Page 32 of Mafia Betrayal

My phone buzzed, and I took a deep breath, wanting to ignore the damn thing, but it kept ringing and ringing. I growled and picked it up.

“What?” I asked through clenched teeth.

My leg began pulsing with pain, and I popped two pills into my mouth, hoping it would help.

There was some noise in the background, and I heard a door close.

“Chiara,” Detective William said, his voice softer and quieter than usual. “Are you alone?” Worry was laced in his voice, and I furrowed my brows.

“Yes,” I said, glancing over at Alessandro walking out of his bathroom and through his house with only a towel fixed on his hips. Beads of water rolled down the muscles in his sculpted abdomen, and I sucked in a breath.

God, how could astronzolook this fucking good? It was like he was made of—

“Chiara?”

“Sorry,” I said, peeling my eyes away from Alessandro, who disappeared into one of the back rooms. “Yes, I’m alone. What is so important that you had to call me now?”

“You know you have a hit on your head. And that yourfriend,Alessandro …” He said his name with so much distaste that it sounded like he was jealous. “I heard he plans to take you in.”

My heart dropped. “What do you mean, take me in?” I gazed at the man—who had put on his damn clothes—walking down the hallway toward me. My eyes flickered toward my gun on the table a few feet away, yet I didn’t know if I’d be able to reach it in time.

I could barely walk with this damn leg. I didn’t think I’d be able to get the gun to protect myself if William really meant what I thought he meant. He was nervous about something … something that I couldn’t quite place.

“I heard that he’s going to kill you.”

20

chiara

“I heardthat he’s going to kill you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, I swallowed hard. Something wasn’t right. Part of me didn’t believe that Alessandro would kill me after he just saved me … but maybe he wanted the money. He had to get away from his family and needed money to survive. Maybe this was his only way.

He waltzed around in his gray sweatpants, his dick pressed against the front of them, and without a single shirt in sight, showing off his toned abdomen. His bullet wound was still patched up, some white gauze over it.

Instead of sparing me a glance, he pushed his hand into his pocket and walked to the kitchen. My brows furrowed for the briefest moment, and I heard William talking really fast, which he only did when he was nervous. So, I clicked off my phone and shut the damn thing off.

Alessandro started the Keurig, leaned against the counter, and looked over at me with his thick arms crossed over his chest. All I wanted to do was—

“Like what you see,reginetta?”

“No.”Yes.

I lay on the couch, my tits nearly hanging out of my bra. Tonight had gone from bad (finding out someone had put a hit on my head), to really bad (getting shot by the mafia), to terribly bad (figuring out that my only hope of solving my mother’s case might’ve been compromised). I needed something to pick me up.

“Do you have something I could wear?”

“I’d rather you walk around naked,” Alessandro said, glancing down at my body.

I swallowed hard and tried so hard to think straight, think about Tommy and all the revenge I wanted to get on him, think about not being distracted by a devilishly handsome man with a thick Italian accent, standing in the kitchen in thin gray sweatpants that I could almost see right through.

“Who were you talking to?” He grabbed the coffee mug and walked around the kitchen island to lean against the wall in front of me. “Your cheating boyfriend or your cop boyfriend?”

I clenched my jaw and glared at him. “The cop, and he’s not my boyfriend.” I paused for a moment, listening to him chuckle, and pushed myself up into a seated position because this couch definitely made me keep slipping. No wonder I didn’t buy this type of leathery shit for my apartment. “He’s been compromised.”

Alessandro’s hand tightened on the coffee cup, his knuckles turning white. “What the fuck do you mean, he’s been compromised?”

“He called me, nervous. He’s never nervous. They might be tracking us. We should go.”

---