Page 5 of Twisted Knight

Luca tapped his fingers rhythmically on his desk. I was getting on his nerves—that was clear.

“She will not go full term.” He sighed, rubbing his hands on his face with weariness.

I frowned. “She told me everything was fine with the doctor today.”

Luca leaned back on his chair. “And it is but the babies are big and the chances of getting to term are very low. She is scared, Dom. She’s putting on a brave face for me and you and the kiddo but it’s not enough. She needs a woman by her side, someone who can understand better than we do. Nazalie is sweet but she’s not her family and if it makes her feel happy? Safe?” He shrugged. “I’m going to welcome her with open arms.”

I didn't expect that. Cassie didn’t seem scared of anything, but she was a young woman who went through a lot of things in such a short period of time, so I sometimes forgot she was not a warrior.

I nodded with defeat. “Fine.”

“You’ll go pick her up? No tricks?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be there.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “No scaring her so she’d want to leave.”

It was a tactic that did cross my mind, but I knew that if the woman told Cassie, she would kick my ass into next week. “I won’t.”

He nodded, apparently satisfied by my answer. He looked at the clock. “Okay, time to go hunt for my wife. I think I gave her enough time to eat her food and hide the evidence.”

I raised an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at my lips. “You won’t tell her you know.”

He shook his head, a glint of humor in his eyes as he slid a box of tums in his jacket pocket. “No, it makes her way too happy when she thinks she outsmarted me, and I love seeing her happy.” He patted his pocket where he put the Tums. “So, I'll be there with her in a couple of hours when she’ll start moaning about the heartburn, and I’ll be her Tums hero—pretending to not know she did exactly what she was not supposed to.”

“That’s cute,” I admitted.

Luca shrugged. “I love her.”

That statement alone was enough. We didn’t love often in the Mafia; it could get way too messy. Most Mafia men were in arranged marriages, based on so many factors, and they were not unhappy. We could say that most of them had affection for their wives. But there were a few lucky ones, or unlucky ones, all depending on your views on love, that fell in love hard—like Luca did—and once we loved, it was all-consuming, overbearing at times and forever. It took a strong woman to deal with our kind of love, and Cassie was just that—she was Luca’s everything.

These two were a relationship goal; too bad I was way too messed up to ever have a chance to get that.

Chapter Two

INDIA

I jolted awake as the plane touched the ground and I looked around groggily. The flight only lasted five hours, but I didn’t have the best night and after Cassie’s husband, Luca, upgraded me to first class I had to admit that the nap had been heaven.

Once the plane landed, I waited for first class to be emptied before I stood up and reached for my overhead luggage. I always tried to wait for most people to be gone because I had never been keen on the looks I was getting. Some surprised, some judgy, some appreciative… some envious and it had been like that since middle school. I always preferred being invisible, but it was not easy when you were a six-foot-tall woman.

I was genuinely happy that Cassie’s and Jude’s lives turned around and that she met a lovely man I had yet to meet.

I was also grateful she wanted me to visit; leaving Calgary was a good idea after the breakup. It was not just a normal breakup either. No, it was a destructive bomb, and this chance to get away had been my saving grace. Leaving, even if just for a little while, had been mandatory for my mental health.

I picked up my suitcase and exited the arrival to the sea of people waiting for their friends or family.

It had always been fascinating to me to see people interact at airport arrivals; it had even been the subject of my thesis.

My eyes stopped on a tall, broad man with a well-trimmed goatee. He was studying the crowd too, with a scowl on his face. I sighed when I noticed his sign, ‘I. McKenna.’ Of course, the boogeyman dressed all in black was here for me.

I stopped in front of him and looked up. That was also quite a rare occurrence too. I was a six-foot-tall woman and meeting taller guys was quite a challenge.

How many guys on dating websites said they were over six feet and weren’t? A scarily high number.

“Did theMen in Blacksend you?” I asked with a little grin, trying to lighten the mood and ease the scowl that made me uncomfortable. I had enough experience with angry men; they made me very nervous.

The man looked at me silently, his brown eyes so dark they looked bottomless. He was extremely good-looking, that much was sure, with his square jaw, high cheekbones, and long straight nose. He was not classically good-looking but the dangerous kind—the kind that will burn your heart and soul and leave you breathless and heartbroken in your bed, the kind of man I needed to stay away from. I didn’t come for this; I came to stay away from any complications.

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