Page 29 of Mafia Shade's Reluctant Bride
CHAPTER SEVEN
LORENZO
“Maria has always been insufferably stubborn,” I muttered. She is driving me crazy enough to know I have no control over my thoughts because they have been completely consumed by her.
She is the kind of woman who would argue with a wall if she thought it was standing in her way. A beautifully difficult hurricane of a person, spinning at her own damn speed, dragging everyone in her orbit along for the ride. It has always been like that—since we were kids—since the first time she looked me dead in the eyes and told me I was being an idiot, which, for the record, I was not.
That has always been the problem with her. That has always been why I’ve been pulled to her and why I had avoided her. Being close to Maria was a goddamn hazard.
It was frustrating. Maddening. A slow, painful, delicious kind of self-destruction. A kind of disaster that drowns you in its wake. That is who Maria Russo is.
And now she is back. In my world. Wanting to know more. Wanting to be involved.
I should have tried to scare her off by telling her the danger of the world she wanted to get involved in because she doesn’t have a clue how brutal it can get. She should keep out of this world.
But Maria never kept out of anything. If she wanted something, she would find a way. If she wanted to stand in the fire, she wouldn’t wait for permission—she’d walk straight in, head high, daring it to burn her.
She is that kind of storm.
And if I wasn’t careful, she’d take me down with her.
My thoughts were interrupted when Dante walked into my office without knocking as if he owned the place. He did that often. It pissed me off, but not enough to actually stop him.
“Shipment’s in Shade. No hiccups, we were able to seal the deal, and the transaction scaled through.”
He leaned against the desk, arms crossed, watching me.
I exhaled, rolling my shoulders. “Good.”
That should have been the end of it. Business done. We had been working on this deal for a month—big money, high stakes, and all worth it in the end. This was the part where we poured a drink and celebrated a job well done. But Dante was still watching me, like I was some kind of puzzle he couldn’t quite piece together.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dante asked with concern etched on his face.
Nothing. Everything.
I shrugged.
Dante narrowed his eyes. “No, seriously. We just pulled off a million-dollar deal, and you look like someone ran over your dog.”
I scoffed. “I don’t have a dog.”
“Exactly.” He pointed at me. “Which means something else is making you act like this. So spill, Shade.”
I shot him a glare. “When did you start caring about my feelings?”
He smirked, unbothered. That was the problem with him—he had been around too long and knew me too well. I could get men to shut up with a single look, but Dante? He had walked through hell with me and come out the other side laughing.
We had known each other since we were kids. We were not even friends then. He also knew Maria, but they weren’t close either. Dante grew up isolating himself. We belonged to different worlds, different families, and different lives, but somehow, we ended up in the same place. He was the only one who had been there when I became Shade and when I couldn’t show this part of me toLuca because he would not understand the demons I struggled with. It was when I stopped being just another rich kid and stepped into something much bigger and much darker. When things had gone sideways, bullets had flown, and people had dropped, Dante had taken one for me.
That wasn’t something you forgot.
So, I let him push even when I wanted to knock that smug look off his face.
I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my jaw. “Maria wants in.”
Dante blinked. “Into what?”
“The business.”
