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“But maybe that’s it.” he tilts his chin, “Maybe you want their admiration. You want your place in the spotlight. The first woman to head up a family in the Pacific Northwest. The first woman Chicago or the Commission ever noticed or paid attention to.” He pulls his lips in and his face reddens. “Well, you got it, okay? No-one will ever take that away from you.”
I just my chin, pushing my face nearer to his. “Right. So now I should go back to baking pies and darning socks. I should pop out some bambinos then put on black and turn into the shape of a bowling ball. Maybe you’d like me better if I sprouted some hairs on my chin.” I’m starting to turn, then I say, “Oh, wait… is that it? Are you looking for an excuse to start banging cocktail waitresses?”
Our eyes lock.
What has happened? We can’t have changed so much in the past hour. Have we turned into an old married couple, tearing strips off each other, squabbling about everything and nothing?
My phone pings. I don’t even register it until the second time. Then I’m aware that I ignored it. I ignore it again.
Alessios phone is buzzing, too. Phones start to ping, all around the outside of our closed room. Alessios and mine ping again. I can hear three or four more from outside. Alessio’s excessive guards, probably.
Alessio and I don’t take our eyes off each other as we reach for our phones. not until we have them up and the screens flash on.
There’s an incident at the Sun-a-do. A club of ours on the far side of the peninsula. Our oldest, most established joint venture with the twelve tribes. Our first nations American partners.
Alessio and I both look up from the text messages. We search each other’s eyes. Could this have come at a worse time?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Iscrew up my lips and I tell him, “Mikey is outside. Ride with me.”
He says, “I came on a bike. I’ll go on ahead. I’ll be way faster through the traffic.”
My attention is focussed on his eyes. We’re clicking. As one. Our relationship is in deep trouble, we both know that. I feel like we’re in the middle of a burning building. Everything is chaos in our world.
But, right now at least, I feel the strength of our connection. We can still function and work together.
His adrenaline is up. Mine, too.
“Okay,” I nod as I tell him, “I’ll ride with you.”
Alessio’s beast of a black racing bike is out back. We both put on black helmets. Thrills rise in the swell of my chest as Alessio pulls on tight black gloves. I know this is going to be a nerve-jangling, breathtaking ride. With Alessio, it always is.
I clamber up onto the back behind him while he fires up the big V-twin engine.
As soon as I’m pressed against him with my arms around the strength of his trunk, I hear his voice through the Bose intercom in my helmet.
“Are you on?”
Giving his hard abs a squeeze, I tell him, “I’m ready.”
We’ve done this before. He doesn’t need to tell me. I wrap myself tight around him and take a firm grip of his trunk.
I lean in close against the broad, flexing muscles of his back and I hold on, pulling myself in close. My thighs are tight around his ass and I press myself close against his body.
Still, as he guns the engine to pull away, I’m almost thrown off the back. He flicks the bike over to one side and we blast out into the traffic. The front wheel lifts and patters.
The bike seems big, heavy and incredibly powerful. Until we’re whizzing by the wheels of tractor-trailers half a block long at eye-watering speed.
I patch the headset to my phone and connect with Mikey. We bring each other up to speed. He has men coming from all over town, while he follows us in the limo.
Alessio’s body is alive with currents like a sea. Holding tight to him, feeling this close, he has my life in his hands. Well, in his snaking hips and his powerful arms.
Regardless of the conversation we just had, I have complete faith and no hesitation trusting my life to him. But business is something else.
I need to focus on what’s immediately ahead. Don’t be distracted. Thoughts, worries about betrayal, I don’t deny them. I can’t. I acknowledge them. But then I have to let it go. Put it away. I’ll come back to that later.
All that matters now is the job we have to do.
