Page 26 of Lies like Rubies, Part One

Torani begged to keep all of his body parts attached.

“Miss Russo might not like it,” I finally admitted. She was hard as nails, but she’d be strategic about punishment. And she wouldn’t want this idiot getting the idea that he should share information about who visited her with anyone.

Oscuro was already dialing. “Kitten,” he purred into the phone. “You’re on speaker with Lorenzo Morelli and—”

“And Jason Torani,” I finished for him.

“Miss Sofia, I’m so sorry!” Jason shouted.

“Torani accepted a $500 bribe from Accardi in exchange for an elevator keycard,” Oscuro said. “I would like to cut off his balls and feed them to him, but Lorenzo here seems to think you might have an opinion on his punishment.”

The line remained silent.

“Jason, you put Lizzie in danger,” she said softly.

“Call Luca,” he begged me. “Luca will say no. Please.”

He was right.

“Drop him off the roof,” Sofia ordered, then hung up the phone.

Dante grinned as Torani yelled and struggled against his bonds.

Oscuro slung Torani over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Lead the way, Morelli.”

Sofia called before we could drop him off the side. She changed her mind. We broke his legs instead, then sent him to the Russo doctor in a private car.

By the time I got downstairs to check who’d been in and out of Sofia’s apartment over the last few weeks, the feeds were entirely wiped.

Oscuro watched me with amusement as I flipped through the screens, furious as I found no trace of him or anyone else on the building’s CCTV.

“You won’t find what you’re looking for,” he murmured.

“What is she to you?”

“None of your fucking business,” he answered. “But she called me before she called you, Morelli. You should think very hard about why that might be.”

11

NICK

The doorman escortedme to the elevator that would take me to Sofia Russo’s apartment, my black med bag heavy on my shoulder.

Sofia Russo.What the hell was I thinking? She was bad fucking news.

I couldn’t get her out of my head, this beautiful woman who’d shivered with such terror in the bathroom of my office, then waited with grace and poise until the end of the day, as if nothing could threaten her composure. My newfound obsession with her threatened everything I’d built over the last decade. My therapist only knew that I’d met a woman I was attracted to and encouraged me to ask her out. That’s what I got for seeking a practitioner unfamiliar with the seedy mafia underbelly I came from.

Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined her naked and bound in my bed, her satin skin flushed with need as she begged me for release. And when I opened my eyes, wiping the erotic fantasy from my mind, I still wanted to protect her, to wipe her brow clean of worry, as if I had a right to do either.

Mafia wives didn’t bring their kids to my clinic because of my handsome face. They did it because the Lombardis were closely tied to all five Italian-American families through marriage and business, even if I tried to keep my distance. I knew who Sofia was and the power she could wield through her family. I also understood why she couldn’t call the police for help when her daughter’s father visited my clinic.Omertà—the code of silence—applied to mafia princesses as much as it did to their soldiers.

A large and muscular man in a suit stood outside her door, looking me over with bored curiosity, his eyes barely flicking up and down to examine me. He was as tall as me and thicker, his muscles built over a lifetime of violence, I imagined, rather than the gym.

“Nicolò Lombardi,” I said. “I’m here for a wellness visit with Isabella Russo.”

He nodded and knocked on the door. Sofia opened it. Her blonde hair was immaculately coiffed in a chignon, and her wide smile damn near knocked me off my feet.

“Nick!” She flushed. “Doctor Lombardi, I mean. Please, come on in.”

---