Page 17 of Ruthless Scar
He steps closer still. Close enough to see the scar bisecting his left eyebrow, the slight crook in his nose from a break that didn’t heal straight. Heat radiates off him, seeping through my borrowed clothes.
“Or I decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth.” His voice drops, rough at the edges. “And I handle you the way I handle every other threat to my family.”
He means them. It’s there in the set of his shoulders, the stillness of his body. He’s killed for smaller offenses than defiance.
But fear has never made me back down.
“You’re not going to kill me.” I don’t blink. Don’t look away. “You need my knowledge. And we both know the only way to get everything out of my head is to keep me alive and cooperating.”
“Cooperating.” He says it like he’s tasting the word, finding it bitter. “Is that what this is?”
“That’s what it will be. If you stop treating me like a prisoner and start treating me like a partner.”
“You’re not my partner.”
“No. I’m your best shot at the Benedettis. And you know it.”
His gaze drops to my mouth. Just for a second.
I square my shoulders. Force steel into my spine.
“Try again.”
A flicker in his expression. Gone too fast to identify, but it was there.
“What did you say?”
“I said try again.” I take a step forward instead of back, closing the distance he created. Now we’re inches apart and my heart is slamming against my ribs, but I refuse to let him see it. “I didn’t survive this long on my own by letting men tell me what I am. Starting now isn’t an option.”
The silence stretches. He could kill me with his bare hands. Has. I matched his knuckle scars to three closed police reports while building his file. Same hands. Different bodies.
My feet stay planted. So do his.
His hand twitches. A sudden, small movement. Like he’s fighting the urge to reach.
“The rules stand,” he says, stepping back. “Stay in the approved areas. Don’t test me.”
“I test everyone. It’s how I stay alive.”
“That’s not what’s going to keep you alive here.”
“No?”
“No.” He looks at me, and his eyes burn. Hot. Dangerous. “I am.”
Then he turns and walks away, and I’m left standing in the hallway with my pulse racing.
An hour later, a knock.
I open it.
Lorenzo stands in the hallway, expression unreadable. “Dante wants to discuss your intel. Now.”
He turns without waiting for an answer, expecting me to follow.
I do.
6
