Page 35 of Mafia Betrayal

I could hear some moving around on the other end.

“Did you finally kill that asshole?”

“No, but …”

“Oh my God,” she said, stopping me right in my tracks. “You slept with that sexy guy who kept flirting with you at the party, didn’t you? What was his name again? Alex? Alec?”

“First off, his name is Alessandro,” I whispered so he couldn’t hear me. “And, no, we didn’t do that!” But we had been damn close to it.

“But you did something, didn’t you?” she asked. When I didn’t say anything for a long time, she giggled like a maniac. “I knew it! God, tell me what happened. I want to know all the deets. Everything. How? When? Where? Why—actually, I know why. He’s hot as—”

“Slow down,” I said, glancing down the hallway again.

The door opened to Alessandro’s room, and he strolled out of it for the first time since last night. His shirt was still off, his gray sweats basically plastered to his body. He walked right past me without sparing me a glance and started the Keurig for himself yet again.

“It’s actually something else that I need to talk to you about.”

I needed to warn her that she might be in danger. She was my closest friend, and if anyone was out to get me, they’d try to get to her first to dig up any information on my whereabouts or any incriminating information onme. They might even try to capture her to blackmail me.

“Are you ready to go? We have to see your father,” Alessandro said, thrusting me the cup of coffee that he’d made for …me?

“Hold on, Alice.” I put my hand on the phone and stared at the cup. “What’s this for?”

“Well, you look like shit,” he said, placing the cup on the coffee table when I didn’t grab it from him.

I rolled my eyes. Way to make a woman feel good.

He turned his back to me and walked into the hallway. “Maybe that’s because I didn’t give it to you last night, like you wanted.”

I grumbled and stood, wincing at the pain in my leg. Alessandro walked into a room, rummaged through it, and then came out of it with women’s clothing. I eyed it, then pulled it on, putting Alice on speaker.

“Hello?” she said through the phone. “What happened?”

“There is someone out to get me,” I said, trying not to make a sound as I pulled the tight jeans over my wound. I guessed he didn’t have anything shorter for me to wear, which I was actually very surprised about.

Alice was deathly quiet. And it scared me because she was never this quiet. She always had something to say.

“What do you mean, someone is after you?”

“There is a hit on my head from someone in the family,” I said.

Alessandro walked back into the room, eyeing the phone. I buttoned the last few buttons of my shirt and limped to the front door, following him to the elevator.

“Has anyone been acting suspicious?” I asked, holding the phone to my ear again.

She paused. “No, not that I know of, but I’ll keep an eye out.”

Someone said something in the background, and I could hear the sigh in her voice as she replied, “I have to go. Stay safe. Oh, and we’re going out tonight. I want to hear about your time with Alessandro.”

After I hung up the phone, I slid into Alessandro’s passenger seat and stared at the windshield as he drove. His hand rested on the space between us, tattoos covering his skin. He placed a hand on my knee and squeezed. “Listen to me,reginetta,” he said, parking in front of Dad’s restaurant. His hand squeezed tighter, but it wasn’t a sexual action, more of a threatening one. “Don’t say anything to your father about you getting shot. You’re going to walk in there and act as if nothing happened. Do you understand me?”

“Why would I do that?” I asked through clenched teeth. “This mafia is going to be fucking with my family’s shit now. He has to know about it.”

“Chiara,” he said, tenser this time, “if anyone else finds out about them, they’ll be a target too. You don’t want that, do you?”

“Dad will kill them before they kill us,” I said, scooting out of the car and walking—trying to walk without limping—to the front entrance.

Alessandro blew out a deep breath through his nose and hurried to the entrance with me, opening the door and leaning close. “Reginetta, please.”

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