Page 58 of Murder & Mayhem

“You can’t be serious!” Enzo continues, staring at Dante with a mixture of shock and anger.

Dante ignores his outburst—and mine—as he holds me captive in his red-hot gaze. His expression is as unreadable as ever, but hidden in his eyes, there’s… something—the flicker of a flame. The longer I peer into them, that flame seems to grow, scorching across his irises until it’s a raging blaze, its heat searing my skin. Yet a bone-deep chill wracks my body, a fear like nothing I’ve ever felt before wrapping its cold talons around my soul. It’s not the heat of passion I see in his eyes but the stone-cold decree of possession.

I balk against that notion, jumping to my feet and glowering down at him with my Reaper mask fully intact. “There is absolutely no fucking way I will allow that to happen.”

“Neither will I.”

It’s the unmistakable thread of warning in Enzo’s tone that garners Dante’s attention, and he finally releases me from his gaze as he turns to face him, another confused frown marring his features. It appears as though they are having another silent conversation, one that doesn’t seem to be going too well based on the way both of their shoulders bunch, and Dante’s hand forms a fist on the table.

Dante’s face is shrouded in darkness, making him look formidable. It’s terrifying, and I have to fight against the urge to shrink away from it. He’s not even looking at me, for Christ’s sake. In a sudden burst of movement that makes me jump, he pushes to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping against the wooden floor. Enzo follows him a second later, the two of them facing off in some sort of silent battle that I’m not privy to.

I haven’t got a fucking clue what is going on, so when Enzo, without taking his eyes off Dante, barks, “Sawyer. The last room on the right, up the stairs. It’s yours. Go.” I don’t argue with him the way I usually would. Although, I do hesitate, unsure whether I should intervene or not. “Now!” The word is an angry snarl, and I decide they can both go fuck themselves.

Whatever their problem is, it has nothing to do with me. It will be a much better use of my time to let these two idiots kill each other while I work out how to get rid of Giovanni. Without another word, I turn on my heel and head upstairs to seek out my room and get stuck into my plans of bloodshed and revenge.

Shutting the bedroom door behind me, I sag against it and let out a long, exhausted exhale. I look around the room, taking it in. Even though I searched through the room earlier, I didn’t reallylookat it, so I take the time now to actually see the white-washed walls, the white bedspread, and the matching dressing table. It’s all so bright and clean. I’m almost scared to sit on the bed in case I dirty it up.

Instead of worrying about it, I close my eyes and tilt my head back to rest against the door. Weariness tugs at me, but my brain is far too wired to let me sleep. Now that I’m alone, everything from today races across my mind. Murder attempts. Marriage proposals. Confessions of love. Talk about an insane twenty-four hours. I don’t even know where to begin with trying to process any of it. I can’t begin to wrap my head around what Dante is thinking. Marriage? Is he out of his fucking mind? How is that going to solve anything?

I groan and crack an eye open, eyeing the window temptingly. It would be so much easier to leave. Go back to the Rejects and keep a low profile until Dante, Enzo, and the Antonellis forget I exist. Except I tried that tactic with the Rejects, and it was an epic failure. Not to mention I just blurted out that I loved Cain and Oliver and hung up the damn phone like a total pussy. There’s the chance they’ll think I just said it as part of the cover that I was talking to my brother, but was I? If I’m being brutally honest with myself—and why the fuck not at this point—then no. I can’t pinpoint when it happened or how exactly it happened, but it did somewhere over the last few months.

Oliver’s easy to understand. I knew he’d irreparably change me that night in the bar. It’s why I didn’t hang around to chat or get his number. But Cain? Well, he’s much harder to wrap my head around. I want to claw his eyes out more often than not, and yet all that hostility between us leads to fucking amazing sex. And even though I’ve barely scratched the surface of who he is, I know there’s more to him than the air of arrogance he stomps around with. The fact that he’s so hellbent on carrying out this vendetta for his sister, after all this time, says everything about who he is as a person. There’s a surprisingly soft core underneath that hard exterior of his, and the more I get a glimpse of it, the more I want to know. They might be two very different people, but they both get me in ways no one else ever has. And we all have a lot more in common than appears at first glance.

Not that any of it matters when I’m stuck here with a psycho claiming he’s going to marry me.Jesus, what is my life?Although, ultimately, isn’t this exactly where I want to be? It’s not necessarily how I thought this job would play out, but I wanted valuable intel and where better to get said information than from the boss’s son.

