Page 128 of Mafia Obsession

I open my mouth, but she cuts me off.

“Think of what you can get for us? The world. Instead of a war.”

“I am the God of War.This timeI’m going to fight. For you. For your sister.”

“But you hold all the cards. You can hand us over in exchange for him never stepping foot in New York again.”

For a moment, I say nothing. Because the answer rises too quickly, too clearly.

I could end this tonight. Deliver her and Sandrine on those exact terms. And walk away with my position strengthened and my hands clean of the coming conflict. It would be the logical decision.

But the thought of handing Lourdes to anyone strikes something inside me that feels dangerously close to lethal fury.

That’s the problem.

Somewhere between the moment I first touched her at Winterhall and now, this woman has complicated my belief system.

It’s not protection.

It’s not just possession.

It’s something far more permanent than I ever imagined I’d want.

It might be love.

But love has no place in a life like mine. Men who rule through fear and blood do not indulge in love. The moment someone owns your heart, they also own the knife that can destroy you.

I learned that lesson long ago. From my mother.

Whatever this pull toward Lourdes is, it will pass. It’s nothing more than my need for power. She’s the inevitable consequence embodied in a beautiful woman thrown into my orbit at a time when I needed an arrangement.

I meet her gaze because she deserves an answer.

“No. I’m not handing you over to the Bratva with yourdisabledsister in tow.” I hold her face, making her look into my eyes. “Kirill thinks he’s claiming his missing fiancée. He will think twice about takingmy wife’ssister.”

Chapter 51

Lourdes

Daria and two Quinlan Empire guards named Blade and Jett escort Ares and me out of the Aurelian via a secure elevator to the underground garage, and then we are whisked in their armored SUV uptown to Ares’s building on Fifth Avenue.

Daria runs a security check, looking at all the cameras and heat sensors before we get out of the car.

“Secure,” she announces. “Good luck.”

Ares nods a goodbye to his Intel Chief and moves us up to his penthouse in a tight formation while Griffin’s guards remain outside the main door to the penthouse.

When we’re alone in the living room, Ares says, “We’re safe. If we weren’t, I would have a helicopter pick up your sister from the roof of her facility, and we would be on my jet back to Santorini.”

“You’d run away?”

“I don’t run,” he growls. “I reposition. All my guards are dead. I’m not a blind hero. I’m in charge of this family. Everyone under my wings is my responsibility. That means I don’t riskmysafety. If I do, all of you die.”

Ares marches to a cabinet at the opening of the guards’ wing and from it takes out a few humongous handguns and one shotgun.

“What are those for?” I ask.

“For me to protect you, of course.”