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She! I gape at Pietro. I would have laughed at the absurdity except for the grave look on his face. “A woman?”
“You should see for yourself, Boss.” He cocks his head toward one of the cars in the lot. “She’s in there.”
“Was she armed?”
Pietro’s face darkens with annoyance. “No. But she’s feisty. Was feisty,” he amends. “She’s out cold now.”
At my puzzled glance, he explains. “She bit me. Got sharp teeth, too, and it hurts like a bitch,” he grumbles. He then turns his back to me and shrugs off his coat and suit jacket, pulling aside the collar of his shirt to show me his shoulder blade.
Pietro was wearing leather overalls, so I don’t know what the fuck he expects me to see there. The man has taken bullets without flinching, and yet at a woman’s bite, he looks about to cry.
I suppose everyone has their tolerance. Holding back a chuckle, I say, “There are no puncture marks, Pietro, if that’s what you’re worried about, but you can still get tetanus shots later if you’re really concerned.”
“Unless you thought she was a vampire,” Sal chortles, “in which case you’re fucked.”
“Sangue di Cristo!” Pietro crosses himself several times, which makes Sal laugh harder.
“Come on, show me,” I say, following Pietro’s hulking frame to a black car with the windows freshly broken, I suspect, by Pietro’s elbow. I’m still wondering how the man managed to break into the car without triggering the alarm when I bend to peer through the shattered glass.
The first thing that hits me is the mass of red curls shot through with gold and chestnut. Thick, glossy, and thoroughly disheveled. I pull back as raw need slams into me, knocking me into an involuntary step backward. Then, almost immediately, my brain catches up, and I do a double take.
Because fuck me. There is only one person on earth who has hair like that.
I fling open the back door and grab her sleeping form, dragging her down the backseat toward me. And there she fucking is. Out cold, but there she is.
Adele.
What the fuck?
I stare. I can’t help it. Porcelain skin, a dusting of freckles across high cheekbones, a pert nose, and full pink lips. My chest suddenly feels too tight, and I can’t draw in air.
Without my permission, my index finger trails over her pale face and her chin, and finally brushes along her lip. She’s wearing a prim shirt tucked into a skirt. A fucking skirt!
“Addy?” I murmur.
Her lids flutter open, but her green eyes are soft and unfocused, bringing back unbidden memories of the last time I watched her sleep.
Everything inside me wants to crush her against me and seal my lips to hers, but instead, I jerk back and away from the car.
Pietro looks at me curiously, but I ignore him.
Then when I trust myself to speak, I command, “Untie her, Pietro. Then get me a few joints and a car.”
Pietro hesitates. He knows I haven’t had a smoke in six months, and only recently, I’d been proudly bragging among the men about having finally kicked the habit.
He hesitates. “Boss—?”
“Now,” I bark.
Pietro inclines his head. “Boss.” He grabs a pocket knife and crouches into the car. Then he straightens and leaves without a backward glance. I never speak to my men that way. But I don’t have the presence of mind to feel remorse. I have no capacity to feel anything apart from blind lust.
I hear her moan and start to shuffle around. Any moment now, she’ll come out of the car.
And my carefully crafted control of the past twenty-eight months and six days will go up in flames.
If the Irish wanted to destroy me, they found the perfect weapon.
Chapter Seven
