Page 100 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
For a while, I lie still and listen to him breathe. It is a strange thing to notice—the steady rise of his chest, the warmth at my back, the careless way his fingers have curled against my stomach as if he has forgotten that I am a woman he bought, trapped, threatened, and lied to in less than a week. Sleep has made him look almost ordinary. It has smoothed the hard line between his brows and taken the calculation from his mouth.
I do not trust ordinary on him.
I trust it even less because part of me wants to.
The room smells of skin, warm sheets, and the faint trace of whiskey from the glass he never finished last night. My dress is somewhere near the door. His shirt lies twisted beside the bed. The sight of it should make me feel embarrassed. Instead, itmakes something tender and frightened move beneath my ribs, something I have spent my adult life learning not to feed.
I slip out from under his arm.
His hand closes around my wrist before my feet reach the floor.
“Where are you going?”
His voice is rough from sleep. It should not sound this different when he is tired. Less polished. Less controlled. More dangerous, somehow, because it carries no performance.
“I was getting water.”
“You were trying to leave.”
I glance down at him. One dark brow has lifted, and there is no softness in his expression now. Whatever version of him exists in sleep has already vanished.
“That sounds almost paranoid.”
“It is not paranoia when people keep trying to leave.”
The words are meant lightly. I can hear the dry edge of amusement in them. But they catch somewhere deeper than he intended, and my body goes still before I can hide it.
His grip loosens immediately.
Not enough to release me. Enough to let me choose.
“I am not leaving,” I say.
Stefano watches me for a moment, then lets go. “Then get your water.”
I pull on the robe folded over the chair, more because I need something to do with my hands than because I care about modesty now. The small sitting area near the windows holds a bottle and two glasses, both untouched since someone brought them in. I pour water slowly, watching the surface tremble as the room brightens around me.
Behind me, sheets shift.
“Say it.”
I close my eyes.
“You always assume I have something to say.”
“You do.”
“That confidence must be exhausting for everyone around you.”
“Perhaps.”
I take a drink, though my throat has already tightened. The water is cold enough to hurt. Outside, Miami has not quite decided to wake. There are headlights sliding through the dark below, a few distant horns, palms moving against the glass in the early breeze. The city looks harmless from this height.
I wonder whether Alice ever looked out of a window like this and believed she had more time.
“I didn’t join the FBI because I believed in justice,” I say out loud. Joining up isn’t something I talk about often, but with Stefano, in this moment, it feels important. To us, to the situation at hand, all of it.
“I joined because I was angry,” I continue. “And because anger is easier to explain than grief. Anger has targets. It gives you something to do with your hands when the person you loved is gone and every room in your life still has a place where they should be.”
