Page 54 of Consumed By the Mafia

Abigail clamped her mouth shut.Of course.Why hadn’t she thought of that?

Ryoma scoffed. “Oi. Why did you go and butt in? You’re supposed to be driving.”

“Why do you have to be so dramatic with your storytelling?” Miguel countered.

“That is the most hypocritical thing you’ve ever said to me,” Ryoma said.

“I’m a kid who got intimidated into joining a gang, then immediately got caught by enemies I didn’t know I’d just made and turned into a double-fucking-agent for the fucking Italian mafia,” Miguel said. “Everything I do is dramatic.”

Abigail felt her lips twitch.

“Kinda like that answer,” Ryoma teased.

“Well what’s your excuse?” Miguel pushed.

Abigail looked between them, noticing as she glanced through the windshield that they were nearing DS Security Solutions—Mikey’s seemingly legitimate security services business.

Ryoma chuckled. “Ore wa nihonjin da.”

Abigail choked on a laugh. She had no idea what he’d just said, but given the context of the conversation, that itself felt appropriate.

Miguel groaned loudly. “You’re such an asshole.”

Ryoma only laughed more.

Abigail pulled Ryoma’s hand back to her lap and laid her other overtop of it. Their casual banter had lightened the mood a bit, which she appreciated, but in the silence that followed her head started to spin once more. She was definitely out of her element. In a way, she’d known that from the start. When she had accepted the assignment to look into and unveil rumored organized crime operating in Newark, she had been under the—clearly false—impression she would be part of a team. A team that was more than just her reporting to a veritable handler.

Ryomagave her fingers a squeeze. “You good?”

Abigail looked up at him, staring stupidly as they passed an outside lamp that briefly lit up his face. “What?”

His expression warmed. “You seem like you might be spiraling.”

She wanted to deny it, but she also recognized that denial would only work against her.Honesty, right?Abigail swallowed a flare of nerves. “I have the impression you spend a fair amount of time in situations like those,” she said, quieter than she’d meant to.

Ryoma didn’t look away. “That’s not an inaccurate assessment.” His lips twitched, although she almost missed it in the darkened cabin of the SUV. “It does usually go a little easier, though. Dumbfuck held out pretty well for a while.”

Abigail rolled his words over in her mind. What she’d witnessed had been brutal.Completelyillegal. Absolutely the kind of thing she could have, and should have, used against the man currently beside her and the people he represented. Yet she felt an unsettling lack of true guilt. She felt … calm.

Ryoma pulled open the door at her side, jarring her from her thoughts and making her realize they’d parked already. He grinned in silent laughter and held out a hand. “Can’t eat if we don’t get inside, baby girl. C’mon.”

She didn’t merely feel calm, she realized as she let him help her from the SUV. She felt committed.

seventeen

Crazy Idea

“I have a crazyidea,” Abby said after she finished eating. She’d pushed aside her plate and was leaning forward on the conference table they were using as a dining table, the position pushing her breasts up just enough to tease them over the collar of her modest shirt.

Ryoma licked his lips and set down his drink. “Please tell me it involves laying you out on this table for dessert.”

She stared at him for a second before rolling her eyes. “It hasn’t even been twelve hours since the last time. Settle down.”

“I can see the next show we put on is gonna have to be in front of a mirror.”

Hercheeks flushed a bright, beautiful red, and Abby leaned back in her seat. “Can you please just focus? On something other than sex?”

Ryoma grinned wider, enjoying the way she was trying to disguise her squirming. “That sounds like less fun, but sure. For you. What’s your crazy idea?”

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