Page 13 of Enforcer

“That we do.”

She laughs, and I join in as she reaches for my hand. “Don’t worry about Dante. Just put it aside for when you have the space to deal with it. He’s not a pushy man; he won’t press the issue.”

I catalog her words and decide to listen, but it’s only hours later when Dante decides to prove her sentiment entirely and utterly wrong.

The private jetSlate loaded me, Brynne, and Dante onto is beautiful. The carpet is red, and the seats are a creamy tan that complements it. The seats toward the bathrooms swivel, and there’s a decent-sized bathroom next to a private room in the back of the jet.

Slate and Brynne retired over an hour ago, leaving Dante and me alone on the flight for the next hour.

Other than the three sleeping Ricci men sprawled out on bench seating.

We’d have been there by now, but a Florida storm had grounded us.

The captain only lifted us off into the sky as the clouds cleared.

I sip my whiskey and look over a few more accounts I’ve been working on for Brynne, trying to decide how tangled they are into the Adamo family and their dealings in the flesh trade.

We want nothing more to do with that part of the underground world, and it’s my job to fix the fucking mess her father made.

I’m not ungrateful for the opportunity, but it will take time.

And a lot of patience.

The captain calls out and says we should buckle our belts for incoming turbulence, and I grumble as I close my iPad and down the rest of my drink, setting it on the cart toward the bathroom so that it doesn’t decide to go flying and shatter.

I plop down on the seat next to Dante, the only one not covered in bags or bodies of Ricci men Slate had traveled with. He was asleep as I’d slipped past him and fastened into the window seat, lifting the window to sneak a peek out of it right as lightning crackled across the sky.

I shut it and close my eyes as the plane bumps and rattles against the errant wind surrounding it, trying to remain calm.

I’ve only ever flown a couple of times in my life, and I didn’t mind either experience, but this isn’t something I enjoy.

Hurtling through the sky at seven hundred miles per hour is one thing. Hitting speed bumps in the sky as we do so is another.

“Relax, minaccia,” Dante whispers into my ear, and I fight the turbulence growing in my body at the feel of his breath on my ear.

“I’m fine,” I manage.

“Are you?” He chuckles against the shell of my ear, and another wave of tingles works through my skin like worms on a rainy day, cresting through dampened soil. “Sorry, your death grip on your seatbelt must be one of pure joy, then. I misunderstood.”

The plane’s lights dim as another pocket of rough air bounces the plane around, and I grab his hand, tightly grasping it as I whimper.

“Open those pretty eyes of yours, minaccia. You’re making it worse on yourself.”

I do so reluctantly, turning my head and finding his beautiful face only inches from mine.

“There you go, good girl.”

Holy fuck, not the praise.

I’m a sucker for praise and degradation, if I’m honest. You mix the two and have a pliant Alyssa on her knees, ready to obey.

Let’s hope he doesn’t find that weakness and prod at it.

I feel much better having opened my eyes, even though the plane continues to jerk and shimmy. I say, “Thank you.”

He only nods, his rugged jaw setting into a line that could kill. His hand finds its way under the skirt I’d worn, this one less tight than the pencil skirt he ripped off me earlier today.

“I could take it all away,” he says, leaning closer and whispering his dark words in my ear.

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