Page 34 of Wrapped in Silver

I rub my wrists, making a show of how he manhandled me. “Ghostface? TheScreammovies? Don’t tell me you’re that old…”

“Oh.” He sighs.

“Ohwhat?Hey.”

How is he ignoring me in this tiny space? He puts his back to me when I have access to about a hundred tools that could poke him bloody. Is he that confident I wouldn’t be able to hurt him? Did his old fart brain already forget who I grew up with?

“The fuck are you doing here, kid?” He checks his tools to make sure I didn’t touch anything.

“Excuse me? Now who has short-term memory loss. Silver… pfah. I’m going to start calling you grey, as in decrepit.”

He huffs, so I continue my charade.

“You show upin my room, claim you have my father safe and sound, then disappear for days, and you askme—”

He spins on me again, his muscular frame peeking through his attire. He’s so much bigger than me, in a full blue-grey suit with a red tie and a shiny tie clip. The image teeters in and out with the swaying overhead light. It’s so damn sexy, but now isn’t the time.

“He’s safe, Quinn. I just fed him lunch not an hour ago. He worries for you, and only you,” he says evenly, stealing my breath.

No. Stand firm.

You have no proof.

“I don’t believe you,” my quavering voice lies.

“And I don’t trust you.”

I fume at that.

“I tell you to wait… I test your will as well as your patience, and within sixty hours you’re ransacking one of my stage homes.”

“Your request was unreasonable,” I counter, pushing him a half step back. “How would you feel if someone you loved was picked up by an ex-mobster and was holding them for a ransomthat you couldn’t pay?”

He glares at me.

“Going to say something, Silver?Huh?”

He shakes his head. “How the hell could I ever let him free?”

All of that heat ignites into shooting flame, boiling my blood. I slowly put both my hands on his perfectly white shirt, and crinkle it in my grip. Jaw clenched, eyes unwavering. “I could’ve sold you out thirty minutes ago,Arosso Valentino.”

He arcs an eyebrow. “You can Google. Very proud of you.”

“You know what Google is? I’m proud of you too.” I clap sarcastically, then slap the wooden table. “My father’s best friend, Bill, came to pay me a visit. I could’ve told him all about how you broke in, how you claim it’s the Russians.But I didn’t. All my life I grew up with these people… and I told themnothing.”

He takes his leather gloves off slowly, coming uncomfortably close as he places them down on the table at my back.

“Is that so?”

“It is.” I clench my jaw. “Then I ran here because I’m fuckingfuriouswith you. Leaving me here for days to wonder.”

He’s so stoic, I have no idea what he’s thinking as he looms over me. My breathing is heightened, and I swear the seam in his pants tightened just a bit. That’s in my periphery, though. I’d be a fool if I glanced down. Even if that twinge of hope still pokes the back of my head,he’s provided no proof.

“The time lapse was necessary. A kid like you could never understand.”

“That you had to see ‘where the chips fell’ in your old mob life? I get all that bullshit. What makes me madis you don’t trust me.”

“I may have said those words.” He takes a step closer to me, his height over me that much more overwhelming, our bodies nearly pressing together. “But I didn’t mean them.”

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