Page 42 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
I'm clearing the glasses, rinsing Onyx's wine from the crystal under warm water, when the intercom buzzes again. I check the screen. The lobby desk.
"Mr. Santoro, a package was left at the front desk for Ms. Whitmore. No return address. Should I send it up?"
I glance at Sloane. She shakes her head. She's not expecting anything. “Who knows I’m here? I mean besides your brothers and Onyx?” The confusion on her face mirrors mine. She’s right.
"Send it up."
The box arrives in the elevator. Small, matte black, no card, no return address. Expensive packaging wrapped in stiff black paper with sharp creases, the kind you get from high-end boutiques where the presentation costs more than the contents.
Sloane opens it at the island. She peels back the tissue paper and her hands go still.
A silk slipper sits inside, cradled in ivory tissue. Cream-colored, delicate, a ballet flat with a pointed toe and a thin satin ribbon threaded along the edge. The silk catches the kitchen light with afaint sheen and I can smell it from where I stand, the faint scent of cedar and clean cotton.
Her closet.
"That's from my apartment." Her voice comes out thin, stripped of everything that was warm in it five seconds ago. "From my closet."
The air in the penthouse shifts. The warmth from the last hour, the laughter, the wine, Onyx's voice and Kon's steady presence, all of it drains from the room and what replaces it is cold and sharp and quiet.
My body goes still. Every muscle locks, my pulse drops low and heavy, and the sound of my own breathing fills my ears. My fingers curl against the granite and I feel the cold stone bite into my fingertips.
I don’t need to read a name card to know who did this. Lorenzo was in her apartment. In her closet. He touched her things. He ran his hands through her personal space and selected something intimate, something she wears against her bare skin, and he packaged it and sent it to my door.
"He was in my apartment, Massimo." Sloane's voice is steady but her hands are shaking, a fine tremor that runs through her fingers and up her wrists. She holds the slipper by the toe, pinched between two fingers, her arm extended away from her body. "He was in my closet. He touched my clothes. In order for him to find my ballet slippers, he had to know where to look. I keep these–"
She grips her stomach.
“I keep them on a shelf next to my lingerie. The rat bastard probably had his hand all over my things.”
Itake the slipper from her hand. The silk is cool and thin between my fingers, weightless, carrying the faint cedar scent of her closet and something else underneath, a cologne I don't recognize. Heavy. Expensive. Lorenzo's scent on her things. I set it on the counter. My molars grind. The pressure climbs from my jaw to my temples.
“I knew we should have packed all your things and brought them over tonight.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not with hired help.”
I reach for my phone. Dial Luca. He picks up on the first ring.
"Lorenzo Ferraro accessed Sloane's Wicker Park apartment. I need to know how he got in, and who he sent. Pull the street cameras, the building entrance, everything. And I need new locks on her apartment door within the hour."
"On it." Luca doesn't ask questions.
I hang up and turn to Sloane. She's standing at the counter with her arms wrapped around herself, fingers gripping her elbows. Her blue eyes burn with a fury, and beneath it the raw edge of violation. A man was in her space without her permission and the invasion of it must be unbearable.
"He's sending a message," she says. "He's telling me he can get to me."
"He can't. Not here."
"He got into my apartment, Massimo. He went through my things. My closet. My clothes." Her voice cracks on the last word and I watch her pull it back together with a visible effort that makes my chest hurt. "That's a message. A violation."
Yes. It is. And the man who did it just made the last mistake of his professional career.
I cross the kitchen, my bare feet quiet on the hardwood. My hand finds her jaw, my palm warm against her cold skin, and I tilt her face up until her blue eyes meet mine. I feel the tension in her jaw under my fingers, the clench of muscle and bone, and I hold her there until her breathing slows.
"Nothing touches you. Not Lorenzo. Not his men. Not anyone." My thumb traces her cheekbone, feeling the dampness where a tear escaped. "You are in my home. Under my name. Under my protection. And I will dismantle anyone who makes you feel unsafe in any space you occupy. Do you understand me?"
Her jaw loosens under my palm. Her eyes search mine and I let her look. Let her see the parts I usually keep behind the professional mask. The rage. The possessiveness. The certainty that I will burn Lorenzo Ferraro's entire operation to ash before I let him put his hands on her or her belongings again.
