alpha’ against me.”

“Change is slow or almost non-existent in the mafia. It’s the way it is and probably always will be.”

I shut up, his defeated tone showing the weight he carried. “You’d better go. These thick walls must have blocked a lot of messages. Can’t have your underlings waiting before they break the law.”

He hissed and moved to the bottom of the stairwell. I shouted, “Lights on,” in a gravelly voice, mimicking his. They flicked on, and his stunned face, mouth gaping and eyes widened, turned toward me.

“How’d you do that? It responds to my voice, no one else’s.”

I shrugged. “Pure luck.”

10

FLINT

“Hi, Dad.”

I hadn’t waited for him to say hello.

“What’s wrong, Flint? Emilio called earlier and talked of everything and nothing.”

“Nothing.” My people were frantic after receiving my curt messages last night and this morning. Not the ones about Anthony, though that did rouse suspicion with Emilio.

I’d told the household staff to take the week off. They’d left early, probably to visit family. My security detail, at least two of whom were always with me, called repeatedly asking to gain entry to the grounds and the house, but I’d said to wait outside. There were plenty of security guards roaming the property.

Emilio didn’t sleep, continually leaving voice messages asking what was going on with Tony. His exact words were, “It must be bad if it’s taking this long. Let me know when you want me to clean up.”

My belly churned at the thought of Tony’s blood and guts spread over the basement, and my wolf was ready to take Emilio’s head off if he tried to hurt our mate.

I’d put off an important meeting with a human, head of a multinational conglomerate. He had a problem and had decided I was the one to fix it. For a huge fee. A valuable piece of art that had been in his family for generations had been stolen, and he’d asked me to track it down and to give the thief his just desserts.

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