Sighing, I tear my eyes away from the window, and kicking off my boots, I cross the room to the bathroom. I can’t leave. I can’t throw away this opportunity that has been unexpectedly thrown in my lap. So, instead, I decide to rest up and get ready to face Dante and Enzo again in the morning.

Chapter 20

I listen to Red’s—fuck, Sawyer’s—fading footsteps, never breaking eye contact with Lor’s furious gaze. I’ve never seen him so riled up before, but considering I’m pretty fucking sure he’s the one that’s been lying and keeping secrets fromme, I’m the one who should be fucking pissed—not him!

Their easy familiarity with one another when I walked in was my first clue. The warning in his tone when he snapped my name was my second. Sawyer’s repeated glances his way before she would answer my questions was my third, and the fact that he knows her motherfucking name is the nail in the coffin. Theyknoweach other. Worse, he’s fucking protective of her… but how?

“You better start explaining,” I snarl furiously, the second I hear Sawyer racing up the stairs. Lor and I are standing inches apart, both of us poised, ready to fight as we glower at each other.

“Me?” He scoffs. “You’re the one that better explain why the hell you think marrying her will solve anything.”

In a flash of movement, I wrap my hand around his tie and shove him backward, not stopping until he collides with the glass wall. “She’smine.” My voice is nothing more than a possessive growl that makes a line furrow between his brows. Butdamn, does it sound good to say that out loud; to finally claim her as mine instead of standing and watching her from a distance. My inability to stay away from her makes so much more sense now that I know who she really is. She’s the woman who’s been haunting my dreams for years. The only person, other than Lor, who has ever broken through the ice-cold shell surrounding me and made mefeelsomething.

I’ve spent the last eight years trying to forget about her, but fate dropped her into my lap when she showed up at Belle Donne the same night I did. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to put my finger on it; trying to work out what it is about her that enthralls me. Although I think, on some level, I’ve always known who she was—the scrawny street rat who speared me with her defiant gaze and put a crack in the steel cage encasing my heart. Except, she’s no longer that scrawny street rat. Now she’s a flaming, red-headed vixen who spits fire and hisses snarky retorts that make my balls tighten and my primal instincts take control.

Lor’s pinched expression and the fury burning in his eyes give away how much he wants to contradict me, but he wisely keeps his mouth shut. My fist tightens in his shirt and I tug him away from the wall, only to slam him back against it. “You disobeyed me!”

It’s obvious. The only thing that makes sense; the only way he can possibly know who she is. He was supposed to follow her and make sure she didn’t talk to anyone about what she saw that night in the alley. That’s it. After that, he was supposed to leave her alone.

Some of his anger peters out, the corner of his eyes softening a little. “I didn’t intend to. She just…” He trails off, lost for words.

I grit my teeth, my own anger still riding me high. She’s mine, but he’s acting like he has some sort of emotional investment in her. I push him harder against the glass wall, unsure on how to process everything I’ve learned. I can’t even put a name to the roiling storm of emotions cascading through me right now, threatening to crash over my head and drown me.

Unable to handle the tumultuous feeling, I start to shove all of it into a box. I’m so used to the empty void that when I feel a spark of anything ignite in my chest, it gives me this high, making me feel alive. But what I’m feeling now is too much. It’s all-consuming; suffocating.

Lor’s hand comes up to cup my face, and my eyes snap open, unable to remember closing them. My gaze zeros in on his lips. They are no longer flattened in anger, and doing the only thing that I know grounds me when I’m feeling adrift, I slam my lips on his, losing myself in the taste of Lor.

He’s unrelenting beneath my touch, but with a growl and bite of his lower lip, he caves, parting to let me in. It’s a bruising kiss, and with every stroke of his tongue against mine, I can taste how angry he still is. Yet he bends beneath me, allowing me to take charge as if he can sense how much I need the control. Lorenzo has always been good at that, at knowing what I need.

Sliding my hand down the front of his shirt, I rip it open, sending buttons flying as he yanks on his already loosened tie, undoing it just enough to pull it over his head. His hands wrap around my belt, flicking it open with deft fingers as I hastily remove my own shirt and tie.

Before my pants can fall to the ground, I dig out a packet of lube, holding it between my teeth and tearing it open as Lor shrugs out of his pants and boxers. His fingers wrap around his painfully hard erection, but I swat his hand away, growling, “No touching.”

---