Page 62 of Tide of Treason
He stared right back. The blue of his eyes burned through the damp, soupy air.
“I’m not one of your little cartel whores,” I said, sweet as arsenic.
“No. They know when to do what they’re told.”
“Like hell.”
“Get in the car, Sforza.”
Apparently destiny had chosen violence for me tonight, so I climbed in.
Neon bled across the windshield—pink, green, funeral-parlor blue—turning rain into bruises. I crossed my legs and let the leather chew my thighs, wondering if I could get off just from the sheer masculine energy radiating from this car. Lucius’s forearms bracketed the wheel, muscles flexing underDía de los Muertosink. So blatantly, seductively Brazilian.
Bored fingers popped the glove box. A spare gun. Two silver lighters. Half a roll of Tums. One of his business cards, unsigned, no number, just the name: ANDRADE. I flicked the card, let it spin in my hand, and thought about all the ways I could ruin him if I ever grew a conscience worth the price. Instead, I went back to staring out the window.
Tequila and a handful of bad decisions coated mytongue, but my pulse kept an almost lethargic tempo. Steady as the wipers smearing rain into smoky streaks. Lightning cracked, fracturing the sky, each vein of white pain stitching itself into my ribs and leaving me empty, unsatisfied.
When Lucius pulled up to the building, I flicked off a lazy location text to Francesco and Elio since, knowing them, they’d assume I’d been abducted by sex traffickers or worse, Republicans, and start firing off warning shots. My heels clicked sharply on marble, the lobby swallowing the echo greedily as the elevator doors shut, sealing me in a space tight and cold enough to double as an interrogation room.
Men never paid attention to the small things, at least in my experience, so I felt a twist of surprise when his gaze slid right to the security panel near the terrace doors. My little secret. An access card tucked between the pages ofAnna Karenina, one magnetic swipe away from rooftop freedom. It made me itch, knowing he could find it if he wanted.
Rain still slid in messy rivulets down my body as I kicked off my heels at the entrance to my penthouse, aware of his stare burning into my back. An electric hum curled up my spine, dragging every nerve ending to attention.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I tossed over my shoulder, wringing water from my hair. “It’s locked after midnight. And, trust me, you’re not that charming.”
“The lock wouldn’t stop me.”
I folded my arms to hide the shiver. “No?”
“Not if I really put my mind to it.”
“You’d do a lot to get on a girl’s roof, wouldn’t you?”
He didn’t dignify that, though I could feel him filing the intel away for later like every other man who’d decided my boundaries were merely suggestions. The thought curdled my stomach.
“Have you ever broken into someone’s room while they slept?”
Heavy silence was only broken by the rush of water filling the air, hot and fast, as Lucius scrubbed his hands under the sink. Black grease swirled down the drain, pooling in dark, inky spirals before vanishing into oblivion.
“Define breaking in,” he finally said.
“Uninvited. Unwanted.”
“You’re assuming I’ve ever been unwanted.”
I gave him the slow blink that translated to don’t push me.
His face gave me nothing. “Did someone break in on you, Kayla?”
It took me too long to realise I’d swung the door open to a memory usually welded shut. Suddenly, I was back in that room, too pretty for my own good, in silk pajamas I’d begged Mamma for because they made me look like the older girls. A hinge whining. A shadow. I tasted the bitter metallic tang of something old and festering inside my cheek, long hidden but never forgotten.
“My grandfather liked to drink,” I admitted. “He liked it more than his wife. More than his children. More than God, even. Liquor gave him courage, rewrote him sentimental. He’d sway against the mattress and whisper into my hair—‘Prettylittle thing, just like your mother. Be good for Nonno.’”
Marble bit cruel crescents into my palms, grounding me as the memory oozed forward.
“Men love good girls. Girls who don’t cry, who don’t scream, who don’t fight back when an old bastard crawls in beside them and tells them to hush, because we wouldn’t want to wake Nonna, would we?”
A storm rolled beneath his skin.
