Page 11 of Ruthless Vow
The words leave my mouth before my brain signs off on them. That doesn’t happen. That never fucking happens.
Renzo’s eyebrow lifts. The only question he’ll ask.
I don’t answer it.
Romano returns to his call. Zio disappears. I straighten the papers on my desk. Pour whiskey I won’t drink just to have something in my hands.
The Don at his desk. The picture of control.
No one needs to know my pulse just spiked for the first time in days.
Footsteps in the hall. Heels on hardwood.
The door opens.
3
CASSIA
He’s looking at me.
Not through me, the way he has at every meeting for the last three years. Not past me, searching for someone more important.
At me. Every inch.
Like I’m a problem he hasn’t figured out how to solve.
The study swallows me whole. Dark wood paneling, leather chairs worn soft with decades of use, the massive desk that’s held two generations of Santoro Dons.
Morning light cuts through the blinds in sharp slices, catching the dust motes suspended between us. Whiskey and old paper. Underneath, him.
I rehearsed this speech for fourteen blocks. Had every word memorized, every pause calculated. I was going to be calm. Professional. Transactional, the way Papa taught me.
The script evaporates the moment his gaze drags over me.
The dress. The curves I stopped hiding this morning. The heels that add three inches but still leave me small under that stare.
He’s broader than I imagined. Sharper than the shadows ever let me see. The suit fits him like armor, charcoal gray, cut to his body, and he wears it the same way. Protection and weapon in one.
Dante Santoro. Don of the most powerful family in New Orleans. The man I’ve been studying through doorways and walls for three years. The voice I’ve memorized. The nightmares I’ve kept secret.
He’s two feet away, and I can’t remember how to breathe.
Movement at the edge of my vision. Lorenzo Santoro against the far wall. I’d forgotten he was there.
Almost.
The Weapon, they call him. He’s been watching since I walked in.
Silent. Coiled.
A predator deciding if I’m prey or an irrelevant nuisance. His stare is flat and measuring, and if I make one wrong move, he’ll end me before I can blink.
Two killers. One room. And I’m standing in the center of it in a bridesmaid dress, heart slamming against my ribs.
Three breaths. Hold.
“I’m Cassia Neri. I’m here to honor my father’s debt.”
