Page 23 of Punishing His Runaway Bride
I grew up in New York. It wasn't exactly a secret—or it was the kind of secret everyone knew but pretended not to. Italian family. International conglomerate. On the surface, a business empire. Underneath, one of the city's oldest mob families. Names showed up in the papers sometimes, but the articles got pulled the next day. People said they controlled half the docks. People said whole streets in the East Side belonged to them. People said if you crossed Visconti, they'd find you in the Hudson River. People said that was all myth, this was a civilized society now, none of that stuff anymore.
I used to believe the last version.
Not anymore.
I very slowly, very carefully, kept my face from cracking. "Visconti," I repeated, voice steadier than expected. "Like... the financial guys?"
"Financial guys," the left guy said, and it seemed to amuse him. His mouth twitched again.
"Right," I said. "That's good. They're legitimate, so this must be some business thing, but you've got the wrong person. I don't know anything about business. You could probably connect with someone better."
Nobody responded.
I shut up.
The car stopped.
They brought me into an office building, took a private elevator up to somewhere high. Long hallway, quiet, my footsteps muffled by carpet. We stopped at a door. The left guy pushed it open. "Go in."
I took a breath and walked through.
The office was huge. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Manhattan's skyline spread out beyond them, the afternoon light coating the whole city in this soft, ambiguous gold. Someone was in the room, but they had their back to me, sitting in a high-backed chair. All I could see was a dark suit and brown hair.
I stopped. Wiped my sweating palms on my pants. Kept my voice level. "I don't know who you are, but if this is about debt, I can pay. I've been paying. It just takes time. My sister's still in school, she hasn't done anything, so don't—"
The chair turned slowly.
Words died in my throat.
Deep green eyes. Trimmed facial hair. Hard jaw, solid.
Blood rushed to my head and then drained completely. My hands and feet went cold. There was a ringing in my ears. I could barely hear anything.
It was him.
The guy from Room 208.
My brain crashed for three solid seconds, then everything came flooding back at once—the lights that night, his voice low and rough saying things, that note, "good service, the extra's your tip."
And then the words from the car. Visconti.
He was the Visconti heir. The guy running New York's entire underground. The kind of guy you get dumped in the Hudson River for crossing.
And I'd climbed into his bed on a whim a few weeks ago.
He was looking at me, eyes calm, carrying something I recognized—that settled look of someone who'd already calculated every outcome, who had all the possibilities stacked in his hand before he even spoke.
"Sit," he said, voice flat like this was just a regular business meeting. "We need to talk."
Chapter Five
Ezio
She stood in my office like a cornered animal.
Blonde hair tangled as hell, face washed out, that cheap jacket wrinkled to shit. She looked at me, and those green eyes were screaming—shock, rage, fear. All of it.
Fuck.
