Page 98 of Their Princess

“You shouldn’t answer the door like that,” I said on a husky breath.

She snorted. “Maybe you shouldn’t be knocking before nine in the morning. Anyway, are you here to police me too?”

“If I have to.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“Your father did.”

“Fuck him.”

Why did I respect her just a little more for those two simple, vicious words?

“You don’t mean that,” I said, desperately trying to stay in my lane.

Without removing the towel, she dragged on a pair of yoga pants. “Do you know that he wants me to spy?”

I whipped my head to one side then the other to see if anyone could overhear, then growled, “Don’t say that.”

“I bet he wants you to do the same thing,” she continued without acknowledging my warning. “Papà’s just trying to make rats of us both.”

She pulled a tank top over her head, letting the towel puddle at her feet. I marched into her room, kicking the door closed and grabbed her by the wrist.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Her eyes darted from my hand to my face and back.

“Keep you safe.” It’s what I always did. “The MC has to be monitoring us. Sas certainly doesn’t have any brotherly love for outsiders like me. The last thing we want is for him not to trust you.”

“Let go of me,” whined Adelina.

I didn’t hurt her but dropped her arm, anyway. “Mass doesn’t intend for us to be rats.”

She jutted out her chin. “It’s what the results will be.”

“I don’t give a shit,” I hissed. “We’re la Famiglia.”

“Until we were fucking sold, Rafe.” She placed her fist into my chest and shoved. It did nothing to move me but seemed to give her a little vindication for her rage. “Regardless of what Massimo Parisi says, we’re MC now.”

I gritted his teeth, fighting the inferno blazing inside.

“He’s asked you to spy too, didn’t he?” she said after a second.

Asked?I nearly laughed. My brother neveraskedanything of me. That proved how naïve Adelina was.

“Ordered,” I corrected.

“Well”—she planted a hand on her hip—“what are you going to do?”

I looked around her bedroom. “I’m working on it.”

She grabbed a pair of socks from the drawer and her thigh-high boots then went to the bed. “What exactly are you working on?”

“Shit,” I barked, turning to pace. I had no fucking clue what I was going to do, but the need to follow orders ran in my blood after being in war zones galore. What was the old saying about doing and dying? I was doing both here.

One zipper ripped up, then the other. “What kind of shit?”

“You don’t need to know that.” I wrapped my hands around the back of my neck and dug my fingers into the knotted muscles.

“Why not?” Her voice had turned sweet now.

---