Page 129 of Tempting Little Thief

AndIknow my father isn’t bluffing, so something has got to give.

I spin a few things in my head, use my training, and act as calm as ever, without a care in the fucking world—my go-to response.

“You wanted it to look like we had weak spots, right?” I lift a single shoulder, sweeping a hand out as if to add a brattyduh.

Wrong thing to say.

My father’s eyes flash, flicking to the side where the others hover without letting them know he is looking. He doesn’t want them to know he’s baiting a bull.

“Leave us,” he forces through clenched teeth, and everyone moves at once.

You don’t deny Rayo Revenaw, and surely not when it concerns his daughters.

The only one who stays behind is my sister, but apparently, he doesn’t even want her to overhear as the moment he realizes, he snaps his head over his shoulder. “You brought this to our feet. Now, go.”

Tears well in my sister’s eyes and I frown but wipe it away when my father looks at me.

“What’s going on?” I ask once she’s gone.

“I received a copy of a manifest this morning. Enzo’s name was on it.”

My blood pumps a little faster. “So, he’s coming then?”

“I expect he is.”

“And why were we not warned this morning?” I push. “Did you tell the girls? Boston? She needs to know.”

“She has done her part.”

Done her part?

Confusion has my gaze narrowing, but his hardens.

“Dad?”

He clenches his jaw, presses his lips together and then spins, raking his hands through his hair, the first true sign of distress he’s shown when it comes to Enzo.

When he turns back to me, his features are crestfallen.

Unease trickles along my spine, weighing me down. “Dad …”

His shoulders fall, and then he’s gripping mine, his holdtoogentle.

“I am not the man I was twenty years ago. I’m getting older, and with that, I will become weaker than the young. I cannot leave you in this world unprotected,” he repeats for the third time, his voice nothing but a tragic whisper.

“I’m not unprotected.” I expect to sound strong and sure because I don’t doubt what I’m saying in the slightest, yet my words are meek.

“Rocco,” he murmurs, stepping closer. “You are the daughter I wished for. I gave away … much in life to lead you towhere you are, and you did not disappoint. You are everything I meant for you to be and more. Strong. Determined. Smart. Everything a partner would wish for, and as my successor, all the enemy would need to end us, so we must do what we can to prevent such a thing from happening. A woman as powerful as you will have a man of equal power at her side.”

My face falls and I take a step away.

My father eyes me for several unnerving moments, and before I can question him, he stands tall.

Gone are the deep wrinkle lines of worry and the haze of concern in his gaze. His shoulders widen, as does his stance, the no-bullshit kingpin of the north now before me, my father long gone.

“The gala is two nights from now.”

I think of how easily Bastian slipped in. How he continues to do so. “Is it really smart to move forward with the event, knowing Enzo might be on his way back to the States?”

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