Page 16 of Mated into the Mob

Oops. That word got him worked up and an image of him in bed, naked, popped into my head. I bet he didn’t dither between the sheets. I fanned myself with one hand, not that it had any effect.

“Okay, are you going to interrogate me? Pull out my nails one by agonizing one until I blurt out all my secrets?”

His nostrils flared and his scent sharpened. “I do not yank out anyone’s nails. That’s old-school.”

“You get Emilio or one of your other henchmen to do it for you.” I took a look at my nails. They were bitten to the quick, a contrast to his pampered ones.

He clenched his fists. I was getting under Mr. Tough Guy’s skin. Again.

“I’m honoring your request to find out what happened to your father.” He shoved one hand in his pocket but didn’t reach for his gun as he’d done countless times last night.

“I have another one.”

“That’s not how it works. One last request, not an ongoing list.”

My shoulders slumped. He said “last request.” That was pretty final. “I’d like to tell my dad how Antonio died.” While he’d never wanted to discuss it with me because it was too painful, it would answer a question he’d probably been asking himself all these years.

“No.” He folded his arms, almost as if he expected me to toss another question at him. And I was.

“Why not?”

He dragged a stool in front of the armchair and plonked his butt on it. “That part of your life is over, Tony. The person you were before you went into Arnie’s office no longer exists.”

My lips trembled, and there was a sinking feeling in my tummy. He didn’t put into words, “I can’t let you leave,” but he may as well have.

“Is being in this basement the mafia version of witness protection?” Except I had a life before this, and now it was much smaller, confined to these four walls.

“Not exactly.”

For a high-profile mobster, he had a hard time making decisions, at least about me.

“I do want to probe you—ummm, no, I mean...” He tripped over his words. “Probe what’s in that head of yours.”

If he wasn’t who he was, I’d pull my pants down and yell, “Probe me, please!” What was it about him that fascinated me? Not just his cologne that tormented me, surely, or how he constantly tugged at his ear. My body urged me to run toward him, when he represented everything I loathed.

“I’m an open book, though I can’t say the same about you. Or is that what they tell you in the mobster’s handbook.” I put a hand to my head in the manner of a fortune teller. “I can see it now. It says you have to be mysterious and opaque.”

He got up, sporting an exasperated expression.

“Don’t suppose you have a gym in this mansion of yours.”

“I’m not giving you the run of my house.”

“You could stay while I lift weights and run on the treadmill. But I warn you, I get a tad sweaty, and I grunt and curse a lot when I exercise.”

For a guy who might still kill me and who I should be putting as much distance as possible between us, there was something pulling me to him. Almost as if we were joined by an invisible thread and he was winding it up and reeling me closer.

His face kind of warped. Perhaps squirrely was the best word to describe it. Judging by his physique, he worked out, and he definitely had a gym in this monstrosity of a house. So why was he weirded out by the mention of sweat and grunting?

Something tweaked in my head, but I poo-pooed the idea. He was a gangster, a man who put his gun to people’s temples and pulled the trigger, leaving Emilio to clean up the mess. But the notion popped back into my mind and wouldn’t leave.

He wasn’t weirded out, or not in the way I imagined. It was him picturing me in sweats or maybe just shorts, bare-chested, my body glistening with sweat while I puffed and panted. Was that why I was here? He wanted to do things with me or to me before he pulled the plug?

I got up and pushed past him, my body trembling, a million thoughts tumbling into my head. Tightening the tie at my waist, I wrapped my arms around my body.

“You’re right. It’s time for you to go. Wouldn’t want you to lose money by being stuck in the basement with me. Or worse, miss an execution.” I kept my tone even, but there was a brittle quality to my voice.

I sensed his hackles rising but refused to glance at him, and I strode toward the bedroom, realizing my mistake when I reached the doorway and detoured toward the kitchen and gripped the sink. The cold metal under my fingernails was welcome as heat and fury rose within me.

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