Page 8 of When She Tempts (The Fallen)
“Thank you,” I say quietly and reach for my phone again.
In my periphery, I see him adjust the cufflinks of his crisp white dress shirt, and something catches my eye. He’s got two tattoos peeking out from the insides of his wrists.
I think the one on the right is the crest of Casal di Principe. Dem has one of those too, only his is higher up his arm. All of the made men in the clan get them after their initiation.
The other, though... It looks like a different crest.
Giorgio’s movements halt, and I realize he’s noticed me staring.
He unbuttons his left cuff, folds it over, and drags his thumb over the tattoo. “Do you know what this is?”
I shake my head.
“Do you know my nickname?”
“Napoletano.” It’s what Dem calls him. “Why do they call you that?”
“I used to be part of a different clan based in north Naples—the Secondigliano Alliance,” Giorgio says. “Sal traded for me and made me a Casalesi when I was around eighteen or so. The clan wanted my expertise.”
I sink my teeth into the right corner of my bottom lip. “I didn’t know that was a thing. Trading people.”
“It’s rare,” he says, tugging his sleeve back into place, and doing up the cufflinks. “But it happens on occasion.”
“And the Alliance just let you go?” I ask after a moment.
“The dons made a deal.”
Sal must have given up something big if Giorgio’s expertise was that valuable to him. Why else would the other clan give him up? And speaking of his expertise, the only thing Dem told me about what Giorgio does is that he’s some kind of security expert.
I eye the man sitting beside me. “You hide things, right? That’s your job?”
“Sometimes I need to find them first,” he says, his gaze fixed on the back of our driver’s head. “But yes, I’ve been entrusted with many of the clan’s things over the years.”
“So I’m just another thing for you to hide,” I conclude.
“You’re in good company. Priceless art, ancient artifacts, enough solid gold to fill a walk-in safe…” Slowly, he turns his head and pins me with his gaze. “Every object under my protection is of immense value, Martina.”
Having his attention on me is like being under a spotlight. Suddenly, the car feels too small. It shrinks even further when he leans over and adjusts his jacket, tugging on the lapel to make it engulf me even more. “And you might just be the most valuable of them all.”
CHAPTER3
GIORGIO
The girl’sglued to her phone.
She clutches it in her hand as she climbs out of the car, the wind on the tarmac whipping her long blonde locks across her face.
I ignore the weird tug inside my chest at the sight of her wrapped up in my jacket. It’s so big on her that it nearly reaches her knees. She rubs the tip of her nose with the back of her hand and looks toward the private plane we’re about to board.
She’s less curious than I would have expected. Not a single question about where we’re going or what we’re going to do when we get there. All she seems to care about is swiping and typing on that damned screen. Once we get on the plane, I’ll need to take her phone away so that I can encrypt it. If she uses it when we land, her signal might give our location away.
I grab her backpack out of the trunk, tell the driver to load the suitcases onto the plane, and round the vehicle.
“Come on. I want to be far from here when the storm hits.”
“The storm?”
“Didn’t you see the forecast?”
